Your Perspective

"So, who's this 'royal nerd?'" you ask Frisk. The two of you are sitting on the deck of a large wooden raft, and are being ferried along a river by someone Frisk has (very originally) named the River Person.

"A-l-p-h-y-s," Frisk says. You blink, trying to figure out how the heck you're supposed to pronounce that.

"Al-fis?" you ask, trying to sound it out. You made it sound like 'Al' (as in the name) together with something that sounds like the first syllable of 'physical.' Frisk nods. "Okay. And who is Alphys, exactly?"
"She's the royal scientist. She's really good with electronics and stuff," Frisk signs. "She also accidentally made a bunch of zombie monsters, but she doesn't like to talk about that, so don't bring it up."

"Zombie monsters?" you ask, suddenly a little bit anxious to meet this scientist.

"Well, they aren't zombies, exactly," Frisk signs, trying to explain. "They're just dead monsters that she accidentally brought back to life as mutants. They're also very nice... but still, you probably shouldn't ask about it."

"O-Okay then," you mutter.

"Don't worry," Frisk signs. "She's really nice—and you both like anime! I'm sure you'll get along great."

You fall silent as Frisk diverts her attention to the river, playfully letting her hands get swept along by the current. The air gradually grows warmer, and you're eventually forced to take off Sans' jacket.

Wait... Sans' jacket?

"Oh great," you mutter. Frisk turns to you, a questioning look on her face.

"I completely forgot to return this yesterday," you explain, tying the jacket around your waist. "Maybe we should stop by Sans' house on the way back."

"That'd be great!" Frisk signs. "I can tell Dunkle my new joke."

"Oh yeah? What joke is that?" you ask, grimacing. Your sister's jokes are never very funny—they usually don't even make sense.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" Frisk signs. That's it. The joke's already dead.

"I don't know," you say tightly, pinching the bridge of your nose. "Why?"

"To get to the loser's house," Frisk signs.

"That's... really good, Frisk," you lie, forcing a smile onto your face.

"I'm not done yet!" she signs, making a face. "Knock knock."

"Who's there?" you mutter.

"The chicken."

The terrible-ness of the joke is slowly killing you on the inside. Frisk looks at you expectantly, awaiting your reaction. You manage to force yourself to laugh, and Frisk beams at you.

I think I'm finally starting to understand why Sans and Frisk get along so well.

"Tra la la. Uh oh. Suddenly, feeling tropical..." the River Person says. You flinch—you'd almost completely forgotten they were there. And, true to their word, the temperature is getting ridiculously high. Sweat rolls down your forehead in beads, and the river itself seems to be boiling, steam curling off of its surface.

Oh, boy, you think. No wonder they call it the Hotlands.

You pull the neck of your shirt away from your body, trying to cool yourself off a little... but it doesn't help. At all. Even the breeze in this place is stifling hot.

"This is even worse than the heat wave we had last summer," you complain to Frisk. She smirks at you and spreads her arms wide, showing off the fact that she's still wearing her sweater. She, unlike you, seems to be impervious to extreme temperatures.

"Frisk," you groan. "You're some kind of superhuman, you know that?"

She giggles at you and stands up, before turning to stare out into the distance. You follow her gaze, and see that there's a break in the bluish stone that makes up the river wall. Reddish light spills from it, making the river sparkle and look almost purple in color.

"We're almost there," she signs. You carefully get to your feet, trying not to rock the raft as you do. The raft slowly drifts over to the riverbank, where it stops without any prompting.

"Tra la la... all ashore who's going ashore," RP (the River Person) says. Frisk waves to RP before merrily jumping onshore and running off, leaving you in her dust.

"Tra la la... always rushing, always rushing," RP says.

You step off of the boat, and hiss in surprise as you feel the heat of the ground emanating up through your shoes. You uncertainly check your shoe soles, and sigh in relief. By some miracle, they haven't melted.

You thank RP for the ride and then hurry over to Frisk, who's waving to you from beside a large metal building. You slow your pace as you draw closer to it, staring up at the large sign painted onto its front.

