Alphys led Mettaton into the heart of the secret lab. The android carried both the unconscious Glenda and her robot dog as though they weighed nothing. When they reached a series of lifepods, Alphys activated a nearby console, opening two of the pods.
"B-be careful." Alphys said after Metatton rather unceremoniously dumped Jake into one pod.
"Sorry, dear." Alphys said, taking care to lay Glenda down carefully. "I think the actuator in my right arm is acting up."
"Sit down." Alphys said, hurrying over to Mettaton. She pulled off the cracked outer casing and looked at what lay beneath. "It's not too bad. Sit still for a second."
Mettaton sat on a nearby stool and waited patiently as Alphys did her work. "Thank you, Alphys dear."
"You can thank me by not falling apart." Alphys said, half-joking. "I nearly had a heart attack when I found you in pieces."
"I'm sorry, dear." Mettaton said.
"You don't have to be sorry; I'm just glad I was able to put you back together." She set her tools down on a nearby tray before grabbing the casing. "Once the human's dealt with, I'll be able to give you a full overhaul."
"I know you will, darling." Mettaton said, smiling at her. "And don't worry; the little beast has no way in here. We've resealed the doors, reset the passwords, and reactivated the alarm on the secret elevator."
"G-good." Alphys said as the casing clicked into place. "I've lost too many friends today as it is."
"I know." Mettaton glanced at the pod containing the Dreamer. "I must say, she had quite a story. Time travel, alternate dimensions ... do you think any of it was true?"
"I don't know." Alphys said, rubbing her arm. "I kinda hope so."
"Really?"
"W-well, the idea that somewhere out there, U-undyne and me are m-married and on the s-surface ..." Alphys blushed. "It m-makes it easier."
Mettaton smiled as best as he could with his busted face and gave her a pat on the shoulder. "I'll get back to the others. Don't worry, Alphy; we'll get through this."
"Y-yeah." Alphys said, giving him a smile. "J-just a matter of time."
Once Mettaton was gone, Alphys let out a deep breath and turned her gaze to the slumbering Glen within the pod.
Sans coughed and said, "Pod-den me, Alphys."
Alphys nearly jumped a foot in the air before spinning to face the short skeleton. "S-sans! I thought you were going to fight the human child."
"I did." Sans approached the pod. "Our pal here showed up right in the middle of our fight. Kid woulda had me if she hadn't shot some sort of beam out and yanked the knife outta her hands."
"Telekinesis?"
"Nah, this felt different. I dunno; deeper somehow." Sans's eyes fell on the strange tong device.
Alphys followed his gaze. "Oh ... she made that. She said it could tell if something came from another dimension, but-"
"Really? That's neat." Sans picked it up and clamped it on his hand.
"Sans!" Alphys said, horrified. "We don't know what it does!"
"One way to find out." After some trial and error, Sans figured out that the knobs altered the wavelengths, but wasn't sure what to do with that. Sighing, he set it on the console.
"Speaking of the human," Sans said, pulling the wrapped bone from his pocket. "I managed to peg the little brat good before she scrammed on me, but ... well, here, check out the bone."
Alphys took the bone carefully from the clean end and peered at it through her thick glasses. "Strange; my research said that human blood was either red or blue depending on where it was in the body."
"I was hopin' you could make somethin' of it." Sans said.
"I'll put it in the analyzer." Alphys said, motioning for him to follow her over to the analyser.
The analyser was, as most of Alphys's projects, a mish-mash of materials. The Underground had limited resources, most of which came from trash dropping from the surface. Still, Alphys was intelligent and creative, a combination that could accomplish pretty much everything as long as her resolve remained true. That said, the input chamber of the analyser was an old food dehydrator, the various trays used to house multiple materials if necessary.
Alphys carefully set the bone into the the dehydrator and closed the lid. Sans leaned against a convenient wall as she went to work on the analyser's console. Light shone through the slits of the input chamber as the analyser performed its usual array of scans.
Sans glanced at Alphys as they waited for the results. "You okay?"
"Not really." Alphys said, her gaze falling. "I just keep thinking about ... y'know, if I could have done something."
He stared at her for a few moments before nodding. "Me too."
"Sans ..."
"I saw the kid leaving the Ruins, I saw the dust, but I lied to myself. Told myself it was something else. I mean, human or not, she was just a kid." He sighed. "I could've stopped her there easily. She wasn't nearly as strong then. I guess I was just hoping that maybe this time..."
His voice trailed off. He shook his head with a sigh. "I guess it doesn't matter now."
