Bonnie Hatfield-McCoy was barely clinging to life when Neil found her in the cell. She was slumped against the wall, her head bowed, panting and heaving with her chest slowly rising and falling. Her breath was hoarse and ragged, her tone almost a raspy whisper as she slowly raised her head, and then turned to look to the side ever-so-slightly. "Mah...hat..." She mumbled out to Neil. Neil Elliot blinked stupidly. What the heck did she mean by-oh. OH. He realized her cowboy hat had fallen off, and she wanted it back on her head, even though her skull was matted with dried blood. He carefully placed it back atop her head, apologetically smiling up at her. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed preteen looked into the brown-haired teenager's eyes, blue into green as she chuckled a bit, letting him help her up and try to stagger towards the cell door. "I'm awfully sorry puttin' y'all through this." She apologetically admitted to Neil. "Y'all had to go through so much just to get to me."
"I'm getting you to Frisk, and then we're going to destroy the door to the Ruins. Nobody will be able to get to you, or ever get any more human souls." Neil insisted quietly as he "oofed" with every step, the two getting closer and closer to the cell door, now inching their way down the hall...as the lights suddenly turned off, and a string of floor lights flooded on, illuminating a path. "...oh hell. I think we've been spotted."
"Correct." A voice rang out from the PDA system as Neil inwardly groaned, hearing Dr. Gaster's voice ringing out, calm and collected. "Did you really think I WOULDN'T notice you breaking into my laboratory? My boy, for all your finesse and skill I see in your ballet moves, you've got the stealth of a very loud mountain goat." The skeleton monster intoned, and Neil was SURE that the doctor was rubbing his temples and shaking his head back and forth, scarcely able to get out the words he was saying. "I mean, the only thing you weren't doing was literally humming the James Bond theme."
Neil deeply blushed. "Well, the first time I went through the lab about a year ago..." He muttered under his breath.
But Dr. Gaster had overheard that. He steepled his bony fingers, Neil continuously moving across the hallway floors, taking Bonnie with him. "How many times have you ever RESET?"
"Lost count." Neil snapped. He did not want to talk about this. He did not want to be psychoanalyzed. He didn't like the idea of this scientist looking at him like something under a microscope. He had to get Bonnie some magical food. What they needed, without a doubt, was to get to the kitchen, and he could smell coffee coming up on his right. One of the doors had to lead to an employee lounge, if he could just see which one...
He pushed doors open again and again as W.D Gaster spoke up again. "I imagine the first time you learned of your abilities, it was fascinating to you. A power nobody else had. An entire world opening up before you. I remember when I first gained mastery over multiple magics, and my parents were proud as could be. Yet they couldn't compare to the sheer joy I felt at knowing I could do things nobody around me could. That I could COMBINE magical spells. I felt a sense of furtive, dark delight, like knowing I'd found a hidden treasure and not wanting to tell anyone."
Neil pushed open another door. A broom closet. Another door. A bathroom.
"I of course began to exploit this little gift. I'd use it to beat others and win bets. I tested the limits of science and magic in my laboratory. "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair"." At first, I thought that saying meant others would despair in knowing they couldn't compare. Then in my foolishness, I became the Ozymandias of the poem. "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay, of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away."
Another door. A supply closet. Neil was trying very hard not to listen, but it was becoming difficult. Chara's whispering was getting louder. A resentful anger was building in him, rising higher and higher.
"Everything I did amounted to nothing. What went up came down. Because I began using my gifts to experiment upon humans. I used it to discover the infamous "LOVE". "Level of Violence". To discover "EXP". "Execution Points". I learned the limits of monster and human souls. I learned what happens when a monster claims a human soul. Because I was the one that sparked the war. Humans found out about my experiments, found out I had absorbed human souls into myself to test what would happen. And we were cast down, down, down...into the Underground."
"Oh, I feel so BAD for you. Wallow in self-pity you child-killing sons of!-" Neil began to angrily say. "Do you expect me to feel SORRY for you?! After everything you've done to the missus here? To the other children? To ME? Do you know how many times I died down here in the Underground? Against Asgore alone? When you've died over 89 times, then maybe we can talk about how much we've both suffered, how much we have in common!"
