After some puzzles involving tricky timing when pushing buttons for lasers while having more lasers shot at them, trying to jump around steam vents when the steam would randomly become nearly boiling hot and scorching their legs, Frisk and Flowey kept heading deeper into Hotland. Trying situations for sure, but nothing Frisk couldn't handle.

This situation on the other hand?

This was goddamn awkward.

They hadn't meant to make the second guard cry. When they had run into the two guards, they'd only gone out on a limb and tried to pry a little into the status of their relationship, hoping maybe they could get on the two's good sides by hooking them up again. When they tried though, the first guard—Enforcer, whatever—had loudly proclaimed 'no homo'.

Which didn't please the second guard who'd immediately wilted. Turns out, he at least thought it was 'totally homo'.

The guards' words. Not Frisk's.

They watched in abject confusion as the two began to yell at each other, well, more the first guard yelling as the second one wasn't much of a talker, climaxing when the second guard started crying about the fact that apparently the first guard wouldn't let him tell his own parents that they'd moved in together. Frisk wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a platonic roommates sort of thing or if the second guard thought it was supposed to be them taking the next step, but guard number two sure seemed hurt by it.

Now guard number one was torn between trying to kill Frisk and trying to console his partner who had sat down on the ground to have a good cry.

Sharing an apartment in this world is some intensely serious business, I guess, Frisk thought idly. They frowned at Chara's giggles but didn't pry. Instead, they cleared their throat. "I, uh, can see that you two have a lot to work out. I'll just leave you two it and be on my way."

The first guard turned to glare at them. "Don't you dare try to runaway! This is totally all your fault!" He moved to swipe at Frisk with his sword, but the second guard began to cry louder.

"What's the point of moving into together… if I can't even tell people about it?" he hiccupped.

The first guard baulked. "What, bro, that's not—I mean, of course we're going to tell people soon, it's just-"

There was a long pause; the second guard started to sniffle again.

This is getting ridiculous. Frisk reluctantly started talking again. "It's just what? What's so important that you can't even announce you've moved in together?" Why they needed to announce it was beyond Frisk, but they didn't feel like mentioning that part.

"You shut up! You—you don't even understand, like, why we monster do what we do, human!"

Well, he did have a point there.

The second guard put his face in his hands. "You're ashamed of me. Aren't you?"

"What, no! Bro, it's just—we can't, like, announce anything until, until we get better security!"

Frisk blinked. "Security?"

"For the apartment. I—we can't just announce that stuff unless we can protect each other, bro." He seemed to forget Frisk was there finally. Frisk slowly began to edge backwards.

The second guard wasn't having it. He stood up and began to walk off. "I'm done."

The first guard gaped after him before looking at Frisk. Then he looked back to his partner again before turning to Frisk. "I hope you're proud of yourself. Bro! Dude, wait for me, I can explain-!"

Frisk watched the two leave and wonder what they'd done in their life to end up in such a strange set of circumstances.

*Where is folly bred? In the heart, or in the head?

"Thank god, they're gone," Flowey sighed. "Those two were just obnoxious. Well, come on. We'd better get out of here before they come back."

Shaking their head, Frisk turned and walked swiftly down the path, following down the twisting path until they saw another darkened path. Frisk paused and sighed. "Buckle up, Flowey. I think I know where this will be going."

Flowey groaned and ducked down into Frisk's shirt.

Resigned, Frisk walked forward, letting the darkness swallow them a third time. They paused, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. They took a few cautious steps forward, then paused. Reaching out with their foot, they felt the ground a step ahead of them. There was a weird, two part dip—one shallow dip, and one deeper. Frowning, they picked their foot up and dragged the two of their boot across the ground a step behind them and felt another identical dip.

*You are already in the middle of the trap.

*Smooth.

…okay, yeah, I got nothing. This is just embarrassing.

At least Alphys took mercy on them in the next moment and finally did something. Not only did the lights come up, but so did the trap. Before Frisk could flinch at the light, something came up and loudly snapped in the air before them before dropping back down again. Frisk yelped, but froze in place as something behind them shot up and snapped there too. In another second, the thing before them shot up again. This time, Frisk saw that it looked like a giant pair of shears, slicing through the air as they snapped shut, opened, then descended again. Looking down the path, there was at least eleven more shears doing the exact same thing and then one behind them as well. They weren't in sync but they had no set pattern from what they could tell.

Frisk watched this for a full minute, dumbfounded, before found their voice. "This is utter bullshit."