'Lab,' you read. That's... uh... predictable. What better place to find a royal nerd than in a giant lab?

The front doors are apparently motion sensitive, because they slide open as Frisk marches towards them. You, however, are more hesitant.

"Um... shouldn't we knock first?" you wonder aloud. Frisk shakes her head, and beckons you forward. "Well, if you say so."

When you step through the open doors, you can't help but be taken aback by how contradicting the place is—it exudes both orderly experimentation and chaotic obsession. Somehow, the sterile characteristics that you normally associate with a 'laboratory' (white tile floors, cameras, exposed pipes, etcetera) are coexisting with what seems to be a anime lover's paradise (in other words; a working computer and piles of empty ramen noodle containers). It kind of reminds you of your own room back on the surface.

As you walk further into the room, you notice that there's a large screen displaying security footage to the left. You pause in your path and stare at it, trying very hard not to judge what you're seeing. The cameras seem to be entirely focused on Frisk, and they follow her as she moves around the room.

That's not creepy. At all. Definitely normal. Yeah.

You hurry to catch up to your sister, who seems to be a little bit... confused, maybe? It's sometimes hard to tell what she's thinking.

"Huh," Frisk says. "She's usually here."

"Well, that's too bad," you say, trying to hide your enthusiasm. "Maybe we should just go home, huh?"

For some reason, you find this place a little unsettling. It doesn't look like much of a working lab to you. Where are all the experiments? The equipment? ...The zombie monsters? They must be around here somewhere... lurking... watching... You shake your head, trying to throw off your unease. Frisk is friends with this Alphys character, and that should be good enough for you.

Besides, you remind yourself. You should never judge a book by its cover. Aren't I the perfect example of that?

"She's probably just downstairs," Frisk signs. "I'll go find her. Stay here."

Frisk heads towards one of the lab's automatic doors, but before she can go through it, a figure exits it. She looks almost like a... a yellow lizard. Or a dinosaur? A yellow dinosaur in a lab coat. Okay, sure. Why not? It wasn't the strangest thing you'd seen down here.

The two of them collide in the doorway, and Frisk ends up on the floor.

"Oh!" the dinosaur exclaims. "S-sorry, F-Frisk. I didn't s-see you there."

She helps your sister up, and then adjusts her glasses, which had gone askew when they'd run into each other. Frisk pulls on her labcoat sleeve, and then points to you. She turns to face you, and her face automatically contorts itself into... a grimace? You aren't entirely sure what emotion that's supposed to be. Pure awkwardness, maybe?

"O-oh, I almost f-forgot," she stutters. "Your F-Frisk's sister, right?"

You wonder for a moment how she knows that. Then you remember the security feed.

"Y-Yeah," you reply. There's so much awkwardness in the air that it seems to be rubbing off on you. You clear your throat and try again.

"Yeah, I'm (Y/N). But you, uh... you probably already knew that," you say, glancing back at the screen. The dinosaur cringes, and goes to clean her glasses—a universal sign of nervousness.

"S-sorry about that," she mutters. "I j-just like to make sure Frisk's d-doing okay. I'm A-Alphys, by the way."

"It's nice to meet you," you say. A stretch of silence passes between the two of you.

You bite your lip and turn away, unsure what you're supposed to do next. It'd been so easy to meet everyone so far—Toriel had instantly accepted you, friendliness was in Papyrus's nature, and Sans... well, you could relate to him. However, that doesn't change the fact that you'd been secluded on a mountain for several years. Despite how it seems, this kind of thing doesn't really come easily to you. Luckily, Frisk comes to your rescue.

"The laptop," she reminds you.

"Oh, right," you say, sliding your bag off of your shoulder. "Um... I know it's a lot to ask, but Frisk tells me that you're really good with electronics and things, so, uh... if it isn't too much trouble..."

You take out the remaining pieces of your poor, shattered laptop.

"Do you think you could fix this?" you ask, trying not to sound too needy. "It... well, it would really mean a lot to me... and... yeah."

Alphys stares down at your busted laptop with an expression on her face that almost exactly mirrored your own when you'd first realized it was broken. She obviously understands just how serious of a situation this is.

