Underearth/Book 1/Chapter 27

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Moments after Frisk entered the curtained area, just as he predicted, Alphys called again.

"Okay, I'm back!" Alphys said through the phone.

"You never said you were leaving." Frisk responded.

"Oh, uh... sorry." There was a momentary pause. "A-another dark room, huh?" she finally said. "Don't worry! M-my hacking skills have got things covered!"

*Your hacking skills seem to be rather situational.* Frisk thought to himself, thinking back to the numerous puzzles that he's had to solve on this mountain.

After a few seconds, lights flickered to life, along with a massive flat-screen TV hanging on a large pillar to Frisk's left. To his right, Frisk could see a large cardboard surface, the TV screen showed him what was on the other side. Mettaton, along with a large news set with Frisk himself right in the middle. Mettaton himself was in the bottom-right corner of the screen behind a desk that read "MTT".

"Are you serious?" Frisk and Alphys said simultaneously.

"OHHHHHH YESSS!!!" Mettaton began. "GOOD EVENING, BEAUTIES AND GENTLEBEAUTIES! THIS IS METTATON, REPORTING LIVE FROM MTT NEWS! AN INTERESTING SITUATION HAS ARISEN IN MID-HOTLAND! FORTUNATELY, OUR CORRESPONDENT IS OUT THERE, REPORTING LIVE!" They gestured towards Frisk. "BRAVE CORRESPONDENT! PLEASE FIND SOMETHING NEWSWORTHY TO REPORT! OUR TEN WONDERFUL VIEWERS ARE WAITING FOR YOU!!"

Frisk looked around the area. He saw six items of noteworthiness (of course, being the only items there, anything was noteworthy): A basketball; a glass of water; a book; a white, motionless dog; a decorated box; and a small black case.

Frisk decided to approach the closest, being the basketball. As he got close, Mettaton began speaking.

"BASKETBALL'S A BLAST, ISN'T IT, DARLING? TOO BAD YOU CAN'T PLAY WITH THESE BALLS. THEY'RE MTT-BRAND FASHION BASKETBALLS. FOR WEARING, NOT PLAYING. YOU CAN'T GET RICH AND FAMOUS LIKE MOI WITHOUT BEAUTIFYING A FEW ORBS. REPORT THIS?"

Frisk looked around the room again. "Nah, I'm sure there's more interesting things around here." He said as he walked towards the glass of water.

"OH MY!!!! IT'S A COMPLETELY NONDESCRIPT GLASS OF WATER. BUT ANYTHING CAN MAKE A GREAT STORY WITH ENOUGH SPIN!"

"You're kidding, right? How could you make a glass of water seem interesting? Perhaps to someone who's never seen one before, you could."

"WHY NOT REPORT IT AND FIND OUT!" Mettaton responded. Frisk almost did simply out of curiosity but managed to stop himself and head towards the book. As it came into view, Mettaton began freaking out a bit.

"OH NO!!! THAT MOVIE SCRIPT!!! HOW'D??? THAT GET THERE??? IT'S A SUPER-JUICY SNEAK PREVIEW OF MY LATEST GUARANTEED-NOT-TO-BOMB FILM: METTATON THE MOVIE XXVIII... STARING METTATON! I'VE HEARD THAT LIKE THE OTHER FILMS... IT CONSISTS MOSTLY OF A SINGLE FOUR-HOUR SHOT OF ROSE PETALS SHOWERING ON MY RECLINING BODY. OOH!!! BUT THAT'S!!! NOT CONFIRMED!! YOU WOULDN'T \*COUGH\* SPOIL MY MOVIE FOR EVERYONE WITH A PROMOTIONAL STORY, WOULD YOU?"

Frisk could tell this was planted by Mettaton just to get this sort of cover, but he wouldn't fall for it. "Not a chance." he said, stepping away from the book.

"PHEW!!! THAT WAS CLOSE!! YOU ALMOST GAVE ME A BUNCH OF FREE ADVERTISEMENT!!"

Frisk headed up towards the small white dog. Mettaton immediately began their charade when Frisk got close to it.