He shook his head back and forth, finally reaching the last door on the right, opening it up. Coffee!...on a desk, next to some monster versions of "Oreos". It wasn't an employee lounge, it was a small employee office, and...an absolute wreck. There were papers littering the ground, posters half-heartedly stuck up on the wall, the PC was a mess, a dozen different applications were turned on and various scribblings and doodles were left on a nearby whiteboard...and Neil knew it was Sans's. The scribbler was supposed to analyze velocity, and to do so, he'd drawn a cannon firing. The cannon had then turned into a pirate firing said cannon at a fort as he sat on a tiny island, sharks circling around his nearby pirate ship as he cried out "Yar, Yar, Gimme Yer Treasure", the Fort defiantly firing back and yelling "Never" as a crab scuttled on the beach it laid upon. Yep. It was definitely Sans's scribbling. He hobbled Bonnie over to the desk as she took the Oreo cookies and downed them with the coffee, her wounds healing a bit before his eyes, her skin no longer looking quite as gaunt, her bloodied wounds being more scabby and less flowing, more color coming to her cheeks.
"Your kind killed many, many of us." Gaster explained softly over the PDA. "And we so dearly want to leave this place. Don't make this difficult. I have enough blood on my conscience, and do not want to cause more needless suffering if I can avoid it."
"You want to go up and kill more people on the surface. That's not okay. I don't care what you endured in the past, it doesn't justify you being jerks in the present." Neil snapped. "It's the same sort of nonsense my dad used to buy into when he was on that big Confederate kick for a while. He got over it because he realized what you haven't yet. You wanna remember? Fine. REMEMBER THAT YOU LOST. Then maybe the days of glory past stop looking so awesome."
"Don't antagonize the guy who can shoot lasers outta giant skulls. Cuz he'll use 'em. Repeatedly. Many, many times." Bonnie grunted, shaking her head back and forth as she led HIM out of the room, down along the dark hallway as the air seemed to get humid and intense. Further and further along the dimly-lit hall they went, approaching the only door out, the other locked and barred by thick, steely grates as Neil forcibly tug it open...
He deeply frowned. This place.
He was in the middle of a part of the lab he'd not enjoyed being close to at ALL the last time he'd gone through the Underground, in what seemed like another lifetime ago. This was where the Amalgamates were. Deep, ugly green floors, a rotten wall color to match, what sounded like a thousand fans all running at once as he and Bonnie kept moving forward, through darkness and a hazy mist that spread through the room, enveloping all nooks and crannies. It was almost icy cold inside this tomb-like section of the lab, and Neil shuddered, somehow this place felt even more inhospitable to his tutu-wearing frame than SNOWDIN had!
And then the mist parted enough to reveal Dr. Gaster who was standing with his hands in his lab coat. His head was lowered as he quietly sighed.
"I will ask you politely only once. Please return to the cell with her, and this will not be painful."
"I'll ask YOU once. Move out of the way, or I move you." Neil said, getting in front of Bonnie as he parted his legs a bit and struck a fighting pose, crouching a bit, ready to spring forth.
Dr. Gaster sighed. "I didn't want to do this. My green energy's rather spent from my earlier fight with the teenager behind you. I had hoped you'd just cooperate, but you humans are so...DETERMINED, aren't you? As long as you keep moving forward, trying as hard as you can, you believe everything will work out."
"DETERMINATION?" Neil grinned, flexing his legs. "Nah! I was all about INTEGRITY. Owning up to what I do, to be honest and true. You'll not get any lies out of me, doc. So believe me when I say I REALLY am not gonna hold back against you after what you did to Bonnie!"
Chara's whispering had never sounded so seductive. Gaster and Mettaton had hurt Bonnie. They deserved to be punished for this, for hurting an innocent human. For hurting one of his friends. For trying to keep a mother from her child. They refused to own up to the wrong they did, excusing it as a "greater good".
He HATED that excuse. And they were going to find out just how much he hated it. He shot forward, Gaster sighing as his head shot up...and distinctly glowed a deep blue. Neil was caught off guard, blinking a bit in surprise, the leg that was about to slide into Gaster's face flopping a bit in midair...
Before Neil flopped to the floor, now covered in a blue aura as Gaster chuckled a bit. "In the words of my adorable younger brother...you're blue now. That's my attack. Nyeh-heh-heh-heh!"
Neil inwardly gasped as Dr. Gaster swung his finger through the air, spinning it around and around as Neil was swept to and fro through the air, Bonnie gaping in alarm and staring in shock. Neil was taking a beating, his young body slamming hard into the wall as Dr. Gaster frowned. "I suggest you surrender before I'm forced to-"
RESET
"As long as you keep moving forward, trying as hard as you can, you believe everything will-"
Neil's leg shot forth as he tried to knee Dr. Gaster straight in his face with a THWA-THWACK...only for Dr. Gaster to freeze him in midair, Neil stiffening, halting in place, now looking positively idiotic as he hung there, Gaster chuckling. "You're blue now! That's my attack! Nyeh-heh-heh!"
"Oh COME ON!" Neil cried out angrily.
