Ruintale
Chapter 4.
Moving on into Hotland, the Core, and New Home
Dr. Gaster had returned to his lab and was now watching the monitor that displayed what was being picked up by the security cameras all over the underground.
Alphys, who was looking at the machine that measured the activity of the "core", which gave power to the entire underground, noticed something unsettling.
"Um...Dad," the lizard scientist voiced as she pulled a strip of paper, riddled with data, from the machine, "have you seen this, it looks like the core has lost more power since last week."
"I know," Gaster sighed, "and if it doesn't get better soon, it will shut down completely and the entire underground will be without power."
"Not to mention that the core is already-" Alphys responded.
"Yes," the skeleton man interjected, "I know, I've seen it."
They saw on the monitor that the skeleton brothers, along with Undyne, Prince Asriel, Monster Kid, and the human were already near Hotland's border.
"They're almost here..." Alphys voiced, "Oh God, I hope they don't run into...him."
As they cautiously made the rest of their way through Waterfall, Frisk looked around curiously at his monster allies.
"So, Undyne," Frisk voiced, "you're the head of the royal guard?"
"Yeah," the fish woman replied, "is there...a problem with that?"
"N-No," the human teenager said, "I just figured that if that's true then you must be really strong."
"It's true, she really is," Papyrus attested, "Undyne is so strong she can suplex boulders bigger than herself!"
Undyne nodded proudly.
"Wow, really?" Frisk responded.
"Don't believe us?" Undyne said in return.
She then grabbed Papyrus around his midsection and hoisted him above her head, much to the tall skeleton's shock.
"It took me years to learn how to do stuff like this without letting my knees buckle." the fish woman affirmed.
"Yes, yes," Papyrus said frantically, "but, please don't drop the skeleton!"
Undyne promptly set him back down on his feet.
"I kind of really wanna see that boulder suplexing thing." Frisk stated.
"Tell you what, kid," the fish woman offered, "if the opportunity presents itself, I'll show you."
Frisk smiled, then looked at the skeleton brothers.
"So, your dad is the the royal scientist?" he quizzed
"Sure is," Sans affirmed, "of course, he spends most of his time in his lab, along with his assistants."
"And our sister, Alphys." Papyrus added.
The human boy looked at them curiously, while Asriel looked on dispassionately.
"Oh, you guys have a sister?" Frisk inquired.
"She's not actually their sister." Asriel said impassively.
"Uh, yes...actually," Sans replied coolly, "she is...in essence."
"In essence maybe," the goat teenager returned indifferently, "but, in reality, she's not."
There was a moment of awkward silence as a frustrated Sans facepalmed, in the meantime, Papyrus pulled Frisk aside.
"Okay, the truth is," the tall skeleton told him quietly, "Alphys is our adopted sister."
"What does Asriel have against her?" Frisk asked, quietly as well.
"Oh, it's not her he has a problem with personally," Papyrus explained, "it's just that...what happened all those years ago, the whole Chara, kind of warped his view of adoptive family members."
The human boy nodded understandingly in response.
"So, what's Alphys like?" he wondered.
"Ah, she's a super scientific genius!" Undyne voiced, "Of course, what more could you expect from someone raised by the most intelligent monster in the underground."
"Dr. Gaster...was it?" Frisk further asked, "And what's he like?"
Sans shrugged.
"About what you'd expect from a brilliant scientist," the short skeleton said, "he's intelligent, inventive, self-discouraging and encouraging, and a workaholic."
"And still manages to be a decent parent..." Papyrus added, "with that said, a little less time in the lab and more time with us would be nice-"
"Hey look at that," Asriel interjected, "we're coming up on Hotland."
Frisk looked up and noticed that they were on a new path, on the wall he saw an enormous sign that read, in big, digital letters: "Welcome to Hotland".
"So...I'm to assume that the weather there is..." the human boy said.
"Yeah, you won't need the jacket anymore," the monster prince offered, "but, go ahead and hold onto it."