Alphys gave him a timid smile and a friendly pat on the arm before turning her gaze back to the analyser's display.
"Let's see," Alphys said, adjusting her glassed, "Taking out the common elements present in the bone and discounting the natural magical resonance ... whoa."
"Whoa?"
She stepped away from the monitor so that Sans could take a better look. He looked at the readout and let out a low whistle. "Doesn't that look familiar?"
"Structurally, it looks identical to the determination we extracted from the human souls." She said. "But its integrity seems much stronger. No ... stronger's the wrong word. Mind you, I've no idea what this is, but it's certainly a cohesive force."
"Any idea why Glen said it burned her?"
Alphys gave him a curious look. "Glen?"
"The human ... the other human." Sans gestured to her pod. "Some of it got on her when she was struggling with the child. Glen claimed it burned."
Raising an eyebrow, Alphys moved back to Glen's pod. Lifting the cover, she produced a syringe and drew out a small amount of blood. She produced another syringe, this time taking some of her own blood. After the pod door was once again secure, she moved back to the analyser and fiddled with the controls.
"Whatcha doin'?" Sans asked.
"Extracting a sample of the ichor." Alphys said, watching as a tiny needle approached the bone. "I want to test it against both human and monster cells."
Sans watched as Alphys carefully put a drop of blood from both syringes on a small glass slide in the analyser tray. Magnifiying the view on screen on Glenda's blood, she slowly lowered the extraction needle until it touched the small red drop. Immediately, the black ichor spread through the cells, soon converting the entire drop into more of itself.
She repeated this process with the monster blood; if anything, the process was even faster this time.
"Hang on." Alphys said, redirecting the camera to the bone itself. "I thought so."
"What's up?" Sans moved closer to the screen to get a better look. The ichor had indeed spread across the bone, though nowhere near as fast as it had with the blood.
"It's converting foreign tissue into more of itself." She said thoughtfully. "But still retaining the traits of the converted material. Look, the converted bone is still solid."
She prodded the black segments of bone with her syringe, showing it to be solid. Before Sans could respond, however, Alphys's eyes widened. She moved the camera back to the slide with the two drops of blood; her blood was still ichor, but Glenda's blood was once again red.
"Huh." Sans said. "What happened there?"
"I don't know." Frowning, she emtied the syringe into a petri dish and set it in the input chamber. This time, when she injected the ichor, they watched as the blackness spread, converting the blood quickly. Then, when it was about half-converted, the ichor slowly converted back into blood. She tried it again with her blood in a separate dish; the conversion happened quickly, though it was markedly slower.
"What do ya make of that?" Sans asked.
"I don't know." Alphys confessed, rubbing her eyes. "Maybe humans are resistant to the ichor's effects. Perhaps the burning sensation she felt was just her body fighting the conversion."
"Humans can't be immune; the kid's full of the stuff." Sans shook his head. "Maybe that's what's wrong with the kid; maybe this ichor's like an infection, turns people wrong."
"Liquid evil?"
Sans shrugged. "If the shoe drips."
Alphys said, her eyes on the screen. Shaking her head, she said, "Do you mind if I keep the bone? I'd like to study it more."
"Sure. Just be careful; the last thing we need is for that stuff to spread." Sans watched as Alphys put the bone into zero-gravity storage container. The bone floated in the center of the container, spinning slightly.
Shaking his head, Sans said, "Speaking of, I need your help; that kid's still down here, and as our new friend recently discovered, there's a barrier out there sealing everything in."
"What do you think the human child's after?"
"Dunno. Might not be after anything; might just be down here to kill. All the more reason to find them and put them somewhere where they and their ooze can't cause any more damage."
"Agreed." Alphys said. "Fortunately, I've got cameras pretty much everywhere."
"Well, all right." Sans said, clapping his hands together. "Let's go find us a human child."
"A-actually, there's something I've been needing to check up. Meet me up in the normal lab in about ten minutes?"
"What's the delay?" Sans asked curiously.
"N-nothing important; there are a few projects I left down here I need to check up on. I also want to put the bone somewhere secure. Don't worry; I'll b-be up in a few minutes."
Sans watched as Alphys hurried away. Something about her demeanor struck him as slightly off. Sure, she was always a bit stand-offish, even moreso after they lost contact with Undyne, but Sans had the distinct impression that she was hiding something from him.
Still, he had enough to worry about as it was. He started to leave as well when he glanced back at Glen and Jake in their respective pods. After a few moments, he sauntered over to the pods and idly pushed a few buttons on both pod control panels.
"There." he said, a satisfied grin spread across his skull as he departed. "That should do it."