"OH, WHAT A SENSATIONAL OPPORTUNITY FOR A STORY! I CAN SEE THE HEADLINE NOW: 'A DOG EXISTS SOMEWHERE.' FRANKLY, I'M BLOWN AWAY."

Frisk was beginning to get the feeling that Mettaton was just screwing with him by now, and just walked toward the decorated box without saying anything.

"OH MY! IT'S A PRESENT! AND IT'S ADDRESSED TO YOU, DARLING! AREN'T YOU JUST BURSTING WITH EXCITEMENT? WHAT COULD BE INSIDE? WELL, NO TIME LIKE THE 'PRESENT' TO FIND OUT!"

Frisk had never received a present before, at least not recently, but he couldn't help but feel really skeptical about everything in the area. In the end, he just decided to check out the black case.

"OOH LA LA! THIS VIDEO GAME YOU FOUND... IS DYNAMITE!!! THOUGH I DON'T MAKE AN APPEARANCE IN IT UNTIL THREE-FOURTHS IN. BUT I LIKE THAT. APPEARING FROM THE HEAVENS LIKE MANNA, SLAKING THE AUDIENCE'S HUNGER FOR GORGEOUS ROBOTS... OOH! THAT'S METTATON! REPORT THIS ONE?"

Frisk took one last look around the room, then let out a sigh. "Yeah, let's report the game." he said. As he finished, all the lights went out except a few, which now cast a spotlight right onto him, as well as all the ones on Mettaton.

"ATTENTION, VIEWERS! OUR CORRESPONDENT HAS FOUND... A VIDEO GAME! THIS ACTION-PACKED GAME IS GUARANTEED TO BLOW YOU AWAY! STRANGE ENEMIES! STRANGE ALLIES! ATTRACTIVE ROBOTS! FEATURING UP TO SIX ARBITRARY DIALOGUE CHOICES AT ONCE! CORRESPONDENT! LET'S LOOK INSIDE THE CASE!"

Frisk opened the case, though what was inside was not what he expected at all.

"THOSE RED CYLINDERS WITH BURNING FUSES..." Mettaton started again, "OH NO! THIS GAME LITERALLY IS DYNAMITE! I GUESS THEY WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!!! VIDEO-GAMES DO CAUSE VIOLENCE! OR AT LEAST THIS ONE'S ABOUT TO. BUT DON'T GET TOO EXCITED! YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN THE REST OF THE ROOM YET!"

When they finished that sentence, there was a loud booming sound and the curtain surrounding the area fell down, drifting off into the magma below. The cardboard sheet and desk Mettaton was near also suddenly began falling down as well. The rafters holding the lights too came down, falling into the magma below. Everything fell except for the rocky area, Frisk, Mettaton, the six items, and the massive TV. The area was now lit with its natural glow once again.

"OH MY!" Mettaton said. "IT SEEMS EVERYTHING IN THIS AREA IS ACTUALLY A BOMB!"

Frisk looked around at the items. It was true. The box was open, and inside was a spherical black bomb, the dog's tail was lit, the movie script had a bomb resting on it's now opened surface, the basketball was slightly faded now, revealing part of a black bomb, and the glass of water was now rocketing around the area.

"BRAVE CORRESPONDENT... IF YOU DON'T DEFUSE ALL OF THE BOMBS..."

Mettaton flew up to the TV and pressed a button, causing the screen to change to a countdown timer, set to two minutes.

"THIS BIG BOMB WILL BLOW YOU TO SMITHEREENS IN TWO MINUTES! THEN YOU WON'T BE REPORTING 'LIVE' ANY LONGER! HOW TERRIBLE! HOW DISTURBING! OUR NINE VIEWERS ARE GOING TO LOVE WATCHING THIS! GOOD LUCK, DARLING!!"

"D-don't worry!" Alphys said through the phone after being silent for all of Mettaton's dialogue. "I installed a bomb-defusing program on your phone! You can use it to defuse all the bombs."

"What made you think to install a bomb-defusing program onto my phone!? Is Mettaton so predictable that you knew he'd do this?" Frisk questioned.

