SCI
A small little yelp was heard as Sci pulled back on the one dragging him to their destination, Alphys obviously not expecting this had jerked back and gave a slight panicked look back towards him, wondering why on earth her momentum was interrupted.
‘’Ah Al, how about we don’t rush down there? I mean at least not with you dragging me. I don’t feel like taking the pain train tonight if something goes wrong.’’ He gave a smile and watched his companion look down the stairs that were right ahead of them that went down into the depths, stairs that would be quite painful if they rushed down and fell in any shape or form.
‘’Oh r-right, y-yeah s-sorry, got a bit a-ahead of myself…’’, with an embarrassed look away she apologised, and as if to get away from the situation itself she just ran down the stairs all by herself, leaving Sci at the top. The skeleton chuckled as he slowly and calmly walked down the steps, wondering what on earth he was going to find.
As he approached the bottom of his descent he started to smell the familiar scents of metal, chemicals and different oils that keep machinery working. Sci soon stepped down on the floorboards of the basement floor, or the so-called lab. The lab he ended up seeing before him wasn’t as glamourous as he was hoping, but then he proceeded to remind himself that this was only a civilian lab, it was impressive for what it was, he couldn’t judge it based on his company standards. The room itself didn’t look like a lab with simple oak floorboards and the walls made of old and worn looking brick, but it was what occupied the room that made it what it was. Three large second hand desks that didn’t match were pushed right up against different walls, all seeming to fit different purposes, it made him feel happy that she was at least organised with the equipment. However, that slight pride in his friend was shattered as he walked over to one of the desks, one that was just full of paper with scrawls and diagrams of things and machines. Sci went to pick up the top most plan, but he had been so focussed on looking around that he didn’t notice Alphys’ small form until she was right behind him and taking the plans, putting them to her chest.
‘’Oh heh s-sorry, l-lets n-not get into th-that now, th-these… these plans aren’t r-really p-presentable at th-the moment. I’ll m-make s-sure to find something to sh-show… hopefully, just look somewhere else for now a-alright?’’ She gave a nervous smile towards the skeleton as she put the plans back on the desk.
Sci nodded and shrugged, ‘’Yeah I can understand that, let me know if you have something to share’’.
After waiting for a nod from Alphys he headed over to another desk, this one seemed to be cleaner than the others, but obviously only from its lack of use. The only reason he could determine it being used less was because it had a bunch of flasks, test tubes, a bunson burner and other things that had to do with chemistry, which if he remembered correctly, wasn’t a subject the owner was really into. Under closer examination among the clear glass containers there were two that were being used. An unlabelled Conical Flask was filled about three quarters of the way up with some yellow chemical that smelt of fuel. There was also a small petri dish being used nearby, which to his annoyance of its improper use here, was filled with some form of salt like substance, he thought momentarily about picking up some of the white substance, but he decided against it quickly.
‘’Hey Alphys, what we got here? Didn’t realise you were becoming a bit of a Chemistry nerd’’. He looked over to Alphys who had just been rifling through her papers. With the mention of her name she made eye contact and didn’t say anything for a few long seconds, as if she was thinking about what was going on, before speaking.
‘’Y-yeah, t-trying to br-broaden my horizons y-you know? Got to um improve on y-your weaknesses… you c-can understand th-that right?’’
The skeleton monster gave a thumbs up of agreement, ‘’I suppose you’re right, doubt I have an atom of a clue when it comes to advanced chemistry, mind teaching me what’s going on here?’’
The lizard scampered over to the desk with Sci and started off by pointing at the flask with yellow liquid, ‘’W-well f-first off th-this is um model engine fuel… or a-also called Glow Fuel.’’ She then gave a glance towards the white salt, ‘’Also th-this is Ammonium N-nitrate, a chemical c-compound that is ummm…. Oh y-yeah, used f-for fertilizer or s-something’’.
Sci noticed she seemed be nervously tapping her fingers together as she tried to think of it’s use, guess you couldn’t just pull info out of your head when learning something new? ‘’Heh that sounds pretty cool Alph, but what exactly are you doing with these? Planning to mix them together for some magic potion?’’
Alphys seemed to almost panic for a moment at the mention of mixing them together, but then quickly calmed down almost abnormally, calmly shaking her head. ‘’No, all we’re doing is examining the compounds and all the atoms and such that make up these things. We can’t learn the basics if we don’t understand how it works in the first place. We’ll learn to mix and do other stuff at a later date when we feel more comfortable…’’ She stopped for a moment before giving a nervous smile, personality transforming abnormally again. ‘’D-don’t w-worry, I’ll m-make sure to get y-you involved whenever a s-scientific breakthrough is made down h-here. It c-can be your l-lab to, th-that sound good?’’.
