Hike Through Hotland
The journey through Hotland began. Though the path was narrow, there were some convenient features that made it easy to avoid the locals. The first was the loop of conveyor belts. They were fast and fun to ride. They didn't even go in straight lines. It made the trip just a bit more entertaining. A straight line would have been faster but taking a few extra minutes to enjoy the trip wouldn't significantly affect how long it took them to get back home.
No one was around to witness them ride a few laps around the loop, just because it was fun. And no one saw them running with the belts and making whooshing and zooming sounds either. It wasn't often that they got to enjoy just running fast.
They felt their new phone buzzing in their pocket. Alphys kept updating her status on the social media app, and the push notifications were automatically enabled. They checked the first few before they started ignoring the spam. Alphys wasn't saying anything useful, so they just let the notifications pile up.
It seemed like there was only one way through Hotland, so the trip should be fairly straightforward. The only downside was that the long path was a steady uphill climb. At least it wasn't as steep as their climb up the mountain.
The climb up the mountain was so long ago that they could hardly remember what it felt like. So much had happened since then, and they almost felt like a new person. The kid who climbed the mountain was running away from everything, but now they were running toward something. The kid who climbed the mountain hated themselves and couldn't feel anything. Since then, they'd mostly felt fear and anxiety and pain, but they learned to feel things again after staying with Toriel.
It was a bit ironic to think that they fled their home because they couldn't fit in. The rest of the world saw them as a freak or something that needed fixing on a fundamental level. Yet they found a place to fit in (however temporarily) in this world of freaks and monsters. If only Toriel had let them come back, they would have stayed. If they weren't being hunted, they could have found a proper food source and lived in Tem Village.
As weird as it seemed, they had to consider the effect of the strange magic that had been affecting them since they fell down. Not the whisper, but the magic that made them unable to say or see their own name. It was blocking a link to who they were, but that name belonged to the person who climbed the mountain and fell. Now that they're here, they need to figure out a new name and that name should represent how they see themselves.
It's not every day that someone gets to reinvent themselves. The slow uphill walk was giving them time to consider what they thought about themselves. Maybe they couldn't go as far as saying that they like themselves yet, but they don't hate themselves. They hate certain things about themselves, but not themselves as an entity. They might think that's they're a coward and feel like trash sometimes, but that's not the same as hating themselves.
The coward part could be something important though. Maybe they'd like a name that has something to do with speed, for how quickly they can run away from things. Dash, or Dasher? Those didn't feel right, and those can also be boy names. They wanted to avoid a gendered name, if possible. If they have an opportunity to reshape their identity, they're going to make sure that their name doesn't have immediate male or female connotations. The same reasoning kept them from using the name Ron from irony. Maybe Iro or Ira? Still too gendered.
They still had time to think about it. They touched another glowing star on the ground in front of a bunch of hot air vents. As they walked over to examine the vents, their phone started ringing. The caller: Alphys.
This was all the proof they needed that she had installed a tracker in their phone. She told them that if they stood on the vents, a puff of air would toss them in the direction the arrow was facing. That was convenient, since the only way forward was over a small gap in the rock path. It didn't look all that safe since one wrong blast would send them into lava, but the whisper didn't want them to die. It would bring them back if they had an accident.
They'd rather avoid burning to death in lava, but it would probably be a quick death if something happened.
It turned out that their worries were unfounded. The air vents did exactly what Alphys said that they would do. In fact, flying on the blasts of air was kind of fun. The air would toss them up and spin them around before they'd gently land on the rock platform ahead. They had some fun going around on the vents in the area. They even found a place with air vents and a conveyor belt. They picked up an old pan and used the air vent to land directly on the conveyor belt. The weightless spinning followed by the tug of the conveyor belt made them slightly dizzy. It was the most fun they'd had since they'd fallen down. Unexpectedly, they started giggling. Hotland was pretty great.
There was a flame monster standing and watching them with a huge grin on its face. It left them alone. It mostly seemed intrigued by how much fun they were having on the vents and conveyors that it probably used daily. It's flame and smile got bigger the more times they went around. The monster probably liked their energy or something. It didn't matter. As long as it left them alone, they'd be fine.
