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Come in!

[When Frisk enters, Alphys is on the far side of the room, sitting on a stool over what appears to be a workbench, screwdriver in hand, tinkering with something. She turns around dramatically to reveal... a teeny tiny Mettaton. Like 5 inches tall. It has arms and everything, though the screen doesn't appear to change from the M.]

I g-got it!

[Alphys really is a genius when it comes to machines. Frisk's eyes widen in delight at the sight of the little robot in her hands.]

That was fast!

[She grins and blushes a little at the praise.]

W-Well, it is an old d-design, and... t-they're not hard to make.

B-But here, look!

[She presses a button on the back and it sure enough just emits a high pitched screaming noise. It's small, since it's a small robot, but it's effective. She's giggling, covering her mouth.]

N-Now I just need to make a bunch more!

[Frisk claps a hand over their mouth in shock and amusement. The noise drills right into a soft and delicate part of their brain at once. It's insufferable.

Which means it's perfect.]

This is kind of...brilliant!

[Alphys snickers, taking a little controller off the desk and hitting a button, which stops the noise. Frisk can also see a little joystick on it, implying it might control them, too.]

W-Well, thanks! I've, uh, m-made a lot of weird stuff, before, s-so this isn't too h-hard, actually... I m-mean, since I didn't have to design it, i-it's just a signal! And uhm, a l-little magic.

[It's one of the only places she's good at magic, honestly.]

[Frisk giggles. A remote-controlled noisemaker just for prank purposes. Truly they live in a fantastic age.]

Sans is going to hate this.

[But they sound rather excited over the prospect, honestly. They could all do with some lighthearted fun after the events of the weekend.]

[She's giggling as she sets the tiny box down on the ground, let's it noodle around and run gently into the side of her desk as she grabs the blueprints over, starts taking things from a slowly-amassing scrap pile to put together another one.]

I h-hope so. Not that I want him to, uh, s-suffer or anything! I just, s-sometimes he gets us all, so g-good, you know? I want to g-get him back.

He's good at pranking.

[Across time and space, even! Which is a level they can only dream of achieving someday. Does what they did in that judgement hall, LOADing and LOADing until he looked at them oddly count?]

A war like this one must've been inevitable.

P-Probably. He's so good, uh, a-at normal jokes with t-the whoopie cushions and buzzers, it m-makes sense that he'd be, uh, s-so good at thinking about these, uhm, things. Given a-all this time he now, uh, h-he must have a lot of opportunity!

[Frisk can see her pushing wires into a circuit board, pressing them into the bottom of another little robot frame. She has a soldering gun set up, she's barely using it, mostly opting to smooth out small imperfections with her hands. It might be heat-resistant scales, it might be magic. It's the only space she feels comfortable using it more freely.]

N-Now we just need to, uh, f-focus on making sure he doesn't, get to h-have all the fun!

[Frisk's eyes widen in amazement. They've never seen Alphys work hands-on, before. They've only heard rather...interesting sounds coming from her lab, whether it was a chainsaw or Alphys doing whatever it is she needed to do to make Frisk's phone capable of turning into a dang jetpack.]

You might end up getting pranked too once he figures out who did this.

[They say it a little slyly, raising an eyebrow.]

[To her credit, the jetpack thing wasn't even hard. Now this, this takes some finesse. But when Frisk speaks, she grins a little slyly herself.]

W-Well, he'll just h-have to try, now w-won't he? I mean... he'd never do anything, uh, r-really terrible. And it might b-be fun!

No, but he's managed to dye Chara blue.

[It was, frankly, ingenious. ]

It was actually kind of hilarious.

[Chara had raged for hours. And it was beautiful.]

[Okay that gets her laughing, almost enough to drop the current box she's working on. Even if Chara is terrifying, the fact that Sans is able to joke around with them without it immediately turning to death is... calming, almost. It's an odd kind of peace.]

T-That sounds super funny, a-actually! I c-can't imagine what they, uh, m-must've looked like! T-Though I hope it did, uh, w-wash out.

[Now she's considering.] I w-wonder if you could, uh, d-dye bones, or if he's exempt from pranks like t-that... hmm...

Like...a really angry blueberry!

[Frisk hadn't even bothered to try and keep a straight face for that one. Chara will never hear the end of it. Ever.]

They were fine. I guess if everything else fails we could just...balance some ice water right over his door, or something?

[Okay, now she's laughing in earnest, imagining Chara with that screwed-up pouting face all blue. When Frisk mentions the water, she laughs harder.]

Y-Yeah! Get h-his bones all frozen, and, h-he'd be so mad! And the w-water over the door is, uh, y-you know! Classic.

We could make it so he'd go in expecting some other prank, like we did something inside, and would just end up with water - all over!

[Wow, thinking up pranks is actually kind of fun.]

Yeah! Tease him l-like, letting him c-catch us doing something else, but it's not w-what he thinks! Thats, uh, r-really devious, Frisk.

[She's so proud. Go, small child. Prank the hell out of this skeleton. He deserves it.]

I didn't know how fun this could be.

[They sound almost surprised at it. They've never engaged in a prank war before. It's mostly been one-sided stuff, like Sans dumping ketchup all over their fries or burg.]

Have you done this before? You're pretty good at this!

Well, I--

[She stops. She has done this before, she thinks, a long time ago. It was Sans, but there was someone else there, wasn't there? It was just them at first, until they both got hit by their papers getting switched around, translated to something she couldn't understand but made Sans laugh. It... It must have been years, now. Maybe that's why she didn't remember it clearly. That would make sense. Of course.]

Uh, y-yeah, a long time ago. I d-don't remember exactly what w-we did though... it's, uh, nice t-to be getting back to it, though! It's pretty fun, w-when there's the time.

[It's probably for the best Frisk can't think of things or people that don't exist. They don't even make the connection. Thinking about it makes their head hurt, anyway.]

Well, at least we've got plenty of time here.

[They watch all those parts come together with fascination, the deft engineering that Alphys excels at.]

Not much else to do, really.

[She continues to work, putting together the outside shell of the little robot, and beginning to screw on it's small arms.]

I mean, the b-best we can do is, uhm, keep ourselves busy, r-right? And have s-some fun with it along the way!

[She grins, calibrating the wheel on the bottom by spinning it a bit.]

If we're gonna, uh, b-be stuck here, we might as w-well enjoy ourselves, a l-little bit.

[Frisk snickers. This is turning out to be a pretty weird week, not that they're complaining.]

Do you think Undyne's any good at pranks and stuff?

No.

[That was a little abrupt, and maybe too fast, but Alphys looks like she's having war flashbacks.]

Undyne's idea of pranks, is, uh... r-really destructive. And u-usually involve rocks. I wonder if, uh, I c-can talk her into less, uhm, d-death related pranks...

Um...

[Has she forgotten Frisk's roommate? Frisk's "I'm going to chuck fifty bottles of ketchup at Sans's window" roommate?]

I mean...Chara broke Sans's window. With some bottles of ketchup.

[It's not like the second floor can get any more chaotic right?

...riiiiiiiiight?]

N-No, I mean, the p-punchline of most of Undyne's, uhm, pranks i-is the person dying. So, uhm, it's p-probably not safe. Chara, uh, a-at least hasn't killed a-anyone though, uh, pranks yet.

I bet I c-can get Undyne to, uh, replace s-some of the more, deadly aspects t-though. She's r-really good, uhm, at digging pitfalls.

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