"Oh my g-gosh!" she exclaims. "That's h-horrible! Of c-course I'll help!"

Before you have time to find a proper reply, she takes the pieces away from you and whisks them off to a workstation that's crammed somewhat haphazardly into one corner.

"I don't think I can s-salvage the casing, but I-I think the hard drive is m-mostly intact," she says. "I know I have an extra l-laptop body around here s-somewhere..."

Alphys turns into a whirlwind of activity, manipulating the green and black shards so quickly that it makes your head spin. Within what seems like minutes, she has a completely new laptop put together, and is in the process of transferring any salvageable data from your hard drive over to the new one.

"I've w-worked with human c-computers before," Alphys explains, noticing your captivation with her work. "They're a little d-different from m-monster made ones, so I c-can't just put your old h-hard drive into the new body. You d-don't mind... do you?"

"Of course not," you say dazedly. Your still somewhat in awe of how fast she did all of that. "That laptop looks... wow. I've never seen anything quite like it."

It's love at first sight. The laptop has basically the same shape as an apple computer, but it's made entirely of a shiny black metal, and it looks extremely thin and light—it's maybe about half the width of your finger. And, as an added bonus, the keys even light up. You'd always liked it when keyboards did that, but you hadn't ever really had the money to buy anything but old second-hand garbage.

"It's my own d-design," she says proudly. "It should r-run a lot better than your o-old one. It was b-basically trash. Uh... no offense."

"None taken," you say empathetically. "It really did suck."

You feel bad talking about your trusty old laptop that way, but, well... the truth is that it couldn't even compete. Before you can go back to watching your files transfer, you feel a tug at your sleeve.

"What's up, Frisk?" you ask.

"I'm gonna go over to Snowdin, okay? I wanna play with monster kid," she signs. You barely even register what she said. You're too absorbed in Alphys's work.

"Yeah, sure. Go on ahead," you say, turning back to the progress bar. Frisk has already left by the time you realize your mistake.

Oh, crap—I have no idea how to get back! You're startled out of your thoughts as Alphys gasps sharply, looking at the transferring files in rapture.

"I-is... is that?" she asks. She slowly turns to you, a gleam in her eye. "A-anime?"

You briefly recall that Frisk said something about Alphys liking anime. A smile makes its way onto your face as you watch Alphys do a double take.

"Oh my gosh!" she exclaims. "A-are you... an otaku?"

"You could say that, yeah," you confirm.

"Have you ever watched Mew Mew Kissy Cutie? It's the most awesome thing ever. It's about these humans with cat ears that..."

***

"Wow, this is really good," Alphys says.

The two of you are in one of the lab's back rooms watching anime. After realizing that she'd never even heard of half of the anime on your hard drive, you'd offered to watch a few of them with her while you waited for the rest of your data to get transferred. The two of you had decided on Madoka Magica, and after doing a marathon run of all three movies, she's now completely engrossed with it.

"Well, it's not as good as Mew Mew Kissy Cutie, but it's in pretty close competition," she continues. Now that she's more confident about being around you, it seems her stutter has disappeared.

"Yeah. It's one of my favorites," you agree, smiling easily at her. Not only has her stutter vanished, but you're also completely at ease around her now. You suppose that's the power of sharing a fandom.

"All the characters are just... wow. It's all so deep. Tragic, but meaningful, you know?"

"That's why I watch it," you admit. "I love all of their backstories."

"If you had to ship yourself with one of them, who would it be?" she asks, looking at you with an expectant gleam in her eye.

"Hmm..." you hum thoughtfully. "Well, I'm more into guys, myself, but if I had to choose... Sayaka."
"Huh. Really?" she asks, her eyes going wide. "Honestly, I think you and Homura would be a better match. Why Sayaka?"

"Well, I guess I just see a lot of myself in her myself," you say thoughtfully. "And... well, I really like the color blue. I can't resist anything that's blue."

"Huh."

"What about you?" you ask, a mischievous glint to your eye.

"Kyoko. Kyoko is hoooot," Alphys says immediately, a blush entering her scaled face. "But that's probably because she reminds me of my girlfriend."

