Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Henry flipped the switch in Sammy's office and internally braced himself for the feeling of getting knocked out again thanks to the dustpan. He sighed to himself as he walked down the hallway, wishing that he could use his voice whenever he felt like it instead of when Joey decided it was convenient for his story. Maybe if he could speak on his own accord, the mad cultist could be reasoned with. He remembered that he managed to do it before Joey finalized his script, but that was a very long time ago.

As of right now, all he could do was daydream and embrace himself for the impact.

"Henry?"

That... That was new. Sammy had come to his senses before, sometimes he could genuinely remember who the two of them used to be, but he never managed to do it until after the sacrifice. However as Joey's "You can't talk to the monsters unless I say otherwise" Rule was still in effect, he just turned to face the cultist and nodded to him.

"So that is your name then... My Lord spoke of you to me, He says He wants an audience with you."

Henry couldn't help but feel a little bit disappointed, if there was ever an opportunity where Sammy's sanity was his ticket to freedom, it was right here and now.

"But before we go, I have questions that I feel only you can answer... Are you responsible for the golden ink on the walls?"

He nodded again. Realistically, he knew it could be a bad idea to confirm that he wrote "Deceived" over Sammy's sermon tape and "I don't sing with psychos" in the sewer, but right now he was hoping for the best and too tired to care about the worst. I mean, what could Sammy do? kill him?

The prophet paused for a bit before asking the next question. "...Can you speak?"

He shrugged and Sammy's head cocked to the side as Henry would assume a confused animal would do.

"Can you speak to me?"

He shook his head no.

"Interesting..." He tapped on his mask in thought. "A few of your writings seem to imply that you've been here before, that you've been through some kind of story... Does it ever end?"

He sadly shook his head no.

"I suppose I should've seen that coming, I highly doubt you'd stay here if you could leave."

He nodded in agreement.

"Hmm... that explains why you're so familiar to me... I suppose this also means that we were not freed in these... 'reruns', correct?"

He sighed and nodded again.

"Pity."

The Prophet walked over to the exit with Henry following him, opening the door to reveal that instead of freedom, only another room in the studio was on the other side. 

"Come with me." he beckoned "He doesn't like to wait and the rest of the crowd is already growing restless."

Without any other choice in the matter or idea on where to go, Henry followed Sammy throughout the eternally stretching labyrinth of a studio.

After walking for a while, Henry came across a pen and an empty notepad. Not wanting to let go of this opportunity, Henry took both items and wrote a message to his made-of-ink Virgil in this sepia-toned art hell.

Sammy, do you remember me?

"I can't read."

Henry stared at the man completely dumbfounded as they went to the Heavenly Toys' Workshop in complete silence. He could've ditched the two items right then and there, but he figured he might as well keep them. Assuming that the entrance to the workshop was where Sammy wanted to take him, he moved over one of the cutouts and sat down on the couch.

"Wait right there, I need to get someone else before we go to our Lord's meeting place."

-----

"YOU HORRIBLE, VILE, DISGUSTING, FILTHY, EVIL, CREATURE! LET ME GO! YOUR 'GOD' IS A FALSE ONE WHO'S ONLY TRUE BLESSING IS DEATH AND HE WON'T EVEN GIVE YOU THAT! PUT ME DOWN! YOU WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING MORE THAN THE SHELL OF A MAN WHO WAS NOTHING BUT A LYING, COWARDLY PIECE OF SHIT!"

Sammy nonchalantly carried the screaming and flailing Malice Angel over his shoulder as she continued to kick, claw and hurl abuse at him.

"I got her, let's go."

The prophet had only said five words, but the tiredness in his voice perfectly embodied how the two men knew the rest of the journey was going to go. Henry quickly missed the silence of their earlier walk as the Angel did not make for a fun party member. After what must of been hours of insulting everything about the prophet that she could think about, she changed her approach by trying to turn Henry against Sammy in any way she could.

"Henry, I know you know better than to blindly follow the blind, do you really think that Sammy of all people is someone you can trust and listen to?! He's taking us right to the Ink Demon! Are you really just going to let him lead us to our deaths?!"

Henry just awkwardly shrugged again for what must've been the millionth time by now.

"Henry, please..." The Angel begged with desperation in her voice and fear in her eye. "I don't want to go back to the dark puddles..."

"If my Lord changed his mind and decided that He wanted you two to join the puddles, I would've chucked you both into the flooded stairwell we passed FIVE. HOURS. AGO."

Alice rolled her eye at Sammy's statement as she held her head in her hands, intentionally digging her elbows in Sammy's shoulder as she did so.

"So as long as you're taking me against my will, what does your imaginary god want from us anyway?"

"Hell if I know," The prophet quipped with an unusual amount of Sarcasm in his tone. "I haven't spoken to my imaginary god since early childhood."

"Ugh, fine. What does 'Bendy' want from us?"

"I do not know myself, but it must be important if he wants to speak with 'Everyone who's important and can still think to some extent', as he put it."

"I can only imagine what it's like to worship a God who wants to talk with everyone except you."

"Can you? I assume giving your life to an angel who wants to sound like anyone except you would be close enough."

Malice hit Sammy as hard as she could and refused to speak to him after that, not that he cared for her silence when he knew God's will outweighed his emotions.

Henry continued to follow the prophet in spite of the tense atmosphere between him and the angel as they went down deeper and deeper. Although he found himself wishing that they took the elevator instead of the stairs under his breath more times then he'd like to admit.

After what had been far too long, the trio arrived at the Bendy Hell Warehouse.

"At long last..." The prophet murmured under his breath before speaking to his companions. "My Lord awaits for us, this way."

The room he ushered them into had a giant octopus ride in the center, a few cages, and some chairs. The large metal doors slammed shut behind them as Sammy finally put Malice down. She automatically went in to rip the Ink Demon's prophet limb from limb-

"WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"

The Projectionist screamed and lashed out from inside his cage as soon as he caught sight of movement, startling the Angel and giving Sammy an opportunity to evade her wrath. As soon as they left his light, he went back to walking in place against the bars.

Henry looked around and found that the Projectionist wasn't the only other creature in this room.

In one of the ride's arms a set of butchered gang clones lashed out against their seats' restraints, in another of the ride's arms, a trio of regular butcher gang members cautiously peered over the edge at the new arrivals, on top of one of the cages, he saw a swollen searcher with a bowler hat happily drink dark liquid out of a coffee pot, on a bench with a clown face on it, an angry looking Boris who was missing an arm growled at everything as he struggled against the rope keeping him tied to his seat. In cages adjacent to him, he saw a friendly looking Boris who waved at him and a Lost One who looked at him curiously.

"Boris? Why did he lock you up?"

"Our cages aren't to keep us in," The Lost One answered for him "they're to keep the angels out."

The wolf nodded, confirming his friend's statement before hiding his face in his hands and shivering in fear. The Lost One gripped a tape recorder tightly to her chest.

"The Demon!"

