Underearth/Book 1/Chapter 33

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Frisk entered the doorway into Helios Station. The inside was a deep blue color with what looked like circuit-board lines strewn around everywhere.

"Ready?" Alphys said through the phone, "This is it! Take the transporter to the control room."

Frisk walked forward to what seemed to be a set of elevator doors and pressed the button to the side of it, but nothing happened.

"What? The transporter should be working..." Silence followed after Alphys as she seemed to think on what to do next. "W-well then! Go to the right and keep heading up!"

Frisk broke away from the transporter to go through the right doorway, on the other side of which was simply a pit filled with some flames.

"Alright," Alphys said, "now just keep heading up! W-wait, that pit isn't on my map. Eh, forget it! Let's try the left side!"

Frisk backtracked to the first room and went down the left doorway this time instead.

"Okay, you should be able to make it through here-" Alphys said before being interrupted by a Monster popping out of a hat that had floated in and began approaching Frisk aggressively. "W-watch out!"

The Monster had two orbs adjacent to it, one of which, at the mention of a work from the Monster, shot after Frisk. Frisk rolled out of the way and ran toward the Monster, hearing the orb still following him. As he got close to the Monster, Frisk rolled to his right again, attempting to get the orb to hit the Monster instead of him. As the orb got close, it stopped almost instantly, and went back to hovering where it was. In response, Frisk clenched his fist and punched the Monster as hard as he could, causing it to fly backward, turning to dust on the way.

"Th-that was close..." Alphes and Frisk said at the same time. "Wh... why are there Monsters here?" she then asked rhetorically, before regaining her composure. "I mean... It's no problem, r-r-right? W-w-we've just got to keep heading forward!"

Frisk finished crossing the corridor to a greatly ornamented doorway and passed through it. On the other side of the doorway was a sharp turn right followed by an extremely narrow bridge with three innate lasers guarding it. At the head of the bridge was a force field along with a switch.

"Looks like you can't proceed until you hit the switch." Alphys said, "B-but, those lasers will activate when you do." Frisk could then hear the shuffling of papers and the typing on a keyboard through the receiver. "Ummm... Looks like they'll come in this order: Orange. Orange. Blue. G-got it? Move until the third one!"

Frisk approached the button and pressed it. The force field disappeared, but the laser ports activated and rotated at Frisk, who began moving, but stopped when he saw the first one was actually blue, along with the second one. When the third one came, Frisk saw that it was orange and tried to move, but for whatever reason he still felt a jolt of pain as though he was on fire as the laser passed over him. Seeing that the lasers were now clear of the bridge, he crossed.

"Oh my god..." Alphys said when he was across, "Are you hurt?"

"Just a little bit, though it's not that bad." Frisk responded.

"I... I'm so sorry, I... I gave you the wrong order."

"Alphys, it's fine."

Alphys remained quiet, however, likely blaming herself for Frisk's injury. Frisk proceeded down the corridor, eventually coming to a crossroads.

"A crossroads..." Alphys finally said, "Uhhh... Tr... Try just heading straight."

Frisk passed the branch in the path when Alphys corrected herself.

"W-wait! No, I think you should h-head left!"

Frisk looked at the two options. He wanted to believe Alphys, but his gut was telling him to just continue straight. In the end, Frisk decided to trust his gut, and continue going straight. Eventually Frisk came to another bridge guarded by many, many active lasers.

"H... huh? I... I guess this was the right way." She paused for a moment before continuing. "M... more lasers... Okay, I... I won't mess around this time. I'll just deactivate the lasers and let you through." Frisk could then hear a lot of typing through the receiver before there was silence for a moment. "They're... They're not turning off... I can't turn them off, I... I-i-it's okay! I have this under control! I'm going to turn off the p-power for that whole node. Then you can walk across." Next thing Frisk knew, everything went dark as the lights and lasers shut down. "Okay, go!"

Frisk wasn't wasting any time and began running as fast as he could across the bridge. When he was almost across, Alphys suddenly yelled "W-WAIT! STOP!", but Frisk wasn't going to do that, and kept running. A second later, the light in the area began flickering on, and the lasers began re-activating. Seeing this, Frisk dived for the end of the bridge, now within reach. Mid-dive, the lasers re-activated, clipping Frisk, sending a sort of frozen feeling through the affected parts. He then hit the ground just past the bridge.

