Black obsidian rocks hurled past me like meteorites through space. A constant breath of musty air brushed against my hands and cheeks, and blew my hair around on a wild adventure of its own. I rested my head on the front of the boat and squinted through the dark void, at the ceaseless barrage of stone and air old as time, and wondered of its eternity. Anything to get my mind to wander.

...Which was made increasingly difficult with the cold spritz of water hopping up and nibbling my skin, fighting against me to break my trance now and again. That, and the mad ravings of my absolute crackpot of a companion.

"Tra la la," the odd figure hummed, "The piano plays a tinkling song. Hmm...tinkling."

"You sure know how to pick 'em, Undyne..." I muttered out of earshot, burying my face in my arms.

He, or it more accurately, towered over me, its shadow looming ominously on the water's glittering surface like a shark threatening to overturn our boat, draped in a dull bluish cloak that hid its entire slim form. A hood curled over its head, masking its face in a ring of shadow. "The River Person," Undyne had called the potential closeted stalker and/or child molester. An imposing lunatic who need do little more than stand motionless, spout riddles, and whistle tunelessly to be discomforting. She claimed that the gender-ambiguous creep's boat was the fastest

method of public transportation from Snowdin to Hotland. A quick glance at the grim surroundings showed there was nothing public about it; not another soul could be seen in or around the small watercraft as it sped blindly forward, seemingly propelled by nothing other than the hot air the River Person was spouting.

"We almost there, frog legs?" I begrudgingly called to it. "If the answer's no, just let me off here. I'll take my chances swimming."

"Tra la la," it croaked. "Why don't you sing with me? Tra la la..."

I eyed the water below me suspiciously, flinching away from a flutter of bubbles from deep below the surface. "I guess it didn't technically say no..."

While I lamented over whether or not Undyne had picked the old beanstalk to guide me as some kind of sick joke, the landscape began to change. Slowly but surely, the surrounding rock face lightened to a brownish rusty color, the river narrowed and slithered back and forth as it neared its delta, and red light burned into the cavern from a distant source. I lifted my head at the feeling of a new warmth prickling on my skin, hopeful these signs meant the ride was drawing to an end. In response to my pleas, our hovel of a boat abruptly transitioned from skimming across gentle waters to carving through the thick, jagged stones of the river bottom, kicking up chunks of gravel and launching airborne with every other bump in the rough terrain. I grasped the splintering wood in front of me and held on like my life depended on it to avoid getting thrown to what was now only damp ground below. Shockingly, our momentum didn't carry us very far without any water to tread on, and the disfigured watercraft ground to a halt.

"...I take it this is my stop?" I asked the River Person, making my bitter disdain abundantly clear. The deranged crone could hardly even navigate its own namesake, let alone defend itself from my cruel mocking. It simply stood there, whistling without a care in the world. At least the ride here was mercifully short. "If you're expecting a tip, I wouldn't get your hopes very high."

An opening in the cave wall by my side slanted upwards, a set of cracked marble stairs following it closely. I felt the arid air and musty red light pouring from the entrance, signs that Hotland was not far off at all. Holding a grudge like a fresh new wound, I double-checked myself to make sure none of my gear had flown off during the crash and turned to make my leave.

But the source of my grudge wouldn't let me leave that easily. As I climbed over the side of the boat, the River Person spewed one last piece of verbal diarrhea, only this gave me reason for pause. "Tra la la," it sang in its sickly drivel, as if it were casting a wicked hex. "The angel is coming...Tra la la."

I froze when my feet splashed into the puddles of sole-deep water, sending chills up my whole body. The phrase sounded no less gibberish than his previous ramblings, but carried a sinister cadence that dammed my throat and lodged whatever remark I had prepared. I turned back and narrowed my eyes at the cloaked fool, prying for answers that either weren't there, or were tightly tucked away under those navy-blue coverings. Was it my imagination, or could the River Person's crude riddle be alluding to something greater? "...Good for you, buddy. Hope I never have the displeasure of meeting him."

Stepping away from the beached whale of a rowboat, I decided to put the foreboding message behind me in favor of the arguably even more foreboding cavern that could be harboring any number of secrets. A moment passed before I noticed the absence of the River Person's whistle. I spun around, finding the shipwreck had entirely vanished, its captain nowhere to be seen.