"No kidding," Flowey murmured, but it was lost to the racket the shears were making.

"How is that for a trap, human?" Alphys sneered. There was no screen this time, but she'd rigged the area up with speakers, or at least commandeered an existing speaker system. "Here's a hint for you: those blades don't have a set pattern, but I guarantee that you're going to screw up sooner or later. Hopefully sooner."

They ignored Alphys for a moment to study the shears directly ahead of them. Counting, they figured that she'd been right about the no set pattern thing, but the shears did take at least three seconds on their own to come back up—which, even they had to admit, was pretty impressive considering their size. The problem was trying to guess when the damn things would pop back up. Deciding to take a risk, Frisk waited until the moment after the shears went back down and then hopped forward, quickly shuffling backwards when they jumped a little too far forward.

Still, they felt briefly accomplished. Then they looked down the line and realized they had ten more to go. Great.

*Could be worse.

*Could be eleven more to go.

You know, buddy, that's the most optimistic thing I've probably heard out of you yet.

"Feeling accomplished? Congratulations, you made it past two shears, one by pure luck. Let's see you do the rest," Alphys laughed. "Or just give up and hand yourself over. That'd save us both time."

"Fuck off," they muttered and set about memorizing the next sheer's pattern.

They got lucky two more times and just barely got clear in time. The third jump was when their luck ran out. For a moment, it looked perfectly fine as they escaped the swing of shears. Then their knee gave out under without warning and they began to pitch forward. Already they knew it was too late and let themselves pitch forward farther, just to make sure Flowey wouldn't get caught in the swing. They were bent over at the waist when the blades came up and snapped cleanly through Frisk's waist. Frisk's soul shattered.

*But it refused.

And Frisk stumbled forward as the blades opened, pulling themselves short of being chopped up again. Frisk froze in place, detachedly trying to decide how bad that death ranked compared against all their other ones, entirely missing Flowey's frantic cries and Alphys' mocking laughter. I'm going to be having nightmares about this for weeks. Frisk shook themselves back in time to hear Alphys' taunt.

"Got you that time, and you're only just half way. Tell me, human, how many more times do you think you'll fail before your friend dies too?"

Taking a deep breath, Frisk glanced over their shoulder to see Flowey's waiting face.

"Frisk? Are—are you okay?"

"Well. I've been better. You okay back there?"

He shuddered. "That was a little close, but yeah, I'm fine."

"Oh, that's good." They glanced forward, frowning at the snapping shears. "I, um, don't suppose I could convince you to try and find a way around?"

"I think that'd be a really bad idea for me."

"Well then. This is a whole lot of bullshit." They paused, waiting for the blades before them to snap shut again, but there was nothing. Finally, after nearly a whole minute, the shears popped up and then snapped shut. Then they stayed like that until after another thirty seconds passed and then it slowly opened. Frisk frowned and shoved their arm in between the blades. Not leaving it in for a full second, they yanked their arm back in time to avoid it get cut off. "Oh, now that's fucking ridiculous!"

Alphys cackled, but her reply was lost as a new voice shouted out.

"No, human! Mi amor, no!"

Baffled, Frisk looked around the shut shears and down the path to see a monster they only vaguely recognized, standing at the end of the line of traps, just shy of the last trap, which, they faintly noted, hadn't moved in awhile. Glancing to the side, Frisk spotted a monster flying and trying to juggle a camera at the same time. So, Mettaton had come to rescue them again.

*Once is a fluke. Twice, a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.

No kidding. What is that robot up to and what did I do to earn his goodwill to make sure I don't screw up and waste it?

Still, no need to look a gift horse in the mouth. So, the last two times Mettaton had stepped in, it'd been under the guise of making some kind of show. Judging by the dialogue the actor just tossed at them, it sounded like they were filming a telenovela. Well, they thought they had enough vague memories of their mother watching some telenovelas when they were a kid. They could take a crack at that acting. Maybe. Their Mettaton had put them through his acting class once, not that he would have let Frisk say no if they'd wanted to. The class was a nightmare jumble of improv lessons, bootcamp, some Shakespearian monologues, and a five mile trek through the woods that Frisk still wasn't sure what it had been for. Still, they'd picked up a few tricks from the class and an immunity to beestings.

*This will be interesting.

Hush. They cleared their throat and shouted to be heard over the snapping sheers. "¡Oh, dios mio, estás aqui! ¡Sálvame!"

