Underdoom - Chapter 10

Once more, everyone prepared to disembark. Once more, the sound of heartfelt goodbyes mingled with cartridges being loaded into battery. Once more were diagnostics were run at the monitoring stations, Alphys and Hayden working side by side, checking probe feeds in the necropolis and beyond. Once more, everyone was preparing for what was their second, and hopefully last, trip into the bowels of Hell.

Hayden faced his console as addressed everyone. "I have to inform you all that in no time during the Argent program have we successfully sent probes into Argent. Any readings I get will be directly from your bracers, so we won't be able to give any proactive warnings should anything pop up that you're not prepared to face."

"Understood." Undyne acknowledged Hayden while simultaneously stretching and practicing stances with her spear. "Anything else we need to know?"

"Nothing I haven't told you all before." he turned back to his monitors.

"Alright... well that's it then." Asgore unsheathed his trident. "Mettaton, is our first Portal still open?"

"I've got eyes on it right now, your majesty."

"Good"

"Those portals made by the crucible are only shut by the crucible." Asgore turned to see Hayden still facing his module, working on several systems diagnostics as he spoke. "Only out friend here can close them."

'Right then... I'm headed out."

"Asgore, wait."

He felt Toriel's hand grip him by the shoulder, turning him around. She couldn't bring herself to say anything. it felt as if every word she wanted to say was stuck in her throat. She wanted so terribly to say it to him, but within her there was too much conflict to let it happen. Asgore knew her. He knew how to read her face. He knew the slightly open mouth, the forlorn eyes, the inhale with no exhale, and the shifting eye contact. He wanted to terribly to embrace her, hold her in his arms again. He put a hand under her cheek, but he too felt his words restrained by his own hesitation. Before he could produce any words however, he felt his whole body being pulled in to meet her. her arms were wrapped around him. They both remained silent for a time. No words were needed for either to understand.

Toriel broke the silence between the two, the rest of the compound's occupants having engaged each other in some way, borrwing them some time, albeit brief, to share a private moment. "Please... bring him back safely."

"I will."

His hands held onto hers. Part of her wanted to tell him to let go. Her heart and her mind both ignored it.

"I promise you." With those last words, he made his way for the door. "Is everyone ready?"

Sans bid papyrus one more goodbye before addressing the King. "Ready when you are."

Undyne's spear was planted in the ground, her shoulders squared, and her expression resolute. Her ferocious attitude shone through in her wild, almost feral voice, now lowered to near growling. "Been ready."

The Doom Slayer met eh Kings eyes with another nod, this time the face behind the visor showing a genuine approval. None of the scolding scowls of the past hour were to be seen. In a sense, he was actually quite proud.

"Right then.... let's move."
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The same red glow, the same hellish roars, the same, foul air.

Once more the shore party was in new home, standing close by to the first portal the Praetor had made. Asgore stood close by it, everyone else standing a ways behind him. There was some tension in the air, a sort of unease that gripped just about everyone in some way. This could very well be the last they ever see of each other. yes, they had been faked out the first time, but now it was almost certain that undue peril awaited them all. All goodbyes had already been said. All farewells had been given. To say anything more was to regurgitate what had already been said. Thus no one said a word as Asgore looked back, nodded, took a deep breath and jumped into the Portal.

With that, all eyes focused on the Doom Slayer. Once again, he carefully took his stance and prepared to open another fissure. Unlike Hayden and the UAC, who relied on coordinates and computers to get into hell, all he needed was his mind. The Crucible knew him, and it knew every border and boundary or Hell. The connection between the two opened a map in his mind, and at the very heart lie his destination, his old home, the desecrated remains of Argent D'Nur. With the image of it's polluted, once holy halls in mind, he took the first swing, then a footstep, then the second swing. he hadn't realized his eyes had been closed, and when he opened them, there it was, in all its ruined glory. The long corridors and palisades, the towers and runes, all of it was there, now completely, blasphemously destroyed by its current occupants.

Everyone gathered around to see it, The Doom slayer still pausing to drink it all in, letting his righteous fury build up within him.

"Wow..." Undyne's eye was a saucer, taking in the sight of something that seemed to have been so majestic at one time, now ruined. "Doomguy, wasn't this your home at one point?"

Of course, there was no audible reply. His answer was subtle enough that if they hadn't known him at all, they wouldn't have caught his fingers wringing around the furniture of his weapon. It seemed as if the walnut on the shotgun's stock would burst into splinters if he wrung any tighter.

"... I see."

