It made so much sense now, how Ink didn't have a soul.

With multiple personality disorder in monsters, the multiple souls would fight until one remained and took over the body, like how sharks would before they were even born, so only the strongest remained. It was natural, a survival tactic that wasn't really mentioned. Plenty of monsters went through it, so no one ever thought about it that much. But, of course, there were the rare through that had different results, such as a human soul and a monster soul that couldn't destroy each other like the others because of their different species, and now this, something Cross hadn't heard of before.

But it did make sense. His soul was weak after the battle too, so he was behind other kids his age because his soul was recovering from the battle. Souls that are too brutally beat up, especially at a young age, can be destroyed altogether. So, Ink's soul must've been too weak from the battle, and died while his body continued living. Cross didn't know much about the nature of a soul, but judging by Flowey, not all creatures needed a soul to live. Souls, for monsters, were just a collection of magic and emotions, so they wouldn't really need a soul to live. It would give them emotions and the ability to use magic, but that was about the extent of it.

Unfortunately, there was no way to solve this. Souls couldn't be made out of thin air, souls were created from other souls through soul binding. So, unless some monster gave birth to a soul with it not having a body or a personality, Ink could probably have that one. But, of course, that wouldn't happen.

It was now around the middle of the day as they continued on their little journey, the three of them stopping at a small store to buy them all a quick snack before they continued onwards, except for Flowey, who just ate grass to sustain himself. Ink had asked if eating grass for Flowey was like being a cannibal, since he was a plant, and Flowey just rolled his eyes and moved away from the high class citizen in annoyance.

"But would it be cannibalism if you had instead eaten a flower?" Ink asked.

"How is this important to anything?" Flowey snapped at him.

"It will settle my curiosity," Ink said, "We are naturally curious people."

"Whatever, it's not cannibalism in my opinion," Flowey grumbled.

Alphys glanced over at Flowey before pushing up her glasses, guilt weighing down her soul as she remembered how he was created.

"We're going to be there by tonight if we keep walking for the rest of the day, I think," Cross said, looking over at the castle in the distance.

"Of course we had to be at the furthest point away from the castle in the Kingdom," Ink said, "At least Alphys lives out here, right Alphys?"

The dinosaur like monster snapped her attention back into the conversation.

"Y-Yes," She stuttered.

That was a lie.

She didn't like living out there. Being so far away from all of her old friends, it was torture. She couldn't see her girlfriend as much, she didn't have equipment, and most of all, she couldn't fix her old mistakes.

~~~~~~

She had been there when the Queen and son mysteriously died.

Of course, she didn't witness it, no body did, but she was within the castle when the event had taken place. In fact, she had even known where it had taken place.

There was a safe room, right down a hallway from her lab, where stairs connected right to Asgore's room had led to the room. It was a place where the Royal family would escape from their duties to just calm down, take a break, and have some general fun.

But, after the incident, Asgore had the stairway destroyed that connected it to his room and never went to the room he once thought of as a safe place ever again. Alphys had dropped off Sci and Scyrus to school that morning before she had went to her lab.

But Asgore was standing in the door that day, a box in hand, and a tired look in his face.

"Doctor Alphys."

His voice was quiet, ever so quiet, and his facial expression was one of despair. His back was slumped, his blond hair tangled, and his white fur wasn't even brushed. Even his clothes looked dirty. It had been a week after the whole incident involving his only remaining family, no body in the castle had seen him leave his room. That was expected, naturally, since he had been grieving over their deaths.

So it came as a surprise for him to be standing there in front of Alphys, no one else around.

"King Asgore?" She questioned him, approaching closer, "What are you doing here?"

"I have a request to make of you," Asgore said, his blue eyes lowering to the box in his hands before he held it out for the scientist to take, "Please, if you can bring him back somehow."

A gasp escaped the female when she had glanced into the box, seeing a pile of dust placed within it's confines.

"I loved him, Asriel," Asgore said quietly, "If you can bring him back, somehow, I will forever be in your dept."

She looked up at his sad face from the box, her hands hovering near the edges as she thought over what her decision should be.

She had no idea where she would even start for this is she did accept the task. There was no way to bring a monster back from the dead, since their souls were completely shattered. Unless Asriel was a boss monster, which he wasn't, then she could've probably inserted a power source into his soul to keep it alive, but it wouldn't even be Asriel anymore. A soul was just a collection of magic and emotions, unlike humans, a blank tablet for monsters to build their personalities off of. Of course, the dust itself would be the essence of Asriel, but she had no way to combine the dust into a monster soul if she didn't even have a host to contain both the essence and the spare soul into. There was no seeable way for this to work period.

Yet, she had grasped the box with both of her hands anyway, smiling softly up at the King. Everyone deserved to have a chance for hope for their families, even Asgore.

"I'll do it," She whispered softly to him.

《》《》《》

Whoops, had lots of company over in the last few days, so whew I'm exhausted.

But guess who bought UnderTale baby! It was on a winter sale so I got it on steam for only 4 dollars! Heck yes! I'm going to try and make my Brother play it.

Sorry for the late update, but we're starting to dive more into Alphys' character now!