The longest chapter title that has ever existed on the face of Earth! Just kidding, there probably is longer.

Breaking 28k views AND almost breaking 100 followers. 20th review is in as well.

Couldn't get too creative with this scene. Blandness killed my pace. RIP

Chapter 23: Can You Really Call This a Show, I Didn't Even Get a Private Backstage or Anything

"Well, this is great." I had time to say, before Mettaton started doing his TV show host voice.

"Oh, yes it is most certainly great, my dear assistant today! Because YOU are my assistant on the cooking show, Cooking With a Killer Robot!" Well, at least he admitted he was possibly homicidal. Possibly. Maybe I should have restated that to "definitely."

"And today...we have a very, very special recipe! Today, we're baking...a cake!"

Good. That seemed pretty simple and non-lethal.

"And, my dear assistant," Mettaton said, poking my cheeks a few times, "for a cake, we'll need milk, sugar, eggs, and flour. Chop chop, this show's on a strict time limit!"

Ow. My cheeks. I ran around the kitchen, grabbing a carton of what probably was eggs, a bag of flour, a carton of milk, and a bag of sugar. I hurried back and put it down in front of Mettaton, who was impatiently tapping his...wheel against the floor. Yes, it looked exactly like how you thought. A box robot hopping around on the ground. It's a wonder how he didn't break the porcelain floor.

"Ah, yes, good job, assistant!" Mettaton praised. "Here, we have the flour, milk, sugar, and eggs, and…" He looked down at his recipe sheet, and looked back up. "Oh my. It appears we almost forgot about something! This recipe needs…a human soul."

There's the belligerent killbot. And there went me as well, trying to run out of the door. Unfortunately, an invisible barrier of force collided with my face, sprawling me on the floor. Mettaton stood over my head, brandishing a really big meat cleaver. Again I prepared my LOAD as I scooted away from the very deadly box, and I scooted into another barrier of force. Really with this?

Ring ring.

Mettaton stopped to push a button on his face to answer the call. Phew.

"Hello! Yes, this is Mettaton speaking!" Mettaton booped out. The voice that called back sort of calmed me down. Because that voice was Alphys.

"H-hi, Mettaton!" Alphys squeaked.

"Ah, hello, Alphys!" Mettaton beeped. "You're interrupting the show, make it quick!"

"Yeah...about that…" Alphys squeaked again. "...isn't there something else? Like a substitute?"

"Well…" Mettaton twirled around a few times on his wheels. "As a matter of fact, there is! Come with me, assistant."

Before I got up, he picked me up and threw me on top of his flat box head, sort of dragging me over to a kitchen cabinet, where he set me on my feet. Luckily I wasn't too badly hurt by him throwing me around. Although it did make my chest a little sore.

"See that can? That's a can of MTT-Brand Human Soul Substitute!" Mettaton pointed out. It was about the size of a can of tomato paste, except it had "HUMAN SOUL SUBSTITUTE" written on the front of it. I walked towards the can to grab it...and a rumbling sound stopped me.

What looked like one cabinet started piling up rapidly from the bottom, revealing itself to be two, three, four, ten, twenty, I-lost-count-amount of cabinets that must have extended itself up by at least half a mile or so. And I was supposed to grab it.

"Oh, and assistant, you have to get it in one minute! Otherwise, well...we'll go with the original plan!" Mettaton shouted into a megaphone, while flying around.

In one minute.

Screw Mettaton. How was I supposed to get up there? Climb?

Then my phone rang. Alphys was calling.

"Hey...um, I installed a function in your phone that turns it into a jet pack!" Alphys said before I could respond. "Just double-tap Jetpack Joyride while holding down the home button. I think it should work. I think." I did exactly that. For a second nothing happened. Then, my hand started buzzing with static, making me drop it, rubbing my hand.

Rather than break on the tile floor, the phone hit the ground, sprung back up, and turned into a wearable jetpack in a clashing ball of metal that stuck itself on me.

"Well, that's pretty cool." Chara muttered. "She better not have deleted my high scores, though."

There was no time to be concerned about the high score, though, as the jet pack emitted a quiet whine before hurtling me into the air.

It was a beautiful sensation, flying through the air.

The wind was whistling past me, tussling my hair and making me feel like I was standing on Ebott on a windy day. It was crisp and fresh, and despite the heat from Hotland, it simply caused a cycle of fresh air as the stale air at the bottom heated up and wafted upwards, letting the cold air flow down. Ah. A beautiful sensation. I felt jealous of the birds now, for being able to feel this wind-tossed freedom on a daily basis. And at this rate, I'd reach the soul substitute in way under a minute.

Splat.

The egg on my face, however, was a horrible sensation. Because this stupid robot kept throwing objects at me to slow me down from trying to reach the top to get this stupid little can of soul substitute.

"Argh!" I screamed, as I wiped a Grade A Cage-Free Large off my face, forcing me to slow down a little bit. I looked back up, just in time to dodge a large cloud of flour.

Mettaton kept throwing cake-making ingredients at me, such as the sugar and milk, the milk in large swaths and the sugar…

I spat as a one-ounce pack of sugar exploded next to my face, me barely dodging the sweet explosion, veering off to the side. There goes a precious few seconds. Halfway to the top, at least.

