theattic | [MEME] TEST DRIVE

See? He was totally right!! Alphys was such a huge nerd.

"Oh, nevermind darling, nevermind!" he said dismissively as he squeakily wheeled himself over. Alphys would likely be able to feel the heat radiating off of his outer casing once he got closer. "Do you really think I care about your mess~? It's fine!! Besides I have a problem you need to fix!! I'm overheating and that's sort of important!! Important that it doesn't happen!"

Clearly, the entertainment bot was most worried about damaging his body. He isn't blaming it on Alphys, but he is putting it on her to fix.

Alphys bustled after him, wringing her claws as she scurried. Oh, dear! She really could feel the heat wafting off of him. Turns out it wasn't coming from her own face or the double doors after all. This wasn't good!

"L-let me take a look."

"I'll leave it to you, darling!" he concedes, standing still for her to check him out more closely. If he didn't trust her, he'd have gotten nowhere with a new body, right?

Probably...not the nicest way to think of it. But fame had long since inflated Mettaton's ego to the point where old friendships simply didn't hold the same level of relevance in his life. Glitz and glamour were the true besties of his world now!

...He couldn't really ever forget Alphys though.

Once Mettaton held still, Alphys leaned in with a critical eye. She reached blindly out to her right to grab up a tool that she knew would be there and opened a panel on the entertainment bot's side to get a look at his fans.

His internal ones.

Not the rabid ones that clamored for his autograph.

"Looks like something's stuck in here. What have you been doing?"

Edited 2016-05-12 22:50 (UTC)

"I've been performing, obviously!" Mettaton says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Isn't it?! The robot absolutely doesn't stop working like. Ever. Even when he's charging, which admittedly isn't necessary all the time since this form is pretty efficient, he's working!

That's probably how this happened. Mettaton doesn't really respect his own limitations and pushes his body harder than he should. Corporeality...he hasn't quite caught on how mortal it makes him. Can't kill a ghost, can you?

"Is it fixable, Alphys dear?"

Now that she's faced with her own handywork rather than Mettaton's flashing sarcastic screen, Alphys feels more at ease. At least she's not as sweaty.

She reaches into the tangle of wires and circuits with a pair of long tweezers and after some poking and fiddling, retracts them having snagged something tiny, reflective, and purple.

It's a sequin.

Alphys sighs. "Found the problem. And there's more where that came from."

The lizard holds out the bit of glam for Mettaton to get a good look at.

"Oh."

Mettaton would frown if he could. He's at least doing it internally, and his grid flashes with a solid red line running horizontally from left to right against yellow.

"I suppose I went a little heavy on those for the last show! Hopefully I'll be back in working order soon enough, if only because you are so talented!"

He's laying it on thick, but then again, he often does when he's gunning for his own self-interest.

Alphys dared to form a little squint and pursed her lip, waiting for Mettaton to really take in the hot water he'd be in if he kept up his act. But then he starts to lay on the compliments and she knows--she knows what he's doing. But it still feels so good to be appreciated and so, with a roll of her eyes and the ache to keep her human club bro around a little longer, she goes back to work.

And she finds more sequins. A few pieces of confetti. A scrap of paper with some fan's phone number on it.

"You may have to invest more in digital effects to make your shows more...showy...because you need to keep things out of your vents." She sighs. "Or I could build you a stunt double."

Welcome to the next great show "What's In The Robot?"

Seriously, Mettaton can't be trusted to care for himself, it seems. Why would he need to when he's got Alphys for it?!

"Honey, I can't just get rid of practical effects! Those are important, and have far more potential than digital effects! Those should come in moderation! A stunt double's no good either, I'm perfectly capable of running my own gigs!!"

How could she ever suggest a stunt double?! For what, for stealing his thunder? No way.

"...That being said, I'll be more mindful in the future," he adds, as a way to appease her, and his conscience as well. He's still got one in there. It's the nagging voice that reminds him Alphys was just as important as he was in this friendship, at least for the moment.

She had a feeling he wouldn't like that.

Finally Mettaton's system is all cleaned out and there is quite the glittery pile on the lab floor where they stand. He really did leave the world more beautiful wherever he went.

"While you're here, I should give your battery a boost..."

"Oooh, how charitable of you, Alphys!! And here I came in to impose upon your good nature for simple maintenance! Naturally, you're free to do as you like! Just keep in mind, I have work to do very soon!"

Not that he's going to turn down any upgrades. He lives for pampering, thanks very much!

"What level of optimization can I expect?"

Leaving the glitter and sequins where they lay, Alphys waves for Mettaton to follow her over to a computer-laden station set against the wall. It's covered in outlets, docks, screens, and dials.

"Um..." She glanced between the charging station and her 'creation'. "You won't explode."

She oughtn't let the sequins lay around for too long. Mettaton will repurpose them, and then they'll be in the same situation, won't they?

...So about strange things to say, though.

"...Why would I explode with my current power setup? You know, that's probably something you should have told me about, Alphys."

