Underdoom - Chapter 17

“I've lost over half of my men because of you...”

“And I've lost 61,000 employees. Regardless, but let's not idly count the cost of progression and advancement. I can see VEGA's lead you here.... and if the CCTV footage is telling me the truth, it seems he's given you access to the tether nodes and the 2.5 program update... I didn't even think we would ever finish it. Most impressive... makes me wonder why he would want the Helix...”

“SHOW YOURSELF!!” The muscles in Undyne's neck were stretched taut, pulling her lips down to reveal gritting teeth. Her remaining pupil shrank to a pinhead. The air of her breath hissed between the gaps in her fangs.

As he attached the last of the nodes, Papyrus looked down to see the Captain practically shaking with barely contained rage. Him and the Doom Slayer exchanged looks, communicating their mutual worry.

“Not likely, I'm afraid. Not unless you have a crucible and Siphon to deliver to me. See, I knew you'd come here, what fro vengeance or whatever other petty motive you cling to”

The Doom Slayer, in confident defiance, pulled both out from behind him.

His companions' eyes went wide, their mouths slightly agape. Papyrus had more a voice than Undyne, who was silenced by her shock at the prospect of the marine's betrayal. “Doomguy what are you -?!”

The Praetor looked back at his companions. Through his visor, they could see a sly, smug expression, not unlike what they had seen when he had first met them. Though lingering doubts still wavered in their minds, they at least now had a slightly better idea of just what he was up to. The idea waxed in Undyne's head. She eagerly awaited the results of the Doom Slayer's ploy, and in itching anticipation, she materialized a spear in one hand.

The Praetor activated both Crucible and Siphon, and the gray hue of the room was overcome with bloody crimson light. The Crucible's blade, familiar to the two monsters, was soon joined by its companion. The Doom Slayer smiled deviously as the siphon too unleashed its latent power: the small, skull shaped buckler now birthed an Argent red shield, spouting out quickly from every inch of its perimeter. It stood half as tall as its wielder, shrouding part of his silhouette in luminescent scarlet.

The allure of such a prize overrode Hayden's wry coolness. The bait had worked. “So you have them... both of them....”

Papyrus jumped down from the helix stone to land alongside the Doom Slayer. Undyne's visage remained set in stone as she too took up position alongside the Praetor.

“Those belong to me...”

“They NEVER belonged to you!” Undyne's voice rasped out in feral anger. Every syllable Hayden spoke seemed to add further tinder to the fire of her building rage.

“They belong to someone who isn't blinded by idiotic idealism.” Venom spewed forth from Hayden's rapidly destabilizing tone. “I will ask you one time and one time only. Give. Them. To. Me.”

The Hell Walker raised his sword arm, palm upward. From his closed hand, his index finger popped up, waggling inward.

The message was clear: Come and get it.

Hayden maintained silence for a few seconds before speaking in low, boiling fury.“If that's the way you want it...”

An alarm sounded throughout the complex.

“.. prepare to entertain some company.”

Roaring and bellowing could be heard echoing from the distant chambers. Everyone knew what it was.

Papyrus' bone clubs formed in his eager hands. “You really think a few of your test tube pets are going to stop us? You've obviously forgotten what all three of us can do, especially Doomguy!”

“Oh no I haven't.” nearly drowning out Hayden's voice was the sound of encroaching hellspawn, pounding footsteps and gargling roars shaking the very ground.

Samuel then looked to his right, where a compartment opened up from within the wall. It was an old project he and Olivia had worked on, and as power flowed into its bulky, imposing frame, Hayden nearly wished he had his mouth to smile with once again.

“If anything... consider it a warmup.”



Alphys saw the flashing dialogue on her screen. “Signal's heading in from the nodes. I hope that new firmware works, VEGA.”

“I designed the tether system myself. If anyone was to eliminate the dimensional interference factor, it would be me. Communications issues may be a bit more tricky to iron out, but it'll come in time. For now, we just wait until the Shore Party arrives with the helix stone.”

“You said that would be around five minutes, right?”

“Correct.”

“Okay then.” Alphys' worried conscience began to find itself at ease. The prospect of a wait, regardless of duration, brought cold sweat to her brow. “Mettaton, how are we doing on security?”

“I've got the main defense batteries back up and running at full power, darling. Most of the guard is garrisoned around the lesser entrances. The main entrance is well kept by the Overlord system. If anything tries breaking through, it'll be ash before it goes far.”

“Good. We got any word from the surface?”

“#1 and #2 have things taken care of up there. Everyone's still getting their ducks in a row, apparently. Everyone's just waiting for the King and Queen to come back. What few remaining battlemages we have left are keeping themselves busy by concealing the crowd so that we don't attract attention we don't need just yet”

“Alright, sweet. Oh, hey, speaking of the king and Queen, did anyone see where they went off to?”

