Previously: Alphys recovered from her feelings for Undyne being revealed to all that was watching...including Undyne! She also upgraded Frisk's and Toriel's phones and then, once Undyne made the journey to the Lab that she barely avoided collapsing due to the heat, Dr. Alphys led her to the True Lab to show her what she's been doing down there and then after a shocking conversation with Toriel about Dr. Alphys' crush with Asgore and possibly herself...she, Frisk, Flowey and Deos continued their journey through Hotland, while Undyne starts to learn about what Dr. Alphys has done in the True Lab.

(Hotland)

Frisk, Flowey, Deos and Toriel in her astral form have navigated through Hotland, a part of the Underground filled with rocky paths and lava, there are moving walkways and steam jets, which are strangely not hazardous for them, in fact...it helped them across gaps, they eventually found a side path that was a dead end, on one way that the steam jet could send them is a way to a Burnt Pan, on the other is nothing, Frisk launched themselves over to pick it up and then looped around to meet up with them.

"All that for a Burnt Frying Pan?! You have a death wish, you know that!" Flowey said in his usual mean manner.

"One of the humans that I looked after...he had that with him...along with an apron." Toriel said.

"Which means that it's somewhere around here." Deos said, he looks at Frisk "you might want to hang onto it for now, until we find it" Frisk nodded at this as they continued along the path to head for the right way to go.

(True Lab)

After Dr. Alphys has fully explained her experiments with determination, how they went badly wrong in the worst possible way and how it ties into the amalgamates. Undyne was still silent, it's unclear from her blank expression how she felt about that, this unnerves Dr. Alphys...she fears the worst. "You h-hate me, d-don't you?! I don't b-blame you for d-do...woah!" she said, as Undyne lifted her up with an angry look on her.

"Undyne...don't say another bad thing about yourself..." Undyne said with an unusually quiet voice.

"What?..." Dr. Alphys said, confused with her response.

"You didn't intend for all that to happen! Yeah, you wanted to get their souls to use for breaking the barrier, then you saved them from death, then they got messed up and you've been tearing yourself apart...but I don't hate you for it, I'm just a little mad at you for not talking with me sooner!...but I'm not holdin' it against you, Alphys!" Undyne said.

"It's w-worse...I m-might've given you s-some without I-Intending to." Dr. Alphys said with some regret.

"How?" Undyne said with some confusion in her voice.

"You k-know the ice cream t-that you've been e-eating that I've made?" Dr. Alphys said, the tears were forming.

"Yeah..." Undyne said, not sure what Dr. Alphys meant by that.

"IT HAD TRACE AMOUNTS OF DETERMINATION IN IT! I'm s-sorry, I d-didn't realize it until it w-was t-too late, I might've h-harmed you in the worst p-possible way!" Dr. Alphys said with a large amount of self-loathing in her voice.

"So that's what Deos meant by what happened in the 'worst case scenario', I used this determination and it made me more powerful, Cool!" Undyne said with some enthusiasm.

"Don't EVER use it! It m-might cause you to m-melt like the others! I don't w-want that to happen to you, Undyne! You saved me from myself!" Dr. Alphys said desperately.

"What do you mean that I saved you from?!...oh, you mean that you were gonna?..." Undyne said with growing realization of why, she realized that if she had found her later than she did, she would've jumped into the Abyss and they would never had met. "Well, I know now and I'm not gonna let you deal with this by yourself any longer, whatever you plan to do next, you've got me to back you up! If they cause you problems, I'll convince them to leave you alone! As for what Mettaton told me on his show..." Undyne said, with a passionate tone of voice, she then looked at Dr. Alphys with a look of desire.

"W-what..." Dr. Alphys said, but what cut off by a kiss from Undyne, this made her turn red with embarrassment, but this time with a smile on her face. Undyne leaned back with Dr. Alphys on top on her, while still kissing...this was going to take a while.

(Hotland)

Frisk, Flowey, Deos and Toriel were waiting at a blue beam, they need Dr. Alphys for this, they were starting to grow impatient, then Dr. Alphys called them, Deos wasn't happy with the delay "I'm guessing that it went well with you two, judging from how LONG it took you to get back to us."

"S-Sorry, I guess it took l-longer than expected." Dr. Alphys said, embarrassingly.

"Yeah, if anyone has a problem with Alphys, they're gonna have to get through me! Is that right?..." Undyne said, it would appear that whatever was happening, it was resulting in some nervous noises coming from Dr. Alphys.

"Can you please turn off the blue laser in front of the lock that we need to deal with?" Deos asked.

"Okay, let's see..." Dr. Alphys replied, then the blue laser turned off.

"Thank you, Dr. Alphys...now you and Undyne have some valuable make-out time."

"WHA..." Dr. Alphys screamed, but was then interrupted by what sounded like Undyne, Deos hung up for Frisk.

"That was something that you shouldn't be seeing yet, so thankfully it's not showing video, let's solve this puzzle and head deeper into Hotland" Deos said, Frisk nodded as they all heading into the puzzle room. The puzzle itself was like the last one, a series of sliding tiles that moved in the same direction to each other and a stationary ship with a limited number of shots, Frisk easily figured out where to position the tiles, so that they had one shot spare for the ship on the other side that needed to be destroyed to unlock the door. Deos didn't tell them how it should be done as he felt that they could figure it out by themselves...he then realized that he could've checked on Frisk's gender in the missing persons page BEFORE he left, the others might know (except perhaps Cali, unless she checked the missing persons page after she was informed that Frisk is the one in his visions that went missing) but that info is likely confidential...and redundant thanks to the missing persons page. As they passed the previously locked door to the next part of Hotland, it was oddly dark and with no way back.

"It would appear that there is no way back after this point, what is ahead?" Toriel asked.

"Mettaton..." Deos said, with some annoyance.

"What is this Mettaton?" Toriel asked, nervously.

"He's the cousin of Napstablook, who wanted a physical body to go into entertainment, Dr. Alphys agreed to make one...which had anti-human combat features."

"Will he use them?" Toriel asked, with a look of concern.

"No, any violence depicted in these shows...up until the CORE anyway...will be all part of the show, an illusion of danger, all we need to do is follow the script up until the end of Hotland and hopefully I can talk with Dr. Alphys to have a less violent way of getting through to the Capital." Deos said.

"You mean the more WIMPY way of getting to the Capital? I don't really care about how we get there as long as I'm still around and you do you side of our deal." Flowey said.

"Although I did have some plans involving Mettaton, involving some modification to his combat features..." Deos said.

"To combat this dark presence that you spoke of with Cali briefly?" Toriel asked.

"Yes, I will bring the others here for that, but I can't be too careful...Mettaton, although he's narcissistic and flamboyant, he can be quite dangerous to what's in his way...Sans as well." Deos relied.

"Sans? He didn't seem dangerous, just lazy." Toriel said, puzzled as to why he's dangerous.

"That was Flowey's doing with him using the space / time continuum as his plaything, before first Frisk and myself fell down here. Trust me, he's more powerful than he looks and he's agile, he'd need to be as he's so depressed that even Frisk could kill him, if they wanted to." Deos said.

"This was in the 'worst case scenario' that you spoke of?" Toriel asked.

"Yes, Flowey's constant resets also weakened the walls of reality, which if done too much will allow this dark presence to use Frisk as a puppet to bring wholesale destruction to the underground...and beyond. This demon just wants destruction, rather than control..." Deos said, disturbed "Let's not keep Mettaton waiting any longer" they move along the path to Mettaton's latest show.

What is beyond the first locked door in Hotland? How else will things heat up? Find out in Chapter 21: Half-Baked Host.