The air grew heavier and smoldered hotter with each step I took up the stone staircase, until my clothes and hair clung to my body in tight, matted clumps. Any rejuvenation I had felt from showering at the skeletons' abode quickly evaporated along with my fleeing bodily fluids. I sweat so much I could swear clouds of steam were rising off me. Exasperated, I tied the partially soaked jacket around my waist and forced myself to move at a faster pace, which in turn served to tire me out even faster. Thankfully I didn't have to endure the climb for long; after only a few minutes, the path abruptly flattened, and a warm orange light brilliant as the sun appeared as the cave opened, partially blinding me. Squinting through the wall of light, I pushed forward and out into the open air.

My vision eventually began to adjust for the inversely bright new area. The aptly named Hotland could have easily been mistaken for a violent hellscape if you so much as crossed your eyes while staring at it. I stood on a plateau of earthy red and brown rock that extended high above a sweltering ocean of brimming magma, a sight that was no less intimidating my second viewing. The landscape stretched a frustratingly huge amount of space, seeming almost infinite in its winding pathways. Despite the dangerous terrain, what worried me most was the darkened silhouette of what looked to be some man-made—or monster-made, more accurately—building which all the paths seem to lead either directly towards or right beside it. I had no clue what its purpose could be, other than to look tall and threatening, though the hissing of steam rising from what I assumed to be vents on its exterior told me it had some sort of running power source. "Maybe even an AC, if I'm lucky," I hummed to myself, begrudgingly striding towards the unknown.

I quietly passed the thin wooden bridge Undyne had chased me across only a day prior, flinching at the memory even though the danger had long passed. I remembered the water cooler and doubled back for a drink as soon as the two paths joined together. My throat already begged for relief like an old man stranded in a desert. I poured myself a cup and reclined against the cooler, allowing the moisture seeping through to cool my skin.

A moment later, my phone rang. "What's up?" I asked casually as possible, still not used to having anyone call me willingly and on their own terms.

"Hey, dork," some crackling stampede of sound resembling Undyne's voice responded. "You off the boat yet?"

"And still in one piece, no less, though your batshit-crazy escort tried his damnedest to off me."

A snort of laughter followed on the other end. "You're tellin' me the two of you didn't get along? Unbelievable! I thought you'd be playing cards and swapping riddles by the end of the ride!" It took the knight an embarrassingly long time before she realized she was the only one laughing. "Oh, suck it up, kid, you got where you were headed in a tiny-baby-fraction of the time."

"Don't pretend you didn't intentionally hook me up with a psychopath just for fun!"

"Why wouldn't I take credit for that?"

I sighed obnoxiously, which only caused Undyne to cackle even harder than before. "You've met up with Alphys by now, right?" she implored.

"...That sounds like a disease."

"I'll take that as a no. Can you at least see her laboratory from there? It's the big-ass building with smoke and stuff constantly floating out the top. Only way to miss it is to go blind."

"Yeah, I can freaking see it, thanks."

"Alright, alright, don't get your balls in a knot. Alphys is crazy smart, so you're definitely gonna want to drop by. She might invent something on the spot that could help you get home, like a teleportation device, or a jet pack, or a jet pack newly equipped with a teleportation device!"

"And you're sure nothing will try to tear me apart the millisecond I step inside there?"

"Nah, Alphys is way too...nice for her to try anything like that. She wouldn't hurt a whimsum, much less a wimp like you! Oh, and remember to tell her Undyne sent you, just to be safe. Not sure if she's invented ray guns yet."

"Awesome, glad to know there's nothing to worry about, as usual. Thanks, Undyne. For real this time."

"No problem, runt. You can return the favor by not dying, got that?"

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind as long as I'm still alive. Uh, so, should I be the one calling you back, or..."

"Call me if you run into trouble with some of my guys or you need some tough dickhead messed on. Or if you're feelin' lonely. Your choice."