When they had giggled themselves out, they decided to move on. They did need to get through Hotland eventually so that they could see the king. As much fun as they were having, if they moved quickly, it was less likely that the killer robot would catch up with them.
That was if Mettaton was actually interested in that, anyways. He said he was a killer robot and Alphys said that he had a thirst for human blood, but both of them only said those things. Instead of actually attacking them, he just gave them a pop quiz and shocked them when they got an answer wrong. It hurt, but the shocks weren't even close to being deadly. If he wanted to kill them, he would have turned up the voltage and electrocuted them while they were caught off guard. He would have acted like Undyne.
Instead, he seemed more interested in making their meeting dramatic. Maybe he was a killer robot, but he didn't actually seem to care that much about killing them. Maybe he was lulling them into a false sense of security or something, but what Alphys told them about him should contradict that.
Whatever. Either Alphys was lying to them about Mettaton being murderous or he was trying to lull them into a false sense of security. Or maybe he was trying to slowly drag it out? And just doing it badly? The Underground had strange logic at the best of times, so who's to say that the monsters didn't also share the strange logic.
All they had to do was try to avoid encountering Mettaton and it wouldn't matter. If they did run into him again, they just had to remember the phrase that kept them alive so far. Compliance is key.
Up ahead was a laser puzzle. Alphys called them and told them to watch out for the different types of lasers. Orange lasers wouldn't hurt if they walked through them, and blue lasers wouldn't hurt if they stood still. Why were there laser traps on paths that citizens walked every day? Weird. Maybe monsters just got a kick out of walking through traps and puzzles every day.
That wouldn't be the weirdest thing they'd seen so far. That title might have to go to the Tem who was trying to hatch a boiled egg. Either that, or all the talking animals and objects that called themselves monsters. Everything here was weird.
Ahead there was a locked gate. It had power cables running off to the left and right. There was a rotating air vent to blast them in those directions too. There must be a switch or something to hit to power the gate to open it. Following the cables should lead them to the switches.
But of course, this was the Underground. They couldn't just have switches. Instead, they had a shooter puzzle that operated like those sliding puzzles. It was easy enough, but it seemed like this would be a pain for the normal citizens. Who wants to spend five minutes going back and forth to do puzzles every day just to open a gate when they could just not have installed the gate in the first place.
Why did they bother with the gate? Why did they install lasers along the walking path? The conveyor belts were fun and made the trip faster. The air vents kind of made sense, even if making bridges of the gaps would be easier. But random gates and lasers that blocked access? What was the point?
Why were they even questioning it? They know that the Underground operates on a different set of rules. Puzzles and traps were par for the course here. Even Waterfall had a few puzzles, though they were few and far between. The Ruins and Snowdin had puzzles everywhere though. Waterfall seemed to be the exception for its low puzzle density.
But lasers can't be considered a puzzle when they actively cause harm! Why were they even thinking about this? It would never make sense. They just had to accept that this was the way it was down here.
This just gave them a bit more time to think about names. The air vents were fun, so maybe something like that? Fly? That's not really a name, and some people could take it to mean that they're annoying like a housefly. Soar? Or Spin? Those aren't really names. Puff? Like the dragon? It would be pretty cool to be named after a dragon, but Puff was a lame name. It made them sound soft and squishy, and they didn't like that.
A few vent blasts later and they arrived at what looked like a movie set for a kitchen. As they approached, they saw Mettaton wearing an apron. So much for avoiding him.
It turned out that meeting him didn't even matter. Instead of killing them, he wanted them to participate in his cooking show. Gather ingredients? They could do that. Then he claimed the secret ingredient was a human soul. Of course. But instead of just killing them, he took a call from Alphys who said that they should use a vegan substitute instead.
And. He. Agreed. Why would he just agree when there was a perfectly good, real human soul right there? Were there even any vegan monsters? Actually, most of the probably were vegan since their food was like, 99% magic. Regardless, why cook with a substitute when the real ingredient is available? Just say what the substitute would be and use the real ingredient. They didn't want to lose their soul, but killing them and/or taking their soul was supposed to be Mettaton's purpose.
This is just more evidence for Mettaton not caring about killing them. Killing them would have been a great opportunity for his show. His show called "Cooking with a Killer Robot." A cooking show where he didn't cook or kill. Alright then.