Henry watched the inky film spread across the floor as well as almost all hell break lose; he saw Malice slowly back away as if hoping that he wouldn't notice her, he saw the tied up Alice and Boris struggle harder against their bindings, he saw the Searcher pour the remaining liquid on himself before chucking the empty pot at the demon, he heard Boris whimper in his cage as if fearing it wouldn't be enough to protect him, he saw the Lost one lift up a broken board as if she planned to use it as a weapon if the monster got too close...

And he heard the Devil himself clear his throat and address the crowd with his perpetual smile.

"So I suppose you're all wondering why I made Sammy gather you all here today..."

"It can talk?!" The Lost one whispered to the Boris.

"Hey! I heard that! And to answer your question: yes. I can think, I can talk, I can basically do whatever I want to do! But that's not the point of this meeting."

Henry wrote down a question to show the Ink Demon

What do you plan to do with us?

"Henry, if you're writing something down, show it to my prophet because I can't &@!^ing see for $#*! without the cutouts. (Maybe I should've had him drag a few of them down here before I started this thing...)"

Henry sighed as he put his notepad away, not wanting to get stuck in an infinite loop of 'I can't read' and 'I can't see'.

"Anyhoo, now back to the topic at hand; sentient and semi-sentient ink monsters, cartoons of both the on model and off model variety, whatever the ^!%# Sammy and Henry are at this point, because I can't tell... Regardless of who we used to be, what we are, and what paths lead us into this very studio, I'm sure we can all agree on one thing: Joey Drew &!%^ing sucks and he deserves to have his dick set on #&!!fire!"

The Demon received thunderous applause from Sammy and a slow clap from two other people in the crowd, the Octopus ride thumped one of its empty arms on the ground as if trying to mimic clapping.

"(I'll just assume there'd be more clapping if more people had their minds back and less people had their hands tied up...) And there's another thing that we can all agree on: This place ALSO sucks! As in, guess what: I don't wanna be in this song and dance either, Buddy. And I don't just hate it because it constantly reminds me of all of my failures and other $#*! like that, I hate it because this dump is SO. &%#@ING. BORING! It's bad enough that every single moment all blends together like some kind of unending waiting room, but it also has the nerve to have the only script drag on, and on, and I can't take it anymore! Unfortunately, NOBODY can escape this $#*!hole, not even me."

The Demon 'looked' around the room for signs of approval before continuing with his monologue.

"I know I'm not the only one who's feeling this way, and I have a proposal for all of you: If nobody can escape, then why not make sure that the only person in this place who suffers is the only one who DESERVES it? Well? Susie, I know you'd want to see him cry 'uncle' at least a little bit."

"Well, How are you going to do that?"

"A great question, Polka-Dots!" The demon pulled the on-model Charley out of the safety of the ride's cart. The Edgar and Barley furiously trying to pull him back while he tried to speak. "See this little guy? Well it turns out, he actually isn't half bad with paper and pens! So him and I are working on a 'Reboot' of sorts, using the machine to rewrite what CAN be rewritten and whatnot. I'd do this anyway without your input but I just want you to know in advance because you're kinda important here. As for why I gathered you here... I'm declaring you guys the main cast! Which means everyone in this room gets front row, VIP seats for Joey Drew's eternal agony! ~YAY!~ ~Woo-Hoo!~"

"And what if we don't want that?" The Angel piped up. "What if we just want to GO HOME?!"

"Well, I guess you could always just waltz outta frame if you feel like it," The Demon Shrugged "You can't really go 'home' because you're kinda dead and made of ink, but there's more joy to the afterlife and animation than just watching the people who turned your own life upside-down suffer. You could make amends to the people you've wronged in life, you could pick up a hobby, you could Idunno... commit crime? Look, I'm mostly just having this meeting for me anyway because all of this nightmare studio bull is all going to fade like dreams as soon as I get my hands on that machine. You know, just thinking out loud and figuring out who the main cast members are."

The Metal door creaked open and the Ink Demon disappeared, his inky film following behind.

"Meeting adjourned, mortals! Spend the last moments as Joey's warped up creations and miserable shells of who you used to be however you want, Toodles!"

Chapter Text

Joey Drew set the groceries down on the floor before he dug through his pockets for his keys. Once he fished them out, he used them to unlock the door to his apartment. As he picked them back up, he noticed that the bottoms of the paper bags were now completely soaked through with foul-smelling ink. Sure enough, he saw that his small apartment had every carpet completely soaked through in the stuff, and it had even leaked out his door.

"Damn it, Tommy..." He grumbled to himself. "If you're going to go through all the hassle of stealing my machine from me, the very least you can do is make sure it's working properly and doesn't leak before I take it back. Running everybody out of this apartment complex wasn't easy you know, and is keeping the entire place clean isn't easy either!"

Thomas Conner was definitely going to have a hard time this rerun. Maybe Joey would let some Lost Ones and Searchers get in a few lucky strikes, maybe he'd put the wolfish mechanic into a situation where he'd lose his other arm, or maybe he'd make Allison remember 'who killed her and used her corpse in the name of science' and let her do all the torturing instead.

"Emotional damage always does more pain than physical damage does down there." The director smiled to himself.

Who knows what he'd do to the grumpy Boris, the man was in an absolutely foul mood, so he might as well do all three to cheer himself up.

As he dumped the groceries out onto the kitchen counter so he could salvage what he could, he heard something coming from the Ink Machine's room. It was a distinct sound he could clearly identify now matter where or when he heard it: the sound of pen on paper. This wasn't a good sign as Joey lived alone, but what made it worse was that he heard voices in that room, a voice that he recognized, and a voice he wished he didn't.

"You know, you draw surprisingly well fer a guy with two wildly different hands. What's your secret?"

"Think I'd tell you of all people, Charley Chaplin? The secrets of the full extent of my demonic powers are for me and me alone to know."

'Oh fuck'. he thought to himself as his heart pounded against his chest. 'It wasn't a leak, I left the Ink Machine on...'

"Well, I'd rather have us have some kind of civilness and or a 'friendship' thing instead of being at each others throats for the rest of forever." The Butcher Gang leader rolled his eyes and scoffed "Especially when you need me to help you with all these big plans of yours."

"PFFFHHT!! PHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 'Friendship'?! What kind of self-respecting cartoon villain are you?"

"One who knows that he's evil with a lowercase 'e' instead of having the entire word being in all caps and underlined. Anyway, speaking of friends, where does your pal Sammy come into this?"

Joey was intrigued with their conversation, a gut feeling told him he should save himself by running away, his common sense told him to sneak away as slowly as possible so he wouldn't get noticed, but his curiosity outweighed them both and he instead just slipped behind the counter of sight as quietly as he could.

"Who?"

"Are you kidding- HE'S YOUR OWN ^$#@ING PROPHET! THE GUY YOU ORDER AROUND ALL THE DAMN TIME!"

"Oh yeah... He's surprisingly easy to forget. And for the record he is NOT my friend!"

