Author's Note: You're STILL here? Wow... I don't know what to say! Besides "Thank you!", I mean. I hope you enjoy this chapter. If it helps, Sansy's got a bit at the end you might like. ;3

Chapter Ten: It's Showtime!

I don't know what I was expecting from a place called "Hotland" but I started sweating almost immediately. The sweater was going to be a bit much here, so I took it off and tied it around my waist. I felt fortunate that I'd had the time during my preparations to get a shirt to wear underneath. Not much else had gone according to plan, after that…

As I continued on I kept getting "status updates" from Dr. Alphys on my phone. Little sentences like "Didn't get to watch Undyne fight the human" and "Well, she's unbeatable. I'll ask her later. ^.^" I didn't understand what the symbols at the end were supposed to be for, but their resemblance to a face seemed to be significant.

There were moving belts that conveyed me around pipes venting flame at regular intervals. As I went along I was being thrust into the air by strong bursts from more vents and it all made me glad I was in britches (and that my belt was nice and tight). All the while the doctor was "updating" on how she was going to call and help me but was extremely nervous about doing so. At one point she called my phone and immediately hung up. As ready as she was to "update", she didn't seem to enjoy having to interact with people face-to-face, or even voice-to-voice. Finally, I reached a room with something completely new. Metal spheres with a crystal eye in the middle were blocking my path with beams of blue and orange light. I could guess what the blue ones had to mean, but orange was new to me. Finally, Dr. Alphys called me. Her hint amounted to "move through the orange lasers," after much stammering. She hung up before I could thank her.

The doctor made a barrage of updates while I navigated the beams, saying how she had been shaking the whole time during her call, and how she hadn't felt that nervous since Undyne had called her to talk about the weather. Shortly afterward she realized there wasn't any weather down here and questioned why Undyne had really called. I wondered, too. She eventually "posted" picture of "herself," but it was actually an image of a trash can that somehow looked like it had been covered in pink glitter. I wanted to tell her that she wasn't garbage but I didn't know how to do so.

I noticed certain things as she guided me, as I solved puzzles and survived Mettaton trying to turn my soul into a cake ingredient. I was beginning to think she had very little confidence in her own abilities, even as she helped me by introducing the "jetpack" function she'd added to my phone (an interesting experience, to say the least). Once the "cooking show" was over, Mettaton didn't seem to be very heartbroken over his failure to kill me. He'd taken it rather well, in fact, but Dr. Alphys seemed surprised by our success. But she was always hanging up before I could express any gratitude, or could encourage her.

As I moved on a gigantic building loomed in the distance. The doctor told me it was the Core, the power plant which generated "magical electricity" for the whole Underground. I was interested when she started explaining how that was done but she stopped herself. I was a little disappointed, but we had a journey to continue. She wrapped up that call by telling me the Core was our goal, and that I'd find an elevator to the castle, there.

I came across Sans selling "hot dogs" from yet another sentry station (which somehow still had snow on its roof, in this heat), but it was just a water sausage on a bun. I hadn't known they were edible. I also wondered just how many jobs one man could have, even with shortcuts to help him get around.

Alphys' confidence in herself took a blow as she tried to help me with a timing-based puzzle. She left me to my own devices for a while afterward, and kept posting her opinion on a series of novels whose quality had left her irate after the first book. She was… rather passionate about it.

The two royal guards I had seen at the blockade found me. At first, they thought I was just some lost child and were trying to take me someplace safe while the "scary human in a striped sweater" was running around. But the quiet guard was staring at the sweater around my waist. He brought it to his partner's attention, just with his staring. The guard with rabbit ears sticking out from his helmet shook his head with regret and declared this to be a "bummer". They would have to arrest me. They attacked me in perfect unison and my options were limited, but I managed. Somehow the fight turned into a confession of love from the rabbit-eared guard to his companion, and I was more than happy to end the fight so they could go have ice cream together.

Mettaton made another appearance, forcing me into the role of a "brave correspondent" in some manner of broadcast that quickly devolved into chaos as a number of explosives tried to end me. Alphys had already installed a "bomb defusing program" onto my phone and we managed to get them all, including the large one that had been ticking down while I was dealing with the smaller bombs. Again, Mettaton was not surprised by our success.