There was a moment of silence as the actor and Flowey (and probably Alphys too) stared at them, dumbfounded. Even Mettaton and some more crewmembers popped out of hiding to stare at them.

*I don't think it was that bad.

Thank you, buddy. Their cheeks felt hot as they coughed and tried again. "Oh, thank god, you're here! Quick, save me!"

That seemed to shake the actor lose of his stupor. He took a step forward.

And that was the moment the shear finally moved. Frisk closed their eyes and jerked their hand upward, but judging from Flowey's gasp, they didn't manage to cover his face in time. When they opened their eyes, a small cloud of dust was drifting down from the now clasped blades and on the other side of them was a thump and a yell. "OH GOD, MY LEG!" They saw the actor rolling around on the ground, clutching his stump of a leg.

*That was… unfortunate.

God, this world is fucked up. Ah, hell, say something, dummy. Dumbfounded, Frisk said the first thing that came into their mind. "Looks like he doesn't have a leg to stand on anymore."

Flowey rounded on them. "Frisk!"

Frisk frowned at themselves. "Sorry, I panicked."

"Ugh."

Mettaton huffed and hurried out of his hiding spot. "GO TO COMMERCIAL! Dammit, Alphys, I still needed him to finish up some more scenes for my crime drama!"

The scientist coughed. "Uh, oops." Without another word, the shears abruptly stopped in whatever position they'd been in and there was a distinct sound of the speakers cutting out.

"Oh, really, now what'll I do? Someone, pick him up and get him something restorative before we lose the rest of him. Hell, someone get the writers on the line, I need a scene to work with fast! I'll improv it if I have to." Mettaton sighed in aggravation as someone ran towards him with a phone. The crewmember handed it to him; he snatched it away and then shoved them. They nearly wobbled off the ledge, but caught themselves at the last moment and followed after him dutifully. At the last moment, however, Mettaton paused and looked back to Frisk. "Wait, what did you say a moment ago?"

"I… panicked?"

"Before that."

"Oh." Embarrassed, Frisk cleared their throat and spoke again. "I said, 'looks like he doesn't have a leg to stand on'."

Mettaton looked at them, thoughtfully tapping the side of his box with one hand as he thought. "You know what, I can work with that! Mind if I use it?"

Frisk blinked and shrugged. "Go ahead. I, uh, got bigger things to worry about right now."

"Oh?"

"Well, I'm going to have to climb around these things, so…"

"Oh, the scissor blades? Hold on, darling, I can take care of those." Primly, he raised one of his hands and snapped his fingers. The shears all swung open and vanished down into the ground. Frisk stared down in disbelief while he spoke. "This set is from our obstacle course in our last murder pageant. We still need to remodel it for this year."

"Murder pag—no," Frisk cut themselves off, shaking their head. "No, never mind. I don't want to know."

"Suit yourself," Mettaton said cheerfully before leaving with his entourage. "And someone, grab that idiot and drag him with us! He can still sit for close-ups today."

"Sorry about your leg, sir!" they shouted after the group. Trap disabled and crowd gone, Frisk and Flowey both heaved a sigh of relief. "This day just keeps getting stranger and stranger," the human said as they hurried across the path—just because Alphys seemed to be gone, they wouldn't put it past her to show back up and start the scissors back up just to be a dick.

"No kidding. I never thought I'd miss Waterfall, but at least Undyne didn't show up constantly," Flowey huffed. "I can't wait until we get out of here."

"Me neither. God, I'm going to have to see a therapist after all this."

"Don't be a baby. Just get us out of here, fast."

They ran a hand over their face, took a breath, and then hurried out the area and started heading north. In the distance, they noted that the Core was closer now. They paused to admire the sight for just a moment before turning to walk to the elevator.

"Hey, Frisk? Speaking of getting out of here, can I ask you a question?"

Frisk glanced back to Flowey; the flower was hunched up, like he was nervous. Nervous of what though? "Yeah, sure. What's up, bud?"

Flowey grimaced and was quiet for a moment before he looked up at them. "So… what will you do? When you get back home, I mean. Back to wherever it is you came from?"

Frisk blinked at looked at Flowey. "What, like, the first thing I do?" They mulled the thought over as Flowey nodded. Gravel crunched under their feet, providing a steady sound to think over. Horror and the firmly established need to see a therapist after this aside, there was a more pressing issue they could think of. "Hmm. Well, I'd say… I'd probably get something to eat. Maybe a cheeseburger—that sounds good."