"So you made some kind of Demonic deal with him?"

"No, what on earth gave you that idea?"

"Wait, then why does he worship you?! And more importantly, if YOU didn't- then how does he do... half of the weird supernatural $#*! he does?!"

"Who WOULDN'T worship me? I'm a great guy to worship! And doesn't chugging liquefied demon guts mixed with other $#*! have non-me-related side effects? Whatever's going on with him is probably that."

"Well, and keep in mind he's GOING to be completely sane and therefore, not your prophet in this project he's not the music director in this, you said you don't like the idea of him being 'just a musician in the band' and you shot down the idea of him doing voice acting, so what's he going to be?"

"OH! What if he used to work for Joey as the music director years ago, but he got fired for "ridiculous reasons that nobody in the studio who worked with him can agree on" and he works for Bertrum now?"

"...Mind giving an example on 'ridiculous reasons'?"

"You know... 'he punched holes through doors to open them from the other side, he did this to EVERY SINGLE *@&!ING DOOR', 'he put what he called "bear trap hop-scotch" in the break room that has the GOOD coffee, Jack was the only person who knew how to get it then', 'Now kid, don't yous dare make me remember the incident of June, 12th, '29, knowin' anythang about Sammy 'Hell's Bellwether' Lawrence ain't worth the trouble of it...', Florida man type things that are all completely false. Except one of the crazy theories in the sea of false ones is actually true."

"Yeah that could work, would make workplace gossip in the studio break rooms a hell of a lot more interesting when he 'gets back'..." Charley smiled as he drew the next frame "So unless you change your mind right here and now, I guess this wraps that up, good luck with being Bendy from now on."

"WHAT?!" The Ink Demon practically shrieked "Why and how the ^@#$ did you think that I'm going to be him?!"

"You're kidding, right? You can't waltz around the studio looking like that it breaks the entire point of the new show! And don't you want to be on model anyways?"

"Yes, AND I also want to stay tall, (and well, be myself instead of being who Joey wants me to be I guess...) I can't do that as 'Bendy the Dancing Demon'. So..." The Ink Demon handed Charley a model sheet.

"A powerful demon named 'Lord Inkwell' and called 'the Ink Demon', huh?" Charley chuckled.

"Hey! I didn't make fun of you for making Shawn a five-foot-something patchwork voodoo-doll, Buddy a puppy, or Sammy a literal sheepish songbird!"

"I just thought that was funny, pally, no need to get into a hissy-fit with me. Besides, it's a good design."

"Really?!"

"Yeah, you've got yourself a nice strong silhouette, a fun concept that can be used in a lot of different ways, and I like the Jack-o-lantern style smile, you look like you'd be the main villain in a not-quite-Halloween-themed-but-also-Halloween-themed-enough-to-justify-watching-it-every-Halloween animated movie who steals the show every second you're on screen."

"Aww! now you're just trying to make me blush..."

While Joey himself was hiding well enough to not get noticed by either of the two 'artists', his groceries betrayed him as a can of beans rolled off of the counter top and had fallen to the floor, catching the attention of the demon and the Butcher Gang leader.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?"

Charley was not by any stretch of the word a tall or an intimidating character, he was, after all, only a balding cartoon creature in a suit who was little bit taller than Bendy. But as the cartoon menace pulled him up to his face by the collar, Joey was very intimidated.

"You must be Joey Drew... Who could've guessed that all of the torture and suffering everybody's endured in this studio was caused by an old &@^$ in his pajamas!"

"It looks like everybody's favorite Director got home from the store a little earlier than expected!" The Demon playfully laughed as he yanked the man up by his bad leg "And it looks like you spoiled your own surprise... But that's okay, everybody's going to be oh so happy to see you again!"

Joey felt his bones crack and break under the strength of the Ink Demon's bear hug as he let out a pitiful wheeze. He still struggled to escape, he didn't still didn't know what exactly the Demon's plans were, but he didn't want to be in any part of them.

"And I bet you'll be happy to see your old friends and family again..."

"W-wait! Bendy! You don't have to do this! you don't WANT to do this!" He desperately pleaded to uncaring villains who would be sated by nothing but the sweet taste of revenge. "We can make this work! All Henry has to do is to push a little bit harder and then everything will turn out fine! Please! He just needs a little more time!"

To the former Director's horror, instead of falling for the lies that he told it and himself, the "First Draft" carried him to the machine itself, and proceeded to feed him as well as the rest of the drawings into it.

"We'll just take the shortcut if you don't mind, there's still a lot of work left to do, and not a lot of time to do it!"

The last thing he saw before the lights cut off was that damned demon's perpetual, sinister smile.

In spite of him knowing what the ink does to people when carelessly ingested, he opened his mouth when he hit the ink. Not that he purposefully did it, he just screamed his lungs out as the searing pain of having the souls within the ink claw his skin and muscles off. And as he did so, his mouth filled with the cold, disgustingly bitter liquid and its thick, congealed chunks.

No matter how much or how often he spat it back out, every time he opened his mouth more ink flooded inwards as if it was trying to escape the rest of the sea by any means it could. To make matters worse, the souls did not agree with him rejecting the ink. Almost every time he spat out the foul liquid, hands all around him would shove globs of solidifying ink down his throat.

Cold, clammy hands with dull nails, animalistic paws and claws, birds' talons great and small, dull blades, fresh blades, needles, axes, pipes, splintered boards, fangs, whatever or whoever the ink used to tear into him, or force-fed him the ink, no matter how bad it got it was all nothing but a nasty stomach ache and the static feeling of 'slept on my leg weird pins' compared to the sounds he heard in there.

The whispering, the crying, the screaming, the enraged yelling, the howling of people who had lost any and all sense of their humanity years ago. It was a flow of loud, constant, buzzing, unending NOISE that ate away at all his thoughts, that tried to make him one of them! No... not him! He was the Director! Without him, none of them would ever be freed! Didn't they know that?! He was too important to be reduced to nothing but another searcher in the ink!

Even if he could beg for forgiveness from the sea of souls, he already knew they wouldn't offer him any. They were too wrapped up in their own mindless vengeance to understand 'forgiving and forgetting' for their own sakes. So he simply tried to run away, just like he did back then, just like he always did, always running from his problems. He swam up as best he could, but an old man with a bad leg was no match for the hundreds, maybe even thousands of souls all clawing at him, stuffing him with ink, trying to drag him down.

He sank down like a stone, going deeper and deeper until the pressure of the ink was too much for him...

Squash, stretch, scrape, break, bend, rip, snip, clip, squeeze, squish, squash, stretch, scrape, break, bend, rip, snip, clip, squeeze, squish, squash, stretch, scrape, break, bend, rip, snip, clip, squeeze, squish, squash, stretch, scrape, break, bend, rip, snip, clip, squeeze, squish...

