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“Did you see that, Alphys? Kick its ass, you punk metal piece of shit!” Undyne grabbed Alphys’ arm, but her attention was completely on the television. "Did you see that? WOAH!"
"Yeah…” Alphys sighed.
“Aw, babe. Sorry. It’s just still so cool!”
“I know!” She slumped down, slowly sliding towards the floor. The worst thing was that she couldn’t even enjoy watching, anymore, and she used to love the show as much as Undyne.
What could be better than a television show about people battling the robots they made? Undyne loved the battling, and Alphys loved the robots. They would cover the coffee table with snacks and pull out one of the bottles of sake and make it into an event.
But then she’d gotten the stupid idea to actually try and enter. Like any of her ideas actually ever worked out! They said it was fine, so long as she didn’t use magic! How could she do anything without it involving magic? She was literally made of magic! She couldn’t open a bag of chisps without magic being involved!
So then she’d had the brilliant idea to get a bunch of monsters together to make robots. And it turned out there were maybe two other monsters who were interested in the idea. Neither of them even knew how to build anything!
One of the robots on screen slammed the other with a hammer. The other robot stopped moving.
“YEAH! TAKE THAT!” Undyne ripped open a package of hot fries and dumped them in her mouth. She looked over at Alphys and, unable to speak, just patted her on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Alphys said. "I just…c-can’t get into it…"
"Well–” Undyne finished chewing, and finally swallowed. "Well, get some snacks into your face, then! And I’ll switch on a movie!"
"Okay. I mean, I know I’ll get over it!”
“I don’t get why you don’t just build your own robots and have ‘em fight,” Undyne said. "Then we’ll tape it and I’ll just be in the background flicking off the camera so when the nerds at that TV station see it, they’ll know what I think of 'em."
"There aren’t any surprises if I’m just building them,” Alphys said. “That just sounds kind of boring? Like there’s no challenge? I don’t know, Undyne."
"Yeah. If there’s no challenge, there’s no point,” she agreed. "I just, uh…I sort of hoped you’d build some of my designs! I had some ideas, and I wanted to see 'em in action!"
"Oh!” Alphys lit up. "You know what? I could do that! Why don’t we do that, anyway? I’ll build your designs for you. And…maybe some other people have robot design ideas in mind, even if they can’t build them?"
"And then my robot can kick their robot’s butt!”
“That might work!”
It was a challenge figuring out some of the more outlandish ideas. But that was the fun of it, for Alphys. And since magic wasn’t illegal, there were only a few of the blueprints she was given that she had to turn down.
They built a robot death dome in their backyard. It burned down during the first fight. They built another one. Undyne said she was glad the first one was gone. The second one had more spikes.
They recorded the fights, and posted them online.
“This is fun, and…gratifying, I guess. So many people are interested!” Alphys scrolled through comments on their latest video.
“They love us! They love you, Alphys, for bringing so many kickass robots onto their screens.”
“Oh.” Alphys blushed. "A-anyway…I was just thinking….We’re not doing this for anyone else? We don’t have to follow set rules, right? I kind of want to switch it up. Maybe just once?"
"You got an idea?” Undyne had a lot of ideas. She had a whole stack of robot designs she was perfecting.
“Sometimes the kids give me designs for robots that are just…way too big. They won’t fit in the dome. I wonder if we could…rent a place? Uh, is there any p-place that would let you have enormous robots fight there?”
“I’ll ask around, because you have no idea how much I want this to happen,” Undyne said. "How big are we talking?"
"I mean…I have designs going from just a little too big for the dome up to the size of skyscrapers. We probably want to start at the lower end.”
They found a space. They destroyed it. The person who let them use it hadn’t expected otherwise, and was excited that they got to be in one of the videos.
–
Alphys closed her laptop. "You know, I think I can watch that show again?"
"You worked through it? Nothing helps work through issues like building enormous robots!”
“I g-guess so!”
“And then, more importantly, MAKING THEM PUNCH EACH OTHER!”
“Yeah!!” The newest models were getting a little difficult to put together in her usual work space. But she was amazed how often she only had to mention a problem and the internet joined together to find a solution. Everyone wanted to see her robots, and see them fight.
Alphys got the chips out. Undyne got the booze. They turned on the TV right as their favorite show started.
The first robot they had made together, rebuilt from its defeat and put into retirement, rolled around their feet, beeping. Every now and then it spewed fire at the legs of the coffee table.