Delays, delays, delays. I doubt they will happen like this ever again.

You call this a quiz show? I just recovered and you give me this?

Chapter Text

Chapter 21: It's Showtime!

Still a little bit weak, I tried to stand up and walk around. I almost immediately fell over. My stomach grumbled from a lack of food.

"Oh, sorry, sorry, I should have prepared something for you to eat. Does cup noodles sound okay for you?" Alphys asked.

Honestly at this point anything would be nice. I nodded as Alphys prepared me a nice styrofoam cup of instant noodles. When she was done she handed me the cup and some chopsticks, which I grabbed and although my first reflex was to eat it all quickly, my better judgement told me to eat it slowly, bite by bite. I didn't want to throw up all over the place.

While I ate at the small table, Alphys pushed her glasses up her snout and started examining me.

"So, um...are you feeling alright?" she asked.

Ignoring my inability to stand straight, as well as my ravenous hunger at the moment, I felt fine.

"Yes," I replied.

"Any odd feelings?" Alphys asked. "Such as tingling, burning, melting?"

I recalled to the death vision of Chara injecting me with whatever DT was. Speaking of a burning, I felt something inside of me that was warm, like a burning ember of sorts, resting on what I could call my...soul?

"A little bit of a warm sense." I replied. Alphys hastily took out a pair of strange binoculars as she looked at me with it.

"Good." she sighed. "Nothing serious. Just a slight destabilization."

I had no idea what she just said. But that didn't matter as I drank the warm instant noodle broth. Ah. That felt amazing. Now I wanted another cup. Alphys saw the desire for another cup in me, and shuffled over to heat up another cup of noodles, leaving Chara to deal with me. Naturally, Chara poked me around. Then she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a bone-crushing hug that almost choked me out again. She quickly released, however.

"Frisk. Your problems were actually worse than we thought." Chara slid into the chair Alphys was in. "Take a look at this."

She reached into a folder Alphys brought with her and pulled out a medical report. Inside of it was a medical summary.

"You know basic medical knowledge, right, Frisk?" Chara asked. I nodded. Chara slid out more papers.

"Here's what was wrong with you that day." Chara said. She didn't look straight at me. I looked at the top paper. Carbon monoxide poisoning, collapsed trachea, collapsed lung.

"Undyne, well...she admitted she was a bit too rough with you. The collapsed lung, though...it just happened." Chara nervously chuckled. I was silent for a bit. Then I spoke up.

"For all of this, one week to recover is pretty quick." I commented.

"We used magic. A lot of it. Undyne, Papyrus, Sans, and Alphys, they all ran dry on wove your lungs and trachea with a lot of magic, trying to stick it back onto the rib cage. And even then your breathing stopped , and you couldn't LOAD." Chara replied. "Everything that happened almost burned your soul out. We're not even sure if your soul is stable or not. And your lung still isn't fully healed. We had to bind the magic to your own soul, which is something, according to Alphys, that no one has ever tried."

Oh. That was pretty bad. I felt around my chest. Right around the area of my left nipple there was a scar. At least it was my left lung, the smaller one. I also felt around my throat. There was another scar as well. Chara put her hands around mine, leaning over the table. She put her forehead against mine. I could feel my face reddening. And my breathing was a bit tighter than before. Again, only one lung. This would take a little getting used to.

"Please, Frisk. Don't die." Chara whispered. "You're the only family I have left."

I saw...tears in her eyes? She gave me a big hug, like how Toriel did when I was leaving her home. Then she sat back down as Alphys brought in another cup noodles for me, along with a third dry package for me to have on the road and a thermos with hot water.

"I-ah, assume you told Frisk everything?" Alphys asked. Chara nodded. Alphys sighed. "Good." She nodded and breathed a sigh of nervous relief. "Good."

"Alphys, why are you so worried?" Chara asked.

Alphys simply muttered "A story for another time. Anyways," Alphys huffed as she got up, "I'm uh...Alphys. I'm the doctor that helped you out. I was uh...supposed to be trying to capture you." she said. "But, um...I tried my hardest to capture you, but watching someone march around kind of makes you cheer for them, no matter who it is. Plus, you were dying, and...heh."

