This was quite dangerous, Dr. WingDings Gaster knew. Very dangerous, in fact, not to mention illegal. If it were found out, he could quite possibly not only lose his job as the Royal Scientist, but...

Well, there was no prison in the Underground, but they very well could make one for his imprisonment.

Technically, it was only mildly illegal right now, as both DTW-Subjects 642 and 643 were physically alive, but had no Souls. A case could be made that the creation of and experimentation on them was not much different that the growth of and experimentation on plants. Annoying Dog knew they were no more sentient than one.

On top of that, he had not yet even removed S643 from its suspension tank, and therefore, hadn't technically experimented on it at all.

There was the small matter that they were made of the organic matter and Magic of a living monster, and, indeed, this matter had to be taken from a living host through some rather unorthodox means (a laser cutter, what might have been considered overdosing on painkillers, and much agonized cursing may or may not have been involved), but as said living host was Gaster himself and not a random volunteer, he also thought that he could make a rather convincing argument as to why what he was doing was perfectly alright, as, as far as he was aware, there was no law against cutting out parts of yourself for your own scientific interests. Regardless of the holes in his hands.

Yes, he was convinced that if he left the project as it was, and if it were discovered, he could wiggle out of any tricky ethical situation he might be put in, especially considering all his past experience in doing so.

Unfortunately, he could not leave the project as it was.

The entire purpose of the DTW project was to create a weapon strong enough to destroy humanity once the Barrier was broken, and bonus points if said weapon could also break the Barrier. But, in order to do that, the weapon had to be either one of two things. It could have been a machine of some kind, but Gaster ruled that out not only because that meant the machine would require an operator, but also because the subjects were most certainly not machines. Otherwise, at the very least, the weapon had to have more cognitive capacity than that of a vegetable.

Which, currently, neither S642 nor the still-suspended S643 had.

Fortunately, Gaster had a pretty good idea of how to jump-start S642's mental ability: give it a Soul, or, at least, a fraction of one. And if it didn't work, well, he could try something else with S643.

There were two problems with this, though. Firstly, Souls didn't exactly just grow on trees, ripe for the picking and shoving into cloned skeleton monster frames' chests. Secondly, the instant that he put that Soul piece into S642, his experiments on it became much, much more illegal. Because no matter how stupid and unintelligent S642 might be, if it had a Soul, it was considered sentient, it could feel emotion. And if it could do that...

Well. After Gaster's last few mishaps involving monster volunteers, the experimentation on sentient monsters had been banned.

Gaster had even been made to sit through a twenty minute lecture from Asgore about not experimenting on monsters, regardless of whether or not they volunteered. He had nodded obediently through the whole thing, and at the end, had promised not to do that anymore.

That was the whole reason for S642 and S643. He had planned on making a test subject. S642 was the first subject he had attempted to create using living matter, instead of monster dust, S643 the second. They were also the first mildly successful attempts, out of his 643 tries.

Hence the DTW-Subject 642, and then 643.

But then there was the whole issue of them being completely incompetent. And not just stupid. Since removing S642 from the suspension tank, Gaster had found, it didn't have the intelligence to swallow water that was poured into its mouth.

In light of that, a case could even be made that it was less intelligent than a plant, as plants, at the very least, could absorb water.

Which, again, wouldn't work for what Gaster needed it for.

So, then.

Screw illegal.

He was going to give S642 a Soul.

He had a programmable laser cutter. And drugs. And a monster could survive without the full physical form of it's Soul. And he often spent days in end in his private lab, without coming out, so no one would suspect something if he passed out and didn't wake up for several days.

He was going to give S642 a Soul.

Well. Okay, no he wasn't. He was going to give S642 a fraction of a Soul. Just a small piece. If he gave it a whole Soul, that would not only kill Gaster himself, but probably give it more intelligence than he wanted it to have.

He just wanted it to be smart enough to work efficiently, and follow commands.

A small shard of his own Soul.

