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The house was just as grey as it had been for years, but to the King of Monsters it felt more vibrant than he could remember, even as he prepared to leave for literally brighter scenes. Asgore sat down on his bed, hearing the usual groan as it supported his weight, and looked around the room. Its dull palette left it feeling in some regards the same as it always had been, but the boxes strewn around the floor and the empty wardrobes shattered the familiarity, as did the nearly empty desk, with only his journal remaining. Still, he'd made a lot of progress in packing. He wiped his brow as he heard a knock on the door.
"Come in," he called. The door opened, and a yellow lizard indeed walked in. "Howdy, Doctor."
"You w-wanted to see me, sir?" asked Alphys.
"Yes. Shouldn't take too long, I'm sure you're just as busy packing as I am, but I was wondering if you ever noticed something around my house."
She adjusted her glasses. "What?"
"A box of video tapes."
The colour ran from her face, leaving it a pale lemon. She opened and closed her mouth several times, letting silence pour from it.
"Oh dear, are you alright?"
"Yes," she finally forced. "V-v-v-video tapes, you say?"
"Yes. See, I have the main box here..." he opened a box on the bed to show reveal a camera and two dozen cassettes, "...but I could have sworn I had another box with a few more. I'm fairly sure they were all blanks, I just wanted to make sure."
"..."
"..."
Asgore smiled patiently.
"..."
"..."
"...c-c-can't say I've seen anything l-like that r-recently, sir."
Asgore shrugged. "Oh well. It's been years, I've probably misplaced them. I just can't imagine how, since I put them all in the top of my wardrobe behind the spare bed linen. Do not worry about it, Doctor. See you later for tea?"
"Sure..." she saw his happy waving, then ran out the room.
Alphys' upper lab had almost as many boxes as Asgore's bedroom, but most of them were empty. She would get no progress in packing for the surface done at that moment, for she scuttled right past them and entered the elevator. As it descended, she drummed her claws on the handrail.
"Whattodo, whattodo, whattodo..."
The doors to the true lab slid open. Since its patients had long since been discharged and scattered to their respective friends and family, it felt more peaceful, almost like her actions had been cleansed. Almost. Even the lights felt brighter, and she now had the warmth of the sun to compare it to. Her engineering brain started throwing around ideas for why that may be, perhaps some electromagnetic interference from that heavily condensed magical energy, but she didn't stop to listen to her own speculation.
It wasn't long before she reached the video room. She hadn't been down in the lab since arranging for the amalgamates' repatriation, and she was surprised to see some of them on the floor, before remembering it must have been Frisk. It must have been them because anyone else would probably have gossiped about what they found. One tape was still in the machine. She wound the tape back a little and listened to it.
"...and we'll do it together, right?"
Ah. That one. To give herself thinking time, which technically she had infinite of unless Asgore entered the room right now, she began to rewind it to the beginning, and prepared to do the same for the other tapes Frisk left behind.
"Whattodo whattodo whattodo..."
The first tape finished rewinding, and as she ejected it, she laid out the arguments before her. The logic of her original decision still held up, she thought. Watching these wouldn't do the king any good. In fact this was more true now, with the barrier broken and monsters in contact with humans, evidence that reminded the humans of what monsters were planning to do - even with what appeared to be a human instigator - could only create unnecessary sticking points if they fell into the wrong hands. There was also the fact Asgore had apparently given up asking about them the moment she'd offered any resistance. He may get the idea in his head to search for them again in the future, but that would mean looking in the castle again, or maybe Queen Toriel's house out in the Ruins, where they would not be. He had no reason to suspect they were down here, a place even now he was still only vaguely aware of. The secret would stay here until the tapes rotted or the Core exploded or something. The odds of accidental exposure were far too remote to worry about it. So problem solved, right?
She swapped tapes in the machine again. Except...
That attitude, of keeping the truth down here, away from those it would affect. It was just like with the amalgamates. While that situation could never have lasted indefinitely, it was that reluctance to face a hard situation she had promised herself to try and avoid. Shouldn't she be consistent in that? A "oh, this could get really really awkward" exception didn't really apply to this ethical stance.
Another swap. And also...
Her mind cast back to memories of old stories told by Gerson when she was a kid sitting on a rock, talking about how this or that book or picture was really pretty or had some important information, but then got destroyed because of an insecure king or the war or something. The stories of the lost stories had stuck with her as a youth, but it was only now she was re-examining the dilemma that those dwellings returned, as did their consequences.
One more swap. "Whattodo whattodo whattodo..."