Alphys was visibly cold sweating. Why, I wasn't too interested in. That burning feeling was getting a little bit stronger. And now that I was fully awake and my hunger sated, my chest had a dull ache whenever I breathed.

"A-anyways, um...I took the liberty of upgrading your phone...Frisk, right?" Alphys asked as she helped me into what I assumed to be her main lab area, covered in anime posters and littered with assorted junk food canisters. I nodded.

"We never know, though." Chara snorted back. "Maybe Frisk actually died and now this is some spooky ghost controlling her body. Or some alien abducted Frisk and now we're all gonna die. Or it's a doppleganger and now we're all screwed because it's sent to kill us all."

"Chara, please." I groaned. "It's me, alright." Although there may have been a grain of truth to the spooky ghost crack theory. Alphys looked equally done with Chara.

"Yep. It's still you, Frisk." Chara laughed.

"Anyways…" Alphys groaned. "There's, um...something I should tell you. You know that trap in Snowdin? T-the colored tile maze?"

I nodded. I haven't forgotten a single one of Papyrus' ridiculous puzzles. Especially that one. Though I didn't remember a single instruction.

"Well...I may have used a supercomputer for that puzzle, and it may have became, uh...sentient…" Alphys squeaked. "I-uh...made it as a murder machine, but it kind of became a show host as well…"

"How does that make any sense?" I asked.

"Erm...well...you see…" Alphys squeaked, before a loud grating sound interrupted her.

"What was that?" Chara asked as she spun around trying to find where the sound came from.

Bang.

A loud crash emenated from the wall behind Alphys.

"Um…" Alphys squeaked.

Bang.

The wall started denting in a weird boxy shape.

"Oh no…" Alphys sighed.

CRASH.

"OH YES!" some weird boxy robot that looked somewhat like one of those cool MIDI pads with a single wheel on the bottom shouted as it wheeled out from the new hole in the wall, weird funky music blaring from its speakers located below its Technicolor face, the light squares beeping along to the music. "Welcome to the MTT quiz show time, starring your loooovely host, METTATON!" Mettaton beeped into a microphone, his voice sounding like Robert Downey Jr's voice on autotune. "Let's all give a good round of our applause to our contestant!"

A shower of confetti rained onto my head as Mettaton mashed a button on his face, playing a snare drum that could have been taken as a clap. While looking completely ridiculous, it also was pretty cool, as I had to admit. His hands were a whirl as he adjusted his settings around.

"And now, for quiz time!" Mettaton yelled, as he ejected a screen out of...I don't even want to mention. He placed the screen on a pedestal he pulled out of the wall. "Answer correctly...or you die! Good luck, contestant!"

The stage lights brightened as the room lighting turned dark, the lights and camera on me. The screen flickered on, emblazoned with the letters "MTT" before Mettaton started off again.

"It's time for our first question! Contestant, what's the reward for getting a question right?"

"Um…" I mumbled. Mettaton's face turned into a count-down timer. Oh shoot. Chara was on the side, unable to do anything. I doubted she could have, either. Mettaton's microphone crackled with electricity. Something I didn't want to hit me.

"TEN SECONDS!" Mettaton yelled.

Oh boy. I thought hard on what could possibly be the answer. "More questions?" I asked, with a forced grin.

"CORRECT!" A victorious sound, suspiciously sounding like the "Battle Victorious" jingle from old RPG games. Whew. I barely wiped my sweat when…

"NEXT QUESTION!" Mettaton announced.

"Quick question!" I interjected. "How many questions are there?"

Mettaton tried to put on the most "are-you-really-asking-me-this" face he had. For a metal box with a wheel on the bottom, he was pretty impressive. TV personalities.

"Where are the knives?" Mettaton asked.

What? I wasn't too sure if he was threatening me, or if he was asking me a quiz question.

"In...the knife drawer?" I asked.

ZAP. Mettaton shocked me for getting the wrong answer. Ow, that really stung. Luckily it wasn't too high-powered.

