[Handplates chapter references: Bad reception, Names]

A little time had passed and Asgore had decided to journal his experiences and impressions with the two skeleton brothers.

The behaviors they brought to light were...concerning, to say the least.

When Asgore had tried to put them to bed, they appeared to not quite know what to do with themselves with this particular piece of furniture.
They were fascinated by the concept of a fridge, the heat of a fireplace or the 'magic' of a light switch.

Everything seemed foreign and strange to them.

These mundane, every-day-life-things seemed to be out of their world and Asgore could not help but worry about how...and under which circumstances they must have grown up if all of these things were so unfamiliar to them.

They were smart and could learn quickly, adapting to this new lifestyle rather smoothly but generally, they seemed to be nothing more but children despite their assumed age.

"Hello, Dr. Alphys?" Asgore could hear some faint shuffling on the other side of the phone's line.

"O-oh, uh hello, y-your majesty...uh..what brings you...calling.", Alphys groaned inwardly, rubbing her temples in both embarrassment and frustration.

"ugh, so stupid.", she added quietly by muttering under her breath.
Asgore did not hear that last part as he was currently putting some food back into the fridge again and closed it.

"I wanted to check in on how you're doing lately. I know you've been very busy..."

Alphys couldn't help but chuckle awkwardly. She was anything but busy really.

Heck, even right now she was in her pajamas, curled up on her couch with a giant bowl of popcorn.
Can't really call that being productive but a woman like her prioritizes her me-time.

"O-oh yeah, definitely real busy! I'm working really hard on...lots of things...like uh.."

Her gaze wandered across the room. Her TV was paused in the middle of an episode of her favorite anime and Mettaton was laying on the floor, flipping through a fashion magazine.

"like, uh Mettaton! Yeah. I'm making a lot of progress on his new body. Before you know it he'll be the u-ultimate human killing machine, ha ha..."

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line as Asgore took in her words.

"Ah...Well, I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job. I have the utmost faith in your abilities, Dr. Alphys."

Alphys could immediately sense Asgore's mood shift and her own spirit was dampened.

Truth was, she wasn't even sure herself if she could trust her abilities. Yes, she is the Royal Scientist but lately, she felt like she was nowhere near that. That there is something missing and she is just one step too far away to make that jump to a new breakthrough.
Or to any progress at all.

She can't remember when she had last done any meaningful projects, all of the things she worked on were more or less just side-things that....lacked something. That would never be finished.
And she couldn't figure out why she felt like that.

It was as if something suddenly shifted and she got thrown from one role into another but...she has been Royal Scientist for years, hasn't she?

Why did it feel so different now?

"Yeah, that's me...the great Dr. Alphys.", she finally replied in a lower voice, not sure if she could actually believe in her own words.

"I actually wanted to ask you something...it may seem a little strange but...."

"What is it?"

Asgore strode quietly through the hallway. He stopped at one of the doors and opened it, peeking through the creak.

The skeleton brothers sat on the floor, leaned against the bed and sleeping peacefully. They were holding hands as they did, their limbs tangled together for an extra sense of closure. The king's voice grew quieter as he continued speaking.

"Do you know any skeletons?"

"Uh...n-no, I've never seen any....I thought there weren't any left...?"

"And you don't know anyone who knows any skeletons?"

"Um, no offense, b-but I don't really...uh talk to a lot of people so, uh...and uh, you know a lot more people than I do.
You know everyone in the whole Underground right? So uh if you don't know someone...then...there's no way I would know...s-sorry."

While Alphys spoke, Asgore had entered the bedroom of the two skeletons, carefully scooping them up in his arms and putting them to bed.

His eyes were focused, his head tilted slightly to keep the phone secured between his ear and shoulder as he listened to Alphys.

"No, it's alright. I thought I might as well ask. What about the letters 'W D G'? Do those mean anything to you?"

The hope, this small flicker that Asgore had slowly faded.

The circumstances of how these two skeletons appeared were confusing and mysterious.
How could they suddenly just pop up out of nowhere?

Wouldn't have anyone known, noticed, realized that there were more monsters in the Underground?

"Uh...it doesn't sound familiar. Does it stand for something?"

Asgore pulled the blanket over the two children and gave them one last warm smile before he turned to leave the room.
He let the phone fall back into his paw, carefully shutting the door behind him.

"I'm not sure myself. Well, if you hear anything that might be related. You will let me know, right?"

The king slowly walked down the hallway again, approaching the table on which he has a small notebook laid out.

"I-is this some kind of puzzle you're working on?", asked Alphys curiously.

Asgore had meanwhile picked up a pen and crossed out Alphys' name on the list.

There were several others that he still had to go through but so far, most calls left him disheartened.

He hesitated before he gave his answer, unsure of how much Asgore should reveal to Alphys: "...You could say that. Ah. I suppose I shouldn't keep you from your work for too long. But do try ᵗᵒ⁻ ⁻ ⁻ ʳᵉˢᵗ ⁻ ⁻ ⁻ ʳⁱᵍʰᵗ?⁻"

An uncomfortable buzzing struck the line and Asgore's sentences began to cut off.
His voice faded more and more into static, causing Alphys to look at her phone's screen for a moment and check if the connection was still intact.

"Uh, hello? I c-can't really hear you.. I think something's wrong with the connection. H-hello?"

The scraps of Asgore's voices that came out of Alphys' end sounded strangely garbled and distorted.

They slowly turned into small hisses, as if someone on the other side was breathing heavily.

It sounded as if something that had no voice tried to speak and it made a shiver run down Alphys' spine as she continued to press the phone against her ear.