"Frisk!" Flowey gasped, his light voice trilling at the end—they didn't think it was intentional, but it was adorable. "What about your family? Shouldn't you go see your family first before—before dropping into some fast food place?"

"Well, to be honest, I'm kinda hungry right now, so… Like, all I've had to eat lately is healing items and those things only take the edge off hunger for so long."

"Frisk!"

"Heh, oh, alright, Flowey, calm down—I'm only joking. Of course, I'll go see my family again." Frisk paused, a memory piercing through their mind.

Suddenly, they weren't twenty-four, but eighteen again, and they were watching one of their dearest friends turn his back and walk away.

Frisk's playful mood vanished. "Eventually."

"Frisk," Flowey groaned. He sighed in exasperation while Frisk chuckled to themselves. "Don't you think they're worried about you? Your parents, your friends—won't they be scared to death for you?"

Frisk's smile turned wistful. "Oh, they probably haven't noticed I'm gone yet."

He scoffed. "You've been here two days already—how can they not have noticed by now?"

"You could say I'm something like a cat. I come and go as I please. Besides, I told them I was going mountain climbing, so they'll probably just think my phone can't get any service. When I get out of here, I'll give them a call—while I'm getting a burger."

"You're unbelievable."

Frisk glanced over at him before smirking. "You think that's bad? One time I took off for a whole year and forgot to take my cell phone with me."

"Frisk!"

Frisk laughed and paused outside of the elevator before pressing the call button. "Oh, chill out! It was no big deal."

"You disappeared for a whole year and it was no big deal? You—you're pulling my petals here." He paused, frowning. "What did your parents say?"

Frisk rolled their eyes behind their closed lids. "Oh, that's different. They were pretty steamed, but it wasn't like I hadn't tried to let them know I was okay every now and then. They knew I wasn't dead." Well, that wasn't entirely true. They'd sent them messages in a roundabout way—when someone recognized them and asked for a selfie, they'd asked the person to add a message to Toriel and Asgore saying that they were fine in whatever city they'd been in at the time. They'd never tried to get online to see what Toriel had said to those messages, but she sure let them have it when they got access to another phone. At the end, they ran into Asgore in New York when he'd been there attending some conference. They bribed a receptionist in his hotel's lobby to send him a note and he'd come down right away to greet them. That'd been fun—they even let him talk them into coming home with him on his plane. They'd shared the Welcome Home party and been happily crushed in Toriel's hug. Actually, now that they thought about it, everyone had been a bit fussy. It'd been fun and annoying all at once. They knew the truth though; after awhile, things would just go back to how they were before they'd left. Family and friends would go back to their lives, and Frisk would go back to their own.

It was almost as bad as a reset that way.

Frisk frowned; thinking about it, it sounded a lot worse in retrospect. Am I a flake? Well, if they were, that was probably something in the blood, as their grandfather used to say. Ugh. How annoying. I'll think about that later, after I get out of here. At least this time was an accident.

"Whatever." He was quiet for a moment before prodding their right cheek with one of his leaves. "What do you think they'll say about all this?"

They barked a laugh. "Oh, they probably won't believe a word I say about it." A memory needled them—that was one of the things they did often, wasn't it? Except for Papyrus. The thought of the skeleton made Frisk brighten. "But not Papyrus. He's probably going to love hearing about this."

"Wow. Your Papyrus must be super different from this world's Papyrus."

Frisk smiled fondly, comparing the memories of both skeletons side by side. "Well, yes and no. My Papyrus isn't nearly so gruff, but this one… he's not such a bad guy."

Flowey snorted his disbelief.

"Oh, hush. Even you have to admit, he's not so bad."

"…maybe."

Finally, the elevator arrived and they quickly stepped in. The trip took little time at least and they immediately stepped back out on the next level up. It was a little cooler up here to Frisk's relief. Turning, they headed eastward. "What about you?" they asked, glancing around. "What will you do if we can get the barrier down?"

He huffed. "Let's worry about getting you to New Home first, okay?"

Ignoring his brush off, they frowned as they noticed something unexpected. Muffet stood behind a table, food piled up to sell on either side. A morose looking monster was vomiting, loudly, over the side of the path. With a grimace, Frisk avoided the monster and the awful retching noises it made, but that only meant they walked closer to Muffet.

"Hello, dearie," the saleswoman chirped. Frisk glanced over at the spider monster and was a little unnerved to see that unlike so many other monsters Muffet looked, well, not that far off than what they remembered her looking like in their own world. What that meant, they had no idea, but it was frankly weird. "Can I interest you in some of our excellent snacks? We're having a bake sale and its all for a good cause."

