Not quite dead yet. Writer's block got hands. The chapter's short, but I'm honestly just happy to be posting again. Thanks as always go to XWolf26 for writing DoubleTale & DoubleScramble as well as providing feedback, and TheEhGatsby for help with editing. Now, review time.
Wingah: Thank you, you'll probably like how things play out between Marian and Boxy if you enjoyed how hostile they got.
EpicSlayerGuy99: Thanks, hope you'll stick around to see how this all goes down.
With that out of the way, it's showtime!
The first thing I noticed as I slowly eased back into consciousness was the oppressive scent of disinfectant and refrigerated air. The second was the faint whirring of machinery as heavy metal feet paced back and forth somewhere nearby. While I was still too groggy to focus on the sound of synthetic speech, it helped my mind kick off some of the cobwebs as it struggled to put imagery and a name to the person muttering as they marched. I cracked my eyes open, wincing in anticipation of bright light...
...that wasn't there. Oh. I groaned and forced myself to sit up, noticing a few more things about the space I was in as I did so. It was spacious, dimly lit, and filled with rows of beds identical to the one I was currently laying in. As the covers fell away from my bare torso, I noticed the blood stained bandages wrapped around it. The sight dredged up memories of Frisk carving me up like a ham on Christmas with their fucked up little ballet knife slipper thing. Seriously, who the hell came up with something like that, let alone brought it down here?
Chapter Four: It's Dangerous to go Alone
"To be blunt, you suck."
* Hey, you, you're finally awake.
I shot my text box a withering glare, mouthing "Don't" as I pulled the eggshell colored blanket back up over my chest and glanced around for my hoodie...which was probably ruined now. Great. I heaved a sigh and took a moment to mourn my fallen comrade. It died as it lived, providing an inadequate amount of defense.
"O-Oh my!" the artificial voice gasped, as if only just noticing I was here.
The man was rather tall, what little of his exposed 'skin' a metallic silver. Much of this metal around his head had been shaped into a luxuriously coiffed head of hair, a single pink streak breaking up the uniform ebony color of the faux locks. He was dressed in a long white lab coat that was buttoned down to his waist, where it flared out around his black slacks and bright pink high-heeled boots as he rushed over to the bed.
"You shouldn't be up so soon, darling, not after the grisly state you were brought down here in."
*His fashion game is on point.
I brushed off my text box in favor of pulling an energy drink out of my inventory, cracking it open and flashing a nervous smile up at the fabulous robot.
"S-Sorry to worry you, but I'll be fine, really…" I said, chugging down my energy drink in a couple seconds before sighing in relief as it worked to speed up weeks of healing into the span of a few seconds, "...th-though I kinda need a new shirt…" I mumbled, my face lighting up in a blush despite my best efforts to remain casual about the situation.
"O-Oh, right, right, give me just a moment!" the robotic doctor exclaimed before rushing off, his own face seeming a touch more pink than it'd been a moment ago...somehow. This place was wack, yo.
*If I had arms I would be using them to punch you right now. Or facepalm. Or both.
I stuck out my tongue at the typographic killjoy and took stock of my inventory while I waited for the good doctor to return. Three out of 8 cans down, and I probably wouldn't be getting my hands on more any time soon. Yikes. Given how my last couple bouts with Frisk had gone down, I was gonna need to replace those with something, else I was gonna get my ass handed to me.
*You're already going to get your ass handed to you, but dragging it out for longer would be to our benefit, maybe they'll get bored enough to quit.
"You're an ass." I huffed.
*And you're a stubborn idiot. Moving on, we still have no idea where we are. Better fix that when tall, dark, and fabulous gets back.
Whatever reply I might have given was stricken from my mind by the sound of metallic boots clunking against the tile floor as the robot returned, holding a pink bundle of cloth in his arms. He cleared the distance between the door and my bed in a few strides, holding the bundle out to me. Said bundle turned out to be a sweater, a strange little boxy robot embroidered on the chest.
"Here you go, darling, I-I'm sorry if it's a little big on you." the robot explained before turning around and giving me a little privacy.
"Thanks…" I mumbled, hastily tugging the slightly oversized sweater on and standing up, "...m-my name's Marian, by the way."
"The pleasure was all mine darling, and you can call me Doctor Mettaton." my metallic benefactor said, striking a pose as he introduced himself.
*Doctor Mettaton strikes a sexy pose...for some reason.
I had to bite my tongue to not burst out laughing, thankful that the turtle neck had gotten stuck around my mouth so he wouldn't see me fighting the urge to smile. Whatever this place was smoking, I wanted some.
*Focus.
"D-" my reply was cut off by Mettaton clearing his throat and straightening his lab coat.
