-Alphys
>Inspect
"W-w-what's this? A flyer?" Arms full of junk, she shifts the weight of the plastic crate so her right knee and shoulder so they're carrying the weight of all the bobbles and bits stuffed next to each other. Her tail picks a fallen metal circle of wire up, and it hangs off there as she continues to read the flyer. "A project in the Hotlands?" Her voice is quieter than the low sound of monsters talking near her, though they can’t see into where Alphys is.
Her brow creases, as she takes one of the strips of paper hanging off the bottom. "An internship, too... W-well... I guess I don't have a lot to lose." An alarm goes off, and Alphys startles, almost losing her balance, instead leaning into the wall. /Hah... Hah... I should probably get going now./
The sheet is left browning at the edges, wall behind it stone cold and pale yellow, one of two tassels missing. Her footsteps echo in the alleyway, before going so far they cannot be heard. The city around her continues.
She arrives at the shoddy stone door in only a few minutes of careful speedwalking. The lights in the apartment are off, as usual, but she doesn't mind. A click; the door opens and she places her knick-knacks on an old table, getting ready to put them together. This wasn't her first trip from the dump, and it probably wouldn't be the last. She was... excited.
The air around her was empty. A PHD in mechanical engineering and a masters in biology hung on the wall. Sometimes, she would take a step forward and trace a claw over it. But not often enough. It is ignored this time, no, not enough at all. Those weren’t her pride, as much as she’d like them to be.
No matter how many times Alphys went and reinforced her table, it would nevers stop creaking under the weight of the boxes of junk she brought in. This may or may not have troubled her. Slightly annoyed her would be the best description. The lights of the room before her were low, as she flipped a switch and it turned on with a soft popping sound. The stone on her walls thrummed with a pulse of its own.
The room itself was a little smaller than average compared to other rooms in the underground, the tan walls lined with notes and uncleaned equations. The floor was as clean as Alphys could manage it, which… Meant it needed work. There were loose papers scattered in corners and where a rug should be. Bits of old plastic wrappers was scattered all about the kitchen table… But other than that, the apartment was dust free.
She began to work.
-Alphys
Before she was a royal scientist, Alphys found stuff. She watched anime and saw nothing new on TV and talked to monsters of course. But in her soul, she was determined to go and find things and impress monsters so they'd like her more. Quirky, yeah. Humor, clumsiness. All Good Words that she liked to use to describe herself. She hums to herself, fondly regarding memories, and pulls the wrench of of the box next to her, faint buzz of machinery all around her playing as the background music. Magic saturated the air, more so than anywhere else in the underground. She didn't notice it always, always coming from around her, too busy thinking and talking and regretting.
So magic didn’t really mess with her experiments, but it was a conductor of sorts. Electricity traveled quickly the underground. That was probably the only thing that even bothered to move anywhere in the first place. Everything had a habit of standing still.
-Flashback: 10 Years Ago
"W-w-well then?" Her tail was too large for her small frame, swinging back and forth excitedly, not really keeping her on balance like it was supposed to. Standing infront of the lizard was (redacted) for whatever reason. He says nothing. She stares up at him with eager, earnest, naive eyes, left claw clutching a lost screw. A sigh from the larger party, what could be described as a head tilting up, and a wave of the hand signaling yes. Before he can say yes, she's scurried up a pillar, pulling out a screwdriver, and places it in. Success.
She slides down, laughing a little, long since comfortable in this house, around him, her mentor. "S-s-so, is it working okay?" "Well child, we'll have to find out." He flicks the switch, and the room cheers. The lights turn on, and something has been repaired. Alphys is given a side hug, and she takes off her bottle cap glasses, leaning into the large figure besides her. Her tail hits him in the back of the leg, and he smiles down at her affectionately.
Each piece of colored glass flicker like stars, like the fireflies that only fly in every summer time. But they don't need fireflies anymore, not with lights. Spanning rooftops; the world looks hopeful.
"Yes, you did fine." There is no response from Alphys though, and when Asgore looks down, he sees that she has fallen asleep, clinging to his cloak with a gentle grip. "Oh my... You must be awfully tired." He nudges her awake with a fuzzy foot, and she jumps up (not very high) with a startled sound. A heavy blush covers her face, and she looks down at the kingdom which she's just lit up.
(meanwhile, a ballerina falls down down down. She is angry and disgusted. She went off the path, and fell into a veiled hole.)
He met the excitable child years ago, she was in the flowers. Not an idea about where she was. He liked her the moment he saw her, there was a little bit of hope about here… Yes, he liked her the moment he met her. And he continued to do so. She maybe liked the goat man. Maybe a little.
(Said ballerina meets a very similar goat with nice fluffy ears. She appreciates the kindness, and wishes to keep everyone she meets alive, even if it means she must hurt them a little. Her indigo soul never called Toriel mom, but she was a mother figure to her. She left with Toriel’s blessing, no matter how long it took to get it.)