“They should still be downstairs, darling.”


“Tori, it's okay....”

“I'm sorry-”

“Shh, shh, you're alright, it's okay-

“I'm so, so sorry, “

“Shhhh, shhhh....”

So many years of separation, begrudging, anger, grief, and estrangement could only come out so many ways. Usually, tears are what accompany such long, pent up emotions' outpouring. Such as it was for the King and Queen. At this point, Asgore had gotten used to the slight wetness on his shoulder, gathered from his Queen's continual, silent weeping. Now it was all exploding out of her, slurring her words between labored gasping and continuous crying. The very essence of her soul had fueled the flames of her anger, and in its exposure, her guilt could be concealed no longer. It echoed throughout the empty room in her shuddering voice. Clawed Asgore's back through her curled fingers. It shook her from head to toe, and every second of it weighed Asgore down like lead.

“I left you... I left everyone alone-”

“You had every right to be mad at me-”

“But not to let everybody live in hopelessness... I'm a failure... I've let everyone down....”

“Tori, everyone was cheering for you. All we wanted was to have you back.”

“Asgore-”

“That's all I've ever wanted.....”

For several minutes, she just let ti all out. Words couldn't adequately convey her feelings of shame and rue. Asgore knew the feeling. For just as long, he'd borne his own shame, and only just recently had it reared its ugly face again in that horrible pit of the Necropolis. He had no feelings of petty anger, nor did he feel that the love of his life deserved to feel this miserable. No one deserved to feel like that. The tighter she embraced him, the tighter he embraced her back. Her pain was his, in more ways than one. He had always loved her, and neither the steady march of time nor the brusqueness of recent events could wear it away. He told her more than once, whispering it into her ear, hoping to apply love's healing balm to the wounds in her heart. Every time he did, she'd cry harder and harder, the poison of the years painfully draining from her. Healing isn't always soothing, but it certainly is always needed, and at that moment, both Toriel and Asgore desperately needed it.

Her tears finally beginning to subside, Toriel found the strength to use her words again. “What are we going to do, Asgore.... our son... he...”

“We'll find him.” Asgore planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I promise you.... we'll find him yet.”

“But how?'

Asgore's uncertainty and worry were not helped any by the pleading look in Toriel's eyes. “I don't know... but if anything...”

“What?”

“When I found him, I remember him saying... 'I belong here.' Maybe... maybe he's gone back... but I don't know for sure.”

Though still very shaken by her grief, Toriel had gotten back enough of her strength to stand up on her own with little effort. “I think it's time we went up. I think I know what we have to do?”

“What would that be?”

Toriel looked her husband in the eye with more stern resolve than ever. It took seconds for him to realize what she was implying.

“Tori... are you sure you're strong enough to-”

“Maybe not yet... but I know I won't be going alone.”



Sans' fingers restlessly rustled through a thick stack of files, his eyes steadfastly following every line on every page as the escalator took him back down to the first floor. “Hey guys...”

Alphys turned a little from her station. “What is it? What'd you find?”

“Did you ever take a good look at Dr Gaster's notes, Alphys?”

“Yeah, I scoured them top to bottom during the Soul research program. Why?”

“Well, the guy was digging into some seriously deep stuff... Like right here, it says something about what a human soul is made up of and possible ways to construct and reconstruct one. It does over several key elements not found in human souls-”

“Including DT.” All the memories of that trying time washed back into Alphys' repressed memory. “Yeah, I remember reading through that whole file set when the program started. What it got to do with what's going on right now?”

'Well, if you remember what he said about the energy needed to actually create a soul from scratch, it's next to impossible, right?”

“Yeah. That's why I opted for the DT infusion theory instead.” Alphys' gaze was noticeably weighed down from the conversation. “You'd need all the magic in the underground for it, and that would need the soul of every single monster in the underground.”

“Exactly. If someone was able to harness that energy, it wold be practically unlimited. You could power the entire surface world for centuries, perhaps even millenia.”

Suddenly, the gears in Alphys' head began turning. “Wait.... Hayden was always going on about the energy crisis in his dimension...”

VEGA's interjection made heads turn. “Which possibly explains why he has gone rogue. He plans on harvesting this energy from the souls of Underground citizens.”

Sans' eyes went wide, crested with a shallow scowl. “Do you think he knew the whole time?”

“Actually no...” Regrets immediately began swelling within Alphys' troubled heart. “While the shore party was setting off for the Siphon, I gave him a book detailing monsterkind's history. He must have found out there and.... no, wait, it'd be impossible still! If he wanted the energy from our souls, he would have made sure this wouldn't have happened! He'd want us all alive so he could harvest it himself! With the demons here, killing people, that wouldn't be a very plausible course of action.”