He didn't attach a cute pet name onto it because somehow being told he wouldn't explode seemed a little serious. Gosh, did that mean he was likely to explode already? Sure, it would make great pyrotechnics, but then Alphys would have to build him a new body!!

And he'd just be a homeless ghost. Ugh. No, not again...

Alphys started heaving around heavy industrial cords and making way for Mettaton to dock. As she did so, she muttered under her breath, "I didn't have your bedazzlement intake in mind when I created you because I thought you'd have a little sense."

Once she had the table ready, she whirled around and put her awkward worried grin back on. "A-all ready! And--what I mean is. Your personality is so...big! Bigger than I thought! You're getting more and more popular and I'd hate for you to hit your peak before you got to show off your new body."

Mettaton considers mentioning that his super-great hearing had helped him catch onto what Alphys had said initially. He really did think about it.

But well...she has his current fabulous life in the palm of her clawed hands. So he keeps his catty thoughts to himself and wheels right up to the charging station with nary a smartass word.

Besides, she'd brought up his new body, and that was a subject that always got Mettaton excited. As he settled comfortably in for a charge, his grid flashed consistently with a big heart; the usual expression of his happiness.

"Right you are, honeylemon!" he exclaimed. "I await new progress on that front too, I can't even begin to express how excited I am!!"

He probably shouldn't. Sequins or not, he'll probably just overheat from his own enthusiasm.

Alphys knew how to flip Mettaton's switch without so much as touching him and she heaves a little sigh of relief when his attention shifts.

"I can show you a part of it."

Once the bot is in place, she checks to make sure he's got the proper nodes lined up and flips the switch. He's running on CORE power now and she can remove his battery and make the required adjustments. Once the battery pack is out and opened, she turns and reaches under the station to pull something out.

At first it doesn't look like much. A small curved piece of metal but when she turns it over in her claws, it reveals itself to be half of a face with an eye hole, pre-lined with a perfect cat eye. Alphys holds it up before her own face so that she can look at Mettaton through the eye hole.

"I-it's the new you."

Mettaton is, for once in his life, temporarily speechless as he sees his eventual face. When he finally regains his voice, his screen goes nuts with patternless flashing, eventually settling on a big red exclamation point.

"It's perfect!!" he exclaims, nearly unplugging himself as he emphatically moves his arms to express his excitement further. "Oh Alphys, it looks so lovely!! When will it be finished!?"

Great. Now his expectations were going to rise. Go Alphys.

Such a huge show of appreciation all but makes her forget the sour mood she'd stumbled into only seconds before. She puffed her chest out with pride and trundled forward, offering Mettaton his future face for him to...make out with probably. Let's be real.

She knew her friend.

"I have some readjusting to do on the schematics. More fans, y-you know."

Since he doesn't actually have a face applied to him right now, he settles for hugging the FUTURE HIM and making pleased, metallic-sounding hums.

"Oh yes. Yes, all of that sounds perfectly interesting," he says with a tone that definitely expresses the opposite. Have you seen this face? This face is great!

He wasn't listening.

No surprise there. She had a feeling she could have said she was reworking the schematics to include live birds for all he knew. Still. Look how happy he was! She would hang onto that praise for a while and finally turned to start working on the battery.

She really had to make sure he wouldn't blow up. There was a soul in that hunk of junk!

Hahaha. He's a ghost inside, Alphys. You can't hurt him by making him explode! At least, he doesn't think so anyway. Regardless, she's right that he shouldn't, you know. Explode. Exploding is bad.

Mettaton eventually pries himself away from the greatness that is his new face and peers over it to see what Alphys is doing. Not that he didn't know or anything, she had taken his battery out so obviously, even though he wasn't paying really good attention to her, she was fixing his battery.

"How long is this going to take, sugarscales~? I do still have work to do."

Alphys wrinkled her nose thoughtfully and looked at the tools and the coil she was re-adding. She also wrinkled her nose ever so slightly at being called sugarscales. She wasn't sure if she liked it or not.

"I have to load this in and then charge it and let it cool before re-attaching it so probably...fffffffffour-ish hours?"

She winced over her shoulder.

Well that's it. If there was still a good mood left in Mettaton, it was out the door right then and there.

"Alphys, darling. What am I supposed to do for FOUR HOURS??" he asked, putting severe emphasis on the quoted time. He's not a happy bot. Being on the move is his MO.

Alphys has a good think about that, tapping her nose with one of her claws. And then her eyes light upa nd she spins around in her chair.

"I'll be right back!"

She scurries to the up escalator, is gone for only a moment, and all but hops down the down escalator. When she reappears in front of Mettaton there are several shiny DVD cases in-hand. She is beaming.

Oh god.

"Alphys, this is extortion! Normally I'd love your daring, but really now," he says. And it is totally extortion of the nth degree. He can't move. He has no choice but to watch her things.

...Sigh. He may as well resign himself to it.

"But fine. As you have given me no other alternative, we can watch your animes."

[MEME] TEST DRIVE

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