Cautiously, Frisk turned to her. "Oh? What's the cause?" They certainly didn't remember seeing any spiders back in the Ruins—they had just assumed Toriel had killed them as well.

Muffet's grin was all teeth. "My wallet."

"Ah," Frisk murmured with a sage nod. "A worthy cause indeed."

"Indeed," Muffet nodded. "Hmm, you know, you got the face of a cheap, whiny little bitch, like that monster over there. He couldn't handle one of my Spider Donuts. Tell me, do you think you could do better?"

Frisk raised an eyebrow. "Are you offering me a free donut?"

Muffet tittered, but the look in her eyes was calculating. "Oh, hohoho, no! I was thinking more the lines of a free sample. Here," she began holding up a squirming spider between one of her hands' index and thumb. "If you eat this, right now, I won't charge you the toll price."

"Toll price? There isn't even a toll here," Flowey grumbled. "Frisk, you… you aren't going to do it… are you?"

"What's the toll price?"

Muffet's eyes glinted in mischievous delight. "Nine hundred gold."

Flowey hissed in annoyance.

Frisk ignored him and considered the spider and thought. The first time they went through the Underground, they hadn't thought to buy anything from the spider bake sale back in the Ruins. That came back to bite them in the ass later—but now, they didn't even have a chance to buy anything for cheap before now. And if Muffet was just going to be lying in wait for them later…

Frisk swiped the spider from Muffet's hand, carefully crushing the spider's head first with their teeth—better to kill it fast and avoid getting bitten by it. They chewed it up and swallowed it fast.

"FRISK!" Flowey shrieked in horror.

"Calm down," Frisk murmured, frowning as they used their tongue to get at the stuff that had gotten stuck to their teeth. A familiar warmth filled their stomach. "It was just a magical construct. You can't put real spiders in monster food. It'd separate out later when food gets absorbed."

Muffet blinked all five of her eyes at them. "How did you know that? That's a family secret!"

Frisk shrugged. Truthfully, their Muffet had just told them on an idle afternoon—more interestingly was when she had told them, which was on a weeklong hunting trip where Frisk got roped into helping catch a truffle sniffing spider beast that had escaped Muffet and set about terrorizing the locals. That'd been fun and scary all at once—it also left them permanently unafraid of spiders. It was hard to get squeamish about eating spiders after being forced to dine on them for a whole week or after waking up to a colony of three hundred spiders having crawled into their sleeping bag for warmth during the night. Still, that wasn't a suitable answer. Better to go for the lie. "Read it in a book once."

Muffet frowned, but didn't argue. Instead, she considered Frisk a moment before chuckling and shaking her head. "I see what I heard was wrong about you, human. Everything I'd heard before now as that you were a wimp and a coward. But I've never had anyone actually shotgun one of my spiders before. Heh, you're alright, human."

"Thanks, I think."

Giggling, Muffet waved them off. "Get out of my sights, human. I'll tell my relatives to leave you be, too. Adieu."

Sweet, they thought, giving the monster a short bow before they scuttled away, eager to leave before she changed her mind.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Flowey groaned and smacked the side of their neck with a leaf. "I cannot believe you."

"What? It wasn't a real spider." They walked up to a vent and hopped on it to ride the gust of steam. "It wasn't anything more than a golem or homunculus, really."

"How could you have possibly known for sure if it was real or not?" He groused. "You barely even looked at the thing before you shoved it in your mouth."

"Because actual spiders, for one, would have fought less in her grip. Spiders think getting eaten by each other is an honor." They were launched into the air repeatedly. If this wasn't so uncomfortably hot, it'd be really fun.

"How would you know that?"

"Because-"

"I mean in this world! How would you know that it was true for this world?"

The considered it as they came to the end of their ride at the platform. "Well, honestly, it kinda fits this world anyway, and Muffet really doesn't seem that different in either world. I decided it was worth the risk."

"Really? That's…" He paused, frowning. "Isn't that an odd thing not to be different?"

"With Muffet? I honestly have no idea."

Flowey shook his head as Frisk squeezed themselves through the open door that usually locked off this area from the next. The giant gouge in the door that warped the metal left the door permanently stuck open; Frisk wondered what had hit it once upon a time to break it so bad, but decided to assume that it only meant that they shouldn't linger too long around there.

