Authors note: Hey everyone! Sorry for not uploading any chapters in the past couple days. There are two reasons for this. One is that I've been held up with school and work, the other being that I've had to struggle a lot with Hotland and its content, trying to figure what would stay in and what would stay out. I did have to take out several aspects of Hotland in the coming chapters, but I do hope that you'll understand my reasoning. If I put in everything, it would sound like I was rambling on and on about Hotland, not to mention it would take me much longer. That was all, just wanting to explain myself. Enjoy!

Frisk struggled against the heat as she slowly made her way along the pathways of Hotland. He was half wishing he had asked Alphys for a bottle of water before he left, but at it probably would have evaporated from the heat.

Eventually, Frisk rounded a bend to find himself face-to-face with an orange laser. His phone began ringing. Frisk quickly put the phone to his ear.

"Alphys?"

"Y-Yes, H-Hi." Alphys began. "So, the blue lasers…they don't hurt you if you're moving. But Orange ones, y-you have to be moving, and they…um…they….j-just move through those ones!" Abruptly, Alphys ended the call.

With a shrug, Frisk proceeded onward. HE paused in front of the orange laser, before breathing and walking quickly through it. He then saw ahead of him, what seemed to be a sequence of lasers. Some orange, some blue. He quickly brushed through the first one, then paused when he was just in front of the first blue laser. He remained still until the laser had moved over him, before running through the next two orange lasers, onto the other side. Taking a breath, Frisk proceeded into the next large room.

Ahead of him was a panel, with an arrow rotating around. To the left, right, and forward, were more walkways, with gaps in the midde. Suddenly he once more felt his phone buzzing.

"A-A-Alphys here! The door in front of you will remain locked until you s-solve the puzzles on the right and left." Frisk looked up from the gaps to see the door ahead, two different mechanical locks.

"Got it, I'll go to the right first." Frisk replied before Alphys hung up. Frisk approached the panel with the arrow rotating around. He glanced to the right. When the arrow was facing the right, he stepped onto the panel. He didn't know what to expect, but was caught off guard when the panel shoved him up and forward, pushing him towards the right walkway. Frisk managed to land on his feet, though stumbled slightly. Recovering quickly, he moved on to the puzzle on the right.

When he entered the puzzle room he could see what looked like an arrow on his end, several squares in the middle, with an arrow at the end. A little note said "Shoot the opposing ships! Move the boxes to complete the mission."

"Hmm…alright then…" Frisk mumbled as he figured out how to move what boxes, and what boxes could be moved. The first puzzle was easy, and he achieved it in only 2 minutes, firing at the other 'ship' and destroying it. He smiled triumphantly, this was one of the fun puzzles.

He ran back to the pad that would send him back to the middle. This time, he was prepared. He watched for when the arrow in the middle changed so it was facing towards the left walkway. HE then stepped on the jump pad, which sent him flying to the middle, directly onto the center pad. The center pad immediately bounced him over to the left. This time though, Frisk was prepared. He hit the ground in a crouch, and rolled onto his feet.

The next puzzle, was a tad more challenging. After nearly 15 minutes (and several frustrating attempts), Frisk finally saw the opposite ship shattered. When he returned, he found that both locks had been deactivated. He proceeded through the door.

The door led him into a dark room, the door slamming shut behind him. Frisk felt a marble floor beneath him. Suddenly the lights turned on, and Frisk found himself in what appeared to be a kitchen, though more like a television set of a kitchen. There, on the other side of the counter Frisk was by, stood Mettaton.

"WELCOME, BEAUTIES, TO THE UNDERGROUND'S PREMIER COOKING SHOW!" Mettaton shouted. "PRE-HEAT YOUR OVENS, BECAUSE WE'VE GOT A VERY SPECIAL RECIPE FOR YOU TODAY! WE'RE GOING TO BE MAKING A CAKE! MY LOVELY ASSISTANT HERE WILL GATHER THE INGREDIANTS." When Mettaton mentioned an assistant, Frisk assumed he was talking about him. Frisk shrugged and walked to the opposite counter, collecting the obviously late out eggs, milk, and sugar, returning them to the cooking counter.

"Perfect! We've got all the ingrediants we need to bake the cake." Mettaton stated. "Milk, sugar, eggs…oh my! What a magnificent moment! How could I forget?! We're missing the most important ingredient!" Suddenly, Mettaton pulled out a chainsaw. From where he got it from, Frisk couldn't even begin to wonder.

"A HUMAN SOUL!" The chainsaw started up and Frisk stepped back from Mettaton. Just as Mettaton started to close in, his built in phone began ringing. Mettaton froze in his tracks.

"Hello…? I'm kind of in the middle of something here."

Frisk could hear Alphys on the other end. "W-Wait a second! Couldn't you use…couldn't you…Couldn't you make a substitution in the recipe?"

"A substitution? You mean like use a non-human ingredient?...why?"

"Because…people might be…vegan?"

"…Vegan?" Mettaton responded, his tone sounded sarcastic. Just as Alphys responded, Mettaton hung up.

"THAT'S A BRILLIANT IDEA ALPHYS! ACTUALLY I HAPPEN TO HAVE THE OPTION RIGHT HERE! MTT-BRAND ALWAYS-CONVENIENT HUMAN-SOUL-FLAVOUR-SUBSTITUTE!" Frisk moved over to the can that Mettaton indicated. Before he could grab it though, the platform it was being held on shot straight up, nearly to the roof of Hotland.

"By the way, our show runs on a strict schedule." Mettaton stated matter-of-factly. "If you don't get that can in one minute, we'll just have to go back to the original plan." Frisk, in a panic ignored Alphys's call and jumped onto the tall platform and began climbing. He could hear Mettaton counting down slowly below. He grunted as he struggled to work his way up, the heat not making things easy.

With less than 10 seconds to spare, Frisk somehow managed to get his hands on the can. He more or less slithered down the large platform, the can in his hands. Mettaton greeted him below.

"My my. Seems you've bested me…well, I'll get you the next time." Mettaton started to wheel away. Frisk too was about to continue, but froze when Mettaton called him again.

"Oh yes! About the substitution, have you never seen a cooking show? I already baked the cake ahead of time. So forget about it." With that, he was gone. As frisk walked out of the room, he could see a large structure off in the distance. It looked ominous.

"S-See that building in the distance?" Alphys asked after calling Frisk.

"That's the core, the source of all the power in the Underground. It converts geothermal energy into magical electricity by…well anyways that's where we're going. In the core is an elevator directly to Asgore's castle. From there, you can go home." Frisk didn't respond, slowly putting the phone in his pocket as he hung up. He shivered. He still had to face the king. Would Asgore let him go home? Or…Frisk decided not to think about it, proceeding to an elevator up ahead, the sense of dread ever increasing.