"Your majesty..?"

More electronic hisses and noises erupted from the phone. The sounds became more malicious and terrifying but also...desperate?

"Is someone..?"

"ᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃˡˡˡˡᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖᵖʰʰʰʰʰʰʰʰʰʰʸʸʸʸʸʸʸʸʸʸˢˢˢˢˢˢˢˢˢˢˢ"

That was the last straw for Alphys to lose it entirely. Her heart skipped a beat as she seemed to recognize her own name being said repeatedly among this static and strange noise.

"W-who's there? Who is this?", Alphys asked, her whole body shaking as she tried to call out whoever, or whatever, was reaching out to her.

More garbled noises but there was no coherent response to her questions.

The hissing grew louder, the loud cracking of static ringing through the speaker.

A loud screech suddenly erupted from the phone, causing Alphys to flinch and drop the phone immediately.

It sounded like a scream, like multiple cries of agony and despair all put together into one long garbled noise.

It sounded like someone or as if the static was eerily alive.

The connection cut off almost immediately, leaving Alphys staring at the phone with wide eyes and her tail curled around her small frame.

When she calmed her pounding heart, she slowly turned to Mettaton who was still engrossed in his magazine.

"...Did you hear any of that?", Alphys asked almost hesitantly.

She hoped he did, so she could confirm that she wasn't just crazy and actually witnessed this strange event but at the same time, she would also prefer if Mettaton would tell her that it was nothing.

Probably just some bug in the system.

There was a small pause before Mettaton finally spoke up: "I'm not an eavesdropper, darling."

"M-maybe it was just my phone...it has been kind of glitchy lately..."

She picked up her phone and unlocked it, scrolling through some files.

Some of the files were strangely corrupted, the writing unreadable. Alphys tried to blame this strange occurrence on that.
And she would let it be like that. There was no point in her freaking herself out over some bad software and faulty installation files.

~🤍~

At the dining room table sat the two skeleton brothers and Asgore. It was somewhere close to dinner time but nothing had been set out or prepared yet.

Instead, Asgore wanted to talk. The two children had made significant progress, adapting to the new language rather well.

"Is it alright if I ask you some things?", Asgore's voice was soft and calm.

His curiosity almost killed him but he did want to respect boundaries if they were things they would rather not talk about.

1-S and 2-P exchanged quick glances as if silently communicating with each other.

"uh...yeah, i think so."

"YEAH, I THINK SO TOO."

Asgore's facial expression softened slightly in relief before he pressed on: "Well, first....what are your names?"

Another brief exchange of looks between the small and taller skeleton.

After another moment of silence, they finally turned back to Asgore as if unsure what to truly say and their expression being one of confusion.

"....what's a 'name'?"

Asgore immediately brought his hand to his face, both to ponder but also to contain his astonishment.

"You - hm. Well, a name is what people call you. My name is Asgore, for example."

2-P immediately went ahead and tried to say Asgore's name out loud and the king smiled a little at that.

"Yes, that's right."

Both brothers beamed a little at that.

"uh...then my name is brother."

"YES, THAT'S MY NAME TOO! THAT'S WHAT MY BROTHER CALLS ME."

"Oh...well, that's not....those aren't really names exactly."

Their excitement immediately turned into genuine confusion.

"but...that's all we've been called."

"No one has called you anything else?"

"nuh uh."

"...Have you ever spoken to anyone else? Besides me?"

"UH...NO, NOT THAT I REMEMBER."

"....What's the last thing either of you remember?"

"uh...you finding us, i think."

Asgore sighed, trying to make sense of anything that was going on.

Figuring out what happened to both of them got progressively more confusing.
It was as if whenever Asgore thought he had one question answered, five more popped up and they seemed even more impossible to answer.

"What about those things on your hands? Do you remember anything about those?"

"NUH UH."

"uh, maybe these are our names? so, my name is wdg-1 s, i guess?"

"THEN I'M WDG-2 P!"

Asgore immediately raised his hands, trying to stop them from going further down that road: "No no, those aren't proper names...especially not for skeletons."

He put both his index fingers to his lips and pursed them. A gesture he sometimes did out of habit when he was thinking intensely.

"...When I talk, you can see my words, right?"

"uh huh"

"Then here..." Asgore slid the book about skeletons back to them and flicked through the pages until he reached a specific chapter.

"Look through the book. What do my words look like?"

"ummm...", 1-S pulled the book closer, his eyes scanning the many lines and examples. "let's see..."

2-P suddenly butted in, his finger pointing to a particular spot on the page and he gasped loudly: "OH BROTHER LOOK! THERE'S YOUR WORDS!"

"huh?", 1-S turned to that page and scanned it curiously. He picked up the book to get a better look.

"THAT'S WHAT YOUR WORDS LOOK LIKE! RIGHT THERE."

"oh really? this says it's 'comic sans'."

"WHAT DO MINE LOOK LIKE?", 2-P shouted in excitement, jumping up and down in his seat as 1-S continued to search the book for his font.

"let's see...uh...yeah, here it is."

He pointed at another section of the book and shifted his position slightly so his brother could get a better view.

"'PAPYRUS'..?"

Asgore had watched them quietly, a small and content smile on his face.

He finally decided to speak up: "You know...what do you two think about using those as names?"

The two brothers looked at each other with big smiles, testing the names again on their tongues.

"...COMIC SANS..."

"...and papyrus?"

Asgore reached out towards the two and took each of their hand in his paws, giving them a reassuring squeeze.

"I think they suit you."