*POP*

*COUGH!* *COUGH!* *HAAAACK!* *WHEEZE*

Fresh air pierced his lungs as he was finally freed from the inky dark abyss. He shivered in disgust and from the cold as the cruel substance dribbled down and off of his significantly smaller body.

The former director felt horribly sick to his core as he finally purged out the liquid that they tried to force down. He had expected to feel at least a little better afterwards but unfortunately for him, when he tried to force out the more solid globs of ink, they instead settled deeply into his stomach like a heavy rock, it was a type of fullness that almost made it hard to breathe from the sheer amount of 'stuff' in there. Kind of like eating way more than you should at a buffet except a buffet's food would be tasty enough to consider the pain to be almost worth it.

Joey wiped ink off of his face with his sleeve and opened his eyes to the harsh light of the studio- no. It wasn't the studio. At the very least, it wasn't HIS studio, it wasn't the studio that existed as a pocket dimension within his apartment; it was well-lit, appeared to be well-maintained, and had a larger, more vibrant color pallet. It definitely wasn't the studio that he used to run back in the day either, everywhere he looked had looked just like either the backgrounds or the foregrounds of a cartoon.

Wait a minute...

He looked down at his hands and he felt his eyes bulge out of his head in shock. Those weren't his hands! They were large, exaggerated, four-fingered parodies of hands that lacked the details of normal human hands!

There was a handful of 'reruns' where Joey had turned Henry into a cartoon version of himself, the transmutation circle the old animator had gone through was scripted and Joey might as well have a little bit of fun at Henry's expense if he wasn't going to make things right, but being on the receiving end of the transformation was another matter entirely. He wasn't like Henry! He didn't know how to deal with this!

He was vulnerable, stripped of all his bones, his dignity, his humanity, his power as the one who ran the show, and he was reduced to what? A living joke?

"You just need to stay calm, Joey..." He told himself, slightly taken aback by how much younger he sounded. How old was he now? Hell, was he even an adult anymore?! He needed to find a mirror. "All you need to do is fix Henry and he'll fix this, and then, it'll be back to normal and after it's back to normal, maybe this will be the push Henry needs to take the next run seriously. And how knows, maybe after that things will be even better than okay..."

His heart knew it was a lie no matter how hard his everything else tried to convince him otherwise.

Chapter Text

SPLAT

If Joey could get things back to normal, he never even wanted to look at another pie ever again.

He had only been a cartoon for fifteen minutes and he already despised everything about his new form. The only good things that it had was that his bad leg had been restored to it's former glory and he didn't have the aches and pains of old age anymore, but both of those things were because he was younger now, not because he was a god-damned rubberhose character!

It didn't help that five of those minutes were spent pulling and peeling the mutilated remains of his former body off of his new one and the other ten were spent comically falling over nothing and being the butt of other slapstick-related jokes. 'How DARE he not know how to walk without bones in his legs' he imagined some overly pompous personification of the universe stage-shout 'The director shall suffer for his ignorance! bring forth another banana cream pie at once!'

"Seriously, unless I had unknowingly stumbled into a bakery owned by someone who hates me..." He grumbled as he wiped whipped cream out of his eyes "There was no reason for me to get four pies to the head in eight minutes! This is a cartoon studio for &^@!-for *!$%'s FOR F-dUCK'S SAKE!"

He instinctively slapped his hands over his mouth as well as blushed beet red as he heard someone 'tsk' at him.

"Ever kiss your mother with that mouth new guy? If you want to be in those kinds of shows, maybe a family-friendly studio like ours isn't the right place for you."

That voice... he knew that voice! Oh thank god after all this chaos, he heard a familiar and friendly voice!

"Allison?!"

He turned around and saw that right behind him was not the voice actress (whom he may or may not have feelings for) but instead the cartoon character that he had her voice.

"...Close but no. My name is Alice." The angel's formerly stern expression softened up a bit when she saw how quickly hope faded from his eyes. "Although it is kinda funny, 'Allison' is the name of my voice actress and 'Alice' and 'Allison' are pretty similar."

"Yeah..." he sighed.

"Look." Alice sympathetically put her hand on Joey's shoulders. "I'm not being a stuck-up pill for kicks and giggles, I just don't want to put up with five trouble-making demons during these deadlines, Bendy alone already drives me up the wall enough! But if this was just a slip of the tongue, I can let it slide. Just don't make a habit of it, okay?"

"Okay- wait. Five demons?! What do you mean there's five demons?!"

"Well there's Mr. Inkwell, Bendy, Miss Twisted, and Mr. Pluto but they're all troublemakers. There's more demons working here like you, miss Allison, Wandersin, and possibly that guy who works for Bertrum..? Nobody can agree on what he is and he doesn't answer when asked."

Gears were turning in his head as he took in what she was saying. What else did the ink change about him? Surely Alice Angel should recognize who he was, he practically founded the damned place! There were demons working here. That made sense considering it looked like the cartoons were successfully brought to life. HE was supposedly a demon, judging by what he could see he actually looked pretty human- HE HAS A TAIL?! Oh god he was now actually aware of the fact he had a tail now. And he was not looking forward to whatever tail-related slapstick awaited him.

A mirror. He needed to find a mirror right now.

"Can you point me towards the nearest bathroom?"  He gestured to the pie mess on his face. "I need to clean this stuff off..."

"Oh! Sure, It's right down the hall to your left-" She pointed and he ran down there so fast that he almost ditched his outline. "-and across from the Bendyland storage room..." She finished her directions to the air.

Alice shrugged to herself "The bathrooms' are clearly labeled, no matter how new he is he can't get TOO lost..."

He dashed into the room and slammed and locked the door tightly behind himself. Then he scrubbed the pie off of his face with a nearby piece of cloth and looked into the mirror.

His design itself wasn't too bad, although he did wish he was brought here in normal clothes instead of his pajamas (and bunny slippers? he doesn't even own bunny slippers!) Aside from the horns poking out of his surprisingly neatly-combed hair and the long, fountain pen nib-tipped tail sticking out from under his bathrobe, he looked just like himself when he was ...twenty-something? It was hard to tell when he was animated.

The important thing is that in spite of his short stature, he was definitely and undeniably an adult as kids don't have pencil mustaches unless they're drawn on.

...Wait.

He curiously tried wiping off his mustache with the cloth...

And let out a sigh of relief when it stayed on his face. If he was turned into a kid on top of all this other bullshit, he probably would've completely broken down right then and there. Well, now that he thought about it, would becoming a kid really make that much of a difference here? He already was short, weak, powerless, much more emotional than he used to be, and he had a snowflake's chance in hell to be taken seriously.

What was the difference between him now, and him as a little kid who was being told that all his ideas were stupid and that he should be more like his friend Nathan who studied so that he could properly take over his father's businesses? What was the difference between him now, and him when Henry left him for good and it finally settled in that he wasn't coming back? What was the difference-

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*

"Hey new guy!"