After a relatively short walk through the rest of Hotland, Frisk paused and stared up in confusion at the giant building before them. The building was an ugly gunmetal gray with hardly any windows. It looked like a giant had just dropped a box there and left it. Where was the glitzy MTT Restort? There was no lights, no signs, just a building. I guess Mettaton isn't as big of a deal in this world and hasn't had a chance to take this place over and remake it in his image. Huh. I actually kind of miss all that kitsch stuff.

Before walking into the building, they checked the side alley in hopes of finding some back alley deals. No dice—it looked like there might have been a stand there once, but it'd been smashed in and covered in trash. A shame, since they still didn't have any sort of weapon to aid them. With a sigh, they went back and headed into the building.

Stepping in, Frisk paused again, breath caught as they looked around. It was a slum, no way around it. The walls were bare and streaked in filth and scratches, deep dents in the walls. There was a long scrape on the floor in front of the doors that led off to the eastern wing of the building; Frisk shuddered and tried not to think about what might have gotten dragged off down there. To the left, they could see a diner full of exhausted patrons, nursing coffees and alcohol alike as they stared into nothingness with dead eyes. Except, they noted with amused good humor, the pair of guards who were sitting quite chummily in the back corner, eating ice cream. Good to see those two made up at least.

Shaking their head, Frisk started to walk forward when Flowey murmured their name quietly. Looking at him, they saw he was pointing up and glanced to see what he was getting at.

A hundred different sets of eyes stared down at them from the large empty space that took up the heart of the building. Monsters of all types and sizes gazed down at them with openly hungry eyes. Their gazes were patient, but knowing. Parents held their children out to see Frisk better and the old leaned half over the side of the railings to squint at them.

It was easy to guess why they were staring. The human who refused to obey the law, who wouldn't hurt others. The Last Soul, the soul that would break the barrier and free them all.

*Suddenly, you know how animals in zoos feel.

Frisk shuddered, but tried to keep their chin up. "Let's get out of here," they murmured to Flowey before striding forward. Still, they could feel the eyes following them as they walked straight past a rundown convenience store and hurried out the back door. Stepping out was a breath of fresh air, but the sight of the Core so close took them aback. From the outside, it looked the same, but what was it like on the inside? They realized that they'd been rubbing their hands together nervously, worrying the stitch in the palm of the glove until they thought they could feel an uncomfortable warmth in their palms. They forced themselves to stop.

"Flowey? What's it like in here?" Frisk tried hopefully.

"Um, sorry. I never come here—there's no ground for me to move around in inside the Core, so I haven't come here in, uh… In ages."

Frisk frowned. "Flowey, if you can't escape in there then…" They paused and sighed. Reaching up, they carefully grabbed him and pulled him forward. He clung to their shirt for a moment, but let go reluctantly and let them lift him up to stare each other in the face.

"What are you doing?" he asked, face already suspicious.

"I think I should go in there by myself."

Flowey bristled. "What?! Frisk, no—you, you selfish—after all I've done for you, you're just going to ditch me now?"

"No, Flowey, that's not it at all." Trying not to chuckle at the childish ire in his face, they pressed their forehead to his uppermost petals. "I'm incredibly grateful for you. I'm not sure how far I could have gotten without you. Hell, maybe I'd just be a pile of ash in the Ruins or a bunch of pieces in Papyrus's traps. But please, please understand. If something bad—something permanently bad were to happen to me in there, what would happen to you? I'm not saying this is goodbye. I just want you to meet me on the other side. We can continue from there."

Flowey hesitated, shifting his roots around his fingers, like he was planning to knot his roots around them. When he spoke, his voice was sullen. "You don't know what it's going to be like in there."

"But neither do you." They frowned as he wilted. "It'll be okay, Flowey. I promise, as soon as I get out of here, we'll finish together."

He was quiet for a minute, frowning as he tried to think of an argument to change their mind, but failed. Finally, he sighed. "Why on earth I'm going to trust an idiot like you to do this on your own is beyond me… but okay. But you better not waste time in there, befriending people trying to kill you again, alright?"

Frisk laughed. "But I like making friends."

"Frisk!"

"Heh, I'll do my best." They pressed a goodbye kiss to his petals and pulled back in time to see his amusingly disgruntled expression.

"Stop that. And—and don't take too long, okay?"

"I'll hurry. See you on the other side, Flowey."

"See you."