"Well, no time to waste then." Sans' voice did not echo the awful dread that lingered within him. "We hopping in or-"

Before he could finish, the Marine took a running start, jumping in with all the fervor of a feral beast hunting its prey.

The other two exchanged looks for a second before taking their own running start, plunging themselves into the very heart of Argent D'Nur.
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Alphys had a few of Hayden's panels extended over her workspace. "Alright... I have eyes on you, Asgore."

"Wonderful dear, wonderful. Now, just keep me posted if you see anything"

"You got it, sir!" Bidding her friend and superior farewell, she turned her attention to Hayden, just out of the corner of her eye. He seeemed quite occupied with his work, monitoring the others on their mission from the feeds on their bracers.

A familiar voice popped up from his side. "Shore party to base, either of you hear me?"

Undyne's voice was music to her ears. She so terribly wanted to respond, but Hayden had already monopolized all communications to the Argent party. He noticed Alphys looking longingly at the comms receiver console and brusquely shooed her off. "Focus on your won work... yes, we read you, shore party. Bracers reading full vitals. I assume everyone made the trip all right?"

"Yeah, all peachy keen here..." Sans' somewhat sarcastic reply belied his feelings upon seeing the remains of this place. Piles of what looked like the bones of this place's former inhabitants littered the ground. Safe as they were now, it sure didn't feel like it would stay that way for long. "We'll uh... we'll keep you posted once things start shakin' up, I guess."

"....right." Hayden's voice dripped with exasperation and annoyance. He pulled down several of his panels, engrossing himself in his work, checking up on the multiple signals that the UAC's equipment had tracked down. True there were no probes in Argent, but there were many more set up around hell that tracked the energy signal found therein, which radiated throughout all Hell. they could only pick up so much now that the well was exhausted, but the Siphon gave off just enough energy for the detection equipment to register.

Seeing that Hayden was sufficiently preoccupied, Alphys returned her attention to her work, watching Asgore trudge through the bowels of the grey, lifeless necropolis. Just like before, it seemed he was only meeting minimal resistance. it surprised her when he crossed paths with a single Hell knight, only to feel relief as he quickly dispatched the beast. Oddly enough, that was more or less the hardest one he had fought yet. Still now, the necropolis was only scarcely populated with a few imps and lost souls.

"Still nothing, Lord Asgore..."

"I know..." his voice crackled somewhat over the connection. "It's just like before..."

"I wish you luck."

"Thank you dear."

"And uh, Asgore?"

"Yes?"

"I.... I-I really need to let you know how much I regre-"

The King could already sense the scientist's rue. With all the kindness of a caring parent, he consoled her. "Alphys, Alphys... it's alright. You never meant for this to happen. Right now, you're doing your best to make it right. That what matters now, Alphys."

"but I-"

"Alphys, listen to me, dear. I'm glad you and Frisk had the wherewithal to tell me. It's behind you now. You have to learn to move on, dear. Then is then, now is now, and right now, we're working to fix this. We cannot undo the past, so there's no point trying to wallow in it, but we always have a future, and that is something we can fix right now. That's what 'now' is for, Alphys. The past is in the past, but we always have right now to make things better. Do you understand?"

"I think so..."

Asgore smiled just a bit. "I know so."

"I promise, I'll do my best to help."

"I'm proud of you, Alphys. Always remember that."

"I will."

"I'll see you in a few, dear." With that, comms closed once more.

Alphys then double checked to see that Hayden was still occupied. Seeing that he was, she turned back to her computer screen, whispering to herself.

"i won't let you down..."

She quietly slid VEGA's backup drive into a specialized receptacle hidden under the mess on her desk. it wasn't something she could plug it into: such a port wasn't to be found in this entire dimension. She closed a door onto it, sealing the receptacle shut before checking up on the dialogue on her screen.

DT_EX/FUNCTION/RECEPTACLE

RUN?

_YES _NO

She clicked "YES."

Her old computer strained somewhat, the cooling fans making considerable noise. She desperately hoped it wouldn't attract Hayden's attention.

"Your device seems to be going through some duress, Doctor Alphys..."

"i-It is, actually..."

"Just what are you running on it?" he sauntered over to her, standing behind her.

Her eye darted to and fro, catching Mettaton, looking on in concern, unsure if he should intervene, and if so, how he should do it.

her voice was timid and fretful. "Oh, just one of my favorite Animes..."

"Your what no-"

On the screen was perhaps one of the most asinine things he had ever seen. A young girl with a cat's ears and mouth chanted something in Japanese on the screen, with accompanying characters. The colors thereon were drenched in sickening pinks and purples, and with every passing second, Hayden could practically feel his brain cells eroding.