Once he left Alphys told me that she was growing more confident about guiding me. She told me not to worry about "that overgrown cuckoo clock" and that she would protect me. She started to say something strange, that if it came down to it we could turn… something. She stopped herself and hung up before I could ask.

I pondered as I walked. Turn… him? Turn him around? Turn him off? Did she have a way to deactivate him, whenever she wanted? Why hadn't she done so before all this started? Why let him endanger my life like this? …was I in danger? Alphys seemed to have everything she needed to help me through Hotland, like she had all the answers no matter how hard it was for her to share them with me. Was it because she was a resident of this place… or was it because she was behind her robot's behavior, after all?

A call from Alphys interrupted my thoughts. She had noticed I was being quiet, and attributed it to my upcoming confrontation with Asgore. She told me not to worry, that he was a nice guy and I could reason with him. She told me to forget my worries and just smile. I dredged one up for her, not knowing if she had more of those scrying eyes watching me, but I couldn't hold it for long.

I appreciated her help. I really did. She was clearly feeling more confident, but was a manufactured scenario (assuming this was all manufactured, of course), really the best way to go about it? I simply didn't know. But the truth was I didn't know my way around this place and I needed someone's help, no matter their reasons for offering it.

I passed another spider bake sale run by a spider lady on my way to more puzzles. The prices amounted to highway robbery so I declined as politely as possible. Alphys tried to say we could be friends on Undernet, only to realize she'd already signed me up. She was embarrassed by the fact that I'd seen every post she'd made since I left the laboratory but hoped that I agreed with the opinions she'd expressed earlier (although I hadn't read those books, so I didn't have an opinion of my own). A short while afterward she called again and shyly asked if I would like to borrow some books from her, saying I might like them. It seemed she was particularly keen on fantasy novels and when I said I would like to read them she burst out in great detail about a particular book she loved. She stopped when she realized she was spoiling it.

Whatever doubts I had about her in the back of my mind, I couldn't deny that she was being adorable.

While lost in my thoughts the smell of cobwebs filled my nose. I found a save star and stepped into a large building overrun with webs. It was dark but I was careful to avoid them and any spiders that might be underfoot. A sudden voice from the dark filled me with dread.

"Did you hear what they just said? They said a human with a striped sweater will come through. I heard they hate spiders." I was confused as the voice continued to speak. All the while I had no choice but to walk on webs. They kept sticking to my boots, slowing me down. "I heard they love to stomp on spiders and tear their poor little legs off. I heard they left behind so many broken little spiders, in the Ruins…"

My jaw dropped. "I beg your pardon!? Who in the world told you that?"

"Ahuhuhuhu! It's rude to interrupt, dearie. I wasn't finished." I tried to keep walking but the webs had wrapped around my legs. The more I struggled, the higher the webs covered me, all the way up to my knees. I was stuck as the spider lady from before appeared in a web high above me. "But I guess it doesn't matter, really." She made a gesture with one of her six hands and the webs around my legs turned purple! I was hauled into the air feet-first, my journal falling out of its case as the spider lady brought me face-to-face with her. "We've been offered a great deal of money for your SOUL. Enough that the spider clan in the Ruins can finally be safely reunited with us, with plenty to spare afterward."

Upside-down, I struggled to break free of her webs but all I managed to do was amuse her. Then she looked down at the floor, at my journal. We could both see that it had fallen open to the page where I'd drawn the cathedral of webs, the humongous spider home I'd found in the Ruins. My captor only looked angry.

"Oh, you are a sick little creature, aren't you? You made this beautiful drawing, only to destroy those wonderful webs right afterward."

I shook my head violently. "NO! I swear I didn't touch it! I swear that never hurt a single spider while I was in the Ruins. I love spiders! They eat the true pests like flies and mosquitoes that can carry disease and make people sick! I would never intentionally hurt them!"