RESET
"I will ask you politely only once. Please return to the cell with her, and this will not be painful-"
"Oh trust me, this is gonna be real painful!" Neil roared out, barreling down the hallway, only for to be slammed into the wall, his body engulfed by blue light. "Don't tell me. I'm "blue" now. That's your attack. Nyeh-heh-heh?"
Dr. Gaster blinked stupidly. "Wait, how-oh. Of course, your unique ability. So...this fascinating "RESET" ability of yours? I've experience in these matters. You're not the first time-fiddling human I ever met. It would seem you're going to be the last, though. Believe me, I am very sorry for your death." He insisted, holding a hand up.
RESET
Neil was now in the hallway with Bonnie and he halted in place, panting. "Wait. WAIT." He insisted firmly. "If we go down this way, Dr. Gaster will cream me. I can't beat him." Neil groaned as he clutched at his head, shaking it back and forth. "What am I going to do?! I can't think of a way to attack him and there's no other way out of here!"
Bonnie laid against the wall, folding her arms. She quietly bobbed her head, thinking...thinking. "Listen. I got me an idea. Can he handle the both of us?"
"He's got two hands, so I imagine "yes"." Neil grunted with a shake of his head.
"Then we need another way out. We need to blow our way out, if need be." She reasoned. "Isn't there a laboratory door near here? Someplace with stuff that goes "boom"?"
"The only place that has that stuff is in that big misty section of lab up ahead, and GASTER'S in there."
"...then follow my lead." Bonnie whispered, inching towards the doorway...then getting low, low...and sloooowly pushing open the door. She began to crawl along the ground as the mist began to seep out and fill the hallway. Neil held his breath harshly, his heart pounding in his chest as they inched slowly along the floor, hearing a thoughtful humming noise filling the air as they inched along the right-hand wall. Not a word. Neither of them would say one...single...word.
Silence reigned over them, the mist filling every nook and cranny of the laboratory as Dr. Gaster looked around, seeing nothing. The mist hung low all around him, obscuring the floor and a good two feet above it as he frowned slightly, displeasure on his skeletal face. "Child, you can't hide from me forever. It would be better for you to come out. I want this to be over with quickly, so as to ensure there is less suffering."
Neil felt that anger rising in him. He felt he was being condescended to and he hated that. That awful muttering of Chara's was rising in his soul, that urge to lash out, to hurt, to make this hypocrite standing on a false moral pedestal SHUT UP. But he had to listen to Bonnie, she knew what she was doing, if he could just stay quiet long enough...
Then she stopped him, putting a hand on his arm. She pointed forward, across the floor. There, sure enough, was a large, flammable mixture of chemicals with the obvious warning signs on it. And if they could just move it over towards a window on the far side of the lab...
Nodding quietly in agreement, they slunk towards the big jar of chemicals, one of many, and Neil got an idea. Taking in a deep breath as he heard Dr. Gaster speak again, ensuring what he wanted to do would be muffled by the talking, he took another jaw and placed it on its side on the floor, then...
"Come out, child. I'll try to be as gentle as I can when I take your soul, the touch of death need not be cold-"
RATTLE-RATTLE-RATTLE. Gaster wheeled around, seeing something rolling across the floor at a swift speed and he quickly moved after it, picking it up as Bonnie kept pushing the chemical jar. Neil, meanwhile, had snatched up several other bottles and was now rolling them around the floor of the lab from different parts of the room, all in different directions, barreling away and scurrying across the ground like a lab rat, hidden by the mist. All of this was providing a misleading picture for Gaster, making him unsure which direction they were, which direction the rolling vials of chemicals were coming from.
Closer and closer to the wall with the window came Bonnie and the big vial of chemicals as she finally put it against it and tilted it up. Now they just had to blow it up. They needed fire. Luckily...she kept a lighter in a hidden pocket in her boots, along with a tiny knife. They'd taken her gun. Taken her bullets. But they hadn't done a full search of her. Heck, she would have hidden something in her PANTIES if she hadn't considered herself a "classy gal".
Smirking a bit, she turned back to Neil and nodded. Time for a distraction. She began to caaarefully rip off a piece of her undershirt, to make a makeshift wick as she uncorked the chemical vial and eased the wick into it, Neil scurrying as far away from her as possible, waiting for Gaster to speak again, waiting for him to be fully distracted.
"Okay, Gaster. Let's talk." Neil said quietly, rising up, fists resting on his hips as the skeletal monster faced him down and blinked slowly.
"So, human. At last you feel up for a more civil discussion?" Gaster inquired.