"Silly contestant! Monsters don't need knives? Who needs knives when you've got magic? Or an MTT-Brand Three-in-one Eating Utensil? Available in stores today!"

How was I supposed to know that?

"Next question!" Mettaton blared.

This quiz really was moving way too fast.

"How much does a bone weigh?" Mettaton asked.

"A...skele-ton?" I nervously chuckled. If Papyrus was watching, I could feel him slam his face in the floor.

"Actually...I was looking for 'Fifteen percent of the body's weight divided by two hundred and six.' But for that bad pun, I'll let you pass. Next question: Who is indisputably the best TV show host in the Underground?"

"Mettaton?" I answered.

"Correct!" Horns tooted. "Next question: Can a can do the can can?" Mettaton asked.

"No, because it has no legs." I answered.

"Correct! Now, for something more interesting. You are approached by a frenzied Royal Scientist, who yells, 'I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonation chamber!' What's your response?"

"But doctor, wouldn't that cause a parabolic destabilization of the fission singularity?" I answered reflexively. And then I realized what the question was. Needless to say, I should play less Fallout.

"Correct, you nerd!" Mettaton stated condescendingly.

Oh my god.

"Next question! How do you make grown monsters cry?" Mettaton asked.

"Uh...play 'What's Going Pussycat' twenty times, then play 'It's Not Unusual?'" I timidly answered.

By some blessing, Mettaton knew. "Correct! Now please, do not do this at Grillbys or at the MTT Resort, or something will get broken. Next question!"

That explained the broken jukebox back in Snowdin. Sans, most likely, actually did that. Mettaton, however, didn't let me dwell on that as he asked, "Would you, in theory, smooch a ghost?"

Um.

What.

I looked around. The timer on Mettaton's face was going up. The TV screen displayed "HECK YEAH." Chara was bawling at this point in laughter.

"Heck...yeah?" I answered, forcing a grin so wide my face hurt.

"Correct!" Mettaton shouted. "Next question: How many tickles does it get to make an octopus laugh?"

"Ten tickles." I groaned out. Classic punchline to a classic joke. Wasn't even really funny anymore.

"Correct! Now, can you make sour cream without cream?" Mettaton asked.

"No, you do not need cream to make sour cream." I answered. "It's actually produced in a process where bacteria take lactase-"

"Next question!" Mettaton interrupted. "In the hit webcomic, Homestuck, what is the respective birthdays of John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and Jade Harley?"

"They are all on 4/13." I answered. Same birthday as me.

"Correct! Now, complete this! A sound beep rests within a sound beep and a sound beep. What goes in the beeps? There are three different answers."

"A sound SOUL rests within a sound MIND and a sound BODY." I answered. What kind of a quiz show was this? Was he not entertained?

"Correct! Now, how do you pronounce this?" Mettaton displayed a very chinky-looking ASCII emoticon on his screen. I sighed.

"I'm not...even answering this one."

"So you choose to skip! Okay, next question! This is a tough one! Who does...Alphys have a crush on?" Mettaton asked.

I looked over in the corner. Alphys was screaming into her hands. Chara was having a whale of a time.

And I had no idea who Alphys had a crush on. Off the top of my head, guessing around and deducing a bit of information…the anime...the small glimpses I had for who Alphys was with…

"Undyne?" I asked. Mettatton ducked his MIDI pad face downwards.

"Cor...rect!" Mettaton announced my victory as Alphys started looking a little blue in the face herself. I hoped she wouldn't have to suffer what I just went through a week ago.

"Oh, no, don't deny it, Alphys!" Mettaton said. "Alphys here does so much for Undyne. She always buys Undyne nice gits on her birthday, names things like programming variables after her...heck, half my code's variables are all some variation on the name 'Undyne!' That, audience, should give you a very good idea on the extent of Alphys' crush! And this, today, concludes this episode! Let's all give our contestant a good round of applause!"

Again with the button mash for the snare drum.

"And now, goodbye!" Mettaton shouted as he pushed a series of buttons. His arms and wheel retracted as he folded the screen back in and took off like a rocket, breaking a hole in the ceiling, taking his cameras and just leaving me, Chara, and a very blue Alphys in the lab.