This chapter is a bit on the short side. But it contains some exposition on a main plot point, so there's that. Now, review time!

deeznutthebest: Yeah, I tried to make that chapter comedy heavy, given that this one is more on the serious side.

F-ckthesystem125: Thanks! Glad you found it funny! I'm actually pretty proud of that chapter. One of my better comedy ones imo.

Gabrieloliveagurgel: If you're looking for seriousness and plot progression, you'll like this chapter. Next chapter is probably gonna be more comedy though.

Guest: Yeah, very fun game, Hollow Knight is. Instantly jumped up into my all times faves.

For those of you who didn't see my update, I got a forum for suggestions and banter! Link is in my bio.

"Well that was infuriating."

As the band of travelers left the set of Mettaton's cooking show, they came upon an open area overlooking a giant lake of lava with a strange structure sitting in the middle of it.

"Oi, what the hell is that?"

"Why not ask Alphys? surly she'd know."

"Oh. Right. She does live here, doesn't she?"

Badd dialed Alphys and waited for the scientist to pick up.

"H-hello?"

"Yo Alph. We're walking on the bank of this giant lava lake, ant there's this huge high-tech thing in the middle of it. Any idea what that is?"

"OH! You m-mean the Core?"

Badd paused for a minute.

"So THAT'S what the Core is! Huh, thought it'd be smaller."

"W-well, it does give power to the entire underground, and it also l-leads to New Home."

"New what now?"

"Th-the king is quite lousy with names. It's the capital of the u-underground, and it's where Asgore, the king's castle is."

"Got it. Well that's convenient. We needed to go to the Core anyway."

"Wh-what for?"

"We'll tell you when we meet up again. Thanks for the info Alph."

Badd hung up and sighed. "Damn. We're still a long ways off from that place. Means there's plenty of time to run into that asshole robot again."

Seito hummed. "He does seem to like tormenting us, despite being an apparent fan of mine. I have a feeling there's more to it than the whole 'malfunctioning robot.' He seems plenty sane to me, if not quite eccentric."

"You saying he's messing with us just for the hell of it? I mean that'd make sense, sure, but Alphys also said that he was malfunctioning. Think she was lying for some reason?"

"I can't say for certain. We'll need to figure more of this out before we can draw any conclusions."

Zenko called out from ahead of the two conversing heroes.

"Hey guys! There's and elevator or something here!"

"Hey! Nice find Zenko! Let's see where it leads!"

The humans, plus spirit and Temmie piled into the elevator and examined the buttons.

"What the hell? All these buttons are out of order! The only place we can go is R2, wherever that is."

"Well it's better than nothing. Let's see where it goes."

Badd pushed the button, the elevator humming to life. The machine lurched upwards, carrying the group to a higher elevation.

Temmie groaned a little. "Temmie thinks she doesn't like elevators. They make her stomach all topsy-turvy!"

"Please do not vomit in here."

The Elevator finally stopped, and Temmie rushed out the door and quickly relieved herself on the cliff overlooking the lava.

"Blegh! Yep. Temmie... hates... elevators..."

Zenko ran over and checked to make sure Temmie was ok. While she was doing that, a small flame monster walked up to Badd.

"Hey buddy! I'm Heats Flamesman! Remember my name!"

"Uhh... sure?"

"Yeah, you better!"

Badd scratched his head confused. "That was... odd?"

Chara smirked. "Some monsters are much more... eccentric than others."

"Hey, it's Sans!"

Sans snorted, jolted awake by Zenko's call.

"huh.. oh, heya kiddo! what're ya doin out here?"

"I could ask you the same thing Sans. You sure seem to get around."

"eh, i try. well, since you're here, you wanna buy a 'dog?"

"A what?"

"a 'dog. as in hotdog? y'know, a frank?"

"Oh. Sure. We're getting kind of hungry anyway. We'll take four."

Badd handed over some of the gold he had collected from monsters during their travels.

"oh. looks like we're out of 'dogs. all we got are hot cats."

Badd groaned at the joke, while Chara and Zenko gave a quick chuckle.

"what? i'm serious. here, take a free one to make up for it."

Sans Gave four Hot cats(?) to Badd, and put one on Zenko's head.

"Huh?"

"what? you want another? here ya go."

Sans stacked another one on top of the one already on Zenko's head.

Zenko giggled. "What are you doing?"

Sans gave a chuckle. "what? still not enough? you must be really hungry."

The process went on for multiple minutes. Before long, there was a virtual tower of hot dogs/cats on top of Zenko's head. The girl was giggling wildly, and Badd and Seito just stared at the sight in awe.

"alright kid. that's as high as i can stack. 29 is fine, but 30? does it look like my arms can reach that high?"

Seito gave Sans a look. "But you were using telekinesis. We saw you."

Sans gave Seito a shit eating grin. "no idea what you're talking about pal. must have hallucinated cuz of all the heat or something."

"You are infuriating sometimes."

"yeah. my bro says that a lot."

Zenko Stumbled a little, before falling. Hot dogs and cats rained everywhere, some bouncing off her head.

"Zenko! You ok?"

Badd ran over and kneeled down to pick Zenko up, but in doing so, something fell out of his pockets.

"Really big bro, I'm fine!"

"Sorry, sorry. Just looked like a hard fall."

"where did you find this?"

Badd froze. He, Seito and Zenko turned around to find Sans holding the Artifact from Waterfall in his hands. The light in his eye sockets had disappeared, and his smile, while still present, was chillingly mirthless.

"Uh... Waterfall? Why are you looking at us like that?"

Badd wasn't scared by anything or anyone. Anyone you talked to would affirm this. Hell, he was one of the only S-class heroes who dared to talk back to Tatsumaki! But even he had to admit, seeing the usually carefree, jolly Sans looking so deadly serious slightly unnerved him.

"kid, do have any idea what this thing is, let alone capable of?"

"Um, vaguely. We were actually planning on meeting up with Alphys near the Core to talk to her about it. What, do you know something we should?"

Sans stared at the humans for a couple more seconds, before sighing. The light appeared in his sockets once more, but he still looked grim.

"i'll let you hold onto this thing until then. but I'll be there when things are discussed. look. i know that you might think that something's a good idea and that you'll pull through in the end, but you'll learn that some things are best left alone."

Sans tossed the artifact back to a confused Badd.

"for the record, i'm not upset with you guys or anything. what i'm trying to say is, you're in over you're heads. i know that you two tend to get into dangerous situations a lot, but this is way beyond anything you know."

Seito had recovered from the initial shock of Sans' seriousness, and gave him a hard look.

"If you're trying to help us, quit speaking so vaguely. You clearly know what that artifact is meant for."

Sans gave Seito an equally hard stare. "you got a strong sense of justice. that's a good thing. i'll tell you everything you need to know, but not here, and not now. after all, it's rude to talk about people who are watching."

The group's sight went away for a split second, and when they could see again, Sans was gone.

"The hell? Where'd he go?"

"I'm more concerned as to what he was alluding to. Sans is clearly more than meets the eye if he knows as much about the artifact as he does. He seemed scared of what we're trying to do."

Badd huffed, bringing a confused and scared Zenko to his side and hoisting his bat onto his shoulder. "Well, we'll decide what to do when we figure all this shit out. For now, the goal remains the same. Get through Hotland, Talk with Alphys and now Sans, and figure out what to do from there."

"I guess you're right. there's no point in wasting time. We should keep going."

"B-big bro, why was Sans acting like that? He's usually so nice!"

"I wish I knew Zenko, I wish I knew."