Shadow returned to Hotland and found Sonic and Lily. They went all out to celebrate Shadow befriending the head of the Royal Guard. They each got a Nice Cream and enjoyed the delicious sweetness. Lily was licking her nice cream when she looked over about 85 degrees to the left and she saw it! A HUGE laboratory. It was then she wondered how she possibly missed that...

"Hey, guys, did you notice that we're standing next to this ridiculously large laboratory?" she asked as she pointed awkwardly to the large building.

"Wow! That place is big!" Sonic exclaimed as he tried to do a mega jump to the top, but failed. Shadow raced over to it and kicked on the door. It opened.

"Why don't we check it out? If we weren't supposed to be here, then why is it so large?" Shadow asked as he kept the door open for them.

"Good point, " Lily said as she led them into the dark room.

The entire place was dark and spooky. They could hear some sort of piece of machinery running. An escalator was on in the room and there was this large TV screen showing images of... the three of them? As they looked around, they passed by a work desk covered with plans when the lights came flashing on! A yellow, female dinosaur came walking out of a door. Lily and Sonic jumped. Shadow blinked. Another dinosaur?

"O-Oh! Oh my goodness... Oh my goodness. OH MY GOODNESS!! Th-The h-hedgehogs are r-right here! I-I'm barely even dressed! I-I haven't y-yet prepared for th-their arrivals! O-oh!" The yellow reptilian finally pulled herself together. She turned to the three hedgehogs with a nervous smile. "H-Hi! As you can see, I-I'm not really sure how to act in front of a hedgehog... D-Don't worry! I'm not one of the bad guys!"

"Yeah... We kinda figured," Shadow stated.

"Hi! What's your name?" asked Lily as she took a step closer with a wave.

"U-Uh... My n-name? Oh! Right! I'm Alphys! I-I'm the Royal Scientist for the king! King Asgore!" she replied.

"So you're the Royal Scientist! How cool!" Lily said to Alphys.

"Yep! J-Just me and- oh no... I completely forgot! I-I made this killing machine that wants to destroy all hedgehogs! You have to get out of here!" Alphys yelled as she began to push the three of them towards the door, but they all heard a bunch of crashing noises from behind the wall.

Alphys froze in terror and turned towards the crashing noises. Sonic, Shadow, and Lily followed her eyes to a huge hole in the wall with a rectangular robot standing there within the hole in the wall. It was holding up a microphone and had a few knobs on it, a screen for a face, and a wheel to help it move around. Alphys sucked in a breath.

"Alphys, what's that?!" Sonic demanded as he pointed to the robot.

"Why hello, beauties and gentle-beauties! It is I, Mettaton! I see we have some new contestants on our show today... Well!! They're about to become a part of the greatest pilot episode in all of the Underground!! Now, what might your names be?" asked Mettaton.

"I'm Sonic, the fastest thing alive."

"Lily."

"Shadow, the Ultimate Life Form."

Sonic smirked. "That's an awful long title! Can I just call you Shadow, the ULF? I'm too lazy!" Sonic shrugged and Lily giggled.

"Shadow the ulf," Lily commented.

Shadow growled. "What's an "ulf" anyway?!" he demanded.

Mettaton threw a dictionary at Shadow. Shadow dodged the flying book. "Where'd you even get that?!"

"The shelf, you idiot. Where else would you find a book? However, as awesome and popular as throwing dictionaries at "ulfs" is, the fans viewing need something spectacular. They need: drama! Romance! BLOODSHED!!"

Alphys stood in front of the hedgehogs. She was shaking, but was surprisingly defiant. "Th-That's enough Mettaton!"

"Oh, Alphys, Alphys, Alphys... What do you plan to do?" asked Mettaton.

"U-Uh... Um... I haven't had time to... th-think this through...," Alphys admitted.

"Great... My hero..." Shadow said as he rolled his eyes. Sonic nudged him and gave him a warning stare.

