#gastaton

Mettaton couldn't believe his rotten luck as of late. First his high heel broke, then he fell down a staircase, and then he cracked his NEO panel, right on the face. He managed to make it to Alphys' lab without too many others seeing him, only to be met with a note.

"Dear Mettaton, If you see this, I'm helping Undyne pack up and get ready to go to the surface, now that the barrier's opened. Just stay here if you need anything, I should be back soon! If you aren't reading this, then, um... -Milk -Eggs -Ramen -Dog food"

The android rolled his eye with a huff. "This isn't something that can wait," he groaned.

Mettaton looked around, and saw the elevator doors. He knew what was down there. Everyone did, since Alphys had allowed the amalgamates to go home and admitted her mistakes. Nobody else would be down there. Nothing but tools and parts. Such a realization gave him an idea.

"Well, if she isn't here to repair me... I'll just repair myself," he decided. After all, I need to look perfect for my grand debut above ground, Mettaton thought, as he stepped into the elevator.

As he descended, the elevator became dark, yet darker. He couldn't believe how impossibly deep this place was.

Eventually, the doors opened. Nothing greeted him but dead silence. A foreboding aura hung in the area. Without the amalgamates or Alphys there, the True Lab seemed even creepier. It still smelled of old chemicals and dust. A shiver went up Mettaton's spine. Despite the place being empty, he didn't feel alone.

Mettaton turned up the brightness of the heart on his belt, and used it as a flashlight. Slowly, he began making his way, looking for tools. Every step echoed down the empty halls.

As he walked in front of a corrupted monitor, he heard a crunch beneath his feet. When he looked down, he saw a white shard. He picked it up curiously. Turning it over in his hands, he whispered to himself. "Is this... a shard of bone? ...Must have fallen off of one of the amalgamates," he guessed.

Mettaton kept staring at it for a while, wondering what to do with it. Figuring it should definitely not be on the floor and stepped on, he decided to carry it with him for now. He could always figure out what to do with it later. With that, he kept going; ignoring the strange, hand-like symbols that began glitching onto the corrupted screen.

The True Lab was maze-like in the darkness; even with the light he had, Mettaton found it hard to navigate and find what he was looking for. Eventually, his streak of bad luck seemed to end as he happened upon a breaker box. After flipping a few switches, the lights overhead came on, and air began to flow through the vents.

But at that same time, deep within the lab, something rumbled so deeply that it made the whole place shake. Mettaton held himself steady until the quaking subsided.

"What was that??" he wondered aloud in shock. Curiosity getting the better of him, Mettaton put his search on hold and hurried towards the source of the noise.

What he found was nothing short of technologically engenius work. A device, massive in size, suspended by a countless number of cables. It almost looked like the skull of a cow, except deep maroon and metallic. Two red lights in the eyes of the skull were glowing red. They locked onto Mettaton as he stood before it, and scanned him. It picked up on the bone shard. And as soon as it did, heavy metal doors slammed shut, sealing Mettaton inside.

The robot gasped fearfully, and watched as bright red lasers shot from the eyes of the machine. Rather than damage anything, the lasers took hold of the bone shard and suspended it in midair. A voice programmed into the machine spoke:

"ORGANIC MATERIAL SECURED. DETERMINATION EXTRACTION BEGINNING IN SIXTY SECONDS."

Mettaton was confounded. That thing was alive? And it had Determination?? He quickly entered a state of panic; if this thing was really so important, he couldn't let it's Determination be extracted, or it surely wouldn't survive! But he had no idea how to work this machine.

"FIFTY SECONDS TO EXTRACTION."

He decided it didn't matter if he knew how or not, he just had to try. Mettaton dashed to the control panel and began blindly pressing buttons and clicking icons on the screen. Surely something would come up that could stop this!

"FOURTY SECONDS TO EXTRACTION."

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Mettaton swore to himself. His hands were shaking now, making his attempts harder. He opened a folder labeled "Settings", and found a subfolder inside: "Processes".

"THIRTY SECONDS TO EXTRACTION."

Half the time was already gone. The android rapidly scrolled through all the processes available in the file--cripes, how were there so many?? He reached the process labeled "Determination", and clicked "Options".

"TWENTY SECONDS TO EXTRACTION."

The Options page displayed everything related to the process: the amount of Determination it had stored in it's tank; virtual blueprints of the device with everything colored green and captioned with a status of "OK"; the countdown until the process began; and a set of three buttons that could change the command that the machine would follow.

"TEN SECONDS TO EXTRACTION."

Mettaton clicked the first button he saw in rapid succession.

The machine hummed and seemed to power down.

"EXTRACTION PROCESS CANCELLED."

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and slid to sit on the floor. He couldn't believe how shaky his legs were.

"INSERTION PROCESS INITIATED."

"Oh fuck!!" Mettaton yelled, and got up to stop the machine again. But the process had already started, causing the page to become locked. He couldn't do a thing now.

A pulsing energy beam blasted from the mouth of the device, and made contact with the bone shard. Mettaton covered his mouth in fear. An overdose of Determination was what created the amalgamates; what was this tiny shard being saturated with the same thing going to become??

The bone shivered in the air and began to glow with energy. Then, close by, a tiny black circle appeared. Another bone shard came out, attached itself to the piece, and the circle vanished. As Mettaton watched, the same thing happened again. And again. The more it repeated, the bigger the mass of bones became. It almost felt like an eternity by the time the last shard had added itself to the new form; a large skeleton, curled up in a fetal position, still suspended in the air by the machine. The head of the skeleton had two cracks in it: one above the right eye, one below the left eye.

The strange skeleton's eyes opened. In an instant, he unfurled himself, and screamed as he sent a wave of black magic out from his Soul. The dark soundwave blew out the lights in the room, short-circuited the machine, and forced Mettaton to cover his ears. The idol backed up into a corner and sat down fearfully. Though the screaming stopped, his ears were still ringing.

This... THING just destroyed the machine with a scream! Mettaton thought to himself as he sat in the dark. How powerful is this thing?? Should I fight it?? Shit, my NEO panel is still broken, I won't stand a chance!

The ringing in his ears slowly faded away. Instead of the ringing, now Mettaton could hear footsteps. They were coming closer. Through the blackness, a pair of glowing, mismatched eyes gazed down at Mettaton. Blue and orange. Something seemed... familiar about those eyes.

"You are the one who saved me," said the skeletal figure, matter-of-factly.

"Y-Yes?" Mettaton responded. "Who... Who are you?"

The skeleton smiled calmly. He held out his Soul in his hand. Cracked as it was, it radiated with a green light, allowing Mettaton to see him more clearly. Somehow, the skeleton had gone from being completely naked to being dressed in a white turtleneck, a long black coat, pressed black trousers, and polished, fancy shoes. He had holes in the palms of his hands, and a name tag on his collar, written in strange symbols.