The human teenager slid off the leather jacket, which already hung loosely from his shoulders as it was at least two sizes too big for him, and tied it around his waist.
However, as they entered the new area, everyone stopped dead in their tracks and looked around; the area was surprisingly dark and, to everyone's surprise, not as "hot" as it was expected to be. There was an ominous coolness in the air, not enough of one to require a jacket, but, definitely enough to indicate that something was wrong.
"Is that supposed to be lava?" Frisk asked, noting the dark gray-charcoal colored formations that lined areas out of reach, signs of the substance, glowing dimly like dying embers, was still visible beneath the stone crust.
"Yeah...it is..." Papyrus affirmed awkwardly.
"Seriously," Asriel uttered, looking at the skeleton brothers, "what the hell!?"
Sans immediately threw up his hands.
"I swear," he attested, "this is our first time seeing this ourselves."
"Yeah," his brother added, "nobody told us about this."
"I remember Alphys mentioning that the weather had been changing in Hotland," Undyne noted, "but, she never said anything about...this."
"So this is...recent?" Frisk mused.
The state of Hotland was quite similar to that of Waterfall, with many monsters appearing to suffer the same infection as numerous ones they had seen a while back. They moved slowly, as the infected seemed to react mostly to motion and sound, their beastly growls being the only warning the group got before encountering them. Of course, since they had to move carefully, it was a slow trip through the dark, smoldering land.
"Ugh...how did this happen?" Asriel groaned quietly, trying to avoid catching the attention of any infected monsters.
"It's as we said, we-" Papyrus started.
"I know how it happened," the goat teenager responded, "I mean...why did this have to happen?"
Frisk wondered as well as he stayed close to his allies, wedged firmly between Asriel and Papyrus.
Suddenly, Asriel's ears twitched.
"What was that?" he uttered, stopping dead in his tracks.
The others stopped as well.
"Listen." the monster prince instructed.
Everyone listened closely and soon, they heard it, strange beeping and whirring noises, like that of a machine.
"Oh shit," Undyne voiced, "is that who I think it is?"
"Yep." Sans stated.
"What is it?" Frisk wondered warily.
"You have to hide, now!" Asriel said urgently.
They hurried along, until Asriel shoved Frisk behind a pile of rubble, forcing him to remain on the ground, while the skeleton brothers, Monster Kid, and Undyne remained in plain sight.
"Why are we hiding?" Frisk inquired.
"Shhh..." was the goat boy's only response, as he moved to look out behind their hiding place.
Frisk went to see what Asriel was looking at and flinched at what he saw, a menacing, mechanical humanoid, with black and indigo armor covering its chrome limbs, One of its eyes looked like a humans eyes, while the others was simply a piercing, red light. As soon as he got a look, he shrank back behind the pile with Asriel.
"What is that!?" the human teenager questioned quietly.
"Mettaton," the goat prince informed him, "he was created by Dr. Alphys, apparently Toriel had her modify him to identify and hunt for humans, which is why you can't let him see you."
The robot stopped in front of Undyne and the skeleton brothers.
"Undyne, Sans, Papyrus." the robot spoke, in a cold, monotonous voice.
"Mettaton." Undyne responded simply.
"Word from the castle is that a human was spotted in the underground." Mettaton stated.
"Is that right?" Sans replied.
"You haven't seen or heard anything yourselves?" the mechanical man questioned.
Monster Kid shook his head.
Sans shrugged.
"I haven't." Undyne said.
"Of all the gossip I've heard in Snowdin," Papyrus voiced, "I've heard nothing regarding that."
"No matter," Mettaton affirmed, "I will continue to scan every corner of the underground until I find what I am instructed to."
Asriel silently urged Frisk to move along, hoping they could slip ahead while the robot scanned the area, with their friends casually walking away from Mettaton as well, and it looked like they were going to get away. However, they were suddenly approached by a monster, with a wizard-like appearance, that appeared to have the "Determination" infection.
"AAWWAAH!" the infected monster wailed, "Rah, s'a huuuuman!"