"You have a girlfriend?" you ask. "Lucky. I've never been in a relationship before."

"Really?!" Alphys exclaims. "But... but you're so—"

She's interrupted by a sharp 'ding' from the other room.

"Oh, it looks like your laptop's ready," she says, grunting as she gets up from the couch. "Come on—let's go check it out."

You follow her into the next room. After unplugging your now-smoking hard drive from the new laptop, she hands it to you, and then waits expectantly for your reaction.

"This... is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," you breathe, slowly running your hand over its irresistibly smooth casing.

"I'm glad you like it," she says, beaming up at you. "It may look like an ordinary laptop, but I gave it a few extra features, too."

"Extra features?" you wonder aloud.

"I'd tell you," she says slyly, methodically adjusting her glasses. "But I think it'll be more fun if you discover them on your own."

"Oh, being mysterious, are we?" you say jokingly. She smiles again, and glances over at your abandoned hard drive.

"All of your old files are on your new laptop, along with your human operating system," she says. "So... do you mind if I keep this?"

"Keep it?" you ask, giving her a quizzical look. "Uh... sure. Why?"

"Well... I mean, if you don't mind... I want to copy over your anime collection," she says sheepishly. "The only anime I can usually get my claws on are the ones that fall into the garbage dump, so..."

"Oh, of course. No problem," you say as you tuck your laptop into your backpack. "It'd actually be really cool to have someone to fangirl with."

"Yeah! You should come over again sometime—I still have to introduce you to Mew Mew Kissy Cutie!" she exclaims. "You'd really like it."

"I'm sure I will," you agree.

"Oh, here, I'll give you my number—we can choose a day for it later," she says, scribbling her number on a scrap of paper for you. You get your old-fashioned flip-phone out of your backpack, and start navigating to your contact list, only to realize...

"Oh... no service," you note with a sigh. "Of course. I'm underground."

"That would be a problem," Alphys says, a satisfactory grin lighting up her face. "If it weren't for your fabulous new laptop."

"Huh?"

"I know that I said I'd let you figure out all its tricks on your own, but... this is practically an emergency," she says. "No one can survive nowadays without a phone. Press the power button three times fast."

You follow her advice, and watch in amazement as the laptop begins to fold in on itself. When it stops moving, it's compacted so tightly that all you're left with is a square of metal about the size of a smart phone. Then, you realize that there's a good reason for that—it is a smart phone. You're left completely speechless.

"Well, what do you think?" Alphys asks. As the silence continues to stretch on, Alphys seems to get a little nervous. "U-Uh... (Y/N)?"

You turn to her, your eyes wild.

"This. Is. Freakin'. Amazing!" you shriek, totally geeking out. "That was so cool! How did you do that?! Some kind of magic? It's amazing! Why don't we have this kind of thing on the surface?! Thank you so much, Alphys!"

You're so happy that you actually end up hugging the shorter monster.

"I-I didn't do that much, really," she says modestly as you pull away. She self-consciously fiddles with her glasses, but she looks really pleased with herself. "I'm just glad you like it."

"Like it? I love it!" you exclaim, trying (and failing) to keep from giggling hysterically. You turn it on, and while you're unfamiliar with the details of it, it seems fairly similar to a human iPhone. You easily find the contacts app and register Alphys's number.

"Well," you say, grinning like a manic, "I have my first ever contact! I can't wait to show Frisk—this is so cool!"

"Oh, I signed you up for the Undernet, too," Alphys says, helping you navigate to the Undernet app. "It's a social network site. I already friended you... t-that's okay right?"

"Yeah, of course," you say, smiling at her. "After watching nearly six hours of anime with you, I definitely think you're qualified to be my first Undernet friend."

"Great," she sighs, looking relieved. "That was a little bit of a risky move on my part."

"Anyway, I should probably get going," you say. "Wouldn't want Toriel to start worrying about me."

"Yeah, we wouldn't want that," she says, smiling. "Message me later?"

"Will do."

You wave as you head towards the lab's front door, storing your awesome new laptop-phone hybrid safely in your pocket as you go.