Frisk put him down in the barren flowerbed to the left of the door. He grumbled about the polluted soil but vanished down into the ground after a moment. When he vanished, Frisk's mirth went with him. Frowning, Frisk straightened and turned to look up at the Core. After a moment, they took a breath. "Well, maybe Alphys won't try to dick us over again, right?"

*Do not try to fool yourself.

"Yeah, you're right. Okay. Let's do this." Squaring their shoulders, they walked across the bridge and entered the Core.

The Core, surprisingly enough, was damn near identical to the one they had walked through as a child. The floors were clean and an elevator waited for them in the lobby, but it wouldn't work when they tried it. Heading left, they found and empty hallway that went nowhere. They walked back out of it and headed to the other side to see where that doorway went, but as they walked across the lobby, they heard loud noises of turning gears and the clacks of metal on metal. Frowning, they hurried to the door and looked in.

It was the exact same hallway as had been on the other side.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

Frisk took a step back out of the room. The sound happened again. Again, they stepped through the door and found that the room was now an entirely different place—now it was a walkway looking out over dark shadows.

The Core was a place made of interchangeable rooms, but they'd never seen it in action before. Their first time through, Alphys had been thrown when Mettaton had rearranged everything. Right now, they'd bet good money that this Alphys was watching them and was dicking them around by actively changing each room as they entered and exited.

Frisk put their face in their hands and groaned.

*This is going to take a long time.

Stepping through his shortcut, Sans appeared around the corner of his and Papyrus's house. It was safer to appear back here—more than once, some of the assholes from the K9 Unit had lied in wait by the front door. Back here, he could at least peek around the corner and check for them. He did so and noted that at least they weren't in their old hiding spots. Cautiously, he hurried around to the door and tried the knob.

It jiggled in his hand. Locked.

"Fuck," he grumbled and dug out his phone. He checked the time first and allowed himself a moment of vindication to note that he still had five whole minutes before Papyrus was supposed to do lock up. He got into his contacts and hit Papyrus's number on it.

His brother picked up on the second ring. "You're late."

"No, I'm not," he spat back. "I still got five minutes. Open the door."

"You are late. I sent you a text warning you I'd be locking up early. Mettaton has a special on tonight with him meeting the human. I'm not missing it for you," his brother huffed. "You know what happens when you're late."

Patience at an end, he let his forehead thump against the door. "I didn't get a text saying that." Or, maybe he had, and he'd just hadn't bother to read it. If he was lucky, maybe Papyrus would open the door to check the phone himself and maybe Sans could slip in then.

"Then the phone failed you, and by extension that the phone is your property and your responsibility, therefore you failed. Go sleep in the woods. You love doing that so often." His tone sounded sullen. Worse, Sans could hear him faintly through the door, which meant he was probably just sitting on the couch next to the damn door.

Sans lifted his head up just to let it smack against the wall. "Boss, come on, I don't take naps out there."

"DO NOT TRY TO LIE TO ME, SANS!" his brother roared.

Sans winced and decided to try a different tactic. "Bro, come on, please? It's cold out here."

"Sans, DO NOT—it's not even—you can't even feel the cold!"

Whoops. Now he was exasperated. Still, maybe he would open the door to drag him in and smack him around in the house. It'd be an improvement.

He started to speak but a low, craggy chuckle from behind him startled him into silence. Dread filling him, he glanced over his shoulder to see shapes moving the shadows. "Boss, I got company out there."

There was a moment of hesitation on Papyrus' end of the line. "So what. Probably more of those idiots you drink with at that disgusting, greasy-"

Something growled in the shadows.

Fuck. "Boss, I think it's the dogs."

There was a series of crunching in the snow. The growls grew closer. "Hey…" Dogamy growled, still in the shadows. "It's the little one."

"Remember him, Greater Dog?" Dogeressa murmured, somewhere off to the left. "He's the reason Doggo's gone."

A deep rumble; what he'd thought was just a snow bank shifted and moved closer. That made it at least three to one, probably four to one since Lesser Dog was mute now after he'd gotten his throat slashed by a Gyftrot.

Too many, too dark—they'd chew and crack his bones open before he could finally turn to dust. He might dust one or two, but on his own, he was doomed. "Pap, please-"

A series of red bones materialized into the air and shot into the darkness. The dogs yelped in surprise and the door flew open behind Sans. A hand grabbed him by his hood and yanked him inside. As he went sprawling onto the floor, Papyrus shouted into the night. "Do you honestly think I'd allow you to get anywhere my home, even in the dark?! Get lost!" He tossed another series of bones into the shadows. Something yelped, startled, but not hurt and the shadows scrambled away into the night.