"Yeah...I think I'll survive just fine without making any self-pity calls. In the meantime, try not to run Papyrus into the ground with your combat drills. I don't think he realized exactly what living with the fitness-junky Head of the Royal Guard entailed." I hung up abruptly after that, anxious we might end up talking forever if I hadn't. Not that either of us had anything particularly interesting to say; I just wasn't sure how else phone conversations were supposed to end. They gave me a button to bail out of any rant or argument automatically, of course I'm gonna take advantage of it.

The jog to Alphys's laboratory was a short one, but allowed enough time for me to adjust to Hotland's blistering heat and blinding flares enough that the nuisances weren't the first thing on my mind. Each step I took caused the building to grow taller and even more daunting before me. It was only Undyne's reassurance that convinced me not to seek another way around. A sign that read "lab" plastered above a relatively small doorway compared to the mass it led to welcomed me, and the panels slid open automatically to further entice me to enter. I stepped through a moment after with only a hint of reluctance.

A flush of cool air offered pleasant relief from the heat which clawed at my skin, although did little tending to my jittery unease. Dimly lit and oppressively cold tiled floors and walls greeted me with no fervor, not a sign of life to be found anywhere. I half-jokingly rapped my knuckles against the door frame and cupped my hands around my mouth. "Anyone home?" I called out in a lonely echo. "There had better be a Doctor Alphys hiding around here, or I'd have wasted my time for nothing." Nothing seemed to stir. "Believe me, there's nothing I hate more than a waste of breath. Been through plenty of that for one damned adventure." Silence, aside from the ambivalent whirring wheezing of some unseen gadgets. Why do I have the feeling something's got its eyes on me? "Fine, I'll see myself in, then."

I stepped away from the entrance and into the expanse of the main hall, a bit taken aback by just how hollow and empty the place seemed. The scuffling of my shoes on tile made me feel isolated in the vacant space, accompanied only by a low, droning hum like the buzz of a cicada. Whatever machine the sound resonated from was well out of my sight, leaving every detail to my imagination. Just as I decided this detour was an unwelcome waste of time, a faint flicker of light caught my eye. With nothing else of interest to be seen, I was drawn towards it and farther from an escape route. "Someone leave a projector running or some—"

My breath was sucked back down my throat. My hands were clenched in my pockets so tightly they could have ripped the fabric. And if the image on the screen were any indication, I stood stiff as a board, frozen in disbelief.

A computer monitor tall as the ceiling and near enough ten feet wide showcased an uncomfortable close-up of myself from behind. At first glimpse I presumed it to be some sort of security camera; that is, until I noticed the divided tabs displaying areas I had already been through: Waterfall's caverns, the Hotland bridge I had crossed just outside of the lab, Snowdin town. I combed the screen for more information until my eyes fell on what left me truly perturbed, the biggest red flag of them all. Prerecorded footage was left running in the bottom corners, each video of me in some peril or another. Traversing one of Papyrus's puzzles, battling with Undyne...it appeared my every movement had been captured ever since I left the ruins. And all of it was right there for the world to see. Or more accurately, for one creepy scientist to keep all to themselves. Not sure if I should confront this wacko, or bolt while I still have my sanity.

I didn't get to make the choice myself. Without warning, I was blinded by the sudden flare of light bursting into the room from overhead. It took a second of adjusting to the brightness and shielding my eyes with the back of my hand before I could take another look around the lab. Easier to make everything out for sure, if not for the utterly shocked scientist staring at me with more red coloring their face than Undyne's hair dye. "Oh. My. God."

I stared at the bizarre and bewildered...thing, debating whether to be outraged, furious, or just angry for its attempts at espionage. Instead, I settled for complete confusion; the damn overgrown gecko was blushing and fidgeting around like a middle schooler that accidentally wandered their way onto a school dance floor. Hiding under a pair of big, blocky glasses, it seemed terrified to meet my askance stare, feverishly attempting to keep its back to me. I caught a glimpse of a short, stout tail poking out from beneath the lizard's shiny white lab coat, ringed with yellow scales that looked as sharp and threatening as a pack of thumbtacks. "Oh my God. Ohymgod. Ohmygodohmygodohm–"

"–You know, for a genius your vocabulary is shockingly limited." My outburst had at least gotten the rejected insurance mascot to shut up and catch some much-needed breath, allowing me to get a word in. I gestured to the giant screen rapidly flipping through my life story and said, "If you're gonna keep flapping those gums of yours, at least use 'em to start explaining what all this...espionage is about. And talk fast; if Undyne hadn't put in a good word in for you, my patience would've run out a lot quicker."