Oh, wait. I still have no idea how to get back.

"Uh, actually," you call, hesitating a few feet away from the front doors. "I have no idea how to get back to Snowdin."

"Um," Alphys says, hurrying over to you. "That could be a problem. I'd ask Mettaton to escort you, but I'm still working on his repairs. And I can't stand Snowdin... it's too cold. Uh... I guess I could call Frisk for you—"

The lab's front doors suddenly whir open, and the both of you halt your conversation as you turn to see who it is. A familiar skeleton is nonchalantly making his way over to the two of you, looking around the lab with what you think you identify as nostalgia. When he notices that the two of you are staring, he winks at you.

"'Sup," Sans says, briefly taking a hand out of his pockets to wave.

"S-Sans?!" Alphys exclaims, looking slightly put off. "W-what are you doing here?"

"Welp, tibia honest with you," Sans says, grin growing ever so slightly as he pulls off the pun, "it wasn't my idea. The kid sent me to make sure that Buttercup here didn't get lost. She apparently has a really bad sense of direction."

You face immediately starts to burn, both at the nickname and at the truth behind Frisk's statement. Sans notices right away, and you can feel your face kick it up a notch as he smirks at you.

"Well, whaddya say, Buttercup?" Sans asks. "You need an escort?"

"Well, I'm not going to say no after you came all this way," you mutter, trying your best to look unperturbed. It's not working very well, so you switch tactics, crossing your arms and looking away.

Why does he keep calling me Buttercup?!

Alphys is looking between the two of you with an unidentifiable expression on her face. Then she slowly smiles, and you can see a mysterious glint appear in her eye.

"Well, you two should get going," she says quickly. She pushes you towards Sans from behind. "Wouldn't want to keep Frisk waiting, right?"

"W-woah, hey!" you protest.

You lose your balance when she releases you, and you nearly fall into Sans. Luckily, you manage to catch your balance. When you turn back to look at Alphys, she looks almost disappointed that the two of you didn't collide. It only takes her a few moments to perk up, though, and she looks noticeably excited as she scurries further into the lab.

"I'll see you later, (Y/N)," she calls over her shoulder. "Remember—you and I have a date with Mew Mew Kissy Cutie!"

"U-uh, right," you stammer, still somewhat confused over what just happened. "Sure."

You watch as Alphys practically runs up the escalator, and then disappears from view onto the second floor.

...What was that all about? you wonder.

You shrug and turn to Sans, steeling yourself against the inevitable barrage of puns that you see in your near future. You open your mouth to say that you're ready to leave, but words abandon you as you notice the blue tinge to his cheekbones... and how ridiculously close the two of you are standing. Your nose is practically brushing his forehead. You immediately take a step back, your blush easily reentering your cheeks.

"S-Sorry!" you exclaim.

"Oh, uh... it's nothing," he mutters, his gaze shifting away. "How about's we get out of here?"

"Y-yeah," you stammer. Desperate to escape the tension in the air, you lead the way, practically running out of the lab doors. Sans easily catches up to you, and the two of you start to make your way back through the hotlands.

"Oh!" you exclaim, untying Sans' jacket from around your waist. "Here—I forgot to return this yesterday."

"What, that old thing?" he asks. "Keep it. I've got another one just like it."

"Huh," you say. You hadn't paid any attention to it earlier, but the jacket he's wearing now is identical to the one you'd just offered to him. "Well, if you're sure..."

"Yup. You need it more than I do... and besides, it suits you," he says, winking at you.

"Alright," you say, retying it around your waist. Then you turn to look at him critically, noting how comfortable he looks, despite wearing a fur-lined hoodie in the middle of a natural furnace. "Aren't you hot in that?"

"I'm hot in anything."

"Is that a skeleton thing? Or..." you trail off as you realize what he meant. You snort and roll your eyes at him. "Wow. Really, Sans?"

"Heh. I couldn't resist," he says, his permanent grin widening. "Not when you set it up for me like that."

"You seem really happy today," you note, mirroring his grin with one of your own. "Or... at least compared to yesterday, anyway. Did something happen?"