"Do you know what it feels like to die?" Neil asked quietly. Quiet, with an edge. Gaster felt a sense of unease on him as an almost...red glint...came to Neil's eyes. "It was agonizing. A horrific, sudden stabbing. Your organs bursting, filling with fire from inside. You just want it to stop. You'll give anything for it to just...stop. And it doesn't stop. So you scream. And you scream. And then even after that, after your voice is hoarse and your throat raw and you're sobbing endlessly, it doesn't stop until the very...last...breath...comes from your lungs. It was hell."
Gaster was silent for a long...long time, it seemed. Unaware of the wick getting burned up...of Bonnie slinking from the wall...
"That was how it felt to die. The first time. Imagine that over and over." Neil muttered. "And I have tried SO hard not to be...mad." Neil grumbled out. "To...to not give back as good as I get. Because I 'got' a lot. A lot of it I earned, for I hurt a lot of monsters that didn't deserve it, but I also saw plenty of other children die in the other timelines I watched. Kids who didn't deserve to die, who just wanted to go home, and wanted you monsters to stop hurting them, but you wouldn't listen."
"We all believe our greater good is the greatest, I suppose." Gaster confessed. "It is no excuse. I just wish for you to understand."
"I understand. But you want to kill us, and..." Neil held his head in his hands. "...I am SO angry with what you did to Bonnie. I want to make things right, Dr. Gaster. I'm getting her out of here and taking her and her son home. Where they belong. And you're not going to stop me."
"Oh?" Gaster looked a bit amused. "My dear child, however do you think you are going to stop me? I'm getting a sense of deja vu. You and I have spoken before, and I imagine you didn't beat me then."
"I don't need to beat you. I just gotta distract you." Neil said, gesturing at the wall behind Gaster as the skeletal doctor whipped around, eyes wide as he finally noticed the burning wick falling into the chemicals.
With a loud, raucous SHA-KOOOOWWW, the wall and the large canister and the chemicals exploded in fire, Dr. Gaster being thrown back as an opening was blown forth, Gaster flying across the lab as Bonnie and Neil ran through it, along the dark reddish/brown ground and towards a catwalk, eager to get to the elevator, to race back to the river, away from Hotland, off towards Snowdin and the Ruins!
The elevator was only about fifty feet away. Neil began to press the button summoning it as Bonnie looked back, seeing something that filled her with shock. Her eyes went wide. The entire laboratory was quickly catching on fire. The explosion had cracked a very weak section of ground and...it was falling into the lava. "We can't just leave them there!" She cried out, her eyes full of alarm. As horrific and cruel as they'd treated her...she couldn't leave them to die. Before Neil could stop her, Bonnie had barreled off towards the burning entrance and he groaned, covering his face.
"Tug her back. Force her to come back with you." Chara's voice whispered to him. "Forget the murderers!"
"...noooo." Neil murmured. "Sans can teleport out fine, I'm sure but...Alphys is still in there and my dad would never forgive me if I just let a girl get hurt." He confessed, barreling after Bonnie, seeing her lifting up a moaning, barely-awake Dr. Gaster. "I'm going to go find Alphys." He insisted to her as she nodded, making for the exit they'd formed, racing along the halls as the laboratory shook and shuddered, and the fire began to rise. Bits of flames were licking along the walls as he saw Sans escorting laboratory experiments along down another hallway, turning down a left path...
There she was! She was dragging Mettaton's robot body...rather poorly. It was clear she couldn't carry him. "Come on, we need to go!" Neil yelled out, racing at her. "This place is collapsing!"
"Are you kidding me!?" She snapped, looking angrily at him. "This is your fault, isn't it? I'm not going with you! You probably did this to Mettaton too!" She added, pointing back at the unconscious robot, the heat in the halls rising higher, higher, higher...
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Horrific, soul-crushing laughter. Suddenly vines wrapped around Alphys and Mettaton's forms, Mettaton's robotic body shuddering and shattering, leaving a stunned-looking pinkish GHOST now trapped inside the vine tendrils engulfing her as Neil stared in alarm, seeing a smug, smirking flowery face looking down at him. "I knew I was right to follow you around. Knew that if I just waited, I'd get my chance. And while all of you were trying to escape the mess this idiot and his stupid friend made..." Flowey sniggered, looking at Neil, then at Alphys and Mettaton. "I got the human souls you had! My, my, my, I feel WONDERFUL with them inside me. Of course...I could use more." He added darkly, sneering at Neil. "Thank you so much for blowing a nice hole open for me. Now do me another favor..."
He held up a spiked vine and launched it at Neil, who's mouth fell open in a gasp as he barely rolled away, the burning flames blocking off his exit back, the only way forward now blocked by a huge swarm of vines, Flowey and horrific spiky shrubbery...
"AND DIE!"