"...Undyne...she said..." Her wheezing grew even heavier, if that were possible. "Oh god, you're already here, I haven't showered, I'm barely dressed, the lab's a mess..." After an eternity of mumbling about trivial things that couldn't begin to concern me, she coughed into her sleeve and haphazardly cleared her throat, managing a somewhat terrifying crooked grin. "S-sorry about my unorthodox behavior, I just didn't expect you to he-here so soon!" She stumbled over to me on stubby little legs and extended a hand, beaming beneath her round glasses. "M-my name is Doctor Alphys, but you can just...call me...Alphys. Um..."

Her smile fumbled and fell like a toddler down a staircase as she slowly came to realize I wouldn't be returning the gesture. "Right, the pleasure is entirely mine and all that crap. Why do you have enough footage of me to stitch together a nature documentary?"

"O-oh, that, right..." Now that Alphys had summoned the courage to approach me, her odd features became more transparent. Faded and lumpy orange skin stretched like the petals of an old withered flower over a weighty body, though nothing else about the peculiar lizard suggested she was elderly; I was no expert on lizard anatomy, but she hardly seemed any older than Undyne, and perhaps a full two heads shorter. A pair of wide eyes brimming with obnoxious pools of curiosity were further magnified by her eyewear. Coupled with the blush on her face, the sight made me uncomfortable enough to take a step back without even thinking about it. "Um, you're probably not gonna like the sound of this," she choked out between fits of stuttering, nervous laughter. "But, uh, I-I, as the R-Royal Scientist, was tasked with keeping surveillance on the...fallen human." Her blush grew uncomfortably deep, her eyes gazing dreamily at an empty space. "I've been observing you on my console ever since you stepped out of the Ruins. D-d-don't get angry!" the lizard slobbered before I had the chance to. "I've never shared it with the king. He shouldn't have any idea where you are."

Alphys made the vital mistake of giving me time enough for anger to flare. Some choice words rampaged through my mind, but I clenched my fist and muttered a restrained, "'Shouldn't?'"

The doctor's panicked hands waved back and forth as though scattering a swarm of flies. "Definitely not! That's w-what I meant...to say...definitely..."

"Right, and you sound sosure of yourself. How about you give me a single good reason to believe anything the king's right-hand lady tells me?"

She opened and closed her fat orange lips several times with no sound to match the movements. I thought for a long while the good doctor was totally stumped, her desperate wheezes mingling with the hums and clicks of her own creations in a symphony of prevarication. There were no more half-truths for her to feed me. When Alphys did form something close to coherent, the earnest tone it carried startled me. "T-this may not be what you want to hear, but...after watching you fight...and befriend other monsters...I-I kinda started rooting for you."

I was struck speechless; whether out of shock or disbelief or a combination of both, I couldn't say. "I didn't know I had a fanbase."

The scientist giggled. "S-strange, I know, but it's easy to start cheering someone on when you're seeing them through a screen! At least, for m-me it is, anyway. Asgore intended for me to stop you, but now I'd like to use my technology to guide you through Hotland...if you'd accept my help, of course!"

It was a simple request, and one I took an embarrassingly long time to acknowledge. Somehow Alphys and I had swapped roles, landing me as the dumbstruck observer and her as the adamant, albeit more patient, interrogator. Her and Undyne's words would not be enough to trust the doctor fully, or even as far as I could throw her (and I could hardly carry her an inch by the look of things). However, I was in the habit of accepting any and all help that came my way, and Alphys seemed as good a candidate as any to help me clamber across Hotland without singeing off my eyelashes or stepping in a lava crater. She knew the king, had worked alongside him, knew exactly where I had to go and had the tech to make it happen. She was a total creep, no doubt about that, but not one I could afford to ignore. "Alright," I said, reluctantly sealing my fate. "But if you try any funny business, I'll be sure to have Undyne or myself repay the favor."

Predictably, the lizard grew ecstatic. "Great!..I-I think. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often..."