Meanwhile, Mettaton was too busy looking very pleased with himself and his scheme. He cackled in robotic laughter, flying around me and shouting how many seconds I had left. Chara frantically tried to point out where I should go, but there were two big issues with that: One, Chara was seeing through my eyes. Two, by the time she pointed it out, it was already on my face.

"Thirty seconds!" Mettaton boomed.

I looked up. I made the mistake of looking down. Wow, I was high up. I wasn't too afraid of heights, but looking down was not good for my sense of vertigo. At least I knew I was a good margin beyond halfway. Until a sugar packet caught me on the back of my neck.

"Twenty seconds!"

Don't look down. Focus on the objects that are about to hit you. Focus on those eggs, focus on the flour, focus on the-

"Milk on the left!" Chara psionically shouted, as a freezing slap of 1% milk hit me. Dang. I was doing so well, too.

"Ten seconds!"

I could see the top of the tower now. Almost there.

"Nine!"

Mettaton threw a crate of eggs at me, which I nimbly dodged.

"Eight!"

Two sugar packets flew past my head.

"Seven!"

A hole in a swath of milk allowed me to just barely slip through.

"Six!"

Why was I doing this again? There's no point to this. Then I realized Mettaton was a murder-robot running a show. Expected, I guess.

"Five!"

A puff of flour hit me on the face, making me cough and sputter. I should pay more attention to the "how am I going to live" rather than "what's the point of all of this."

"Four!"

But then again, I wasn't too concerned about dying, unless it involved me being comatose beforehand. I could SAVE and LOAD.

"Three!"

Still, as I thought back to Undyne, death hurt like a bitch. I recalled the spears skewering my body, ripping through flesh and spirit alike. The burning sensation. The feeling of my life slipping away.

"Two!"

I suddenly realized I was off track. I frantically righted myself, applied maximum power, and zoomed for the top.

"One!"

Right there.

There was that dumb can of soul substitute. I rushed up, and there I grabbed the can of...bitter lemon soul substitute. Still sounded disgusting, but I at least my triumph made me feel better.

"Take that, Mettaton! Now I've got the can of soul substitute!" I shouted back at the dumb box. I would have slung a choice bunch of insults at him as well, Chara definitely edging towards it, but I held my tongue as the camera trained on me. Would have to wait another day.

Mettaton only shook his box body around in a look of disapproval.

"Darling, darling, darling. You really know nothing, do you?"

"Huh?" I asked. I checked all around my feet, but only found the stack of cabinets lowering, Mettaton hovering in front of my face.

"Do you even know how cooking shoes work, my assistant?" he said, arm mock-wrapped around my shoulder.

"Yeah, the chefs cook the food in front of the camera," I replied, "but since they realistically can't possibly devote all the time to cooking the food…"

I didn't need to finish that to prove my own idiocity. Of course there would be the pre-cooked food! That's how they always do it in front of live TV audiences! The chefs pre-cook the food and put it in the oven to keep warm!

Mettaton confirmed it by opening the oven door. Inside was a very warm-looking cake, and very anger-inducing. He waved his hands in front of it in a very taunting manner.

"And now," Mettaton addressed, "this concludes this show! Toodles!"

With that, he flew away.

Damn robot.

I debated going back for the cake, walking onwards in Hotland when the camera went away. Chara decided to rejoin me in the realm of the semi-corporeal. We looked back, and forwards, before deciding to go back to pick up some food.

As expected, there was that cake Mettaton had in the oven. It was warm and it looked decent, so we both tried it out. We took a bite and instantly our mouths were full of a clash of disgusting bitter-sweet lemon and whole wheat flour. We forcefully swallowed the first bite, and, well, we hoped the magma was hungry. We moved on to the fridge next.

Treasure of treasures, there was a can of Reddi-whip in the fridge.

Hoo boy.

I'm sure it's written somewhere in some holy text, or some commandment of angels to capable adult guardians, "Do not let two unsupervised children have access to a full can of Reddi-whip." And at the moment, that holy commandment was being violated.

The moment I saw the door open and the red cap glisten in the condensation and the fridge light, I grabbed it, flipped the cap off, and filled my mouth with the glorious brand of whipped cream. Except I accidentally made the mistake of breathing in while consuming it, giving me a lungful of...something that made me feel incredibly giddy. All the colors in the kitchen suddenly seemed brighter, and the sounds seemed a little muffled.

"Whoa." I mumbled, mouth full of whipped cream, and stumbled a bit, can of whipped cream clattering on the floor. There was a distinct something that goes into whipped cream propellant...something...something oxide. I couldn't think too straight.

Chara laughed. "Did you inhale the whipped cream?" she asked. I nodded as best as I could.

"It's just laughing gas, Frisk. You'll be fine." Saying that, she snatched up the can of whipped cream and ate a whole mouthful of it as well. "Mmm."

I took back the canister and tried to get another mouthful of whipped cream, but I accidentally missed my mark and dumped a load of it on my face. Great, now I had a heaping load of cream on top of my nose. I decided I had enough fun with the whipped cream while Chara snorted in laughter at my plight, and packed it into the bag, while I tried to wipe off the rest of that pile of cream, while Chara tried some of the whipped cream with cake. And, as she threw that into the pits of magma below, I could infer that it didn't work very well together.