#trioswap

He hasn’t been here long. No, not long at all.

He’d made a deal with Muffet only a few days ago- the well known spider woman entrepreneur was determined to make a killing, opening a pastry shop in Snowdin. She’d bought out his bar- and at a discount deal, as she’d included her home in the deal.

He could see it, still, only yesterday. His well loved, rustic bar built of wood he’d steadily scavenged from the waterfall dumps- he’d woken up that morning, the deal made the day before- already the place being painted over pastel purple by the woman’s handy spiders. The busy bodied arachnids had already moved what things he’d still owned of the place outside.

He hadn’t expected it so soon, but knew it’d come quickly. Muffet, somewhat stoic and somewhat sadistic to those who knew her, wouldn’t hesitate pushing him out of his home as soon as possible to get her business under way.

So, in the dark early hours of the underground’s morning cycle, he’d hauled his stores of alcohols he’d made under the pretense he’d still own a bar in a week or a month, before he’d been given the proposal; as well as the food he’d had read to serve for the next day under the pretense he’d have a few more days to make some money, and plan for what he’d do now that he wasn’t going to have the bar. What else he would do, he didn’t know- but he’d known there was no not taking a deal from Muffet. Even if her first proposals always only benefitted her, they’d be far better than any that’d come later. Muffet makes it so she’ll get her way, eventually.

He wished, even if he had the ideas and capacity to be so vigerous in practice, that he could stomach it. perhaps then he wouldn’t be the one living in the darken alleys of upper hotland, where the spider woman once wove intricate webbed traps for humans and the spiders once lived.

It’s incredibly dark, here. No glowing stones, no bright white snow. Even if the MTT hotel isn’t far way, this area is dark, and without the spiders, almost completely uninhabited. Almost- because now its inhabited by one bright blue man on fire.

He’s not sure if he’s got what it takes to make a success in hotlands. The kind of people that make it here are a certain kind of ruthless. He couldn’t measure up to Napstabot, or Muffet like that- maybe when he was younger. A long time ago he was flashy enough and ruthless enough to make it anywhere.

Some used to joke that it was the cold of Snowdin that calmed his reckless flames. The wildest and hottest fire elemental since monsters were on the surface- blue flames were rare. In the surface war, ruthlessness had been a virtue, and in the years that followed imprisonment in the ungerground, it had served him well. It took a lot to survive and come out okay. In the mayhem and depression it took a lot to stay successful and keep yourself upright. Flashy bowties and colored suits and glasses and an overdramatic cane to top it off did a trick to keep looking vibrant and well-to-do, and a bright and chipper personality of mischief, mayhem, and sadism.

Why, he was a lot like muffet, back then. Before muffet was even born.

Some joked it was the cold of Snowdin that calmed his firey ways. He knew better.

Or, in honesty, he didn’t.

He just knew it wasn’t Snowdin. Snowdin was a safe place that gave him life. It’d brought him back from a depth that had been dark yet darker yet darker still.

Some place he painfully couldn’t remember anymore, even though it hadn’t been that long. What put out the spark he cant remember. He knows it was snowdins cozy and safe atmosphere, the brightness and the safety, that brought back anything.

He was a different man then he was when he was young, and he wasn’t one that could make it easily in Hotlands anymore.

Hell, NTB even sold burgers already. Burgers and fries was half his business. There was no way to outshine the Glam Burgers cause it wasn’t about how good his food was. If this was Snowdin, yes, but it wasn’t. the NBT was big and it was glamorous and big things make cheap food easy and push out the little guys and the glamour outshines any that aren’t smothered.

Who’d come to a rinky back alley to buy a more expensive burger, when you could go to NTB and get a cheaper, bigger one that deals more HP healing and has NTB’s movies and music and shows and advertisements.

He wasn’t going to do well.

He put any and al things he had into his new home- it was big, he’ll give it that. It was bigger than one could expect to get in a crowded pace like the hum that is hot lands. And it was new- up to date in all of hot lands latest fun technological advances. He wasn’t given a completely horrible end of a deal- its not like he had bills to pay or a rent to pay. The house was payed in full and done. The bottom floor was designed for business- it was where muffet had had her first bakesale.