“'All souls in the Underground' sounds more like a qualifying, not a quantifying expression.” Everyone turned to see Vega with his face buried in the selfsame book Hayden had read. “Were it not so, the author of this book, and therefore the ancient lore he cites, would be implying that a single human soul's power would be contingent on the underground's population. Let us also take into account that around the time this lore became a mainstay in monster culture, which the author cites to be around several thousand years ago, the monster population would be somewhat lower. Certainly still, despite our losses, the underground would still be able to conjure up the energy needed to equal a human soul. Still, I do see some discrepancies with this 'Dr Gaster's' work.”

Sans flipped back through the files. “What do you mean?”

“At the UAC, we hosted a soul harvest to provide security from Hell Invasions and untethered inter-dimensional activity. Hell would be offered a soul, and so it would be 'placated' to a certain extent. The Argent Fracture, despite having been secured by the Argent Tower Facility, still was capable of being used, to a lesser extent, as a conduit between worlds. Hell's true nature is not well understood, but as we fed it souls, untethered demonic activity lowered.”

Sans set the files down on Alphys' desk. “So what's your point?”

“We know little about what Hell does with these souls, though one theory has been in vogue for as long as we practiced the harvest: Hell uses these souls for energy. We ourselves know little about souls and their nature, but if it were discovered that near infinite amounts of energy could be derived from a human soul, either Hell or the UAC would have figured it out. There would be no need for either party to pursue argent energy. As soon as Hell would have taken one sol should it have so much potential energy output, they would practically have no reason to invade other planes.”

“But what about before thy had Argent? Surely there would have been a need for energy in consuming an entire plane like that?” Alphys' inquiry swirled in VEGA's mind, as did the other complex pieces of this puzzle.

“This all does sound quite intriguing. We should definitely keep all of this in mind when the Shore party arrives.”



“rrrRRAAUGH!”

With a mighty heave of a bone club, Papyrus caved in one last hapless imp's skull, leaving him hunched over its blood soaked carcass, heaving for breath.

“That- gasp – That all you got?!”

“Warmup's over Hayden.” Undyne's voice had chilled down, no longer seething in blind and molten fury, but cold, frigid rage. “You want these, you come out and take them.”

No response.

The Doom Slayer kept his head on a swivel. Hayden was the kind of man who liked to hear himself talk, and when things went awry for him, he wasn't the kind of person who would keep it to himself. Confident as he was should Hayden become a problem, he still felt somewhat apprehensive. This was his turf (or at least it was now), and there was no telling just what he'd do. His eyes squinted, scanning every inch of the facility interior, suspicious of every dark corner, door, and hatch.

“What's he waiting for?” Papyrus' nervousness was beginning to show on his sweating brow and fidgeting hands. “We only have two more minutes until the tether link is finalized!”

“Interesting question.”

The trio turned around, deliberately circling around the Stone to see a blue light shining through in the dark hallway leading to Olivia's personal office.

“Perhaps I can ask you one of my own?”

Undyne would not even entertain the prospect of conversing with him. Without hesitation, she threw the spear in her hand with all the force her arm could muster. It shot through the air, closing the distance between her and the cyborg in a fraction of a second.

Just as quickly, it was shot down. A bright, white light nearly blinded the trio gathered around the Ehlix stone.

Hayden's voice was coy and confident. “You'll have to try a little harder than that”

A deep, mechanical sound softly whirred in the air, and then the ground shook just a little.

“What the-”

“Anyway, on to the question... “

The same mechanical whirring, and once again, the ground rumbled.

“... what are you doing with my helix stone.”

“Oh, don;t think we're not onto you, Hayden!”

The light of Hayden's optic slowly grew nearer. The rumbling intensified. The whirring was closer.

“We know you were playing us as fools! The Siphon wasn't what's powering their invasion! You knew it all along! When we took it, they still kept coming!”

“Excuse me?”

The ground was now flat out shaking. Hayden's figure was beginning to come into the light, and it was quickly becoming apparent as to what was going on.

“Pap, wait a in-”

“You owe us answers, Doctor!  You know where the-.... real... source...”

The Cyborg stepped all the way out into the light, and now, all in the shore party could see the new, terrible form he had taken. Attached firmly to his body was  a new frame, titanic in size, and clad in imposing, seemingly impenetrable armor.  A harness seemed bolted or fastened in some way to his torso, with hydraulic pistons connecting the harness' heavy frame to its counterparts on his limbs. The exoskeleton's shoulder went above Hayden's head, loaded with rocket batteries. The arms bristles at the wrist with various machine guns; a tri-barreled Gatling weapon on the bottom, three GPMG barrels above it, and a single autocannon on top. As he walked closer, the barrels on the Gatling guns began to spin, their gears audibly turning inside the imposing armor.