Mettaton somehow made the lights flicker out for ten seconds. When the lights came flickering back on, the room was completely set up for a game show. Sonic, Lily, and Shadow were the contestants... Sonic pumped himself up and got himself ready for whatever was going to happen.

"I-I've never been on a game show before! What am I supposed to do?!" demanded Lily as she looked around. She finally spotted Mettaton on the opposite side of the room wearing a shiny, red tux.

"Oh darling, the rules are easy! It's get the answer right, or you shall die on the spot!" Mettaton explained as the contestants' souls drifted before them. Alphys was watching and was trying not to press a button on a remote control. She sortta fiddled with it in her hand.

Mettaton brought up the first question and looked to Shadow. The dark hedgehog groaned and looked up to the screen. The questions were multi-choice, at least. No written exams..., yet. The screen read the first question. What was the prize for answering correctly?

Money

Mercy

A new car

More questions

Shadow stared at them for a moment. He knew he wasn't going to get a new car or money, so he chose mercy. However, that was wrong.

"WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!" yelled Mettaton as he zapped Shadow with an electric stunner that knocked out about half of Shadow's HP. Sonic and Lily gasped.

"Ow!! Watch where you point that thing!" Shadow snapped as he stood back up to his feet. Mettaton was giggling to himself and then pointed to Sonic.

"Okay... My turn...," Sonic said slowly as he stared at the stunner.

What is the king's full name?

Lord Fluffybuns

Fuzzy Pushover

Asgore Dreemurr

Dr. Friendship

Sonic knew the answer to this one! He selected C! Mettaton awarded him with more questions and confetti. He then moved on to Lily.

"That's enough about you. Let's talk about ME!!" Mettaton yelled as he pointed to himself.

What are robots made of?

Hopes and Dreams

Metal and Magic

Snips and Snails

Sweet and Spice

Lily glanced over at Alphys who was making a large letter B with her hands. Lily quickly pressed the B button and got the answer right! More confetti!

"Too easy for you, huh??????? Well, time for the black hedgehog to get a chance to redeem himself!" Mettaton said as he pointed back at Shadow.

Shadow looked in horror at the question... It was so long... Here's what it said...

Two trains, train A and train B, simultaneously depart station A and station B. Station A and station B are 252.5 miles apart from each other. Train A is moving at 124.7mph towards station B, and train B is moving at 253.5mph towards station A. If both trains departed at 10:00am and it is now 10:08am, how much longer until both trains pass each other?

31.054 minutes

16.232 minutes

32.059 minutes

32.058 minutes

Shadow didn't have a clue. He had no idea what to do. He didn't know that Alphys was making the correct answer choice with her fingers. Shadow stared at the question. He chose C. Mettaton threw a dictionary at him again.

"WRONG!!!!! Can't you do math, hedgehog?!?!?!" demanded Mettaton.

"What?! How can you expect me to get the correct answer?!?! I can't do that much math in my head!!" Shadow snapped.

"Dude, the correct answer was D!" Sonic told Shadow.

"How did you know that?!" Shadow questioned Sonic as he grabbed the blue hedgehog by the shoulders and drew him closer. Sonic and Lily remained silent due to not wanting to get Alphys in trouble for helping them.

Mettaton continued with the game show. Each of them got every answer correct thanks to Alphys except for Shadow who never figured out that Alphys was helping them. Mettaton brought up a question that made the entire game show turn over onto its face.

What is Mew Mew's favorite food from the anime Mew Mew Kissy Cutie?

"OOH! OOH! I know! I know! It's snail ice cream! I know because Mew Mew wanted them all to eat snail ice cream, but nobody else liked that flavor, so the story actually has a message that stresses... friendship...," Alphys said as her voice trailed away after her moment of nerding out. Busted!

"Alphys, darling, you weren't helping our contestants, were you?" asked Mettaton as he looked over at his creator. If he had a face, a smirk would be on it. When he didn't get an answer, he laughed. "Well, we can't have this now, can we? I'll ask a question you'll be sure to know the answer to!"