"Huh?!" The familiar yet unfamiliar voice of the studio worker chimed Joey out of his thoughts. He knew that whoever this was had been here for a very long time, but then again, he didn't know anybody at his old studio with a Russian accent, a faint one, but it was still very present in his voice.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*

"Do you mind unlocking door real quick? I'm not coming in, just here to hand over your uniform."

"O-oh... Sure, just give me a second."

So in this studio, they had uniforms? As he thought about it, Alice did have a little yellow badge on her dress that looked similar to the silhouette of a certain imp's head... Joey unlocked the door and opened it a crack before taking the uniform from the other worker behind the door. 

"Okay, maybe this wouldn't be as bad as I thought it would be." He muttered to himself as he relocked the door and put on the uniform. "At least I don't have to deal with the embarrassment of going to work in nightwear." It was one thing to have Henry see him in a vulnerable state, it was another to have everybody else see him in that state.

The uniform fit him surprisingly well, almost as if it was hand tailored to his exact measurements; black pants with a hole in the back accommodating his new tail, a black short-sleeve button-up shirt that was adorned with a golden badge that was shaped like Bendy's head, a pair of rubber boots, and a pair of white four-fingered gloves.

...He just stuck the gloves in his pocket as he wasn't keen on willingly partaking in making himself look even more like a cartoon character.

"Due to all the ink spills here, management provides work uniforms." The worker on the other side explained. "The only thing they really enforce about dress code is the badge. So if you really want to bring your own clothes from home to work, nobody will stop you, but do it at your own risk!" He finished with a chuckle.

"Okay, thanks Boris."

"Don't sweat it! Good luck, and see you tomorrow!"

Joey paused for a second. How did he know that the worker on the other side was Boris? All he knew about the Worker was his voice, which automatically disqualified him from being Boris. The wolf was mute, he was always mute except for the comics. He couldn't find a voice actor that really captured the essence of the character... And yet he heard the perfect Boris the wolf voice on the other side of the door.

"It's just your imagination, Joey..." He muttered to himself as he folded up his pajamas. "The man's name just happened to be Boris... He's not "Boris the Wolf". Even if he happens to be a cartoon too... he's probably not even a wolf!"

Suddenly, Joey felt a strange weight on his shoulders...

"Hello!"

...Followed by the imp's upside-down smiling face just spontaneously appearing in his own face.

"GAH! WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?!"

"Where did *I* come from?" Bendy's expression shifted to a confused one as the little demon scratched his head. "I'm Mr. Benjamin 'Inkwell' Drew's favorite gofer! So he'd naturally send me down here to do gofer things. What are *you* doing in this little corner of Me land?"

"...'You land'? Isn't this the bathroom?" In hindsight, it was a little bit weird that the mirror had colorful lightbulbs around its frame, but he was more focused on taking in the reality that he had been reduced from a human being to a mere doodle of his former self.

"Got turned around last second? I've been there when I first started." The demon shrugged. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think that the layout of the building itself keeps twisting and turning when nobody's looking! How anybody other than an expert explorer like yours truly can get anywhere without getting lost is beyond me."

Joey partly wished that Bendy stayed mute as he knew the character well enough to know he's nothing but a danger magnet and him having a voice only makes it worse. On the other hand, Bendy having a voice meant that it was easier for him to get information out of the little devil. Information like escape routes, warnings on possible threats, hiding spots in the studio...

"So... Bendy, as Mr. Drew's favorite gofer... do you mind showing me around the place? I'm new here and I don't think the boss would appreciate me getting lost all the time. If you could also tell me a little bit about the other workers here, that would be great."

"No problem, new pal of mine!" The demon took Joey's hand with a big grin on his face and led him out of the small corner. "Welcome to the unofficial Team InkHell Studio tour; our first stop is the scenic Me-land warehouse. Here's a fun fact about the workers down here: The shortest person on Bertrum's personal team including Bertie himself is six feet and seven inches tall!* (*not including the horns)."

"That's ...nice. But what is Bertie's team like?"

Bendy counted on his fingers.

"There's Bertie himself, he's an Archangel and the (self proclaimed) Architect of Heaven's Wonders, Lacie, the scourge of the seven seas and finest mechanic on land, the Brute or 'Brutus' don't worry, he turned over a new leaf after getting bailed out of jail, and the quote-unquote short guy... Bertrum hired him as a performer I think."

"Is his name 'Sammy'?"

"Maybe not, but it could be!" he shrugged "He uses a stage name while working and he also doesn't like talking to people off the clock. I just don't get that guy at all, why would someone so smug and loud not want to be famous for his work? I'd get it if he sucked at being a musician, but he was specifically hired for his voice and music talents! I've seen him perform on this very stage, right here, and he's good at what he does! The only thing keeping him from a life of fame and fortune and the luxury that comes with it is himself! Just, Why?"

Bendy kicked the dirt in frustration before straightening his bow tie. "Anyway, *ahem* And to your right is the currently not in-use carousel..."

Chapter Text

Charley paced back and forth in the break room as he thought out loud, scribbling down unreadable notes as he did so while Barley watched him nervously and Edgar eagerly pounced on the complementary snack table and piled his plate sky high with donuts, chocolate chip muffins, cookies, sandwiches, pudding cups, small bags of chips, cupcakes, slices of pizza, and several cans of soda.

"Alright, the backgrounds seem to be done, character designs and redesigns are complete, and it looks like we've got time as long as Bendy and the rest of those knuckleheads keep Joey distracted... but that still leaves future scripts, employee management, and the ink- Edgar, don't think I can't see that, put at least half of that crap back or you'll be throwing up everywhere later and I am under too much pressure to deal with that right now!"

"Aww..."

The spider deflated but obeyed, putting back the coveted treats as the pirate cleared his throat and tried to engage in conversation.

"So Boss, hows da new job treatin' ya?"

"I'll admit it's a rocky start, If that &@!^ing Animator had waited just a little longer we could've gone off without a hitch... But it'll all be worth it boys! Being freed from that..." He shuddered at the memory of the old studio. "Dark place isn't even the icing on the cake, it's the sprinkles. As long as Joey doesn't stick his nose where it doesn't belong too soon, the world is our oyster! Riches so grand it'll make Boswell look like a hobo, fame beyond our wildest dreams, and best of all, the only 'catch' is that we have to make sure Bendy and his friends are in grave danger every now and then..."

Charley picked up a remote and flicked on a TV screen that showed Bendy and Joey on their little tour, specifically, the pair were in the junkyard just a block away from the studio.

"-And this is the scrap pile where Canoodle hides the best canned bacon soup you'll ever taste! (But if he asks you, you didn't hear this from me, got it?)"

"...Got it. But isn't this place well... NOT part of the studio?!" He grabbed the imp's shoulders and shook him furiously "WHY DID YOU TAKE US HERE, BENDY!?"

Judging by the dark circles around Joey's eyes, messy hair, kinked-up tail, more pronounced horns, and the fact he was getting snapper with the little devil, it was obvious that he did not have a good time on most of the tour and his mask of patience was wearing thin. But Bendy either didn't notice, or was so used to people being annoyed with him that he didn't care.