Nonsense aside, it was pretty cool that their phone had a jetpack feature. They weren't going to question that. If they got a jetpack in exchange for Alphys tracking them with the phone, then she can track them forever. Jetpacks will always be cool.
An elevator took them up a short distance. It was nice to know that they wouldn't have to climb as high by themselves. At the top of this elevator was Sans and another sentry station. Once again, the roof had snow on it. Somehow, in the middle of a lava lake, his stall had snow on it.
And he was using it to sell hot dogs. Why not? The monsters standing around the stand seemed to be enjoying them. They decided to buy one because they were getting a bit hungry. Walking up a slow hill and running circles on the conveyor belts had started to work up their appetite. Even though the hot dog was just a cattail on a bun, the ketchup covered up the strange plant taste. It tasted similar enough to a hot dog but it had the fuzzy texture of a cattail. They weren't going to complain. It was cheap and filling. They wanted to save their pie, donut, and instant noodles for emergencies when they couldn't get other food.
Up ahead they found an old apron and some buttons along a conveyor belt. They kept the apron in case their shirt got ruined again and they needed something to wear. Alphys called them to tell them that the buttons needed to be pushed in the right rhythm to disable the electric wall.
Why was there an electric wall that stopped people from passing through? Why were they still questioning these things? Pushing the buttons as the conveyor belt whisked them past wasn't hard. They would have done it first try too, if a sudden and unexpected call from Alphys hadn't startled them. She tried to help them by telling them when to push the last button.
Maybe that would have worked if they were already on a call, but starting a new call was just a hindrance. Maybe that was her plan? Maybe this is how she was buying time for Mettaton to come up with a way to actually kill them?
Probably not. Mettaton really didn't seem interested in killing them. Every time he said he was a killer robot and that he was going to murder them, he sounded like those actors on the really bad sitcoms that their parents would watch on TV. The ones where everyone was overacting and that no one could take seriously.
Either way, no harm no foul. This just meant that they got to ride the conveyor belts for a few more laps. It was still fun. Maybe they could call themselves Swift? The name means fast, and it sounds kind of cool. They'd consider it for a little while before deciding. It was a cool name but it just didn't quite feel right.
They completed another air vent and button puzzle as they considered what other options they might like. They could call themselves Champ because they were the champion of solving puzzles here. That sounded too arrogant though. And too much like a name for a dog. A male dog at that. Definitely not that name. Blaster for being blasted by air vents? They didn't really want to be named after an object though. A characteristic would be better.
There was another glowing star next to a random microwave. Just after they touched it, they heard someone calling out to them. It was the guard from before and presumably his partner. They two said that they'd escort them home because apparently there was a dangerous human wandering around, according to their captain.
They described what they'd heard about the human and trailed off when they realized. The guards figured out that they were human, finally. This was bad news.
Unlike Mettaton, these two followed Undyne's orders. And Undyne definitely wanted them dead She had killed them so many times already, and the one time that they escaped, they left her passed out on a bridge over a lava lake. They really didn't leave a good impression on her.
They had no doubt that these guards would kill them or bring them before the king. The guards blocked the way forward and the way back. They couldn't run away. All they could do was hope that the guards would leave an opening for them to exploit and run away.
The battle began. They easily dodged the bullets that were thrown at them. After Undyne, these two were nothing. Unfortunately, they were trained well enough to have strong endurance and focus. The two guards worked in sync with each other and didn't give them the opportunity to escape. All they could do was avoid capture.
After some time, the reptilian guard started to overheat and removed his armour. Surprisingly, this caused the guard with rabbit ears to start sweating too, and his attacks started veering off course. It seemed like the rabbit guard was distracted by something.
Wait, was the rabbit staring at the reptile? They would have thought that it would be rude for him to stare at his half naked guard partner. Unless… did the rabbit have a crush on the reptile? Was that even allowed? They knew that guys could have crushes on other guys, they'd heard about it at school and when they lived with their parents. They knew it could happen but they'd always been told that it was unnatural, and something that should be avoided or suppressed if they felt that way.
Maybe the rules were different here. The rules for everything else were different, so why couldn't a boy like another boy and actually start a relationship? Could they even be in an interspecies relationship?
