From War to Science {UNDERTALE}

Evaluation

"So do I!" The door opened a bit more, and Asriel poked his white head in.

Toriel grimaced, then looked up at Asgore. He gave her an awkward little shrug, then walked up to Chara, kneeling down to meet them eye-to-eye.

"You're sure you want to do this?" he asked seriously.

Chara nodded resolutely.

Asgore sighed, then set his large paws on Chara's small shoulders before meeting their eyes again. "No matter what happens," he said quietly, "you are Toriel and my child. And we will always, always see you as just as much of a monster as Asriel. And we love you very, very much."

Chara wrinkled their nose. "I know, Dad. Jeez, you don't have to get so gushy."

Asgore gave a little laugh, then pulled Chara into a hug. He looked down at them. "If you're sure-really, really sure-then you can take part in the experiment," he said, then looked up. "And Asriel can, too."

Chara gave Asgore a bright grin, then ran back to Asriel's side to chatter about how they were going to defeat the humans. Gaster nearly felt as giddy as the children; imagine everything they were about to learn! His bright spirits were dampened slightly as Toriel walked up to him, eyes steely. She looked at him in silence for a long moment, mouth drawn in a hard line, then let out a breath before narrowing her eyes.

"Remember what I said, Wing Ding," she whispered. Her voice was barely audible, which made it all the more intimidating. "You harm one hair-one. hair.-on my child's head..."

"And my life is hell," Gaster finished dryly. When her expression didn't lighten, he sighed. "I swear, Toriel. Chara will be completely unharmed." He looked up at her for a moment, and he couldn't stop the bright grin that spread across his face. "And just think about the books they will write about this."

~

He took a few days to create a fully formed hypothesis, as well as develop the tests he wanted to do while he had the children. One physical examination, and then the rest would be exercises to test the way Chara solved problems differently than Asriel.

The physical examination was first, and much to Asriel and Chara's delight, he pulled them out of school for their visit to the university. However, their excitement quickly soured as Gaster gave them impromptu science lesson while they walked.

"Now, both of you are experiencing, first-hand, the scientific method," he said as they walked through New Home. "First, you start out with a question. In this case, why are humans different from monsters? When you have your question, you must form a hypothesis, which is a guess as to the answer of your question. My hypothesis for this experiment is that there is something mental that makes them different. Now we come to the fun part..."

"Sure," Chara muttered, rolling their eyes.

Gaster ignored them, clapping his hands together as they walked through the University's door. "...which is the experiment! The experiment, naturally, is testing to see if your hypothesis is correct." He turned around to look at the two, sockets bright as he walked backwards. "Now, Asriel, in our experiment, you are what is called the 'control'."

Asriel tilted his head. "The what?"

"The control. You are the, er...the baseline. That is..." He let out a breath and signed a couple words as a few students quickly stepped out of his way before he could run into them. "You see, we already know how monsters work. It is...it is familiar. But it is difficult to think of that while testing. So you will perform the same tests as Chara, and we can see how Chara's choices and actions differ."