"Ahuhuhu! So you say, but we both know you'll lie like a rug to save your own skin. Especially once I introduce you to my pet." She snapped her fingers and something that looked like a gigantic muffin appeared from the blackness. The muffin grew a face and a mouth studded with fangs. It looked hungry. The spider started slowly lowering me into her pet's mouth, saying that it was dinnertime.

All I could do was struggle. I tried to reach for the webs that were suspending me, hoping to climb up and away from the muffin pet, but I wasn't strong or flexible enough to bend my body that way. Those fangs got closer and closer and I braced myself to feel them sinking into my flesh…

But nothing happened. As I hung there, just out of its reach, I realized that I was no longer being lowered. When I looked over, the spider lady was accepting a telegram from one of the little spiders. She was reading it with an expression of wonder.

"Is this really from the spiders in the Ruins?" Her little friend must have answered in the affirmative because she called off her pet while raising me up. "Sorry, my pet! I got you the wrong human treat. You'll have to wait a little longer." The muffin made a disappointed sound but retreated back into the darkness. I was lowered onto the floor and the webs around my legs disappeared.

I looked at the spider lady in confusion. "What made you change your mind?"

She offered one of her hands to help me up. She giggled as she waved the telegram in another hand and said, "This, of course! It's from the spiders in the Ruins. It says that a human in a gray, striped sweater was a regular customer, before they left. They even visited their little palace and drew a lovely picture, all without harming a single spider or undoing a single web! That was you, wasn't it?" When I nodded vigorously, she giggled again. "I'm so terribly sorry. I'm afraid I can be somewhat… unreasonable when to comes to my spiders."

She picked up my journal and gave it back, introducing herself at last as Muffet. When I asked Miss Muffet who had told her those horrible lies, she could only say that they'd had "a sweet smile." And she thought she had seen them change their shape, when they walked into the shadows.

I went back to the save star. I had to wonder who could have known I was in the Ruins, who could smile sweetly and could change their shape. Flowey had seen me in the Ruins and was constantly changing his face… could he change his whole body? Was Alphys the only one watching me, or was he following me, too? He could clearly burrow his way around the Ruins, so he could be anywhere out here…

On the other side of Miss Muffet's palace I found myself in the backstage of an auditorium. A poster on the wall indicated a play starring Mettaton was about to start. I couldn't go anywhere but onto the stage and Mettaton appeared again… in a dress. He wheeled around me, singing a song that started out alright, then became ridiculous even as it filled me with dread. Flower petals fell like rain on my head and a "shooting star" fell in the background. I was still trying to knock petals out of my hair when he pulled a device from nowhere and pushed its button, opening a hole in the floor beneath me.

I fell into the "dungeon." It had the same tile puzzle that Papyrus had tried to use on me, only this time I had a mere thirty seconds to make it through a true maze before a wall of fire consumed me, all while Mettaton sang. I almost made it to the end, but I spent too long trying to remember what the different colors of the panels did and I ran out of time.

Flames closed in on either side of me as Mettaton laughed triumphantly. But just as they were about to touch me, they stopped. The pause in the action lengthened and he coughed. Just then, Alphys called on my phone, saying that she would save me by "hacking" the fire walls.

Mettaton, once again, was not surprised by the doctor's intervention. Even as he feigned defeat Alphys told him he could never defeat us as long as we were a team, but he reminded us both of what the green tile's function was. I had thought it strange that they only made a sound whenever I walked on one, but it turned out that its effect was just being delayed. The green tiles summoned a monster to fight… and Mettaton was that monster!

I was forced into a fight, if one could call such a minor altercation a "fight". Alphys once again proved her foresight by telling me she had installed one last "program" on my phone, which made it resonate with Mettaton's presence and turned my soul yellow to allow me to shoot bullets of my own.

I resisted, at first. Crazed robot or not, I didn't want to hurt him. But Alphys assured me that I wasn't, so I did my best to imagine my hand was one of my father's revolvers and blazed away. Defeated, yet again, Mettaton didn't even bother to pretend he was invested in his role as killer robot. He sounded bored with everything as he fled.