~o0o~

It worked better than he had expected it to.

Granted, there were the side effects. As his Soul hadn't yet fully healed, Gaster was almost constantly on painkillers, so much so to the point that some of the other scientists in the lab thought he might be addicted to drugs. On top of that, with the small chunk of his Soul gone, his Magic capacity had gone down a bit. He had never had a super incredible amount of stamina in the first place, and while his attacks could pack quite a punch, he never managed to last in a battle for more than twenty to thirty minutes.

Now, he supposed, his maximum time would be more around twenty six or twenty seven minutes. Comparing that to the minimum for admittance to the Royal Guard, which was at the very least an hour in sustained combat...

Well. He was a scientist, and had no intention of being in war himself ever again.

Really, though, it was worth it.

Because only hours after inserting the Soul fragment into S642, it had already shown a flicker of mental activity. It had also started twitching almost constantly, which, compared to its deathly stillness prior to the Soul fragment, Gaster considered to be an improvement.

After removing it from the suspension tank that it had originally been grown in, Gaster had been force-feeding it a solution he had concocted that contained all the Magic and nutrients it had needed to survive. This had been a little tricky, as S642 hadn't even moved so much as to swallow the solution, but that wasn't a problem now.

When he had lifted it off the table that had been its residing place for the last month since he had taken it out of suspension, its twitching stopped. That in itself was an achievement for Gaster, as it meant that S642 was most definitely aware of its surroundings to some degree. And when he had carefully pulled S642's jaw open and started dripping the solution into its mouth, he had been pleasantly astonished to see it actively sucking at the liquid, and eventually swallowing it. And when there was none of the solution left, and Gaster had laid it out again on the table, it had curled up on its side and gone to sleep.

Gaster was, needless to say, incredibly pleased.

But that didn't mean he was done. No, his work had only just begun.

Because now that S642 was sentient, however minimally, it meant he could get to work on the whole turning-it-into-a-weapon thing.

On top of that, there were accommodations that needed to be made. He couldn't just leave it lying on the table, it might fall and damage itself. And if it didn't damage itself, it could wander away and get into trouble and then damage itself.

So he had to find a way to keep it safe, at least until it was stronger. That wouldn't be too impossibly hard, he supposed. When the lab had been built, Asgore had insisted that a small living quarters be built off the side Gaster's private lab, as he knew his Royal Scientist often went overnight, and then over multiple nights, at the lab. Gaster rarely used the room, more often than not spending two or three nights without sleep then eventually crashing at his desk, but it would make a decent place to keep S642.

There were a few other details, but they were small, and wouldn't be difficult to work out.

~o0o~

Gaster was incredibly happy, and the whole True Lab knew it.

For nearly the last ten years, the Lab and its staff had been attempting to build the CORE unit, or the Central Optimal Resourced Energy unit. For the last five years, they had designed and built a variety of CORE prototypes, none of which had worked.

In the last week, three different prototypes blew up, and Gaster only threatened to fire people two times. Normally, it was more like twenty times per incident.

And he was smiling. Complimenting people. Actually legitimately looking at proposed designs before discarding them.

To be honest, all the scientists were freaked out more than a little bit, and very worried that something bad was about to happen.

~o0o~

Gaster was indeed very happy.

The Soul fragment in S642's chest was growing exponentially. In just a few weeks, it was nearly twice the size it had been when he put it there.

Along with that came other things, namely its level of cognizance.

For one thing, it recognized when Gaster fed it, and became quite restless if he was even a few minutes late. For another, he only just had to hold the bottle containing the food solution to its jaw. It readily did the rest, tipping back its skull and swallowing the liquid easily.

S642 also slept nearly constantly when Gaster wasn't feeding it or running tests and checking its health. And even then, it did sleep occasionally during the latter. Gaster wasn't particularly concerned by this, though. S642 was a developing being, and required much rest.