After a moment, Papyrus slammed the door and began to lock up. He paused for a long moment before turning and shooting Sans a look. He then turned and walked over to the couch. "Get off the floor and hurry up. The show's starting."

Rattled, Sans took a moment to collect his thoughts before he pulled himself off the floor. He shuffled into the kitchen and grabbed himself a bottle of mustard to settle his nerves before he came back to the couch.

The couch was big and raggedy—he forgot who found it first or where it came from, but it served its job well. Despite Papyrus' near obsession with trying to clean it, it was spotted with stains. He decided to be extra careful not to spill any mustard tonight—from the way Papyrus glared at the bottled with distinct disdain, Sans had a feeling that it would earn him a lot more than a scolding if he spilled tonight. He turned his gaze to the tv in hopes of distracting himself from the tension in the room.

The show on the television captured his interest in a moment as he realized he was watching a preview montage of what would be on later in the show. It ended on a clip of the human standing in the middle of a trap, a path of giant scissors swinging up and closed in multiple places. On the far end of the trap, some idiot stepped right into the way of a pair of scissors that quickly cut through his leg.

Huh. Maybe Mettaton's show will actually be interesting tonight.

It cut to a side view of the human's face. Their eyes were wide and they grimaced in surprise. Then, they opened their mouth. "Looks like he doesn't have a leg to stand on anymore."

Before he could stop himself, Sans chuckled. "Nice."

Papyrus shifted on the other end of the couch; Sans froze and glanced at him, but his brother only seemed to be shifting to get more comfortable. He even seemed to be smiling, just a tad, at the tasteless joke.

Huh. His brother was already out of his foul mood. And it looked like the show tonight was actually going to be entertaining.

Maybe tonight was turning itself around for once.

Then the screen went dark; Sans resisted the urge to sigh as Papyrus tensed up in outrage. However, before the taller skeleton could start ranting, the broadcast came back, but on an entirely new scene. On the screen, Frisk and Mettaton stared at each other in a dark room.

"And now, fellow viewers, t-time for a real show."

Sans froze. That was Alphys' voice. Frisk and Mettaton looked just as surprised and were looking around. Then Mettaton froze and one of his four arms started to reach behind his back and Sans could see every line in Frisk's body go tense. "Mettaton…?" they called, voice soft since they were far from the microphone.

The hand halted for only a moment before it continued towards the monster's back. "Frisk, run," the robot managed.

And then the screen filled with white light.

A/N: A shorter chapter for this week—as I was writing, I found the chapter getting farther and farther out of hand, so I decided to cut it down to just before the Mettaton fight. That said, I think were finally starting to enter the homestretch—I think, at the very most, there's four chapters left, probably less. I won't know until I write further. However, I don't plan on leaving these characters alone just yet-I have some side stories I'd like to write, but we'll see where we go from there.

Putting all that aside, would anyone be interested in reading some Altertale fic? I got a monster plot bunny last week and ended up with a pretty decent outline, so I'd like to give it a shot after I'm done with The World, Upside Down. Any takers?

Augusta: This entire story was started due to the fact that I wanted to see if I could push myself to write a 5000 plus word chapter each week, so I will not be breaking that goal. I do intend to go back and update each chapter with edited versions, but that will be at the end. If you do notice an error, feel free to tell me, so I can fix the error in my copies when I go to update the chapters later.

As for the rest of your review, thank you kindly. I'm having a lot of fun twisting and turning the characters and their interpretations around until I can find my own versions. You'll be seeing more of Flowey and Chara in the next chapter, I promise. There is, at this point, probably three, maybe four chapters left. Even when this story ends, however, I won't be quite done with these characters yet. But we'll see how that pans out.

Geust: I don't think I've ever heard Chara called a 'tubby little bugger' before—I got a real giggle out of that. Usually fanart likes to portray them as being tall and thin, but them being this cute little butterball is super endearing. As for what's up with Undyne and Alphys I can promise some answers in the next chapter. Honestly though, I should probably do a sidestory exploring them—I don't get to spend a ton of time with them, especially not together. If I recall, the experiments happened later because Flowey's flower was an integral part of the experiments, since his body was to be a vessel for a new soul if Alphys could make one, so they would come about after Asriel's death. Heh, man, I think some of your theories are better than some of the plans I had laid out. Always fun to see one of your reviews in my inbox.

Thanks everyone for reviewing! I always greatly appreciate it.