Sci was disturbed about that familiar behaviour from his companion that he hadn’t really seen since that incident, but he knew from experience asking her about it was a waste of time, so he ended giving a friendly smile, a genuine smile. ‘’Yeah Alph, that sounds really nice. But only if you’re ok with that of course.’’
‘’O-of Course I Am!!’’, the other monster suddenly exclaimed
The fleshless scientist chuckled, ‘’Alright, well from what I see here, looks like we got ourselves a deal, it’ll be refreshing to do this type of thing outside of a work environment I think, less restrictions and regulations.’’
He put his hand out, ‘So we both in agreement?’, that’s what he would’ve said if Alphys hadn’t grabbed his hand with both of hers in an instant and started shaking it. A nervous smile of his own appeared at the reaction as he watched the other scientist’s gleeful grin, he could feel the excitement rolling off her and flooding the room around them and to be honest he was starting to find it so infectious any worry from before was vanquished in an instant.
After the girl finally let go of his hand he used it to gesture to the last desk he hadn’t looked at yet. ‘’Shall we?’’
Sci’s happy grin filled her with energy that caused her to hurry over in the direction of Sci’s hand, only the thing matching her speed was how fast she was talking. ‘’O-of c-course, I must say y-you have a good taste in s-saving best for last. This is where a-all the mechanic and m-machinery side of things, where I m-make all the little doodads and all the s-super cool stuff, of course I’ll try t-to m-make some r-room for you, j-just wasn’t e-expecting anyone a-any time soon, I’ll j-just have to figure out wh-where to put e-everything and all, guess a-also s-sorry for th-the mess s-such, th-that would be p-polite of me, d-don’t want to be rude t-to a g-guest and a-all.’’
It was easy to tell this was the section that was most used, after all unlike the other ones this was more than just a desk, with the large amount of machines big and small piled around the floor making it the odd one out, with it being the messiest but also the most used. The desk itself barely had any spare room as well, with small electrical things and parts strewn over it, things he couldn’t really tell what they were, he assumed only the creator herself knew. There was really only space for paper and pencils which were in the middle of the table in a non-orderly fashion, nothing in the scene in front of the skeleton showed any kind of neatness or order. However despite that, the fact that all the devices look well looked after and the details of the notes strewn around showed that this mess of work station didn’t hinder the girl at all, all he could sense was passion and happiness in this area and the work, only from someone who really enjoyed what they did.
‘’No Al, you just leave it as it is, I don’t want you to change anything for my sake. I’ll work around you, not the other way around’’.
Alphys cocked her head to side lightly and looked surprised, ‘’R-really? Are y-you sure y-you w-want to deal w-with this m-mess?’’
Sci smiled, ‘’Of course I will, I’m quite adaptable you know? Also…’’, he gave a nervous chuckle , ‘’…this type of work is why I’m here in the first place.’’
Suddenly the other monster looked a little protective of her machines as she stepped in between him and the desk, giving a suspicious squint of sorts.
‘’Wh-what d-did you do? Wh-what on e-earth were you t-trying to make, s-some sort o-of nuclear f-fission d-device… wait n-no that’s to big… w-were you working w-with plain old g-gunpowder?’’
‘’I… tried making a toaster’’.
Sudden simplicity impacted Alphys right in the face as all that was seen on her was shock and horror, ‘’A-a-a-a-a TOASTER?!’’
Sci looked to be sweating a little bit, ‘’No no no, not just any toaster, one that could cook toast to a precise perfection one hundred percent of the time, of course it had to use experimental materials which is obviously where the explosive reaction came from, in hind sight it probably wasn’t the greatest idea, wish I had this hindsight back then’’.
Alphys sighed and let down her guard as her tension disappeared, ‘’Y-you’re g-going to have to write d-down what y-you did so I can w-work out what was wrong.’’ She let out a huff as she thought for a moment, ‘’Although f-for now, no o-offence of c-course, I w-would prefer it i-if you r-ran your… p-plans for c-creation through me o-ok? I-I don’t think m-many p-people are going t-to w-want to take all th-three of us in if this house b-burns down… or at l-least the both of us’’.
A thumbs up from a skeletal hand appeared out of his lab coat pocket, ‘’Heh, no offense taken. In this lab, I am merely your assistant, I accept that term.’’
Alphys shook her head, ‘’I-I p-prefer th-the term partner, we’re e-equals after all w-with different expert-tise, we h-help each o-other out. T-team e-effort alright?’’