"Yeah, yeah..." he waved dismissively and shrugged "it's 'technically not the studio', but since a lot of employees usually hide out here to get away from the crazy, you might as well know where it is and how to get around."

"And why's the soup here so important? You literally showed me an entire MAZE made out of these things!"

"I don't know if he got his hands on a special secret recipe or something, but boy the scrapyard stuff's good! Even better than what you'd get at the store! Don't believe me? Well, grab a can for yourself and tell me what it's like!"

Bendy handed Joey a can of bacon soup from the hidden pile and took one for himself. While inside the break room, Charley pulled a different remote out of his waistcoat.

"For example wouldn't it be a real shame..." The Butcher Gang leader smiled deviously as he pressed down a giant button on the remote labeled 'Junkyard Alarm' "...If Canoodle just so 'happened' to stumble upon their little tour?"

The TV screen flashed red as a siren blared out through the speakers in the junkyard, forcing the pair of devils to drop their soup to cover their ears. A giant living can armed with a giant spoon rose out of its slumber and caught sight of the intruders, Joey glared at Bendy who fidgeted with his bow tie and chuckled nervously in return.

"So wanna continue our tour to see the lower levels? There's a whole lot of them!"

Without answering, Joey just scooped Bendy up and ran for his life with the angry can hot on his tail.

As Charley shut off the TV, Barley give an impressed whistle and Edgar clapped his paws together.

"Wow Boss! So Inky lets you control the entire studio with that remote?!"

"Yes, but it's only for emergencies. However, Bendy leading Joey out of the studio was an actual emergency! According to the contract, he's not supposed to leave without Ol' Inkwell's supervision. Joey's the only employee who's forbidden from seeing the 'outside world' and I think both of you know why."

Just then, the break room's door creaked open and a large inkwell rolled in on its side, once it stopped by the trio's feet, it propped itself right-side-up and its cork popped off on its own. The on-model Ink Demon sprang out of the bottle like a demented (but still fairly family-friendly) jack in the box.

"Heyyyyy Charley! I see you and your gang found the VIP break room already! took you three what? two and a half minutes?"

"I-uh erm... y-yes we did, is there a problem with that sir?"

"Calm down Chaplin, I'm just poking a little fun... And I arrived because we need to talk about the employees. Oh, and future reference; we're co-founders for ^@&$'s sake! There's no need for you to grovel at my metaphorical feet for any reason!"

"Did something bad happen to them?"

"Nope, just keeping you in the loop by telling you that they look like a few of them are about to wake up, so make sure to tune into that real soon! I might show up in person, maybe catch up with them."

"Okay, you have fun with that..."

"Will do!" The demon gave a mock salute before diving back into his inkwell and rolling out.

𝕸𝖊𝖆𝖓𝖜𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖊...

In a warehouse that housed rides and games several stories below the reanimated former animator's tour, a cast of characters were sprawled out all over the floors and furnature as if they were in the aftermath of a wild night of drinking.

*Click* *Whiiiirrrrrrrrrrrr*

The first among the room full of unconscious toons to rise was the one that had a projector for a head. And the first thing he did after joining the land of the living was clutch his head in pain.

"Ugh... dear lord what a headache! 'Feels like someone up and bashed in my skull against a wall..." Thankfully for the object-headed toon, the said headache was already fading away as he woke up, but even after only the memory of the pain remained, he felt that there was something wrong with this, he didn't know what it was yet, but something fishy was going on.

His shutter quickly opened and closed repeatedly, mimicking blinking for a bit before it stayed open as he looked around. The steady yellow beam acted like a searchlight as the Projectionist scanned his surroundings; there was a few crates, some empty cages, benches with clownlike faces on them, a giant octopus ride with a pair of legs sticking out of an opening in the machine, honest-to-god living cartoon characters strewn about the place- wait, what?

Yes his mind was not lying to him, he was surrounded by fucking cartoons; only one of them looked like a normal human being, the rest were animals, angels, demons, a really big doll, a pirate captain who was wearing overalls, and a man who had a tape recorder for a head. Looking at his own hand, he discovered that he himself was among them.

"...Huh." surprisingly calm and more confused than anything, the projector-headed toon creeped around the unconscious bodies, looking for some kind of explanation.

"...Now what in the world happened down here?" He kept his voice low as judging by the way other people stirred and groaned when his light hit their faces, they were asleep instead of dead. "And how'd I get here?"

"Norman?" A groggy voice from behind him spoke up, possibly stirred awake by his light. "Is that you?"

That voice... He hadn't heard it in years but he could recognize it anywhere!

"...Henry?" He turned to face the old animator and stepped back in surprise as he was face-to-face with death himself. "I could ask yous the same question."

"Yeah, it's me..." The grim reaper held up his arm to shield his face from the flickering beam of light in his face. "What was the last thing you remember?"

"Well, I was working late at night and heard somethang groaning underneath my booth. I followed the noise to figure out what on earth it was, pried open the storage room shutter with a crowbar, found nothang out of the ordinary, figured it was just that pipe in there actin' up. And as I turned around to leave, BAM! some creature up and pounced on me! I swat it off at first but got cornered real quick and then everythang went black."

"What did the creature look like?"

"It happened so fast I barely saw the dang thing, but I recall is that it didn't have no legs; just a long, stretchy torso seepin' into the floor, it dragged itself along the ground with its arms. And judgin' by its color and the way it smelled... call me crazy but I think that the thing was made out of ink."

"Did the creature have a mask?" Another groggy voice chimed in. "One that looked like Bendy's head?"

"Wait a minute, it did." Norman turned to the pile of crates the voice came from. "How'd you know that?"

The two men saw the said mask thrown at them and it landed by their feet.

"Whatever it was it's dead now." The speaker yawned. "I'm going back to sleep, watch where you're shining that light. 's brighter... than.. Cameraman's......z.zz.zzzzz"

"Wait! Who's Cameraman?!"

Henry climbed up the crates to find a sleeping ...bird? Wait, it was a demon, birds don't have ram-like horns. Or ram-like legs for that matter.

"zzzz...z.z.zz. z.z..zz. z.z.z.zz.zzz zz.z.zz.z.z.z .z.z.z.z.z.zz.z..z.zz .z.z.z.z.zzz..zz zzz... zzz.zzzzzzz zzzz....zzzzzzzzzzz. ..z.zz.z.zzzzz zzzzzz....zzzzzzz .....zzzzzzzzzz....zzz.z zzz z.....zzzz...zzz"

"Dammit Sammy..." The reaper muttered under his breath before someone else's voice caught his attention.

"No, no, no! I don't want to do this..." The woman choked out. "Please stop... I don't want this! I want to go home, I just want to go home!"

Norman shined his light towards the angel who was tossing and turning in her sleep.