Time passes, things break, things are repaired, the lights themselves are still white.
(She kills, and is killed herself. Her skirt is left behind a rush of water. And her shoes are thrown haphazardly into a bush. Those both are memorial sites to her. She is killed herself. And so water still flows up.)
-Alphys
Trash was Alphys element, long before she even found herself in a dumpster diving for thrown away materials down a waterfall. She was good at it, making working things out of old thrown away materials. Even as she was growing up, living from here and there, making things around her better no matter how many roofs were wearing down from the magic in the air, scurrying through streets that never knew the rain but had cracks in them anyway, she made things better... A glass board? Metal boxes? Dials and noise makers were easy enough to handle and to link together, black coated copper wiring could be peeled and re-formatted. "just tie those two together and it should work. thanks." No matter how much monsters hate the humans, they still had great trash. "that's all i ever really needed to use."
A snap, and the wall is closed once again, dull metal clasping into itself easily. Her memories fade out into the ever distant roar of a nuclear power plant so close to her feet, melting the rock ever so slowly but surely. Lava was abundant where there was once cold stone, easy to walk upon but hard to climb out of. No one’s fallen into there yet.
Memories never did her any good, not anymore. She heads back down, turning back when she’s almost at the bottom of the staircase. She turns back, rushing back into her bedroom, jumping into her bed, curled up into a ball, tail tucked behind her knees. Her phone doesn’t ring, not that she has it anywhere near her. But it pings, and she hears nothing.
-Sans the Skeleton
"hi! my name's alphys..." a bony hand stuck out. "pleasure to meet you. name's sans." a farting sound, and a scratchy, nervous giggle comes out of alphys' mouth. "hehe. this is a sine we'll be the best pals." "m-maybe..." The two of them start down a dimmed hallway, unworn tiles haphazardly laid down beneath their feet. The walls weren't made for nothing but being walked upon, and the two of them glanced at each other again. Silence. Alphys looks away, while Sans pulls out a book to read. "S-s-so. Why'd you take this job?" "the guy's my brother, actually." "Your brother's the royal scientist." "yup." She glances from the slate gray wall to his face. "Are you sure?" "as day."
The slate around them didn’t seem like tombstones, no matter how cold or far into infinity it seemed to stretch, Dim, uncracked florescent lights (welded back together using fire, a later look at blueprints would show Alphys) started up, each bringing up light one in front of the other, eventually illuminating empty lab saves, and a tall spindly figure. “and there’s our boss… wd gaster..” He finishes with an alert smile, and turns his head towards you, eyes lit up with potential. “hehe. better go meet him, wanna leave a good impression. no need to phangle about.” his hands were in the pockets of an oversized blue sweatshirt, and he slowly strides towards Gaster. Alphys follows, her scurry much more tense, faster, than Sans’ leisurely gait.
He gets to Gaster first anyway.
-The Creation of a Body
"I have an offer for you, Happstablook." She thumbs a tube tucked under her arm, and the ghost says nothing. "I-I think I can make you a body!" Silence for a long time. A nod. "Darling, do you have anything built?” The two figures, with dim lamplight that sometimes flickers off, share a smile that has two meanings. Melancholy and excitement all piled into a shared glance. "I haven't started yet." "Hm… Well, come back to me, as soon as you have something.” He turns to leave, but an arm passes right through him. “I-I have blueprints.” He turns around to look back at her, eyes slightly narrowed. “I mean I wouldn’t come with nothing, that would be ridiculous.” The cap is placed into her pocket, and the prints are opened up as best they can, yellow magic suspending it in the air. “It’s certainly charming…” “So will you do it?” “What do I have to lose?” “Ehe… Maybe your body?”
He beams up at her, before realization slowly dawns on him. “... What about Napstablook?” She doesn’t hear him, and the words fade out before he decides that his cousin will be the first to know. “A-a-also… One last thing.” Hapstablook turns back around. “What, darling?” “You can’t t-tell… Anyone. Not yet.” Contemplative silence between the two. “Agreed.” He floats behind her as she walks home, deciding to go home after he realizes she’s not going to say anything else. “It doesn’t matter” he thinks to himself. “I could never stop loving Blooky… I wouldn’t leave them behind.”
-Sometime between the Creation of Mettaton and the Fall of Alphys:
Between making laughter and teaching two girls how she knows everything she does, Alphys . "So... You come here?" Footsteps trail behind her, shoeless feet patter in the waist deep (or knee deep) water. "O-only sometimes! Mostly to find stuff..." "That's so cool!" "Yeah!" "So like, what can you find down here?" "W-well anything the humans throw down..." "Like, why are you using their trash?" "n-no matter how bad they are, humans still know what they're doing. it would be great if they knew what they were doing to us though."