No additional arguments came to her, the final tape rewinding in silence. Much sooner than Alphys imagined it ejected, the "#1" in her nervous handwriting barely visible in the gloom of the television. As intractable as the decision had felt a moment ago, it clicked into place.
"...no more lies."
Something about the various events of the past weeks made her feel like holding on to this secret was intolerable. Asgore deserved to know. Toriel deserved to know. And Alphys was already fired, she doubted the Queen would do much more than that. How to tell them, though? How to show them? It was going to hurt no matter how it happened, but maybe she could find a way to lay out some cushioning. She needed guidance. Advice on how to break it. Frisk was the obvious candidate, having already watched them, but something about what happened during the barrier breaking, and their reluctance to talk about it, made Alphys hesitate to confront them. But with that option ruled out, there was only one person she could trust.
There was no phone reception down here, so instead she made her way to one of the sub-labs, where a computer was still hooked up to the internet. She'd upgraded her friends' phone to have their email accounts, and she made use of it here.
To: [email protected]
Re: Need some help
Hi Undyne,
Could you please come to my lab? I want to ask you something.
Thanks,
Alphys
Clicking 'send', she watched it depart her outbox. Then before she could think about stopping herself, she composed another email.
To: [email protected]
Re: Video Tapes
Dear Majesty,
I found the tapes you were asking about. They aren't blank. I want to show you them. Let me know when suits.
Sincerely,
Doctor Alphys
And there it was. The die was cast. Feeling oddly serene about the monumental decision she'd taken she returned to the video room. It would make sense to bring the tapes and VHS up with her now, wire it into one of her security monitors there, just to save time explaining it to Undyne. But she never would.
"H-Huh?!"
Pieces of black plastic were now scattered across the floor. Scraps of murky brown ribbon were crumpled with a fury beyond Alphys' imagination. It took her a moment to realise that all the tapes had been completely smashed to pieces. Or so it seemed. She found tape #2 intact by the VHS, and tape #1 still sticking out from the machine where she left it. On top of it was a note, in a strange handwriting that was vaguely familiar.
DON'T YOU DARE TELL ANYONE ABOUT WHAT THEY DID. YOU'LL REGRET IT.
Despite the naked threat in the note, Alphys didn't feel scared, just curious. She had no clue who could have had such an interest in this, and yet been able to come and go without detection. Later when she checked the security cameras outside the room she saw nothing, not even the door opening and closing as if by someone invisible.
The direct consequence of this, and obviously what the intruder desired, was to vastly alter the calculus of her previous decision. The conflict between keeping secrets and breaking hearts wasn't relevant at this point, because now she had no evidence. She could still spill the beans, in her current mindset of resolution she felt the wrath of the mysterious intruder was worth risking, but something about the story felt so out of sorts with the King and Queen's image of their children that they might not absorb it, or even believe. Frisk in theory could corroborate, but again they seemed tightlipped about some of their time in the Underground. Without evidence, was there much point in telling the truth if the urge to disbelieve was too powerful?
"...what to do..."
The decision took longer this time: The wisps of the smoking gun were gone. Heartache for no good cause, not even revealing an important truth, felt pointless. If Gerson ever found our he wouldn't be pleased that a piece of history was lost, but it was too late. Defeated, and annoyed with herself for being unable to think of another way, she found a brush and started sweeping up all the debris and putting it in a box. But she wouldn't throw it out. Maybe the humans could... or someday she could... She crumpled up the note and put it inside, closed the box, grabbed the two surviving tapes and left the video room.
"Oh, there you are," said Undyne, seeing Alphys come out of the lift with a box. Then she looked around the cluttered lab. "You know, if you wanted help packing you could have just said in the email!"
"Ha ha. Y-yeah, sorry Unnie..."
"... oh dear, perhaps it is too dark in here for the video to come out."
"What!? You're not gonna do it again...? Come on, quit tricking me! Haha!"
Alphys ejected the tape from the camera and put it in the King's camera box. Asgore was smiling as he closed the preview screen, though the tears were flowing from his face without restraint.
"Ha ha ha... I knew they liked to play with the camera, but I thought I had everything they filmed." He sniffed. "Thank you so much for double checking, Doctor."
"Of c-course, Majesty. I'm still not s-sure how t-they ended up intact at my lab."
He took a soothing breath. "Not to worry, no harm done. You're sure there was nothing else?"
"...no. N-nothing my machine could play."
"Ah well. Golly, these are lucky finds enough. I am sure Toriel would like to borrow them sometime." He picked up video #1. "Well, not this one, perhaps."
"M-maybe. See you in t-town, Asgore."
She closed his bedroom as he started putting packing up the camera. Then she walked over to the living room table and picked up the box containing a mystery for another day.