“...is.”

“If the Siphon was not the source, I would have known.... Oh, I see. So you think the Helix will give you answers?”

Gritting her teeth, Undyne set a spear in both hands, her eye unblinking and staring daggers at Hayden, righteous anger filling her to overflowing. The Doom Slayer readied his old weapons, shield guarding his front with his sword arm poised to strike. Though quite frightened, Papyrus stood boldly, surrounding himself with bones and blasters.

“Because, whether it will or not... you won't be alive to receive them.”

Then he opened fire

Almost before the muzzles of his weapons gave their report, the Doom Slayer had rushed to the forefront, raising the Siphon in front of him. Hayden's relentless fire bore down on him relentlessly, pushing him back just a little. The Praetor's arm strained to take the continuous barrage of fire. The Shield would hold out long enough, but he was not sure just how long he himself would.

Luckily, his allies knew the cue to take action.

Circling around him, the two monsters ran to Hayden's flanks, readying blows to his head. As they leaped at him, he immediately ceased fire and shot his arms straight out to the side to swat them both aside with relative ease. The decision was made in a panic, and had not enough killing intent to take them down. Still though, they felt it. It took them a few moments to fully recover, which time was bought by the Doom Slayer. Seeing his window of opportunity, he charged the cyborg faster then he could react, slamming into him with the shield and knocking him down, vulnerable to a coup de grace from the crucible.

Before eh could let his stroke fall, he felt a shocking pain in his gut, then the whole world spun around him before he hit the other side of the room, just missing the Helix Stone. Hayden had kicked him away, laboring to get back up on his feet. He had barely regained his footing when he was set upon by Papyrus. The skeleton had his blasters on him, and in seconds, deafening blasts shook the room as his blasters fired upon the Cyborg, who shielded his face and torso with his arms. He lowered them as Papyrus' fire relented before sending the elbow his way to crush him against the wall before taking a good look at his arms.

It was good for him that he had shielded himself. If he hadn't, his body would be just as melted and useless as his arms now were.

Enraged, he launched the melted nub at Papyrus, barely missing him and punching a hole clean into the steel wall. Before eh could retract it, he saw a blue glow in his periphery. He turned to see Undyne readying her spear. She thrust it at his face, only to plant it in his shoulder as he raised it to guard himself. The magic spear ran it almost all the way through, and the various automated voice in Hayden's head warning him of the damage drove him to near rabid rage. He pulled his arm out of the steel wall, and took a wild back hand swing at Undyne, only to miss and get stuck in the other wall.

“You don't have a chance of stopping us Hayden. Less than a minute and we're already gone with the Helix stone.”

“THAT'S MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME FOR ME TO KILL YOU!””

Firing his rocket batteries, he would have pulverized Undyne were it not for a huge blast from the Doom Slayer's rocket launcher, hitting him in the back of his right leg, making him arch up and unload his rockets into the ceiling, tossing several large steel plates. One of them  severed his right arm, freeing him from the wall. All the more, his body warned him of serious damage and told him repairs were required. The voice drove him mad, and he swung wildly at Undyne with his remaining arm before Papyrus jumped on his back, hooking around him with a blue bone club. The more Hayden thrashed about, the more it burned into his chest. From the unburned side of his arm, a claw came forth, grabbing papyrus and throwing him into Olivia's office.  Luckily, the Skeleton was nimble enough to land on the wall on his feet before jumping down and renewing his attack, readying more blaster fire..

Hayden heard thudding footsteps behind him, and he knew who they heralded. Too crippled to try and fight back, he simply braced himself for the blow, which came from the Praetor's knee to his back, Toppling him over onto his face.

The Praetor then pinned him there under his boot. With one arm gone and one leg crippled, there was no way he was getting back up. The Hell Walker's companions coolly walked over to their fallen opponent, papyrus having put away all weapons, and Undyne seething still with spear in hand. She knelt in front of him, looking into his optic, which slowly raised from the now soot covered ground.

She clenched her spear in anticipation. “Have anything to say for yourself?”

“....go to Hell.”

The Captain bared her teeth in combined anger and satisfaction. “You first...” She stood up and readied her spear, holding it above her head.

Then, blue arcs of tether energy swathed her and her compatriots.

Knowing what was happening, she hurriedly thrust her weapon down, closing her eyes for sake of strain.

She then opened them, and looked down to see that her spear was stuck firmly in the ground of the lab compound.