Upon further observation, when they arrived in the scene she’s very frantic and worried about everyone else even carelessly dropping some important healing potions that would gradually help the brothers who have battled the Anomaly. But right now, she stood motionless, as if time itself had forgotten her—unshaken, untouched, and terrifyingly calm. It made Dr. Vehra a bit worried so she approaches her and tries to hold her shoulders to snap her frozen senses.

“Dr. Knane? Are you still with us?” She looked at her eyes, her terrifyingly sapphire iris and a 4 star pupil. Staring at the Tree of Time as if she locked gaze with it. “Dr. Knane??!”

Vehra snapped.

She slapped her—once, sharply, across both cheeks.

The sound cracked through the silent air.

“W-what happened? Is the Tree of Time safe??” Knane jolted, eyes widening like she’d been yanked out of deep water. She clutched her cheek with one hand, blinking fast. “It hurts.” She rasped.

Vehra took a step back, unease bubbling in her throat.

Knane’s voice was off. Her usual carefree tone was laced with something distant.

“Are you okay? Did something happen? You weren’t talking the entire time—I got worried.” She took Knane’s hands and held onto it.

“Something happened..?” she snaps back “Oh right! The Tree of Time? Is it safe now? How was it??”

Vehra is still suspicious, but she’ll let this off the hook for a while and wait for a chance later on.

The scientists behind gasps at the scene, they approach both of them and have a discussion, Geul was worried, Hiro scolded Vehra, Uly on the other hand acted differently and began becoming suspicious as well of Knane, but Dr. Alphys remained calm, observing, and judging. She also felt what Vehra felt with Knane. Recalling when they were about to press the button earlier to activate the Failsafe, She glanced behind her noticing that Knane stood still as if she’s in a trance locked in with the Tree of Time. In those few seconds of time, she noticed her pupils glitching for a second. Alphys didn’t have the time to distract Knane so she proceeded with activating with the other scientist the Failsafe.

Alphys raises her voice.

“This is no time to argue with everyone, we must take our leave. Dr. Vehra, Dr. Knane, can I trust you to place a barrier in the Tree of Time for the meantime?”

“We will.” Vehra replied, but Knane remained silent.

“And you—Dr. Geul and Dr. Uly—please guard the tree of time. I know Dr. Uly is capable enough to defend for the meantime.”

Uly blushes, not because of Alphys’ but the sheer embarrassment that she trusts in him that he has the power to even defend. As mentioned earlier, Uly chose the path of becoming a Scientist.

“I-I’m sorry Dr. Alphys I don’t—”

“Enough, we’ll have to take our leave now. We don’t have enough time. I trust in you, okay?”

Uly sweating, clenching his fists but a few moments he relaxes them anyway, defeated that he will never win against Alphys’ judgement so he remained silent and stood still beside Geul. He looked down in disappointment that people will only see him as a brute person rather than someone who will be able to help in research and knowledge—just what a scientist does.

After that small feud, Alphys walked away with Dr. Hiro and activated a teleportation device. Hiro places it on the floor just outside the Laboratory’s entrance. The device erected a huge door capable of transporting rather than walking around Waterfall which is longer than using this device.

“Well then everyone, we leave you with the duties here. Please report back as soon as possible if you’ve finished here, we can’t afford to miss more brains in this.” As soon as she finished talking, she continued walking through the teleportation door and didn’t even flinch to look back at them.

Of course, everyone had a different reaction with what Alphys said to them, “We can’t afford to miss more brains in this” chilling, yet reassuring to them that they weren’t being left behind in the midst of the chaos the Anomaly have been bringing. And so, everyone proceeded to do their work.

Vehra on the other hand still feels oddly uneasy beside Knane as she keeps on looking so far—as if she’s looking what’s beyond the Tree of Time—she also notices that her pupils glitch a bit as if there’s another presence lurking in her body.

Vehra held her arms.

“Shall we?”

Of course, Knane snaps back.

“Y-yes… I’m sorry for dozing off again.” nervously laughing as she scratches the back of her head, making a mess of her hair.

They then started the preparations, Vehra and Knane erected a barrier strong enough to protect the Tree until the countdown ends, however they are unsure of how it will keep on hold so they added a few more layers of the barrier to seal the deal. Instantly, Knane’s consciousness returns back to her as if… her sight was being borrowed for an instance.