Who does Alphys have a crush on?

Undyne

Asgore

The hedgehogs

I don't know

"Each of you will get one chance to answer this one!" Mettaton said. Alphys was on the ground and was covering up her blushing face.

Shadow knew what the answer was immediately and smashed the button. The only time he knew what the correct answer was. Sonic had no idea. He knew that by the way Alphys was blushing, it wasn't I don't know. He pushed C. Lily did the same. Mettaton looked at the results and shrugged.

"Well, well, well! It appears that only one of you got this answer correct! Congratulations Shadow! You win the quiz show! The one person in the universe that Alphys has a crush on is none other than UNDYNE!!!" Mettaton yelled.

"WHY METTATON?!?!? WHY?!?!?" Alphys demanded.

"WHAT?!?!??!" demanded Sonic.

"Oh my gosh...," Lily said as she covered her mouth and grin.

Shadow grinned to himself and crossed his arms. "Heh. I'm the coolest!" he announced to the camera. The ratings increased by a few.

Meanwhile... Somewhere else in the Underground...

"The one person in the universe that Alphys has a crush on is none other than UNDYNE!!!" yelled Mettaton on a TV screen. Undyne was at Papyrus' house and was watching Mettaton's show and looked at the screen in disbelief. Undyne then screamed in victory and lifted up the couch before destroying it!

"I KNEW IT ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!!"

Back with the hedgehogs...

"Well, there's no dramatic tension with you helping out our contestants, but there'll be more! After all, this was only the pilot episode! Tune in next time for more Drama! Romance! Bloodshed! Toodles everybody!" Mettaton yelled with a wave as he flew through the roof.

Alphys took a deep breath and stood to her feet. After a moment of silence, she apologized on Mettaton's behalf. "I'm sorry... I had no idea that Mettaton would do that... Let me explain the monitor. I've sorta set up a bunch of cameras around the Underground to monitor your activity. At first, I wanted to capture your soul to turn them in to Asgore to break open the barrier, but as I watched your journey... I wanted less and less to capture you guys... So, now I want to help you! You're going through Hotland, right? How about I guide you through? I-If you... w-want me to...," Alphys suggested.

Sonic nodded eagerly. "Sure! We'd love it if you helped us! We've never actually been here before. So, a tour guide would be nice!"

"R-Really?! Gimme your phone for a minute! I'll insert my number into it-! This phone is ancient!!" Alphys exclaimed as she stared at the phone that Toriel gave them. She ran away with it for a moment. They heard a bunch of loud, grinding noises and a shriek. Sonic watched in horror, but was relieved when the phone came back looking exactly the way it did before. Alphys handed it happily to them.

"What's different about it?" asked Shadow as he looked it over.

"I've connected it to the Underground's box system! Now you can put items you found into a box on your phone! Also, I've hooked you up to the number one Undernet system in the Underground. Plus, this is my favorite, I've added the texting feature onto your phone! Now I can text you at any time!!" Alphys told them excitedly.

"Nice! Does it do online gaming?" asked Lily as she looked through the apps.

"No... However, I installed a rim shot app! I was just feeling a little random I guess... I'm sure that you'll be needing it for the next time you meet up with that short skeleton guy that I kept on seeing and giggling at. He's funny!"

"Funny and scary...," Shadow mumbled.

"Huh?" asked Lily.

"Nothing," Shadow answered.

"Well, I guess that means that I'll be seeing you... Um... Uh... I've gotta go to the bathroom!" Alphys yelled as she ran into the door that she had came out of.

Sonic, Lily, and Shadow each looked at each other awkwardly and then made their ways out the door. They were only two steps away from the laboratory when they got a text message. And another one. And another one. And another one... Shadow wanted to trash his phone so bad because of all of the messages.

"Dude! Chill out!" yelled Sonic as he held back Shadow and gave the phone to Lily. After a few breathing exercises, they finally were able to continue. Mettaton and Alphys. A TV star and a nerd who won't stop texting them over random stuff. Oh boy...