"Uhh... y-yeah. N-now, go get 'em!" Alphys responded before the call dropped.

Frisk pulled up the home screen and found a program labelled "BOMB DEFUSAL" and pressed it. Once done, an antenna extended from the top-right side of the phone. The screen had a green line going across from left to right every few seconds, and a green button at the bottom that said "DEFUSE". Looking up, he found that the bombs had been scattered around the area, and the only one still where it should be was the white dog.

Frisk pointed his phone at the dog, and an outline in green showed up on the phone. A green box surrounded the outline, shaking around for a bit before stabilizing along with the showing up of the text "locked on". Immediately after this text showed up, Frisk pressed the DEFUSE button. Once pressed, the dog sank down and fell over. Frisk then looked around for the next explosive.

Overhead, Frisk noticed the extremely agile glass of water soaring through the 'sky'. Pointing his phone at it, Frisk attempted to defuse it next. After a few seconds and a bit of hassle getting it to lock on, it finally took, and was defused. Once defused, the jet of fire out the back ceased, and the glass fell from the 'sky', landing not too far from where Frisk was, and exploded.

Cutting left, Frisk ran down a set of pipes. Off to the right was a set of lasers and the video-game-bomb. Bypassing the lasers, Frisk reached the game-bomb and defused it. He then did this to every other bomb in the area, the script on a conveyor, the present on an island, and the basketball near the pillar the TV was hanging on. After defusing each and every bomb, Mettaton once again spoke up.

"WELL DONE, DARLING!" they said. "YOU'VE DEACTIVATED ALL OF THE BOMBS! IF YOU DIDN'T DEACTIVATE THEM, THE BIG BOMB WOULD HAVE EXPLODED IN TWO MINUTES. NOW IT WON'T EXPLODE IN TWO MINUTES! INSTEAD IT'LL EXPLODE IN TWO SECONDS!" Mettaton pressed a switch and the countdown timer re-appeared on the screen, displaying two seconds. "GOODBYE, DARLING!" the timer ticked slowly down to zero, Frisk watching in silent horror, backing away from the screen. However, once the timer hit zero, nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen for many seconds after. Eventually, Mettaton spoke again.

"AH. IT SEEMS THE BOMB ISN'T GOING OFF." they said. After they said that, they began ringing again for a second before it stopped and Alphys's voice came from the metal box that was their body.

"That's b-because!!!" Alphys began, "While you were monologuing... I...!!! I f... fix... Um... I ch-change..."

"OH NO. YOU DEACTIVATED THE BOMB WITH YOUR HACKING SKILLS." Mettaton finished for her.

"Yeah! That's what I did!"

"CURSES! IT SEEMS I'VE BEEN FOILED AGAIN! CURSE YOU, HUMAN! CURSE YOU, DR. ALPHYS, FOR HELPING SO MUCH!" Mettaton then turned toward the camera. "BUT I DON'T CURSE MY EIGHT WONDERFUL VIEWERS FOR TUNING IN!!! UNTIL NEXT TIME, DARLING!" Mettaton then flew off, far out of view.

"W-wow..." Alphys said through Frisk's phone this time. "W-we really showed him, huh?" She then went silent for a minute. "H-hey, I know I was kind of weird at first... But I really think I'm getting more... Uh, more... M-more confident about guiding you!"

"I don't need to be guided, Alphys." Frisk interrupted. "I thank you for helping me with the bombs, but I'm doing just fine guiding myself."

"O-oh..." she went silent for a while longer. "S-sorry..." she eventually said before the call then dropped.

Frisk stashed the phone back into his pocket and found his way forward, back on track. After marching up a rather steep and narrow hill, Frisk found himself staring straight at the CORE once again. Pressing forward, he found the elevator, which turned out to be the upper section of the pillar the TV hung on. This elevator had the glowing letter and number "L2" hanging above its door. Entering the elevator, Frisk noticed that four of the six buttons were glowing this time, both bottom ones, the right-middle one, and the top-left one. Pressing the top-left one, the elevator proceeded to ascend. Half a minute later, the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened to a once again new area.