With that, Mettaton's head snapped in their direction.
"Human identification confirmed," the robotic man said intently, "target locked."
"Run!" Undyne shouted.
The group ran in the direction of the Core, desperately moving to dodge mettaton's projectile attacks, as he ran, Monster Kid tripped and, afraid to get back up, he rolled for cover.
"Keep running," the armless monster teen yelled, "I'll catch up later!"
"The castle is just beyond the Core," Asriel attested, keeping a tight grasp on Frisk's wrsit, "we're almost there!"
Then, Mettaton's projectile's struck an already dilapidated building, causing it to give-way and collapse, panicking, Sans grabbed his brother, the closest one to him and teleported away, while Undyne dived for cover. Asriel and Frisk just barely managed to avoid getting crushed as they came up on the bridge to the core, however, just as they reached it, Mettaton fired more projectiles, hitting bridge, nearly sending the teenagers into the dimly glowing Core. They got to the other side and got into the Core, but, the damage from Mettaton's attack caused the area to begin to crumble, prompting the youngsters to go faster. Just as they were nearing the elevator, a sizable chunk of the ceiling began to cave in, seeing it, Asriel promptly shoved Frisk forward. The human teenager narrowly cleared the cave in, only to find himself alone in front of a wall of rubble.
"Frisk!" he heard from the other side, it was faint, but, recognizable thankfully Asriel had avoided getting buried as well.
"I'm okay!" Frisk called back.
"Good, just sit tight," the goat teenager responded, "I'll break through this!"
Frisk turned around and looked down the hallway, at the end of it was the elevator to the palace, where Queen Toriel was waiting. With that in mind, the human boy made a critical decision.
"Asriel," he called, "take your time, I'll...I'll go on ahead!"
Hearing that, Asriel went into full on panic mode.
"You'll...what!?" the monster prince uttered, "No, Frisk, you can't!"
He frantically began to dig at the rubble, desperately trying to clear the way.
"Frisk, please, you can't go alone!" Asriel cried, "She'll kill you! Listen to me, she will kill you!"
However, his cries were in vain, as Frisk had already gotten on the elevator, which thankfully still worked, and rode it all the way to the top. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Frisk stepped off and began to walk through the corridors, until he found a domain that looked very much like the one that Asriel resided in back in the ruins. He entered the house and carefully walked through, but, saw nobody inside, however, he did notice something striking and that was the walls of the house, which were all lined end-to-end with quite old-looking photos. Photos of the Dreemurr family, in happier times, as Frisk solemnly perused the collection of photos, one in particular caught his eye, it was almost identical to the one that Asriel had, however, it was all in one piece, with Toriel's face clear and unscribbled, however, while Chara was visible in the picture, his entire image was scribble over, just like Toriel's in Asriel version of it.
Frisk then turned his attention to the stairway leading to the lower level, a well-placed sign indicating that it led to the throne room. With nothing else to hold him back, the human teenager made his way down the stairs and walked down yet another hallway, until he reached a doorway leading to a big surprisingly bright room, the ground inside covered with golden flowers, in the center of the room, there was a throne, and at the other end of the room, looking up at a sizable portrait of the royal family, was a dignified, purple-clad figure.
Nervous, but, Determined, Frisk slowly walked into the room, and as he stepped onto the bed of flowers, the noise caught the attention of the room's distracted inhabitant.
"Oh, is someone there?" the monster spoke.
She then turned around to see who had entered her throne room, revealing her appearance to be that of a goat creature, just like Asriel, leaving no doubt in Frisk's mind that she was indeed the queen. As soon as she saw the human teenager, she gasped aloud and recoiled in shock, both creatures remaining motionless as they made eye-contact with each other.
The moment of truth and there was no running away for either of them.
Whoo, new chapter done and things are about to go down!
This chapter might seem sloppy and rushed, but, that's mainly because 1. I have finished this at 1:35 a.m., 2. I am getting excited and restless for the last chapter, and 3. I would really like to get this done soon so I can get back to Tyrantale and other fics.