The first time S642 opened its eyes was about four months after first receiving the Soul fragment. By then, the Soul fragment was hardly a fragment anymore. Its Soul was nearly three fourths the size an infant monster's would be, and almost the right shape.

Gaster had been coming to feed it. Today, though, he had mixed into the solution a growth serum he had been working on. Although S642 was getting stronger by the day, it was still relatively weak, and the growth serum would help it get stronger, faster, so that Gaster could finally begin the procedures to turn it into the weapon.

Gaster scooped S642 up and held it in one arm. It was still very small, shorter than his forearm, just barely a single foot from head to toe.

Recognizing the position, it settled in his grip, mouth slightly open, waiting.

Gaster picked up the bottle containing its food in his opposite hand and held it to S642's mouth. For a moment, S642 sucked at it.

Then it jerked away, gagging and spitting. It did not like the taste of the growth serum. After a moment or two, it settled down again, mouth open, silently asking for food.

He tried again, holding the bottle to its mouth.

Again, S642 gagged and spit, refusing the solution.

But it still wanted food. It was hungry.

Gaster sighed. Trying to force-feed S642 would be a lot harder now, as it would actively be trying to reject the solution, instead of being stupidly oblivious to the fact that anything was happening in the first place. He would like to avoid that. But that meant either convincing S642 to drink the solution, or not giving the solution to it.

He most definitely couldn't do the second.

One more try, then.

Carefully, he held the bottle to its mouth, silently pleading with it to just drink it!

It didn't. Gaster swore.

When it had finished spitting out the undesired liquid, S642 had turned its head to look up at Gaster reproachfully.

Gaster looked down sternly at it.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, defiance to authority.

Then they both began to realize what had just happened.

S642's expression changed to one of curious wonderment. It looked all around, the white glow of its pupils twitching unceasingly across the darkness of its eyesockets as it explored its surroundings for the first time.

Gaster just watched, wondering how long it would be before it remembered that it was hungry, and if he could just shove the bottle into its mouth now and get it to drink while it was distracted.

Eventually, S642's gaze drifted back to Gaster's face.

He offered it the bottle again. Hesitantly, it put its mouth up to it.

"Come on!" Gaster summoned a pair of hands beyond S642's range of view as to not startle it, and used them to vent his frustration, in Hands. "Just drink it!"

Looking more at Gaster's face than at the bottle, it slowly sucked at the liquid.

Gaster gave it a hopeful smile.

Maybe, it was because Gaster was smiling at it, or maybe because it actually was intelligent enough to realize that this was all it was getting, but S642 drank just a bit of the solution. Then it gagged and shuddered, but it seemed almost like it was trying not to, and was only just reflexively forced to.

Gaster waited until S642 had finished, then again offered it the bottle. Again, watching him, it took a small sip.

Again, it gagged a little, but this time managed to swallow all of its mouthful. Gaster smiled encouragingly at it.

And slowly, they proceeded. S642 could only take small sips of the solution before its gag reflex kicked in, but the more friendly Gaster was, the harder it seemed to try.

So there was that.

Nearly an hour later, S642 managed to drink the last of the solution. Gaster tucked it back into the bed in the room off the lab. More or less exhausted with its untasteful ordeal, it fell asleep.

Gaster returned to his desk, intent on writing that day's report and notes on S642. Before he did, though, something occurred to him, something that had the potential to be problematic.

Before it had opened its eyes, S642 had actively defied him in drinking the solution. It had gotten to a high enough level of sentience that it was deciding what it liked and didn't like, and making its own decisions. He had only just been lucky that it liked his approval more than it disliked the taste of the growth serum.

... If it decided it didn't want to be a weapon...

Gaster just shook his head. He'd just have to make sure, should its intelligence continue to grow, that it knew it was a weapon, regardless of what it wanted to be.

After all, he was so close. He couldn't just give up, not when he finally had a test subject again, could he?

§

A/N

Anyway, Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Remember, votes and comments are not only always welcome, but always appreciated, too!