"Not really," he says, sighing happily alongside the words. "I'm just glad that it's finally Friday."
"Finally?" you ask.

"Believe it or not, this is the first Friday I've seen in... oh, a year? Give or take a few resets?"

"Wow. No wonder you're happy—the weekend is right around the corner."

"Yup. My first weekend after nearly a year of nonstop sentry duty."

"That's gotta be a big deal to you. Are you planning on doing anything?"

"Nope. I'm doing absolutely nothing," he says, a look of euphoria entering his face. "It's gonna be great."

"Maybe I'll follow your example," you say. You can't help but smile at the thought of spending a whole day doing nothing but writing and watching anime. "I really need some down time after everything that's happened this week."

"Heh. I can imagine," Sans says. "The Underground is probably a lot to take in at once."

Then he looks over at you, and the slightest hint of blue enters his cheekbones.

"Well, y'know... if you ever need a couch to veg out on, you can always drop by my place."

You vaguely remember that Toriel's living room didn't have any couch in it—or a TV, for that matter.

"I might just take you up on that," you tell him.

"Oh, and I almost forgot—Paps has officially invited you and the kid over for dinner tomorrow. He wants to show off his spaghetti collection," Sans says.

"Sounds good," you say, gladly accepting the offer. Toriel's been talking about making snail pie for the last few days, and it's not something you're really looking forward to.

"I'll warn you, though—my brother's spaghetti isn't always edible."

"That's okay," you say. "If worst comes to worst, I can always..."

You trail off as a distant figure catches your eyes. It's entirely grey, which makes it stand out against the orange of the Hotlands, and it seems to be staring right at you. You stop walking as you stare back at it, a shiver running up your spine.

You can't make out much from so far away, but there's something kind of... creepy about them. They seem to be a young monster, and, like Alphys, kind of resemble a dinosaur. Their striped, armless body is balanced by a reptilian tail, and spines form a line on the top of their head. However, that's not what makes you uneasy.

Their body is completely grey, as though they'd had the color leeched out of them. You suppose that it could be natural, but instinct tells you otherwise. And their eyes... they're completely empty. Lifeless. As your eyes meet their empty ones, a small smile crosses their face, as though they were happy to be noticed.

"(Y/N)?"

Sans voice sounds like it's echoing from the far end of a long corridor—distant and indistinct. You barely register it as you continue to watch the monster. They cock their head to one side, and then the other... almost as if they're trying to find the best angle to look at you.

"(Y/N)?" Sans asks again, resting his hand lightly on your shoulder. His touch snaps you out of your stupor, and his concern-filled eye sockets lock with your eyes as you turn to look at him. "(Y/N)? Is something wrong? What were you looking at?"

"Oh, uh... nothing important, really," you say uncertainly. "It was just some monster kid. They were right over... there?"

In the time that you'd looked away, the monster had vanished, as if into thin air.

"That's weird," you mutter. "They were there a minute ago."

"...Are you sure it was a monster?" Sans asks, a hint of worry in his voice. "It wasn't... Chara, was it?"

A chill sweeps through you at the name, and it refuses to go away.

"No. No, it definitely wasn't Chara," you say, trying in vain to fend off the goose bumps that are forming on your arms.

"Well, either way—I'm not sure I wanna hang around here anymore," Sans says. "You wanna take a shortcut?"

"Yeah," you agree. "Yeah, let's get out of here."

Author's Note

Wow. This is so Awesome! 30,000 reads? 700+ hearts?!! I'm practically dying of happiness over here! Thank you all so much for your continued support! It really means a lot to me. (Again, this was on Quotev.)

I also have some acknowledgements to make. Firstly, huuuuuge thanks to Dweebycake  for the awesome new cover. It's incredible, and I would never have been able to make something like that myself. Secondly, you have my brother to thank for the god-awful joke at the beginning of the chapter. 

Now, as you've probably noticed, I like having active readers (hence the reason I keep asking questions and stuff). So, here's my next question: what is Alphys up to? (Hmm, that one may be a little bit easy, but I'm running low on ideas here. -_-)