Understay - an Undertale Fanfic

Understay IX - Here We Are

He kept seeing things. Odd visions, blinking in and out of sight around the corners of his eyes.

"Um, they're really jittery..." he heard Alphys mutter.

"Who are?" Frisk asked.

"I'll explain in a second." Alphys opened another door, stepping aside to let Frisk enter first. He did, glancing behind him. Who was watching them?

"Alphys, what's going on?" he muttered, glancing around cautiously.

"L-like I said, Gaster was trying to get the barrier open in advance, and, uh, he looked at what made it, what would take it down. Seven human magicians made it, s-so it'd take that much power to bring it down."

"Human magicians? I thought only monsters could use magic..."

"Th-that's true now, but it, uh, it wasn't always like that. Point is, we, we quickly realised the barrier was powered not by magic, but by their Determination. We, uh, we couldn't do anything as it was, so Gaster tried something risky... he tried to extract Determination with this." she gestured to the side, bringing a torch to bear. Its dull, yellow light was enough to show a towering machine, one that looked almost like a distorted skull, soaked in a dull red that was reminiscent of both rust and blood. Frisk shuddered, taking a step away from this horror. "D-don't worry, it, um, it's disabled, I, I destroyed some of the parts it needs to work. Nobody's using this thing again."

"What is it?"

"Gaster's project. It's... a weapon, I think? It shoots a beam that doesn't hurt monsters, but, um, it drains Determination. W-we tried to use this drained Determination to break the barrier, but, um, that didn't work, so we... we injected samples into injured monsters."

-----

"Injured? By what?"

"Other humans, accidents, just... you know, stuff." Alphys chuckled awkwardly, but this didn't last. "It turns out that while we could drain Determination, we, uh, we couldn't make new stuff. It was Gaster again that discovered you could turn Determination into something he called Resolution." Frisk blinked, remembering the name from Sans. Alphys didn't notice, and so continued. "We were going to test it on monsters but, um... s-something went wrong. The monsters that had, um, fallen down, they were getting up, walking around."

"But that sounds good, it sounds great!"

"I-it would have been great if, uh, if that was all they did." She glanced around, almost afraid that somebody was listening. "They... started melting, they, they became something else..."

"What?"

"They, um, they... they started to mix. I-I call them Amalgamates now, but they're, they're friendly enough. Just scared."

"Y-yeah..." Frisk mumbled, glancing around nervously. Were these Amalgamates watching them? "Uh, I, I guess we've seen enough..."

"Yeah, l-let's go." Alphys nodded, smiling in relief. They hastened back to the elevator, but had to stop. A huge, white mass was blocking the way, a strange... hole staring at them from a raised head.

-----

"En-Endogeny!" Alphys stammered, taking a step back. "Down, boy!" The mass growled, a strange echo of a howl that bounced around the creature's body before visiting the hall. Frisk stood in front of her, protecting her. The growl stopped as the "head" tilted, a snuffling sound emanating from beneath its goopy mass as it approached. "Frisk, be careful!" Alphys warned.

"I'm okay." Frisk smiled, slowly extending a hand. "Come on, boy." The mass shuffled closer, the hole gasping air in with a terrific sniffing sound.