HAZE

Skeletons in the Closet

"Experiments?"

With an identical "oof," the twins were released. Everyone in the room remained silent as the tension rose, anger bubbling from the fish woman who hovered over the boys, her gaze menacing.

"What the hell do you mean, 'experiments?'"

Aster and Wingdings looked at each other, exchanging worried glances.

"Uh..." The younger of the two shrugged, steering his eyes to the floor, "I-I'm not sure where to start..."

'Last I knew, the experiments had failed. They weren't alive," Dings signed, glancing at Toriel and Asgore as he did so. 'Not once did they show signs of life...'

"Yeah, well," Undyne huffed, crossing her arms, "last time we checked, Sans and Papyrus were alive and well. At least, before you two showed up. So, start talkin'."

"Undyne," Toriel scolded, sighing.

"What? Don't look at me like that. They're the ones that are referring to our friends as 'experiments.' You can't sit there and tell me that you aren't just a little bothered by that?"

"I am." Toriel's gaze hardened, Undyne's aggressive stance melting away on the spot. "But, in order for us to understand, we must let them explain. Children," she turned her eyes to the twins, "please, elaborate. You say that Sans and Papyrus weren't alive? That they had...failed?"

Aster shifted his eyes from the floor to Toriel, then to his brother. "...Well, hotshot," he sighed, "might as well."

"I don't feel comfortable talking about this, Aster. We agreed--"

"It's either we tell 'em or not! And, look, we're already in enough trouble, so--you first."

Wingdings looked around the room, eyes falling on Frisk. '...Fine,' he signed. 'We will tell you. But you have to understand that we don't...we don't like to talk about this.'

"Take your time," Asgore said.

Dings took in a breath, preparing himself. '...A while back, Aster was assigned the role as 'Royal Scientist.'' When this was met with odd stares, Dings paused, but continued, 'However, he did not do the job alone. I--we both had...cheated our ways through, so we could have the position. But, only one of us could have it, so...when my brother needed help, I began...pretending to be him. It became...a habit.'

Aster looked off to the side, rubbing his arms. "Him and I took turns playing as the Royal Scientist. Behind everyone's back...it got things done, but uh. Y'know." He shrugged. They both looked pained just saying all of this, and the expressions on everyone's faces as they admitted their crimes only made the guilt worse. "...It wasn't our proudest moment."

Asgore and Toriel both looked close to throwing up. The King stiffened, while the ex-Queen sighed, shifting her position and crossing her arms. "That's...extremely illegal. What on Earth made you two do something like that?" Toriel asked.

'We needed the money. We were on our own for...a long time. We needed somewhere stable to live.' Dings shook his head, sighing. 'It...it was a mess.'

"After receiving the job," Aster continued, "King Asgore asked me—er, us, I guess--to find a way to break the barrier. I tried everything; time travel, soul engineering...I even asked for the Core to be built so we could try to see if we could use the gathered geothermal energy from that to blow it up. But nothing worked. It wasn't until Dings suggested it that I thought about constructing weapons fueled by soul power."