No one spoke for a while, and it dawned on Alphys the seriousness of what she said. “o-o-of course, that’s only if they were smart enough to get that.” The two voices behind her laugh, and she lets out a quiet sigh of relief. Silence again. They continue to walk forward, and reach a point where a waterfall brings down with it plastics, and other things. “So like, this is where you get all your supplies?” Bratty wrinkles her nose. “Isn’t it, like, a little smelly?” Catty gives Bratty a slight glare. “Not like it’s that bad. Imagine all the stuff we could find here!” Her enthusiasm brought a smiles to Alphys face. “You… You’ve both mentioned needing money, right?” Bratty looked over at her suspiciously. “What about it?” “W-well, I was thinking you two could both sell the stuff in here. Maybe you’d make something off that.”
The two started whispering to each other, stealing glances at the lizard… Dino? “Well, Catty, it sounds good to me.”
-The Lab
A pile of dust wasn’t even left behind. The lab was brand new, glimmering with unchecked potential. And under it, churning out pure energy for the underground, lay the core. Each bit of energy it provided went to puzzles and electricity, went to the massive, unsustainable population of the underground.
/The doctor doesn’t say much anymore/ her claws pause, but go back to building soon enough. /Sans and him seem to have a good enough relationship, I’m sure it’s fine./ She falls to her knees. /Yes, this is fine./ Her body shakes, and she places a claw where her coworker once stood.
A blanket is wrapped around her at some point, but she doesn’t move until a familiar trail of whispers is heard. “You should get back to work, we can mourn him later.” She doesn’t move, and he floats on. Maybe some time passes, and a low, sounding sleepy, rumble starts up next to her ear. “hey, we need you.” She stands up, and though monsters supposedly can’t really cry, her eyes are reddened, her mouth is stuck in a frown but she stands up and turns away.
-Undyne
When passing through the halls to and fro from either work and repair, or training and prestige, sometimes the two of them catch each other’s eye. However true it may be that papers and points may not go together well, the two of them manage it well enough with pointed teeth flashing a snarle to yellowed scales shashaying away.
The both of them are in the hallway at the same time through coincidence, one day. The two of them hold neither of their items, but each holds something else dear to their heart.
Both bump into each other by accident, and however loud and brash Undyne is, Alphys is that witty and sarcastic back. They become friends pretty quickly, and Undyne cheers Alphys on with everything she does.
-Sans the Skeleton
“Ring… ring…” A call to a friend she thinks she knew well, sometime ago. "you've been doing well, huh? the hotlands aren't too steamy, then?" Her legs hang over the end of the chair, not quite touching the ground. It feels like someone else should be there too. “Y-y-yeah… i’ve been fine. maybe a little hot.” Silence. Something was missing. (A voice should have been there, Alphys thought to herself later, riding her way down in order to feed with… with...
For some reason, she stopped carrying chalk with her.)
“i’m sure you’re doing well alphys. look, i have to go work… i’ll see you later.” A click sound, she drops the phone and drops her head into her hands.
-The Hotlands, The True Lab
The best part about being so far away from everything, Alphys reflects, she knows would be the quiet it brings. It's her and each colored button blipping schedules, her box-in-a-bed, the buzzsaw laid down on a table covered in negative nostalgia and yellowing paper... It's the quiet of monsters it brings. There's no other footsteps other than her own, pacing back and forth. Progression on a robot's only hope of being himself. Maybe if Alphys was more harsh on the world around her, she'd hate Mettaton.
There’s a lot of maybes in the world.
An elevator pings around her, the sound commonplace in every memory where's she has gone far far below the undersurface. Her posture is slouched, scuttling feet and impatient claws. Long ago, she took to this. A semi shamble back and forth, going towards nothing really.
A careful step out; logging the Amalgamates forms in a lab form... Claws tap against the walls, beckoning for each mistake she's made to come closer, stay a little bit. Enjoy the food she's brought down. \Don't be lonely, please don't. I'm the one who made you this way.\ They've never tried to strike her, but each of them litter the halls. All the bed sheets are stiff and the mattresses are hardly used. As per norm, really.
Silence.
She taps again.
>Walk in
The sounds of air conditioning are the only thing heard, the mirrors reflecting herself for whatever reason. They smell of ozone and stains align the surfaces of each and every one of them, dried together. Each step forward, the tiles under her feet mean nothing like the drabbles of the monsters thoughts.
>Check
The once mother says nothing to you again, too busy trying not to give into a green nature. She struggles for dominance. “h-hello… i’ve brought you something.” A raspy sound is heard, as the figure scrapes itself down a hallway, unable to even float. Pity colors Alphys face and shame is what she gets in return, as the sound dies away and the plate is brought into another room. The hallway is vacated, and Alphys goes back to the room with the empty beds, leaving one on a rumpled sheet.
When she gets to the room with the dogs, she laughs and plays along, and hugs it with what strength she has. Somehow, it’s not enough. She thinks about her past in this moment, and
>Realize
/m-my memories don't make sense/