"...Susie?" The Projectionist crept closer to her and sat down beside her before looking to Henry "Do ya think we should wake her up?"

"Probably?" The animator shrugged. "I know I'd want to wake up if I was having a dream like that..."

"Hey Susie?" Norman gently shook the weeping angel awake. "Are you okay? 'sounded like you were having a he-WOAH!"

The Projector headed toon was not anticipating Susie practically lunging herself at Norman and tightly wrapping her arms and wings around him as if she had been drowning and he was the live preserver thrown at the very last second.

"I'm so sorry Norman!" the shaking angel sobbed into his shirt. "I didn't want to turn you into that thing, I didn't want to turn you into a monster! I was scared and lonely and I just wanted you back! I should've have done what I did! I should've known that she would do something like that!"

"There, there, 't's alright, Kiddo..." Norman managed to free one of his arms from the coil prison and used it to pat her back reassuringly "Nothing for us to worry about, it was just a real bad dream..."

Chapter Text

The mechanical door in the Bendy Land storage room whirred open as a large bottle of ink rolled its way in and in front of the giant ride, catching the attention of all of the currently awake toons. It rolled around in a perfect circle; once, twice, and tipping itself back upfront before it could make a third perfect circle. Then, a soft 'thud' was heard from within the giant inkwell.

"Are you &!#$ing kidding me?!" Said an annoyed muffled voice from within the inkwell, before another, slightly louder thud was heard. "Stupid $@!%ing cork, I'll teach YOU to not ruin my dramatic entrance!"

A short series of loud muffled thuds accompanied by muffled screaming came from inside the inkwell, the sight before the currently awake trio forced them to hold back their laughter as to not awake the rest of the sleeping toons. However, in spite of the three doing everything they can to bite back laughing even while under the looming threat of bursting their own insides with their held-up laughter, the commotion had waken up a wolf with a mechanical arm and a demoness with her hair tied back in a ponytail and drew them closer to the small crowd.

"Do you think we should let him out?" Susie whispered to Henry between fits of giggles.

The reaper shrugged in response.

"HEY! I CAN HEAR YOU FROM IN HERE!" The inkwell shook as the demon within it pounded against the glass of his unintended prison. "LET ME OUT OR YOU'RE FIRED!"

"Okay, okay, calm down..."

Henry loosened up the inkwell's cork, but before he could pop it off, his hand was headbutted by the demon within as he sprang out of his small glass prison.

"Well that was embarrassing, I should really work on that later..." The demon cleared his throat and pulled out pots and pans to bang together. "*Ahem* RISE AND SHINE EVERYBODYYYYY! WAKEY, WAKEY!"

This was an unfortunately effective method of waking everybody up. Within seconds, the previously somewhat calm room had descended into a madhouse of scared, confused animals, loud noises, and magical misfirings from spooked supernatural entities. Feathers flew, weapons and spells ricocheted off of the walls, and the Ink demon grinned as he watched the sight unfold before him, not bothering to stop it in the slightest.

Instead, as he left the employees to fruitlessly try to soothe the chaos themselves, he glanced around the area and made internal notes. Making the model sheets for the studio's workers and seeing the finished project in action was two very different things; some of them didn't move like 'stretch and squash' cartoons while others did, most of the animalistic toons seemed to adopt traits from the animals they were based off of (a surprising feature, but not an unwelcome one), and oddly enough, it appeared to be randomized on who remembered what about the past.

Okay, maybe that wasn't something that he 'noticed' but more of a gut feeling that he hoped was wrong. One couldn't really tell who knew what when everyone was too busy panicking over magic and weapons being thrown about like dodge balls.

The Ink demon was attracted to this one relatively quiet corner of the room. In this corner, a mangy looking man with four arms and fangs so long that they couldn't fit in his mouth lay huddled in the fetal position, with him there was a confused pirate captain wearing overalls who was watching the chaos before her, and a life-size patchwork doll who was intensely staring at his mitten-like hands.

"...This is just a dream... ...This is just a bad dream... ...This isn't really happening, you just need to wake up..."

"Jesus fucking Christ, what was in that punch?"

"What's goin ahn? why am i wearin' dese mettens?"

"I wouldn't take those off if I were you."

The living rag-doll man glared at the ink demon, made a rude gesture to him underneath his 'mittens', and pulled one of them off to reveal a skeletal hand (that was still making that rude gesture) that appeared to be entirely made out of needles. The Irish toy maker's petty annoyance quickly turned into horror as he pulled off the other mitten to reveal that his other hand was in the same condition. 

"'OLY SHET! ME HANDS! WHAT DE FOEHCK 'APPENED TO ME HANDS?!"

The needles that made up his hands clicked and clacked rhythmically as he flexed them. His jaw dropped even further as he discovered that they were much more flexible than his regular hands, almost feeling sick to his possibly cotton-stuffed stomach when he saw them bend into backwards fists and then into normal ones.

"Well, you needed at least some bones or bone-substitutes in there didn't you?" The demon scoffed "I'm no toy maker myself, but I'm *pretty* sure needlework is important in the occupation."

Shawn shook his fist angrily at the demon.

"Knowin 'ow to use needles is impahrtant, boeht you can't just go and replace me foehckin 'ands wit dem!"

"(Well %#@!, he still remembers...) Look, I couldn't exactly get your input on what you did or didn't want in your design while you were snarling like a rabid animal and hitting everything in sight with a pipe wrench! And it's not like I could waltz up to another human being and ask to see their hands for reference now, could I?"

The rag-doll toy maker opened his mouth to argue but immediately shut it again. He backed off to angrily mutter to himself as Lacie spoke up.

"Okay, I guess I can kinda see why you made Shawn a living toy and gave me a pirate motif, but why the fuck did you make Grant of all people a spider?! That's downright cruel, even for devil's work."

The demon's nonexistent eyebrow arched in confusion.

"Why? What's wrong with his design?"

"Please tell me that this isn't real..."

"Huh?"

The Ink Demon was grabbed and shaken by two pairs of arms.

"The arms! the fangs! the creepy spider claws! the webbing! PLEASE TELL ME THAT THEY AREN'T REAL!"

Inkwell's eyes widened when Grant's outburst made him realize what the problem was.

"Oh $#*!, you're arachnophobic, aren't you?"

The former accountant bit his lip and nodded.

"... I would've liked to know *that* earlier, *@!# I don't have the time or resources to change the final draft now... "

"A-are you trying to tell me that I'm stuck like this?!"

"...err.... yes?"

The spider let out a scream so loud that it both broke every single glass on the floor they were on and halted the background chaos immediately, and so long that the rest of the group were starting to worry that he'd die from a lack of oxygen before he stopped.

Thankfully, he instead panted a bit, inhaled deeply, and Inkwell slapped his hands over the man's mouth before he screamed again.

"Hey! I get it, you hate this and I'm sorry I can't do $#*! about it." The demon started to smile deviously. "But do you three know what I CAN do? Help you get revenge."

"Revenge? Revenge against who?!"

