ok but neutral ending au where the human kills undyne, mettaton, asgore, and various other monsters while leaving their cruel words behind. alphys survives, buries her grief and self-deprivation under anger. toriel emerges from the ruins and claims the throne for herself, expecting quiet acceptance and servitude to her new rule.
what she meets is hatred. they are angry at her for letting the horrid being out of the ruins, for letting their leaders die and thinking that she could slot herself back into the kingdom after she abandoned them. she scrambles, looking for any way to redeem herself in the eyes of her people, realizing she cannot get away with any more mistakes. she seeks out sans, knowing his brother is a powerful monster and one that can be easily accepted by the population as the new head of the royal guard because of sans’s backing. papyrus doesn’t want the job, but she gently cups his face between her strong, strong paws and tells him that he does not have a choice. the underground will fall apart without him, and it will be his fault. (he accepts.)
she goes to alphys next. orders her to resume determination testing and to begin a new project that grafts LOVE and DT together. alphys starts again, but she will not be beaten that easily by someone more cowardly and manipulative than her. the human had taken all softness and submissiveness out of her when they murdered her crushes and her creations before her very eyes. something new is created, something better than what had created flowey, leaving behind the test subjects horribly changed. she takes asgore’s dust and injects the solution into it. (it works.)
asgore is not the kind monster he once was. he is made out of determination and LOVE and grief, a twisted parody of the formerly gentle ruler. he reveals what toriel forced alphys to do and leaves the public to remove her from the throne and cast her into the ruins once again. monsterkind is not as kind as what they once were. the human took their kindness and mercy from them. the affects of alphys’s allegedly forced subjects have strip almost all of the remaining softness from their fragile souls; all they can do is protect themselves, now. their king matches them– he no longer feels regret and sadness for his past mistakes, ruling the underground as a benevolent dictator. (he can’t really feel anything anymore.)
(undyne is not resurrected. only sludge remains of her, kept carefully in the true labs, carefully monitored for any hint that she is regaining her previous form. she never does.)
papyrus struggles with his new position of power. he yearns for when his puzzles were not deadly and he could offer mercy instead of precise machines that are made to shed blood and battles that end with him grasping desperately at the control he has left. he prides himself on his low LOVE, knowing that he has much more restraint than most of the monsters underground now. he remains in snowdin, preferring the quaint town to waterfall because it reminds him of cyan spears, burnt spaghetti and clanking armor. the newly dubbed ‘mad mew mew’ watches over waterfall for him, her anger settling in nicely to the underground that has been born out of dust and LOVE. it’s easier to be himself there– hotland is far, far away, and the comforting snow wraps around him like a blanket. (sometimes his fingers itch for a fight, for freshly spilled dust, for the high that comes from gaining another LVL. that’s when he secludes himself in his shed turned office and swallows down the urge to break something. it’s easier to remind himself of who he is and what his morals are when he’s not surrounded by bright snow; it reminds him of the glaring walls of the lab and alphys’s shaky hands as she injects him with another around of LOVE and determination. but sometimes he can’t get to his shed in time. sometimes asgore is at his back and sans is by his side and he has show his loyalty to the crown. sometimes if he does not pick a life then he will loose his own or stars forbid someone more innocent than he. sometimes he is showing MERCY in the best way that he can. he has never been so grateful for the ability to manipulate his STATS than when the itch has been sated and he has to wash his gloves before sans comes home.)
sans doesn’t really change, or at least he hopes so. he still goes to grillby’s, still sells illegal hotcats, still wears the grimy old jacket that he usually does, even if it does need the occasional patch. the most that has changed about him is that his coat is now primarily red as blue cloth stopped being manufactured after asgore declared that all people within the government must wear red because it symbolizes blood and determination and LOVE as well as remembrance of the past and a promise for the future. it doesn’t bother him at all. people are more friendly to him now that he wears the color– whether it’s out of fear or genuine respect does not really matter to him. he finds it hilarious that people see him as an important figure because of the color, but hey it does make it so more people buy hotcats. other than the jacket, the other thing that’s mostly changed about him is that he’s gotten a teensy bit less lazy. just a smidgen. he can’t afford to take real deep naps anymore because people might try and snatch him up for some free EXP or as leverage against his brother, but that’s really about it. (he ignores his STATS now– he doesn’t like the reminder of how much that snot-nosed brat actually made him change for better or for worse. he hates changing. changing takes effort and effort requires the absence of laziness.)
((if you can’t tell because of my wacky writing it’s a neutral ending au where undertale becomes underfell through dubious science and zombie kings.))