Undertale spoilers!

I don't own Undertale, by the way. ;-;

"Oh, no. You're coming with me."

The world faded to black and white like our first FIGHT. My purple soul appeared in front of me. It was comforting, in a way.

Asriel's vines drew up from the floor and flicked towards me, wrapping around my ankles like before. This time, I was ready. I reached up and grabbed one of them, willing karmic retribution on him. Now that it was a conscious effort, the effect was even more pronounced. Asriel howled as the energy ruptured the inside of his vines, tearing them apart. I fell onto the floor between Asriel and Sans, who had done nothing so far.

"out of the way." Sans said to me. I backed away.

He raised his hand and a giant animal skull appeared floating behind him. He clenched his fist. The skull opened its mouth wide, and fired a blue-white laser. Asriel swerved around it and swiped at us with his vines, and Sans conjured bones from thin air, tangling the vines like earphones. Sans snapped his fingers and bones jutted out of the floor, trapping Asriel in a cage. Asriel looked shocked. Before he escaped underground, I heard him murmur;

"How could I lose seven times?"

Sans grabbed my wrist and the world darkened. When we reappeared, it was much hotter. Like, really hot. The ground was made of orange rock, but it appeared to be constantly shifting. Below was an ocean of lava. Bubbles burst on the surface occasionally, releasing tiny wisps of gas into the air.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"this is hotland. don't come here much myself, the monsters here creep me out, and that's saying a lot – after all, nothing gets under my skin."

I winced.

"Did you hear what he said before he escaped?" I asked.

"yeah. he's one sick bastard."

"What do you mean?"

"i only know the bare bones when it comes to this stuff." he said, chuckling at his own awful pun. "i'll take you to see the royal scientists. they know what they're doing. i think."

Not the biggest vote of confidence.

"see over there?" Sans pointed towards a rectangular white building a little distance away. "that's the lab."

While we walked, I asked Sans some questions.

"Do you know someone called Toriel?"

"toriel? like, queen dreemurr?"

So. She really was the queen.

I read about the Dreemuur royal family in a history book I found in Toriel's house. There was Asgore, Toriel, Asriel and Chara. Asriel was their deceased son. Chara was an adopted human, who had fallen down, just like me. However, that had happened long ago and the book didn't say anything else about them, just that they had died, and that was the reason that monsters were hunting for humans. Toriel was the queen, who left Asgore, the king, after Chara and Asriel died. Turns out that Toriel had just been hiding in the Ruins this whole time. Meanwhile, Asgore continued to rule alone.

"Yeah. You're the person who was at the door yesterday, weren't you?"

"the door to the ruins? yeah. you're saying that was queen toriel? the idea that a previous ruler of our land has such a fantastic sense of humour warms me to the bone."

"You know, I used to really like bad jokes. You ruined crappy humour for me, Sans."

I didn't know how badly I messed up until after it happened. I was walking with Sans, towards the lab. I put my left foot down, then my right. I went to lift my left up, but it was stuck to the floor. I fell forwards onto my face before noticing the webs on the floor. The webs rolled up into a net, capturing me like a bug. Sans, who had been walking a little behind me was still free. He took some kind of sharpened bone and tried to cut me loose, but the net was already pulling me upwards towards Hotland's roof.

Sans had given up trying to cut me loose. "just don't hurt the spiders! they get really mad!" He called from below. Did he know what was going on? I'd probably be fine.

Probably.

Not much happens this chapter, sorry about that. It's kind of a transition thing. The next one will be a major turning point, though.

See y'all on Tuesday!