"What, making deals with a filthy human kid you were supposed to capture?"

"No, m-me holding a conversation that ends on a positive note." The doctor waddled to her main console and typed in some crap I couldn't make out. A few windows opened and closed on the big screen until a solitary imaged blanketed my past like tracks in the snow. "Here, this will help you get through Hotland without getting lost."

"...How will a bad Photoshop job of Undyne in a bikini help m—"

"—WRONG IMAGE!"

Frantic enough that her arms became a blur, she punched in some other commands, closed about thirteen other windows, and finally brought up a digital map of Hotland. "Here," Alphys squeaked, "t-this is what I wanted you to...n-never mind, I-I'll just send it to your phone before you leave."

I tried my hardest to phase that...delightful image out of my head, but ended up gradually coming to terms with the fact that I'd be scarred for life instead. The back of Alphys's quivering head starred back at me while I silently hoped this alliance would be a briefly lived one. "Anything else you'd care to show me, or can I be on my merry way?"

To give credit where credit is due, Alphys held enough willpower to face me after her blunder. "Um, there is one more thing you should probably know about before you leave."

"Which is?" Ever frustrating, the scientist fumbled hopelessly for the right words. "You know what, go right ahead, leave me in suspense. No really, not like I have anything better planned for today." Just going for a nice waltz through sprawling lava fields, nothing nearly this exciting.

"S-sorry," she said hesitantly, "it's just a tiny issue, but I know you won't be happy to hear it."

At that I rolled my eyes. "Listen lizard breath, I've gotten more bad news than a bed sick hospital patient in the past few days. Plenty used to it by now."

"Promise you won't take this the wrong way, but, ah...L-long before you appeared in the Underground, I created a robot named Mettaton. Originally, I built him to be an entertainment robot. Uh, you know, like a robotic TV star or something." The doctor's eyes lit up, and she could not have seemed prouder of her creation as she spoke.

"You're seriously capable of building stuff like that?" I interjected. In a world where "magic" explained just about every unbelievable thing about it, sciency shit still had room to impress me.

"He—er, Mettaton, is my proudest achievement!" she boasted. "It was all I worked on for the longest time. Even Asgore started to get a little frustrated by how many resources I was requesting, though he would deny it any time I asked. Uh, anyway, I recently decided to make him a bit more useful with some practical adjustments." The grin she had developed talking about her big-time bot started to waver. I took it as a bad omen. "You know...like...installing some anti...anti-human combat features?" She attempted an uneasy smile to alleviate the tension brought by the atrocious news, in effect making it sound only graver.

"Right, and you're positive you're on my side in all this?"

"O-obviously when I saw you coming, I knew I had to–"

"–Reprogram him to be my badass robot-buddy-sidekick?"

"...Remove those features. But, uh, I kinda made a teensy mistake while working on him, and, uh..."

Here it comes.

"Now he's a killing machine who developed an unquenchable thirst for human blood?"

I blinked, somehow finding disappointment of galactic proportions in a person I had only met five minutes before. She had phrased her own mistake like a question, not because she couldn't believe it herself, but as a flimsy effort to mask its severity.

It didn't work.

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" I erupted, igniting fear in the doctor's eyes. Smashing the console and Alphys's little round face became a dangerously alluring thought. "I just got done dealing with your psycho gill-faced knight in shining aluminum foil, and you send another mutt off to kill me?"

"I-I swear, I never intended for him to fight you! A-and there really isn't much to worry about, he was probably damaged during the adjustments anyway. I doubt we'll ever run into him!

I wanted to lay into her, and probably would've had my actions not been derailed by a sudden, abrupt quaking that rattled everything in the room. Its timing was so perfect I expected it was intentional, though the doctor appeared as convincingly terrified as I was. Devices shook, Alphys and I struggled to keep on our feet, and then it was over. "The hell was that?" I mustered, more surprised than frustrated. "Did one of you experiments just blow up or something?"

"You felt it too?" She held even less of an idea than I had. Another daunting pound tossed us around the room, then another, and again until the lab became the unsteady deck of a ship buffeted by unrelenting waves. Alphys offered no comfort, her expression of shock slowly turning to one of grim realization. "Oh no."