Sci had to commend her on so willingly allowing someone else to just use your science space, a kindness that he wasn’t even sure he could replicate with his stuff, he wouldn’t have felt quite as comfortable as she was, but he supposed he was lucky she wasn’t like him. ‘’Of course, if that’s what you really want, then I see no reason to object’’.
The lizard scientist nodded, obviously incredibly happy with the result of this conversation, he wasn’t sure if he had seen her this happy before ever, he would even be hard pressed to think of a time recently his Alphys had got this excited, maybe when she found out about Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2… that only made the fallout of that specific situation all the worse though. At the moment, the Alphys in front of him had been distracted by the desk full of devices, looking over them all, his best guess to why was wondering which of them to show off first. Similar to his reptilian companion, Sci’s attention had just been drawn to something else, a strange part of the room that was bothering him. Away from the desks of things was this large rectangle that was embedded into the wall, eerily reminding him of a door thanks to it’s shape and position on the wall. He approached the black object with a curious demeanour to examine the material it was made of, which upon examination with his eyes and the feelings from touching it with his hands, he could only conclude it was simple, hard wood. That’s what every sense told him, everything about it just seemed wooden, the only thing that was a little different was the feeling of it. Sci scratched at it and black marking stained his hand rather easily, the black was obviously thickly done, but weak paint, making the wooden thing feel a little weirder. So as far as he could tell, there was this random scrappily painted wooden slab just embedded into the wall for no apparent reason, no way he couldn’t comment on it at all.
‘’May I ask, what on earth is this… thing?’’, Sci called out, his gaze not leaving the subject of his question.
Alphys put down some sort of gizmo she was messing with and turned towards Sci, looking curious to what he was talking about. That curiosity disappeared as she followed his gaze and faintly laughed as she realised what he meant.
‘’Oh, th-that th-thing… just s-some h-helpful th-thing…’’, she nervously smiled at the other monster.
Sci made a small ‘hmm’ sound as he listened to the response, ‘’You know Al I won’t be able to use this entire lab to its full potential if I don’t know what everything does, could you please inform me? Got me *deathly* curious’’.
‘’uummm y-yeah… o-ok, j-just I b-barely u-understand it m-myself’’. Alphys took a deep breath before starting, hesitating slightly, he assumed it was to collect her thoughts, ‘’W-well my Gaster h-has been s-supplying me n-nicely with all th-this s-science equipment and well h-he discovered th-this new m-material he g-gave me a chunk of. Uh it’s special…. B-because it’s in-invincible t-to everything t-tested so far.’’
The skeleton had a look of instant suspicion as heard that, ‘’Really? That doesn’t sound right. How come I haven’t heard of such a massive discovery? New materials aren’t exactly something that is ignored in the science community’’.
Even Alphys looked quite uncertain at that point, ‘’Y-yeah I suppose y-you’re right… I guess h-he just h-hasn’t published h-his findings yet?’’ Her nervous demeanour only increased as Sci’s suspicious look grew greater, he found the theory a little ridiculous. ‘’H-hey… y-you can test it out i-if you w-want? U-use one o-of those… G-g-gaster Blasters if y-you want’’.
Sci grumbled a little bit, ‘’I would prefer it if you just called them blasters, or something else. They don’t need to be always associated with him, they’re mine after all.’’ He looked on at this supposed new material with a sceptical look, normally he wouldn’t feel comfortable summoning one of those things, but he knew if he didn’t now, his curiosity would get the better of him later. With a blue flash of his eye, he winced slightly as he put effort into creating a large beast skull in mid air and pointed it towards the target. He then groaned a little as he made it charge up and then fire at full power, a large blue laser coming from the blasters mouth, feeling a little heat emanating as it passed him to hit the object. With a sigh, he clicked to make his blaster disappear and looked at the embedded rectangle, smoke was coming off it with a slight smell of burnt paint, but besides that, there was no visible damage whatsoever.
He turned back to Alphys, catching a small look of disappointment in her eyes, ‘’Alright, Al I give, it’s pretty nice I guess, just why do you have it on your wall like that?’’ Sci gave a slight chuckle, all suspicion being replaced by a curious smile, he always was happy to learn something new.
‘’Oh uh… it’s u-used to t-test h-how p-powerful a b-blast or some o-other destructive f-force is… also for th-the blasts r-range and such… s-stuff like th-that?’’ Alphys gave a smile and a slight shrug.
Sci nodded and the two of them remained in silence for a little bit before the skeleton broke the quiet atmosphere that was being created. ‘’Well that was a lot of fun, thanks Al, but I think we’re done here, how about we head back? I feel like I might need some sleep in a bit.’’