“I’m having a headache right now… I may need to sit down for a while…” Knane sat down on the floor, and rested her back at the wrecked station. Grabs a water bottle from a pocket dimension she summoned and drinks it on the spot. Very versatile powers… a voice, whispered to her ears.

She was startled, her eyes widened, and her pupils narrowed, almost spitting the water she’s drinking. “H-has anyone heard that??”

“Heard what?” Vehra turned to her and tilted her head.

Must have been my imagination. She thought to herself. “Sorry, it must have been just my imagination…” she then laughs it off, but it was an awkward laugh.

“Knane’s been acting pretty weird… Remind me to switch jobs soon.” Uly said, groaning, facepalming.

“Hey! That’s rude!” Vehra pouts and smacks his chest just with the back of her palm.

“Oof—”

He fell on the floor, knees first and his body dropped down. Knocked out of the strong force Vehra had. You’d be asking right now if who’s stronger than the two of them is Uly or Vehra. What an embarrassing moment for him.

“Now, now, we have much more important duties entrusted to us by Dr. Alphys.” Vehra sighs deeply, “Lets go.”

The scientists split up their work, Knane and Vehra went near the tree. They started stretching their arms out front, their palms facing the tree and chanted some words, barely audible as they kept muttering to themselves. Eyes closed. Focusing their magic energy towards their palms.

However, Knane remained her eyes wide open. Locking gazes back again with the Tree. It's calling to her—rather someone is reaching out to her. So this is how it looks? An internal thought came to her mind, unnerving because it's not her thoughts. Someone is talking in her mind. She started panicking a bit, and this panic caused the magic some disruption. She started sweating and feeling anxious as she kept on looking at the tree directly.

Unfazed? I thought this version of reality would be much easier to possess.

“W-who is that?” her hands nervously shaking. She gazes left and right back and forth trying to search where the voice is coming from.

We will meet… soon. Her pupils change colors, glitching through black. During this time, her hands weren’t shaking, it was calm. And her gaze quickly looked from left to right, one thing that caught her attention was the tree in front of her and the doomsday countdown.

6 Days and 22 Hours?

It's been 2 hours already since they activated the Doomsday Countdown. Knane’s pupils change color again back to its original color—her very sapphire eyes. This is all happening while she’s helping to get the barrier up. Vehra doesn’t seem to notice her fellow scientist having a hard time with herself, she still looks normal, plus her eyes are also closed and focused on the barrier so she wouldn’t be noticing this.

However, goosebumps cross through Uly’s.

“That was weird…” Uly mutters

“Are you saying something?” Geul asks

“N-nothing.” he shrugs this off but will regret it later. “Are they done?”

“Not yet, but…” Geul turned around and looked at female scientists below a floor “Knane’s focus is out of this world, Vehra’s having a hard time keeping it up while she’s slacking”

“Let me see” Uly walks close to the railings and immediately realizes what’s wrong, he clenches his fist, and swallows while a tear of sweat runs down his face. This is bad… What is this ominous feeling? He keeps on observing Knane as he steps back.

Oh shit this is bad… I have to leave.

With that, Knane’s eyes glitched back to her original color and this time leaves her body and went back to the tree. Uly noticed this and the aura made him fall down, it was so strong that it felt choking, and missed the opportunity to see that it left Knane’s body.

Despite Uly—as we’ve mentioned earlier, being strong—he gained an ability able to see their spiritual aura, he used this as a strategy way back before becoming a Scientist and was still training for the Royal Knights. Normally, the spiritual aura a person emits is colored based on their personality, Dr. Vehra emits the dark green, despite her strong senses she’s very kind to the core and always worries, prioritizing the people before her. Dr. Geul emits a strong sense of orange aura, his bravery tops every scientist even if he’s sometimes cowardly and doubting. I hold the strongest—among the scientists only 2nd to Alphys—Yellow Aura, a strong sense of Justice. This makes me able to see their aura easily to know how I will judge them—well… that was when I’m still aiming to become a Royal Knight.

But right now… something’s different. Normally a person only emits 1 color of aura, and Dr. Knane only emits red but that changed today… her aura today was mixed with pure black, I couldn’t even see it at first like it was only a shadow. It's not even meant to be alive—that he felt.