No sooner had the words left her mouth that every light was snuffed out from above us. An ear wrenching sound rang out like the tearing of metal fibers pulling apart, soaking the room in a chill fear. I fumbled to bring my makeshift weapons to my hands, losing my position in the room to the swirl of darkness surrounding me. Nervous sweat dotted the back of my neck despite the cold air. "Alphys?" I called out into the empty nothingness, hoping to catch a glimpse of any movement, or at least make sure I wasn't totally alone. "The hell's going on?"

As it turned out, that wasn't what the invader wanted to hear. "'The hell is going on?'"

Hearing a previously silent room throw my own desperate questioning back in my face was almost strange enough to have me drop my guard. The voice couldn't have sounded any less like Alphys's if it had tried; it exploded out of the black and echoed off the unseen walls from all directions, carrying the suave arrogance of any celebrity who's well outlived their welcome. "This is what's going on!"

A spotlight sliced through the black so cleanly it near enough melted my retinas with how bright it was. I squinted through the blinding beam, following its trail to the radiant figure basking in its incessant glow. "Welcome, beauties," announced the vending machine on wheels. "...To today's quiz show!"

I jumped out of my skin when a series of sounds vaguely resembling music began to blare. Multicolored streams of light descended from above and twirled around the room and into my eyes, transforming the lab into a vomit-inducing epilepsy attack waiting to happen. The downpour of confetti and stock sounds of polite applause playfully added to the sensory overload I was being put through. "I have several more questions," I groaned through gritted teeth to no one in particular. Alphys, who had scuttled well away from me during the blackout, appeared no better prepared for the random turn of events.

"Oh, boy!" the robot, who I safely presumed to be Mettaton, cheered. Calling the big metal box radiant was perhaps a little generous; he only appeared that way from the arcs of light reflecting off his body. How that massive rectangular hunk of junk held its balance on one little wheel like a circus performer on a unicycle was beyond me, but it didn't bother him in the slightest as he rolled effortlessly around the room. When he spoke, a few panels on his proverbial face lit up, and his speakers bellowed, "I can already tell it's gonna be a great show!"

I wanted to rip the microphone straight out of the cinder block's long springy arm, of which Alphys was generous enough to grant him two, but he darted away before I could complete the motion. "Did Alphys leave you with a few screws loose or something?" I turned to the cowering scientist. "Seriously, what's this tin can's deal?"

"I told you, I built him initially to be an entertainment robot. We're on his show right now!"

Even at the moment of complete insanity, that realization which dawned on me was somehow the strangest thing in the world. "W-wait...are you saying...I'm actually on god damn TV?!"

Mettaton continued to address his audience, joyously ignorant of the look of increasing discomfort I was giving him. His open gloved hand extended towards me vigorously, as though he were presenting the show's winning prize. "Everyone give a big hand for our wonderful contestant!"

As that feeling of, oh shit, he's talking about me, became clear, I froze. No matter how hard I urged myself to move, my feet stayed glued to the floor. It felt someone had a gun to my head, and one false step was all the motivation they needed to pull the trigger. Where are the cameras? Ah, dammit, there's a killer robot five feet from me and I'm worrying over how many monsters are watching?

Mettaton's robotic voice carried over the anxious pounding in my ears. "Never played before, gorgeous?"

"Uh...No and I'd like to k—"

"No problem!" The robot took a bite out of my scrambled thoughts. "It's simple! There is only one rule, after all!" Sickened, I watched as the robot came to a screeching halt with all the grace of a one-legged figure skater. He rested under the foot of a neon sign, creatively reading "game show," and leaned in closer to the mic. "Answer correctly..."

The scene changed so fast it gave me whiplash. In under a second Mettaton's head had sprung open like a porthole and launched four metal rods in the air. I flinched as they lodged themselves in the ground around me, shattering the tile with the force of their impact, and spontaneously crackled to life. Bright blue sparks arched between the lot of them and formed a bristling border of electricity, effectively boxing me in. I barely had room to extend my arm at the elbow, let alone attempt to escape. And through all of this came the deranged cackling of my captor, singing with cheery confidence:

"Or you die!"