Alphys told me I had done a great job. I told her it was all thanks to her, but she only said that I was the one doing all the cool things. She merely put silly programs on my phone. She didn't seem to think affecting someone's soul using technology and magic was a very big deal… Before I could tell her what I thought, she told me something.

She said she hadn't liked herself very much before we met. She'd felt like a screw-up and a failure, for a long time. She couldn't do anything right, and could only let others down… But, by guiding me, she felt much better about herself, and she thanked me for letting her help. She ended her call by telling me we were close to our goal. I just had to go through some place called "MTT Resort", whatever a resort was.

I… didn't know how to feel. On the one hand, I didn't appreciate being someone's puppet, being yanked around by the nose… But on the other hand, I knew how hard it could be to maintain your confidence. Trying to meet someone else's expectations, and your own, only to fail again and again… I'd already failed both my human mother and my monster mother. I might fail again now, no matter how much I wanted to help the doctor regain her self-confidence.

My musings carried me past where the blockade had once been, past where the two royal guards were happily enjoying ice cream together. I found myself staring up at a building even larger than the laboratory. I found Sans loitering beside the glass doors. He said that he'd heard I was headed for the Core, and asked if I wanted to grab some dinner with him, first. When I told him I would, he thanked me for treating him and led me down a dark alleyway for another one of his shortcuts.

We were suddenly in a restaurant, a very different place from Grillby's pub. More refined, even if the tables all had cloth draped over them resembling Mettaton's… face? We took our seats but there were no menus, or even any silverware or plates for us. Just a candle barely illuminating our table.

Sans brought me out of my thoughts by saying, "so. your journey's almost over, huh? you must really want to get back to the surface. can't say i say i blame ya, buddy, but… maybe, sometimes it's better to take what you've been given."

He was being unusually serious… "What do you mean by that, Sans?"

He only shrugged. "i'm just sayin' that, down here, you have good food, good drink and friends to share them with. is what you have to do really worth leaving all that behind?" He looked away, at a platoon of potted ficuses. Before I could have a chance to think about it, he turned back to me. "ah, forget it. i'm rootin' for ya, kid."

After another moment of silence he told me a story about how he came across the locked door of the Ruins. How he started practicing knock-knock jokes on it and how, one day, he met a woman on the other side that genuinely liked his jokes… How they'd exchanged bad jokes through the door for hours, and how it had become a thing they did regularly. Then he told me of a promise he made to Mother. He said he hated making promises… but he'd done so, anyway.

"do you get it yet? buddy, that promise…" He trailed off, his pupils extinguishing and leaving his eyesockets blacker than coal. The very timbre of his voice changed as he said, "… is the only reason you're not dead where you stand."

I'd always had a feeling there was more to Sans than he was letting on. But this… this was the first time I felt that he could be a very, very dangerous person if he wanted to be…

The lights came back to his eyes. He was smiling and his voice went back to normal as he told me he was just joking. He gave me his usual wink as he said, "haven't i done a great job lookin' after you? you haven't died once!" I remembered Undyne killing me three times and the numerous close calls I'd had from my random encounters. Although I tried to keep my expression neutral it must have shown on my face because he said, "what's that look for? am i wrong…?"

He left his seat with a chuckle, and walked to the ficuses before saying, "welp, that's all i had to say. and, uh, also that i'm gonna be a little busy for a while. i won't be able to help you out, from here. so take care of yourself, kid, 'cause someone really cares about you."

He left. When I tried to follow him there were no exits in the direction he'd gone. Clearly, another shortcut had been utilized.

The restaurant was attached to a hotel that used to be an apartment building. If I remembered correctly, a "hotel" was more or less an inn writ large, so I asked if there were any rooms available. The price seemed a little high to me… but the clerk told me it was a special rate because the elevators to the capital were out of order. They also explained that the room would come with many amenities, and even had a washing machine and a "dryer." I didn't know what a dryer was, but Mother had a washing machine and had taught me how to use it. Being able to wash my clothes sounded fantastic so I rented a room. I also bought a little food from the… mildly disturbed individual employed at the "fast food" establishment near the elevator.