Alphys nodded, obviously slightly reluctant to agree with him, ‘’Y-yeah alright, l-lets go.’’ She headed towards the stairs that lead back up to the main house, waiting for Sci to join her at the bottom of the stairs before turning off the lights from the switch nearby. The pitch black room was the final reason they needed to climb the stairs upwards.
Once more it was Sci who broke the silence, the more confident of the two deciding to continue conversation, although he did have a reason that wasn’t small talk, ‘’I think I’ve figured how to pay you back for your excellent hospitality.’’
Alphys looked a little surprised, not entirely expecting him to bring something like that up, ‘’Uh wh-what… wh-what are you talking about? Th-there’s no n-need…’’.
‘’What if I supplied you with more equipment or supplies, things that we need whenever, we can have access to.’’
‘’Wh-what? Fr-from where?’’
Sci chuckled, ‘’Well I noticed that besides that black thing, you only seem to have cheap stuff or at least the bare minimum, not sure why your Gaster doesn’t supply more or you don’t get more from your work place. But I’ve decided to help us improve this hobby with the help of my job.’’
Alphys went from looking nervous to hopeful in almost an instant, ‘’Y-you mean you c-can do th-that? Th-that’s a th-thing y-you can do?’’
The skeleton gave two thumbs up with both of his hands. ‘’Sure can, don’t you worry about a thing, it’ll be alright. Together we’ll be able to create bigger and better creations.’’
They both got to the top of the stairs and exited through the door, Alphys closed the door behind them and beamed at him, ‘’Th-that sounds r-really nice. Th-thank you so much Sci, g-glad t-to have y-you around. You’re a g-good friend y-you know?’’
Sci shrugged, ‘’Just want to be helpful you know? No need to thank me whatsoever, I just look forward to all this.’’
With a sound of agreement from the lizard monster they both headed down the hall and back out towards the main areas of the residence.
Upon arriving back towards the dining room, they were greeted by a happy goat child, Sci was sensing that he had been preparing to share this lightbulb idea for at least the last ten minutes or so. ‘’Hey you know what we should do? In celebration of Sci’s arrival we should have a movie night or something, like we did last week. The best kind of introduction to the Glitch household!’’
Sci nervously smiled, ‘’Yeah I don’t think I can manage one to-‘’
Alphys without really realising it cut him off while looking at Asgore, ‘’O-of course, th-that’s an awesome idea, w-we need to g-get him st-started on the C-curse of Rebellion, that way we all can be big fans of it.’’
The two of them looked to Sci with determined and excited faces, waiting for a response from him. With looks like that he would’ve had trouble saying no to them both, even now when he was feeling a little drowsy. ‘’Alright fine, I reckon I can watch a little something tonight’’.
The other two looked at each other with expressions of triumph, ‘’A-alright, l-lets get st-started’’
‘’Wait! Sci’s so far behind us, we’re going to need to catch him up A.S.A.P, It’s going to be so boring if takes a week for him to catch up, so I think there is only one solution!!’’, Asgore exclaimed confidently.
Sci didn’t like the sound of where this was going and attempted a weak objection, ‘’H-hey w-wait a moment…’’
Alphys made a small noise of agreement as she seemed to be thinking, ‘’Oh y-yes, y-you’re right… th-that would be the o-only solution, w-we need to b-binge that entire f-first series and m-movie in one go.’’
‘’Hang on, doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous?’’
Similar to Alphys, Asgore didn’t appear to register any sound coming from the skeleton, ‘’Hmmm if we start right now, we’ll be done about late morning tomorrow, that sounds perfect and since we don’t have anything on tomorrow, nothing will stand in our way!’’ he punched the palm of his hand in a dramatic fashion as he grinned happily.
Alphys gave a high pitch giggle of excitement, ‘’Yes!! Alright, I’ll g-go g-get the blankets, y-you go s-set it up.’’ The lizard monster than ran out of the room, leaving the goat and skeleton all by themselves.
‘’W-wait Asgore, I-I don’t think I can-‘’
Asgore simply shook his head and started talking in some dramatic deep voice that seemed ridiculous to him, the kid was way to hyped up, ‘’Never fear my skeletal compatriot, I will not fail in my mission, however I am to busy to receive comments. See you soon, hope you enjoy the grand show that will be put on for your entertainment’’. Just like Alphys he sped out of the room without answering his comments.
Sci could only look on in dismay as everyone else was setting up events that were out of his control, some regret was starting to appear with him, all he could do was wonder why this was happening to him? Oh why did he have to blow up his apartment. ‘’Guess this is just some form of Karma huh?’’
With a sigh, the scientist headed towards the lounge to meet his fate.