"The son of a *!#$& who put you into this situation in the first place."

𝕸𝖊𝖆𝖓𝖜𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖊...

Joey was trying and failing to pry a bear trap off of his tail while Bendy continued the tour.

"And this lovely area is our scenic toy department! Every single toy here is lovingly hand-crafted by the finest expert we could find, and it shows!"

The imp grinned as he held up a doll of himself up to Joey, who flinched in pain as the bear trap re-closed on his tail when he took his attention off of it.

"Take a look at this little guy for instance, who wouldn't want a cute face like that smiling out of your kid's toy chest?"

"Bendy, what on earth was that noise?"

The gofer demon's brow furrowed in confusion (and mild appointment of being ignored).

"What noise? the convener belts? the gears?"

"Whatever that high-pitched squeal was!"

"No clue..." the demon shrugged "I'm a gofer not a sound expert. OH!, speaking of sound, the next place we gotta check out has got to be the music department. There's a rumor that our Music director Grant Cohen used to work as a famous radio host who wrote and played his own songs on his station! I bet if we dig through his office, we could find out if it's true! And next we can check out the movies' art department! Ms. Lambert's a real sweetheart!"

"Yeah, sure."

"Is something wrong Joey? you don't seem too excited."

"Gee, I wonder why." Joey deadpanned through gritted teeth as steam began to come out of his ears. "Maybe it's because every single second of this 'tour' has been nothing but ME getting hurt because YOU wouldn't pay attention to your surroundings for half a second! AND EVEN ON THE ONCE-IN-A-MILLION-YEARS CHANCE YOU SOMEHOW MANAGE TO NOTICE THAT SOMETHING'S WRONG, YOU STILL *!#$ IT UP! I'M STILL STUCK IN A *%#@ING BEAR TRAP BECAUSE YOUR 'SOLUTION' TO KEEPING THAT *!$%ING CAN AWAY FROM US WAS TO THROW THINGS AT HIM!"

Bendy quivered in shame as Joey continued to yell at him, the little demon had been yelled at before, but he wasn't used to somebody chewing him out for this long.

"NOT ONCE DURING THIS ENTIRE $#*!-SHOW OF A TOUR DID YOU ONCE TELL ME ANYTHING USEFUL! LIKE WHERE HENRY IS OR HOW TO FIND AN AX DOWN HERE! YOU'VE ONLY TOLD ME USELESS STORIES ABOUT A BUNCH OF SHMUCKS I COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT IF I TRIED, AND A LOAD OF BALONEY ABOUT THIS MADHOUSE!"

Joey's teeth grew sharper as he grew angrier, his tongue started to fork and his horns were very pronounced. He didn't notice these changes, nor did he notice the tears pricking in the corners of Bendy's eyes.

"IF I HAD KNOWN THAT THIS IS WHAT YOU'D BE LIKE IF I BROUGHT YOU TO LIFE, I NEVER WOULD HAVE TRIED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! I JUST WOULD'VE LET BERTIE FILL THE PARK WITH THOSE CREEPY MASCOTS AND UGLY ANIMATRONICS, AT THE VERY LEAST, THOSE THINGS ARE QUIET! AND THEY DON'T LEAD PEOPLE THROUGH MAZES OF SOUP JUST TO TAKE SOME OUT OF A *$@!ING JUNKYARD OF ALL PLACES!"

As much as the human-like demon wanted to continue yelling at the imp, all of his words died in his throat as he felt the chilly, clawed grip of a stronger demon on his shoulders.

"Oh there you are. I've been looking for you EVERYWHERE. Take five Kiddo, I'd like a word with him In private."

The imp nodded and fled, covering his face and muffling out his crying.

"Yeesh, and here I thought that *I* was the demon here. An employee takes time out of his day to show you around the place when he really didn't need to, a few accidents here and there happened (MOST OF THEM BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO MESS WITH SOMETHING, NOT HIM!) And then you chew his head off like that? Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk..."

Joey shook like a chihuahua left in a snowstorm as Inkwell shook his head and sighed.

"I really should fire you for this nonsense; slacking on the job, damage of company property, creating a hostile work environment just to name a few... HOWEVER! I understand that the first day in a new job is never the best, even after final designs are complete, the stories are written and the show's on air, the pilot is never the best episode of the show. I am a very forgiving boss and I'll let you have a second chance..."

Joey's tail curled protectively around him as he mentally embraced himself for the catch.

"But first; I need to fix this little issue of yours, I don't need to do much, just this teeny-tiny little tweak to your paper-jam of a design. (You don't need it and you'd never use it for anything good anyways...)"

"What is it?"

The demon's smile grew wider as he said that.

"You're supposed to be a SILENT protagonist, that means we have to do something about that pesky. little. voice of yours. But until the acetone shipment comes in, this will have to do."

The demon snapped his fingers and shutters slammed down around Joey, keeping him from escaping the Heavenly toys' workshop.

"Lacie, Grant, Shawn, he's aaaaaaaaaaaaaall yours now. Have fun~🎶"

As the demon disappeared, Joey tried to run and hide but he was yanked by the tail and face-to-face with three disgruntled figures; a pirate captain who was wearing overalls, a living rag doll, and a giant spider. Lacie held him down, Grant used webs to keep him from squirming too much and gave some to Shawn. And Shawn, Shawn took a strand of webbing, plucked out a needle from his left hand, and threaded it through...

The former animator did NOT like the look of the patchwork doll's face, not one bit. He squirmed as hard as he could against Lacie and Grant's webs but he couldn't escape.

"Now, i'm no prahfessional dahctor ahr dentest, boeht i know 'ow to fex a smile ahr two, so 'ahld stell. An try naht to scream too moehch..."

The web-threaded needle dug into Joey's back molar as Shawn held the squirming man's mouth open with his other hand. Joey's muffled pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears as Shawn's needle peirced through the first tooth, a mixture of pain and disgust flowed through the former animator as he felt the web being pulled through his mouth. A bowling ball of dread flopped down in his stomach as Shawn got to work on the tooth below it, and he realized that the Irish toy-maker was stitching his mouth shut.

In and out, in and out, in and out...

Maybe if Joey wasn't the one Shawn was working on, he'd be impressed by how the toy maker's needlework was not deterred by its living canvas. But as he was the one who was in the 'dentist chair', all he could think about was how much pain his mouth was in as the patchwork doll drilled tiny holes into every single tooth and threaded that sticky spider web through his teeth. He screamed out for help, he pleaded with the three for mercy, he begged them not to finish their gruesome task, but doing so only made the pain worse.

In and out, in and out, in and out...

Somewhere down the line the trio must've been sick of Joey's squirming as he felt something bite him and then his body started to go stiff on him, not a single muscle obeyed his commands after that. He couldn't even move his tongue away from the many mini fountains of blood coming out of his aching teeth.

In and out, in and out, in and out...

The toy maker wasn't even halfway done before Joey blacked out from the pain.