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Coming to the garbage dump to find things (and occasionally to try and pick up cute girls) was a favorite pastime of Undyne’s.
Today she happened to be looking for “cool swords” that she could show off during a battle. She thought it might be a bit of a long shot, since the garbage dump tended to have a lot of, well, garbage, but it couldn’t hurt, right? After all, she was on break and there wasn’t much else for her to do since Shyren had stopped taking piano lessons.
Undyne sloshed through the thigh-deep water until she reached a large trash pile, taking a huge leap to get to the top of it. Little by little she sorted through the pile until she reached the bottom. Nothing.
She did the same for the next trash pile, and the next.
She was about to give up and go back to her guard work when she noticed someone else in the dump with her.
A little yellow lizard monster in a white lab coat and dark glasses stood on a dock directly in front of a huge waterfall, the one that led to a place no one knew. The way she stared into the abyss was… rather contemplative.
Undyne got a bad feeling about it.
She went to stand at the lizard’s side, and suddenly recognized her. “Hey! You’re Doctor Alphys, aren’t you? I saw your picture in the newspaper when you got the Royal Scientist job. Congrats on that! You must be really something.”
The lizard monster started at the beginning of Undyne’s speech, then proceeded to stare at her with wide eyes for the rest. “Oh, uh… uh, thank you.” Her demeanor relaxed a little, and she smiled wanly.
“I’m Undyne. Captain of the Royal Guard. I’m on break right now, thought I’d come here and see if I could find any cool stuff. It can be pretty hit or miss, though.”
“Mhm.” Alphys seemed distracted.
There was that bad feeling again. It made Undyne not want to leave Alphys’s side for the time being. “So…” she struggled for a conversation topic, and her eye fell on the waterfall. “Where do you think it goes?”
“You’re—you’re asking me?” Alphys said, red in the face, her eyes wide again.
Undyne grinned. “You see anyone else out here?”
“R-Right. Well…” Alphys twiddled her fingers. “I have several theories… no w-way to prove any of them, though, without, uh… g-going down there, which i-isn’t really an option, for, uh, for obvious reasons.”
“That’s okay. Tell me about them.” Undyne sat down next to her.
“Well…”
And that was how Undyne started Alphys on a nearly two-hour infodump about the possibilities of the abyss. She mentioned more mundane theories, such as it leading to the ocean, but also really interesting ones about portals. “Such a portal could go anywhere—maybe to somewhere else in the Underground, maybe—maybe out of the Underground, to another place on Earth… maybe to a different Earth altogether.”
Undyne wanted to know what Alphys meant by that.
“Like, a-an alternate Earth, in a whole different universe, where maybe the same people exist, but they’re different somehow, and they might b-be in different situations… the possibilities are endless. If you passed through the portal, maybe—maybe y-you’d change.” Alphys’s voice sounded longing. “You could be someone new… make different choices, live the way you’ve always wanted to…”
Undyne could only make an educated guess as to what Alphys wanted. But the question in her mind was, why? Alphys was the Royal Scientist. She was amazingly intelligent and creative, and everyone looked up to her. What could possibly make her wish she had a totally different life?
But she didn’t feel comfortable asking; they had only just met, after all.
“Well… is there really any point in fantasizing?” she asked gently. “Sure, it sucks down here, but we’re so close to getting out. I can feel it. All we gotta do in the meantime is get ready for it.” She smiled. “Ya feel me?”
Alphys was quiet for a minute, then she sighed and smiled. “Yeah, I guess so.” She turned her head to Undyne slightly. “Thank you.”
Undyne stood. “Well… I kinda accidentally took an extra-long break. I doubt anything happened, though, I would have gotten a call. But we should probably both get back to work.”
“A-Agreed.”
“Can you make it back on your own.”
“Oh, sure, I-I’ve been here a million times.”
“Alright, well… see ya around, Doctor!” Undyne turned to go.
“Um… y-you can call me Alphys,” Alphys said, her face red again.
“Sure thing, Alphys.” Undyne turned back and winked.
She watched Alphys trundle back in the direction of Hotland, then headed for her own house to put on her armor. She no longer felt like Alphys was… in danger. That was the only way she could describe how she’d felt earlier.
Well, she was just glad she’d been around, even if it had ended up in her skipping out on work a little bit.
Doctor Alphys was an interesting character. And Undyne definitely wanted to meet her again.