"Anyways, Doctor Gaster wished to speak with you when you woke up, you'll find him down the hall to the left."
The tin man pointed over towards a door on the opposite end of the room, before beating a hasty retreat back towards the door he'd entered from with nary a word.
*...crack is wack, kids.
I snickered and followed the eccentric doctor's instructions, stepping out into a much chillier hallway that extended to either side of me, with a metallic hum echoing from my right.
*Probably some kinda industrial air conditioner.
"Makes sense, wasn't the lab in the lava place?" I mused, casually making my way down the hall to my left and pointedly ignoring the way the shadows seemed to shimmer and twitch unnaturally in the corner of my eye.
*Hotland. When're you gonna get off your ass and start taking this seriously?
"When're you gonna get off your high horse and quit calling being a selfish prick 'pragmatic'?" I fired back.
*...as soon as you quit calling wasting away 'patience'.
My stride faltered for a moment, and I caught a glimpse of my face in a dead monitor mounted in the wall. Dull blue eyes stared back, before shifting their gaze down towards the bags that had built up beneath them. I turned away from my reflection with a grimace, telling myself the bags were just from the shitty sleep I'd gotten after getting sliced to ribbons.
Eventually the hallway opened up into a large room, the most prominent fixtures of which being the massive skull-shaped machine, and the yawning chasm it was suspended above. A metal platform extended across the hole in the floor, stopping right in front of the metallic beast's maw like some kind of sacrificial altar. The atmosphere in the room felt strange, and reminded me of rainy days and brewing thunderstorms.
"Ahhh, I was beginning to wonder when you would wake up." a smooth, eloquent voice interrupted my thoughts. Crouching in front of some smaller machine was a walking, talking skeleton...and a sharply dressed one, at that. His black slacks, vest, and bowtie, paired with his white dress shirt made him look like some kind of bartender, and hung loosely on his quite-literally boney frame. The same way my eyes traced up and down his form, the tiny pinpricks of light within his eye sockets seemed to be appraising my appearance from behind the lenses of his glasses. I found my gaze being drawn to the bizarre, smooth cracks in his skull, one tracing up from his right socket and the other sloping down from his left.
"...D-Doctor Gaster?" I hazarded a guess, idly wondering if the sludge thing my mind dredged up when I heard that name was real, or just some weird mishmash of memories.
"Just Gaster, if you would. I'm afraid I retired quite some time ago." the skeleton corrected, dusting off his knees as he stood up from his work on the little machine and turned to face me properly.
"R-Right...I-I'm Marian…" I trailed off lamely. What now? My text box didn't deign to interrupt the awkward silence as Gaster and I stared at each other.
"...ahem, it's a pleasure to finally meet you, Marian, though I would prefer if it wasn't under such dire circumstances." the former(?) doctor said, extending a hole-punched hand to shake.
"Likewise…" I mumbled, getting distracted for a brief moment by the skeleton's more anomalous features before snapping myself out of it and focusing on why I was here in the first place. "Ummm, I was told you had some kinda plan for how we're supposed to beat Small, Dark, & Stabby?"
Gaster chuckled, shaking his head. "Less a plan, and something more akin to a gamble, but it shall hopefully suffice." he admitted, turning back to appraise the machine behind him.
As I wandered closer, I noticed that the machine was barely a meter tall, and looked like it'd been dragged out of a junkyard. Exposed wiring and circuitry was taped, bolted, welded, and in some places even glued to the outside and back of the machine. A large CRT monitor had been taped into a hole cut in the front alongside an old computer keyboard. Two large glass cylinders were precariously perched on top and locked into place, one scarcely filled with a familiar silver dust, and the other nearly full of a less familiar glowing silver liquid.
"Admittedly, cannibalizing a miniature fridge for the housing was not the best idea given my stature." Gaster joked, though I barely heard him as I stared transfixed at the words typed out on the screen in an eye-searing shade of red-orange.
dust_filtration=complete
mana_condensation=complete
insertion chamber=primed
magic_insertion_machine=online
initiate? Y/N
"Forgive the rather barebones interface, I was rather pressed for time, as you might imagine. Gutting a device meant to extract Determination and building a machine to grant magic to one without it nearly from scratch is ever-so-slightly more complex a task than I typically attend to these days." the scientist explained, turning to me with a slightly manic look in his eye.
"Now, Marian, are you quite ready to get down to business?"
Consider favoriting, following, and/or reviewing if you enjoyed the chapter. Gonna try to get this next one out sometime before the heat death of the universe, so look forward to that.
I'm TiredWhiteMayge, and I need to go get some damn sleep.