The room had a gigantic bed that looked plush and lovely to sleep in. However washing my clothes, and myself, were the priority. The tiny washing machine and the "dryer" had instructions plastered onto them which was helpful (even if they required money to operate and I had to buy the laundry soap from a little dispenser tucked into the same alcove as the appliances.) Thankfully, I could pay for it all. Also thankfully the shower didn't require money to operate. I don't know why I had expected it to.

With my clothes and myself squeaky clean, I decided to take a nap after my meal. I dimmed the lights, and the covers were soft as I crawled into the bed. I burrowed beneath them, but when I tried to fall asleep I couldn't. Even as exhausted as I was, I kept thinking.

Was this all worth it? Originally, I just wanted to make things so Mother could feel safe enough to leave the Ruins. So she wouldn't have to coop herself up and be all alone, anymore. I had just wanted to give Asgore a piece of my mind and tell him it wasn't alright to kill humans… But now that I understood why he was doing so, were my reasons enough? I had decided not to tell anyone that I didn't want to leave the Underground… but now I wanted to shout it to them all.

The Underground was such a wondrous place, full of things I never could have imagined. Contraptions I wanted to learn about, magic all around and people I had come to care about, despite knowing them for such a short amount of time. It was all like some wonderful dream I didn't want to wake from… but it wasn't fair to them to keep them trapped here. I wanted to help, but at the same time, I didn't…

I didn't know what to do. I simply didn't know.

I stood in the Last Corridor, waiting for the "special case" to be brought before me for his verdict. While I waited, my mind wandered.

Domestic violence wasn't unheard of. Most of the perpetrators were lashing out in the frustration and despair we all felt as the years crawled by, with no end to our suffering in sight. Usually some fines, maybe a little time-out and a lot of psychiatric counseling would be in order, if that was all it was. But there were exceptions.

Although rare, "special cases" didn't care how badly they were hurting others. They turned something two people did with love into something that only hurt others. Once they did, the gloves came off. They had to come off. There was no excuse, no reason to pardon such behavior. And if someone's LOVE was high enough to go that far they were a danger to everyone, especially kids...

And that was where I came in.

I heard a commotion coming from the entrance to the Corridor. Clanking footsteps and cursing were getting louder as the special case was forcefully marched closer to me. Two royal guards were holding the accused between them as he tried in vain to break their grasp. They practically dumped him on the floor and stood back, giving me plenty of room. They took their positions and summoned their weapons, blocking the entrance and making it clear that there would be no escape. Granted, I was the only one between the accused and the throne room, but he wasn't getting past me.

The monster before me looked more like a cornered animal than a person. There was only anger in his eyes, but there were things that had to be said before we could begin. Just as Granddad taught me and as he'd been taught, et cetera.

"You have been brought here to be judged. All thy deeds will be laid bare. All thy EXP and LOVE will be measured and weighed." I let my eye glow, which I knew could look pretty creepy when I had my hood up, but there was a reason for it. It took quite a bit of magic to look for the hidden points down in someone's SOUL.

You didn't necessarily have to dust someone and earn EXP to raise your LOVE. But the tricky thing was that your LOVE only visibly rose with EXP. Hurting others non-lethally still became easier and easier the more you did it, even if a casual glance said your LV was low. Why was that?

It was because LOVE had a second set of values invisible to everyone except for judges trained to look for it. I had tried to do this with Frisk, but their inner defenses had been too high, even unconscious, for me to see all the way through. The special case was much easier, maybe because he didn't care what I saw, or just because he was a monster. Either way, the results were clear.

Somebody had been busy.

Almost before I was done the special case was throwing a stream of invectives in my direction, deepening his own rage. When I asked him if he wanted to confess anything, he told me what I could do with my so-called "justice". It was physically impossible for me to do, since I was a skeleton. Those kinds of insults usually made me laugh, but not today.