He could open a bar. There weren’t any bars in hotlands- not since he left hotlands. Not since he left here in a total depression. Not since he was starting to fall down. not since he took his himself to the snow, and took his business with him shortly after.

Maybe, while he was here, he could figure out what he couldn’t remember. Maybe he could find something that jogged those old lucid memories.

So he walked.

He walked the alleys and mazes of hotlands, taking turns and routes he hadn’t seen in at least 100 years. So much had changed but with only so much room to grow, not much really could. While everything looked and felt different, it was still hotlands, still what he’d known most of his life underground. Drawing life and energy from the heat and the lava.

He’d admit it was invigorating. Snow was a soft pain on the surface of unprotected fire- the heat, here, it was comfortable.

He walked and he walked, taking familiar pathways.

A bridge over the lava took him to his old bar in the busy shopping distract- to the day it was now a resteraunt of some sort. A winding path took him back to the residential district, and deep into it he found his old apartment-like building.

He followed main paths and dodged traps all the way until the limits of hotlands and the way became New Home, and turned back around.

The elevators were new, and walking past the hotel was a trick to his memory. But the alleys behind it were familiar- the old run down homes and dumpster heaps.

The sight of the core filledhim with dread, as he stood at the cliff overhang. Brilliant lava stretched from the cliff base out t the looming, dangerous machine.

He knows it’s a good thing- the core, metallic and dark and shining with red, provided the whole of underground with power.

He knew a lot about it, actually. Geothermal harvesting- heat harvested with magic and the two become electricity of incredible efficiency. Ozonation- Purification of water- your average monster thought that the ice from Snowdin goes to cool the core- so how does he know otherwise? The ice is rapidly evaporated from the geothermal heat, and the ozone layers purify it. when theres too much ozone that comes clean air- oxygen.

The core is a beautiful thing. It Purifies all the air in the underground. It Purifies all the water from Snowdin to waterfall to new home. It provides clean renewable electricity dependant only on geothermal energy. It even powers itself, every room in the core designed to move about itself in a continual combination of puzzles, and was the dawn of the elevators, being the first elevator that connected hot land to new home.

Its beautiful and it’s the reason the underground has survived as long as it has. its important and good.

But the thing fills him with dread. He cant stand it. He wishes it wasn’t there.

He turns away from it and continues to walk this path, familiarly following the way his feet move, up through elevators and back into the heart of hotlands. But when he arrives at the destination- he finds himself confounded.

This door is a dark ugly grey, and it reminds him of back when Hotlands was young. When everything was grey.

Its dark and rundown, a completely uninhabited alleyway. Its painfully familiar and yet he remembers nothing about this place.

The door, run down of its hinges, is easy to move… so he does.

His own bright blue light spills into the pitch blackness and he climbs his way down a short set of stairs. theres another door. run down, but heavy duty. Serious stuff. More modern more sleek. Not so old. A name plate is bolted to it and as many times as he reads the letters, he doesn’t perceive them. He only notices a few seconds later and tries to read it again like its new.

He gets the door open, tugging, tugging, tugging. Its familiar in a sense that’s painful, and dreadful. It isn’t scary the way it should be. Because its familiar and he’s been here before. He knows this place and he cant remember why. But its dreadful and it makes his soul beat in a sense of fear like there’s something here he doesn’t want to see. Something that hurts.

He fumbles about through the darkness- its cleaner in here, and lit but only slightly- like the place is closed but still actively in use. hes starting to think that the place isn’t abandoned- just that he found an entrance that’s no longer used. The place is secure and none of the other entrances seem accessible from the outside.

He walks, far, passing doors and doors and doors. Sometimes these neat and clean rooms turn into long winding halls. Subtle temperature drops. When it isn’t winding tunnels its labs- familiarly unfamiliar labs. Dark as the place isn’t in use but things here and there like dates on clip boars or blinking lights on machinery, prove its still active down here.