When he looked back, crawling towards the railing, Knane’s aura now only emits red. He sighs, but he takes this into an account and will keep on observing her. Maybe I’ll talk to her later. Then he stood up and sighs.

“What was that?” Geul said

“Nothing… uh… can you please excuse me for a moment.” Uly walks away from Geul towards Knane. Every step that he takes close towards Knane, he could feel that there are remnants left. 

Looks like we’ll have an even bigger problem to face. 

He scoffs and mutters to himself.

At Alphys' laboratory, Alphys arrived with Hiro inside her office via a teleportation door that is installed at the corner of the room. The way both of them step out of the teleport pad—fear written all over their faces. The teleport pad shuts off behind them, and a moment of silence lingers around the room. Alphys sighs and quickly sits down at her desk.

Hiro, on the other hand, feels rather hopeless.

“Dr. Alphys?” he asks as he approaches the front of her desk.

“I’m currently going to be busy for the next hours, please if it’s not urgent—”

She gets cut by Hiro while she’s aggressively typing on her laptop’s keyboard, possibly researching old records or documents about Gaster’s research papers.

“Please… this sounds so absurd.” he looks down “You know what Dr. Gaster did…”

“I know. But he’s currently our only option right now and I know he still exists.” While multitasking on her laptop, scramming through every file, she opened a familiar window—gaster’s files. The reason why he isn’t the Royal Scientist anymore also shows here however on her scroll, it's redacted. Traces of the reason were removed.

“Hiro?” she confusedly asks while a sweat rolls down her face, widens her eyes, and narrows her pupils.

“Yes?”

“Is there anybody that can access these forbidden files?”

“N-no… why?”

“These files are tampered… even alarming—it was only edited recently…”

Hiro quickly paces beside Alphys to look over the said files. And upon observing—it is tampered.

“I-Impossible!” he took a small step back, in shock, his mouth wide open, as he now feels more anxious “No one should be able to access these forbidden files without your permission…”

“Unless…” 

“‘Unless’? What??”

“Unless ‘he’ already is above us all…” she clenches her hands and bites her lips of anxiety.

“‘He’? Can we stop with the guessing game and tell—”

“Gaster.” Alphys coldly replied back to her, unfazed but still clenching her own fists.

“S-surely it wouldn't be that easy right??”

“Yeah it wouldn't…but apparently he seems to have found a shortcut… things will move at a lightspeed from here on out.” She minimizes the window of Gaster’s file and brings up another file about a mechanic that has been long abandoned even during Gaster’s era of his Serving as a Royal Scientist.

The Void Entrance. It's only been a theory in their universe, and it seems like it exists from every alternate reality. While it's possible that there are a few alternates that do not have the void, Alphys’ universe literally doesn’t have one. So having a mechanism that focuses around entering the void is like finding a needle in a haystack—the more you scramble through the hay, the less likely you’ll find it but the more likely it’ll prick you first before you can even achieve the impossible.

“Didn’t Dr. Gaster theorized this as impossible and stopped the production??” Hiro confusedly asks the situation wondering if it's even going to work.

“We may never know if we never try it. Plus we have the modern equipment today to further continue his lost work, we may be able to discover something new with it.” She then pulls up countless files. These files correlate to the current topic they are diving into—a dive into the multiverse. She pulls up several files to different ‘void’ in each alternates, going through several one of them at once, analyzing and reviewing them. But after a few hours with Hiro's help, they seem to get stuck midway.

“We’ll never get to finish this sooner, Dr. Alphys… this is just too tiring…” Hiro knocked out on the floor, mouth oozing over the dread of countless hours researching.

“We can't stop now… we don’t have the luxury of time in our hands…” Alphys diving through the messed up files on the floor, a laptop on the coffee table, and a hologram beside it that exactly tells the countdown from the Tree of Time.

Scrambling through the files, their hairs messed up, they stink of the hours of sweat, and coffee stains all over their uniform. But that did not stop Alphys from searching to the point that she’s overworking her body.

She’s feeling a bit sleepy on the other hand, head falling over countless times, causing darkening under her eyes. The coffee wasn’t much of a help either.

It has been 6 hours since the Failsafe was activated. 

A knock can be heard from Alphys’ office door. A few doctors and scientists can be heard discussing outside whether they should barge in her office because they’ve grown worried of both the scientists’ health inside as they’ve never left the room since they arrived. Alphys also owns her own coffee maker inside the office.