They figured it probably wasn't a big deal. This was a world of monsters and magic, after all. Why couldn't two different species of monster be together? Even if relationships are supposed to be about making families and having kids, there's probably some kind of magic that can make it happen. This wasn't like the human world where only a mom and a dad could make babies together.
Underground, there was probably magic to make anything happen.
Eventually, the two guards stopped attacking them and just started talking. They were calling each other bro and decided to go for a nice cream date. Cool. As long the guards forgot about them and left them alone, they didn't care what the two of them were going to do together. If all the monsters could be this bad at capturing or killing them, that would be great.
The guards left and they moved on.
Would Dodger be a good name? Or Slick? Those sounded too masculine. Swift was still the best option so far. Unless they used the name Zip? That evoked the idea of something small and quick. If they considered zip folders on computers, they contain more than their size suggests. They liked that idea. Zip would be a good candidate.
Next, they came upon Mettaton on a series of small platforms. He was dressed in a newscaster outfit and greeted them with flamboyant gestures. Surprisingly, he kept his character mostly professional, trying to act the part of a dramatic newscaster. He told them to find something interesting to report on.
Immediately they ran over to the dog. Nothing was more newsworthy than something this adorable and fluffy. Too bad that it was a bomb. All the news objects were bombs. Conveniently, their phone had a bomb defusing app. It sure was suspicious that their phone had features that wouldn't be useful outside of these contrived dramatic scenarios.
They defused all the small bombs with the app and made their way to the large pink bomb. That bomb didn't even work. So much for dramatic tension. They just had to go along with it. Comply with whatever Mettaton and Alphys seemed to want with them, and maybe they'll be able to run off to the castle when they have the opportunity.
This plan wasn't great, but it was better than no plan at all. Besides the lasers, travelling through Hotland was kind of fun. If Mettaton kept stalling them in entertaining and non-lethal ways, they wouldn't complain.
They kept following the path upwards and came to another elevator. This elevator brought them up again, which would save them energy and time. The less climbing, the better. Outside the elevator was another spider bake sale. This one was similar to the one in the ruins, but the pastries were much more expensive. And there was a giant spider at the table, chuckling and passively threatening people to buy the overpriced baked goods.
Spiders were one kind of monster that they really didn't want to deal with. Especially that giant one with the threatening smile and shifty eyes. They took the spider donut out of their pocket, showed her that they already had a pastry, and just kept walking. They had to go through a dark building full of spider webs, but nothing crawled on them or attacked them, so they considered that a win.
Then there was another gate locked by another shooter puzzle. They took their time because there were more hot air vents and conveyor belt loops between the puzzle and the gate. They didn't think they'd ever get tired of flying on the air vents and zooming around the conveyor belt loops.
Hopefully their playtime wasn't stalling Mettaton's schedule too much. But if he was recording these in advance like regular TV shows did, then it shouldn't matter if they spent some extra time enjoying themselves. And if it was live broadcasting, then this is just an opportunity for extra commercials. Commercials were how TV stations made a lot of money, right? No loss there. They did a few more laps of the conveyor belts and flew across a few extra air vents before continuing onwards.
Beyond the gate, they saw a lion monster wearing a dress. The lion had a mane, so they thought that they were a boy, but the dress made them look like they were a girl (besides the mane). The lion told them that this dress used to be Mettaton's and he gave it to them. They said that the dress made them feel more like themselves than they ever had.
They thought that it was pretty cool that a presumably male lion could feel like themselves more in female clothes. Or maybe the lion just liked the aesthetic? It was possible that monsters had a different idea of boys and girls fashion than the humans did. But this would be the first time that they had seen a direct opposition of the gendered fashion that they knew.
Just thinking that maybe this lion was a boy who wanted to be a girl stirred up a strange feeling in their chest. It was kind of bubbly and hopeful, but they couldn't place what it was or why they were feeling it. They just pushed it back until they couldn't feel it anymore. They had other things to focus on.
They walked onto what looked like a movie set. There was a castle with a balcony, a painted background of dense housing, and a wide, open floor beneath the balcony. They phone rang again. Alphys just told them what they already expected. Mettaton started to climb down from the balcony. He was wearing a dress just like the lion monster. Unexpectedly, he started singing.