He finds a delapitated hall corner and door similar to the way he’d come in but when he peaks up, the area above is in Waterfall.

He follows these tunnels and connected little labs. The further he goes the older and yet still deeply advanced things seem. Things this way- theyre less actively used. Nothing is blinking alive anymore. But dates on things show that activity was incredibly bust until… maybe just a month ago.

He comes to a dead end. A heavy, heavy locked door he’s no hope of getting through. It snaps him out of the dreadful and lost daze hes been, and suddenly the dread is telling him he should be here. Its dangerous. A more logical part of him is telling him, yes, he should be here- this is a lab, a lot of peoples place of work from all the names and things hes seen, he’s probably not allowed down here. This probably belongs to the royal scientist, the new one that started last month, and the ones that came before her- whoever they were.

The first entrance he finds is the one he uses to get out of the lab. He stumbles up and is almost shocked to find himself in the familiar purple halls of the ruins- what was once called Home.

He ducks back down, into the labs, and hustles his way about back up them. The next one he finds- it lets out into Snowdin area, deep in the forests. He recognizes it quickly- hes lies out here for years if not anymore.

He is not alone.

He lets the heavy, authorization-requiring door close, now locking him out of lab. Now that he knows where he is, he doesn’t want to go back. It clacks loudly and heavily- locked.

He remains fixated on his… company.

Its fully grown and its bigger than him. much, much bigger. It leave him weary.

He’s never seen a monster like this before but yet its painfully familiar. It wears no dress but a deep red cape on its shoulders, a hood pulled over head. So much snow has piled on its shoulders, on its head- but it isn’t snowing. It hadn’t snowed since last night.

It’s been sitting here for a while. Whoever this is. If its anyone.

Skeletons- they exist within humans, it’s a part of their body. He considers the possibility of a human falling into the underground, dying in the snow. Dismisses it- the only known way humans have ever entered the underground is an ages old crack, a hole, deep in Home- The Ruins. Its only big enough for a child.

That, and as he takes the steps out of the divot where the door to the labs- the caves and the labs, as he steps out and draws a bit near, the familiar pulse of magic moves through him.

Its neither human nor dead, but it’s the oddest sensation hes ever felt. It doesn’t feel like a proper monster.

He approaches slowly, but even drawing near, it doesn’t move. Not at all. He’d think it dead or fallen down, but the way the magic pulses, the sense it give him- he know that this… person is very aware of him and his presence.

“………Are you okay?”

He does not get a response.

Briefly he adjusts his glasses.

“………Can you stand?”

The hulking ting surprises him- it shifts for but a second but immediately its rising to its feet. Said bare bones dig deep into the snow until they reach the ground. Grillby knows bones themselves don’t way much- less then a normal human. This thing must be heavy.

As he thought its massive- taller than him.

The only signs of life about it, once its stood and goes still, is the active lights. They glow at him steadily from the depth of its eyes. Two bright, how pink irises. They’re somewhat mesmerizing. After a second, the is another sign of life. Despite no probable need to breathe, one slow exhale escapes from its mouth- its mouth is full of incredibly sharp teeth, and the visible fog of hot air meeting cold in little whitish puffs only draws them more attention.

Its watching him.

“……………”

Hes not sure what to do.

“……… are you okay?”

Theres the slightest movement of its eyes.

Its thinking. It did here him. its thinking. It doesn’t resond though.

He tries an easier question.

“…are you… injured?”

Its thinking. “No, Doctor.”

its- a very masculine voice- his? its voice is deep. Its low and reverberating. Slow but sharp. To a point. Mechanical.

The doctor has a ring to it the resounds dreadfully in his chest.

“………I am not a doctor.” A moment. “did you come from the lab?”

Its thinking. But nothing comes.

“from down there…?” he tries again, pointing. The tunneled gave just down the steps.

“Yes.” The doctor is withheld, but just barely remembered to.

“……Are you supposed to be up here?”

Should… should he take this back down?

“she said don’t come back.” It responds dully. Dully dully dully, like everything else its said, but in it rings- confusion. Sadness. Maybe. Something.

“…”