There was nothing to be done. No amount of counseling could bring this monster back out of the pit he'd dug his SOUL into. I didn't even need to start the FIGHT because he started it, for me. He used up the maximum allotted time for his turn and didn't manage to land a single blow on me. Then I showed him how you're supposed to use your first turn…

It was done. As my EXP rose all I could feel was the usual mixture of satisfaction and regret. Satisfaction because I knew a dangerous individual would no longer be hurting anyone in the horrible manner he had been. Regret because of how long it had taken us to pin this guy. There'd been too many victims, this time. One of them was a kid, as it usually went with special cases…

I didn't get it. It was like they carved something out of their own SOULs to keep doing what they did. I just couldn't see how a monster could do that to themselves, no matter how hopeless our situation was… but it wouldn't stop me from handling special cases.

My family and special cases… Just about the only things I cared about, anymore. Anomalies be damned.

*speaking of family… I watched as the royal guards gathered up the special case's dust. He still had a family, no matter how horrible he'd been, and the funeral was already planned. When they had been summoned to my office to be informed of the case, I told them things might come to this. They'd understood and, as hard as it was to accept, they knew no amount of love or compassion could help their loved one. Showing mercy to one as guilty as him would have only further harm the innocent.

The guards saluted me and left. Alone, I let myself sigh and looked out the window. It was noon, but there wouldn't be any light coming in until sunset... I'd be meeting Frisk here, soon enough, and I couldn't say I enjoyed that thought. I still didn't know if they were behind the latest anomalies, or not, but the kind of fear I saw in Frisk was the same as what I saw in the victims special cases left in their wake. Whether monster or human, it seemed that sort of violence left the same marks on a person's SOUL…

I was tired. Being the judge, jury and executioner could be a cushy job, in the respect that one-third of it was only needed rarely... But when it was needed I couldn't hold back. I took a shortcut to one of my favorite places for a nap, a secluded courtyard garden hidden deep in the castle. Hardly anybody ever came here, anymore, and it was one of the few places where the sunlight came in at this time of day.

Not that it was really "sunlight", by the time it made it down here. After being refracted through crystals and reflected off trace metal deposits in the walls it wasn't even warm, the way Granddad said it was supposed to be (though he never really explained how he knew, us being skeletons without skin and all.) Even so, it was more sunlight than most monsters would ever see in their lives...

I laid down in a patch of grass and listened to the birds. I hoped the Frisk I saw in that corridor would be the smiling kid that had turned my prank around on me, or at least the serious one that listened to my story in contemplative silence. I hoped I wouldn't see the scared, hating person that had come within inches of dusting me. That pencil had been fast, and I hadn't been expecting it…

I was still kicking myself for that. It had been stupid of me to try getting close, right then. If I'd been thinking, I might have noticed the distress Frisk's SOUL had been in a lot sooner than right before I tried to stuff that fake spider down their collar. But no, all I'd seen was a kid doodling in their journal and a pranking opportunity. The look on their face, when they turned to strike, still haunted me…

Frisk's eyes were the same exact color of the sunset when it came through the Last Corridor's windows, though I could have sworn there was a slight, reddish glow to them, too... They had been focused on someone that wasn't even there, determined to fight them to the death with just that little pencil. Then there'd been the terrible, crushing remorse when Frisk realized they hadn't been in danger, and what could have happened.

That look was why I'd wanted to do something to help take their mind off their troubles, for at least for a while. It was also why I'd been too stunned to retaliate when Frisk turned the tables on my telescope prank.

That smile alone had made my promise worth keeping. It had been so open, and their SOUL-deep joy had been reflected in their eyes as they had a moment of fun. The warmth had been so tangible it was like how Granddad always described the sun to be like. I could only stand there while they ran off, trying to figure out if I was really looking at the same person, or not. I knew human SOULs could be terribly complex things, but a living, breathing human had nothing on them…

On one hand, Frisk was a bright, innocent and curious kid fascinated by their surroundings. On the other they were solemn and thoughtful. On yet another they were a fighter, ready to tear you apart if you gave them an excuse. And buried deep inside was a lonely little kid almost desperate for a friend, and yet they were terrified of someone getting too close. The question was "why?"

I just didn't know. Frisk was like a house full of incredibly complex puzzles. Once you solved the one to open the door, it just revealed more and more puzzles to unlock the rest of the place.

I closed my eye sockets and grinned in spite of myself. I always liked solving complex puzzles.