Though his voice was a bit digital, he could carry a tune pretty well. He started rolling around in an imitation of dancing while he was singing. If this is what Mettaton wanted to do, they'd comply. They started twirling around on the stage, dancing to Mettaton's singing. It wasn't fast or graceful or even particularly skilled dancing. But it was fun.
"Oh no. My love is being sent to the dungeon." Mettaton stated in a deadpan tone.
Dungeon? They let their guard down. They were supposed to make Mettaton let his guard down, not the other way around! A trapdoor opened up under their feet and dropped them in front of a coloured tile puzzle. Unfortunately this one was much bigger and harder than the one Papyrus had in Snowdin. If only they still remembered what all the colours meant, they might be able to escape.
"And if they don't escape, they'll incinerated by my jets of fire! You have until the end of my song darling, better hurry up!" Mettaton announced.
Well damn it. They ran forward and tried tiles at random. They got soaked, scented, shocked, scrubbed, and pushed around by various tiles before Mettaton reached the conclusion of his song.
"Ha ha ha! My poor love, I'm so filled with grief I just can't stop laughing! It looks like they're out of time. Here come the flames, darling!" Mettaton announced to an unseen audience. There were walls of fire on either side of them, slowly getting closer.
"They're closing in! Getting… Closer… Oh my! Any… Minute now…" Mettaton spoke slowly and coughed, as if he was trying to drag out the scene. But why?
Their phone rang again. It was Alphys, saying that she'd hack the walls of fire for them to stop the fire from burning them to death. The fire had already stopped getting closer. This whole situation seemed far too forced.
After a moment, the walls of fire disappeared. Mettaton threw up his arms and started rolling around.
"Oh no! How could this happen?" He yelled, "Foiled again, by the brilliant Dr. Alphys and- Oh. Did you forget what the green tiles do? They make a sound and then you have to fight a monster."
Mettaton then turned to the side. There was probably a camera in that direction, filming him. "And that monster is me! Stay tuned for our final show! It will be recorded and broadcasted live!" There was a pause before he turned back to them. "Well, that's all for now darling. Thanks for being such a sport. I'll meet you beyond the hotel for the finale. Do hurry though. I don't want to keep my fans waiting for too long."
With that, Mettaton rolled away. Alphys called them and started talking about how they were a great pair for defeating the killer robot at his twisted games or something. They stopped paying attention to her after a few words. As long as they didn't hang up on her, she couldn't be upset at them for ignoring her.
Just as Mettaton had said, beyond the tile room and up a small flight of stairs was a nice cream stand in front of the MTT Hotel. They saw the guards from earlier eating some nice creams. The reptile guard was still half naked. Fortunately, the couple seemed more interested in their date than in trying to capture them.
It seemed like this portion of their journey was nearly done. Mettaton said he'd meet them on the other side of this hotel. He was going to fight them and they had very little they could do to fight back. It was unfortunate, because they were starting to enjoy his antics, even if they were scripted and too dramatic. If they ignored the fight with the guards, the creepy spider, and Alphys's nonstop social media posts, Hotland was actually a pretty fun place.
If they could, staying in Hotland wouldn't be so bad either. There was no way they'd be able to afford to stay in a hotel for long, and they didn't see anywhere else that they could stay. The lab was a hard no. If they didn't have to try to get to the king and leave, then they could put off meeting Mettaton as long as they could. They could see if they could get a job at the hotel to pay for a room. They could work and live in a place that treated travel like fair rides. Hotland would be a fun place to stay, but it just wasn't possible.
They needed to get home. They needed to survive Mettaton somehow, escape, and get past the king. They almost didn't want to go home.
As quickly as they thought it, they banished the idea to the back of their mind. They had to go home. They couldn't just wish for something impossible and expect it to happen. They had to stay strong and move forward.
But they could take their time in the hotel. See it's perks, maybe stay a night, grab a meal, spend the rest of their cash. And maybe while they were enjoying the last moments of their free life, they would come up with a name to call themselves. Swift? Zip? They liked those names, but they just weren't quite the right fit. Those felt more like middle names than a first name.
They didn't have much time left here, but they hoped it would be enough to figure out what they wanted.