"Oh my god, are you okay!?" Alphys questioned, "I-I c-couldn't keep the power off long enough..."

"I-it's fine, Alphys. I'm fine." Frisk reassured her as he stood back up and began walking again down the path. "We're almost to the end, right?"

As he walked, Frisk reached a massive, thick wall with an opening that led into an incredibly bright room that had the distinct smell of ozone.

"O-ok. It looks like you've made it passed the defense area and are now in the Helios Array. You should now go... I-I don't know... My map of the Helios Array is corrupted. I'm sorry... I... I... I have to go." Alphys said before the phone suddenly lost the call.

Frisk walked forward a bit, finding a full crossroads. There was a notice on either side of the path in front of him, though both contained the same strange letters Frisk saw back in the Citadel and Waterfall Caves. Looking down the paths as far as he could, Frisk decided to go forward till the end, to see what was there.

Eventually, by simply continuing forward and ignoring all other paths leading left or right, Frisk found a much darker room with a bridge spanning a very dark gap just after a sharp right. As Frisk began to cross, he heard a mechanical beeping noise, followed by a winged, mechanical humanoid swoop down from the ceiling and land on the bridge.

The winged android held a spear in one metal fist, and a set of strange circles resembling a target on the back of the other fist. Another deep beep later and the circles began glowing an ivory color, and the android held said fist out in front of it as though it was holding a shield, then began approaching Frisk. Frisk in turn ran up to the android and attempted to punch it, though as his fist approached, it was suddenly stopped by some force before it had passed the android's fist. The android then pulled its spear back a bit. Seeing this, Frisk jumped backward as the spear lunged forward, narrowly missing him. He then backed up to the very back of the room, far away from the android. In response, the android brought up its spear, and threw it at Frisk, who ducked out of the way. The android brought up its wings in response and leapt at the spear. Taking opportunity, Frisk made a mad dash across the bridge.

As he crossed, he saw what appeared to be a red switch on the other side of the bridge.

*So that’s what they’re guarding.* Frisk thought just as four mechanical spikes appeared from over the bridge, two on each side, jabbing themselves into the ground, causing Frisk to stop. When he stopped, two of the spikes disappeared over the edge again, and a large mechanical beast appeared from over the edge on the side the last two were on, spinning around on one of its spiked legs and landing on the bridge, back facing Frisk. It then turned around to face him and roared a horrible mechanical roar at him before trying to jump on him. Frisk leapt forward to avoid the beast before it landed on him and ran towards the switch again.

As he neared the end, hundreds of silvery rhombuses shot past Frisk and assembled a wall at the end of the bridge and began glowing off-white. Looking back, Frisk could see that the android only had the 'bone' of its wings left, and that both the android and the mechanical beast were approaching, ready to kill. Frisk cracked his knuckles and began to charge the machines when a sudden bombardment of something battered Frisk to the ground, sending him sliding back to the silvery wall. When Frisk looked to see what had happened, he saw a massive floating orb-like machine with horns coming out its top and a giant eye in front levitate down from the ceiling, floating just above the bridge. The orb machine fired some sort of blast at Frisk who was struggling to stay standing and using the silvery wall as support. Frisk, now coughing up blood, stood back up to face the three machines. Seeing his death approaching, Frisk, who's eyes began glowing red, focused all he could into breaking through the silvery wall, and rammed through it. In the process, the rhombus edges cut Frisk up heavily, as though he'd rammed through glass, and collapsed into a bloody mess. Once on the other side, Frisk crawled over to the switch and, using the wall as support as he stood up, brought his fist down like a hammer right onto it. Once he'd done this, the switch turned from red to green, and the machines became docile, heading back to where they had come from.

Frisk leaned his back against the wall to rest for a bit. *This switch must obviously go to something important, otherwise why would these machines be guarding it so fervently?* Frisk thought as he sat there. After a while, he stood back up, and re-crossed the bridge, this time not under attack from the defending machines. Once back in the area that glowed like the sun, Frisk wandered for a bit, eventually finding another bridge, this one crossing a pit that also glowed immensely. Once on the other side, Frisk found two doors, one with an intricate design above it, the other being similar to the transporter door he found when he'd entered Helios Station.

*This must be the control room.* Frisk thought to himself. He looked inside but could only see darkness. *Guess this is it.* Frisk thought as he walked into the dark depths of the control room of Helios Station