".... you really need to focus on your work, Doctor Alphys." With that, he went back to his work station.

Alphys tried to withhold her relieved breath before minimizing her pirated anime file and maximizing the DT extractor dialogue. Apparently it had finished running diagnostics. What she then saw on the screen shocked her. Once again she had to contain herself so as to not give herself away to her suspicious partner.

DT_EX/FUNCTION/RECEPTACLE/FUNCTION_COMPLETE

RESULT

DT_SIGNATURE: POSITIVE
DT_CONCENTRATION: H-LEVEL
SOUL_POWER: H-LEVEL
POSSIBLE_EXTRACTIONS: INFINITE

She couldn't believe her eyes. Whatever was in this thing was a living soul, and one with human determination and power at that. it was so strange. Mettaton was a soul possessing a machine, but this thing, VEGA, was a machine possessing s soul. She didn't know how such a thing could be possible. Thoughts of all kinds raced in her head, some regretting that she couldn't find such a solution when dealing with the first DT experiments, and others wondering how she could "wake him up." Mettaton's conundrum was easy. A soul acted as the machine's consciousness while a power source, a battery, actually supplied power to the machine, like food gives energy to a  living thing. Mettaton was very much alive, but he wasn't born the way he was. VEGA was built from the ground up as a machine, as far as the UAC databases said. His soul, his essence, all artificial, but all alive and feeling, was in that hard drive. As to how she could bring him to life, she did not know, The archives said it took 2.4 terawatts to power him. The core couldn't produce that much power if its output was quadrupled. A body like Mettaton's was out of the question.

Or was it?

VEGA apparently had human levels of DT. Monster don;t have that level of course, but as she recalled from Mettaton's creation, not even a monster soul could simply possess a machine and make it all work. Sure, souls can possess inanimate objects, but not with all the complex functions that Mettaton had. What one needed to conjoin a soul and a machine was certain level of DT, among other complex procedures.

Somewhere in the bowels of the compound, she had something in store that with just a little boost in its already latent DT levels, could house this mysterious soul.

She just needed a way to get it there.

"Hey Mettaton!"

"Yes, darling?"

"Is anything happening out there?"

"No, they've all gone quiet. Call me crazy, but they seem a bit bored. They're just sitting there, really. If I didn't know any better I'd think they'd be asleep."

Hayden interjected, having eavesdropped on them. "In all our studies, we've rarely observed demons asleep. We should count ourselves lucky if they ever enter a state of dormancy."

"Yeah..." concealing her nervousness was hard, especially now that Hayden now had his attention on her. "So, uh, yeah, Mettaton, could you come over here real quick?"

As the automaton got up from his seat, Alphys discreetly wrapped the hard drive in a crumpled piece of paper, taking an opportunity while Hayden looked away to check another Argent reading. She scribbled a note on it before putting it in her hand and wrapping her arm around Mettaton. "Check this out... see how he hasn't encountered any of the big ones yet?"

Everything she said was a simple ruse, but she hoped it would work as she felt a small compartment in Mettaton's back open, letting her slide the Hard drive inside. She knew that he knew what she was really playing at.

"And like Dr Hayden said, the demons almost never sleep. The UAC files mentioned a possibility of a Hive Mind shared between them... Dr Hayden, what do you think? Maybe the Hive mind is just shutting down unneeded forces to concentrate on Argent?"

"Hmm... I wouldn't rule it out." his optic still focused on his work, and his voice sounded a bit disconnected, uninvolved and uninterested in Alphys' postulation.

"Well in that case, I think we should make some extra preparations just in case they suddenly wake up. Mettaton, could you head downstairs to the power main, check if we're still alright down there?"

Mettaton knew exactly what she was going for now. "Sure thing. be right back, darling."

Alphys looked on as he went towards the elevator. her heart began to race as she noticed Hayden eyeing him up too, all the way to the sound of the elevator doors closing, at which point he slowly turned towards her, freezing her blood with his azure stare before tuning back to his work.

Then, a familiar voice called out over comms. "Alphys, I've looked all over this godforsaken place adn I can't find him... Do you see anything?"

"No sir I do-"

but as soon as those words left her lips, there he was. Right on the screen, staring blankly up at the darkened skies. he was surrounded by nothing, maybe a few rocks and rotted roots. in the background, the skull of the titan could be seen. A terrible cosmos glowed eerily in the umbral night.

"Sir... I see him."