Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As was usual for her, Audrey Drew was sitting at her desk, drawing the animation frames for what would eventually become the latest Bendy cartoon. A little sketch here… some lining there… and voila! Finished. As she viewed her work, flipping through the frames to see the seamless transitions for the individual pictures to come together as one animated scene, Audrey sat back in chair and let out a satisfied sigh, stretching her arms above her head to restore feeling in them.

Standing from her chair and setting her utensils aside, Audrey felt a ton of weight lifted off of her shoulders. That had been the last of the frames she’d been instructed to draw for… was it just for this week? Audrey would need to double-check. But in the meantime, she glanced over her shoulder to see none other than a living version of the little devil darlin’ himself, Bendy, sporting a red bowtie rather than the white one he was usually depicted with, idly rolling a toy train across the ground as he waited for her to be finished with her work.

To give credit where credit was due, the two had done a pretty good job at concealing Bendy from sight at Archgate Films. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, as apparently some random employee, one of the many delivery boys of Archgate Films, had supposedly caught sight of Bendy one day, but everyone seemed to universally agree that he was a bit of a nutjob so little of what he said was taken seriously or believed in the slightest. It felt a little mean to Audrey, but she valued keeping Bendy a secret from the rest of the studio over the reputation of someone she didn’t even know that well.

Audrey stood up from her chair, briefly stretching to return feeling to her legs from how long she had been sitting for, at least a few hours, prompting Bendy to glance up from his train and peer towards her with the usual grin on his face, which made Audrey couldn’t help but smile back towards him, letting out a quiet chuckle as she watched towards the door of her office, opening it and briefly peering outside of it to see if anyone was around. It was unlikely that any other employees were still at the studio at this ungodly hour, other than the new janitor Mr. Archgate had hired after Wilson went missing without a trace, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

She glanced over her shoulder, back towards the grinning demon, who had stood up and picked up his toy train. “Alright, bud, let’s get you downstairs, m’kay?” Audrey asked warmly to which Bendy responded with a nod before following the woman out of her office. Whenever she stayed after hours (which was becoming a lot more common for her), she’d bring Bendy up from the basement mostly because she enjoyed his presence, but he would need to be returned to the basement in order to avoid the prying eyes during the day.

Making their way through the empty animation studio, Audrey and Bendy eventually navigated their way to the building’s elevators, before the young woman pressed the buttons to open the elevator doors and then the two stepped in. Audrey felt her breath hitch as she watched the door slowly close shut, half-expecting Wilson to appear and open it before it could fully close all of the way. She had to remind herself that Wilson was gone. When the Cycle had been reset for the last time, it was reset to a point prior to when Wilson had entered it. But since resetting the Cycle had no effect on the real world, Wilson was just… gone without a trace.

After several moments of waiting for the elevator to descend to the lowest level of the studio, the elevator dinged before the doors slowly slid open. The two stepped out into the basement and made their way through. Technically speaking, Audrey could’ve left as soon as Bendy stepped out of the elevator, but she liked making sure he would be completely fine. 

They walked through the basement until they made their way to the Ink Machine, still in the same place where it had been left. With a bit of Audrey’s assistance, Bendy had set up a bit of a makeshift bed behind the machine itself, although it wasn’t a setup that could last forever. Audrey had heard something about the Gent Corporation coming in a handful of days to take a few things from Archgate that belonged to them, the Ink Machine no doubt being one of them.

As she watched Bendy stop before continuing to play with the toy train, her gaze slowly moved from the inky imp to the Ink Machine, as did her mind. And slowly, an idea began to form within her mind as she did so. Audrey had managed to escape the Cycle and even managed to bring someone from the Cycle with her. Would the same be possible for the others trapped in the Cycle? She knew she couldn’t save all of them, mostly due to the large amounts of Lost Ones and Searchers that rest within the Cycle, but for those who still had at least a shred of their identity… They could be saved before the Gent Corporation got their hands on the Ink Machine and did who knows what with the residents of the Cycle.

All of the items were still on the pedestals from when Wilson had brought Audrey down here and dragged her into the Cycle - the inkwell, ‘The Lighter Side of Hell’ record, the Bendy doll, the Illusion of Living book, the gear, and the wrench - all sorted and organized on their respective pillars. All that would be needed to activate the machine would just to flip the lever. Bendy seemed to notice and follow Audrey’s gaze towards the lever, before turning back towards the young woman, who soon returned his gaze.

“I’ve got an idea, Bendy. There’s people we can save. It’s worth it,” Audrey said as she folded her arms over her chest, alternating her gaze from Bendy to the lever that activated the machine. Bendy gave a brief frown for a few seconds before it morphed back into his signature smile. “Ready?” Audrey asked with a determined smile as she briefly glanced towards the living cartoon, who nodded in response. Without further ado, Audrey reached a hand out and flicked the lever downwards.

Bendy stepped towards Audrey and instinctively took her hand, to which she responded by squeezing his gloved hand a bit, as the Ink Machine groaned to life and rumbled as a result, causing a slight tremble in the ground. Eventually, ink began to pour out from its central nozzle, soon flooding the room until the ink reached her ankle. With a deep breath to prepare herself, she soon allowed herself to fall backwards until the ink fully consumed her.

—

After what felt like forever, Audrey’s eyes slowly fluttered open as her vision started off hazy and blurry before slowly clearing up, enough to recognize the space around her. She was certainly within the studio that existed inside of the Cycle, seemingly in the Foyer of the building. She noticed that she was sitting down in a chair, which was strange as she was certain she had been lying on her back when entering the Cycle. Once she’d woken up enough, she let out a small sigh, attracting the attention of someone standing behind her.

“Oh, you’re awake.” A voice from behind her asked, one that she recognized without fail. Slowly rising up from her seat and turning around, briefly using the chair to maintain balance, her legs feeling weak from God knows how long they’d been unused. Standing a few feet from her with a warm but tired smile was Henry Stein, leaning against a nearby wall while doodling on a notepad that he held in his hands. He put away the notepad and pencil as he stepped towards her.

“Henry? It’s, uh, good to see you again.” Audrey offered a bit awkwardly, not entirely sure how to greet someone she hadn’t seen since a life-or-death scenario, although the man standing opposite didn’t seem to be bothered by it, stopping once he was close enough to her and idly resting a hand on his hip. “Same to you, Audrey,” Henry responded with a slight nod before briefly glancing around, as if worried that something could interrupt them at any moment, and then tilting his gaze back towards Audrey. “I… wanted to talk to you.”

But before he could actually continue, Audrey noticed that the familiar and comforting feeling that was usually provided by Bendy was gone, glancing around towards the floor before asking, “Where is–?” But Henry answered before she finished her sentence.

“Bendy? Don’t know. Wasn’t with you when I found you. Chances are that the Ink Demon has taken control once more. Maybe that means things can progress as normal.” Henry replied calmly as he folded his arms over his chest, before glancing off to the side as he concluded his sentence. Audrey tilted her head as she narrowed her eyes in confusion.

“Progress as normal? What do you mean?”

“The Cycle. By taking Bendy out of the Cycle, you also removed the Ink Demon from it. And without the Ink Demon, the Cycle’s come to a screeching halt with no way to progress. I’ve been stuck up here ever since.” Henry added as he vaguely gestured around the room. Audrey nodded in response before taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, before asking what had been on her mind ever since this conversation had first started.

“Hey, uh, so, I came up with this plan… to, um, save some of the people within the Cycle…?” Audrey trailed off as she briefly glanced down at her form, which had reverted to its inky form once more now that she was back in the Cycle, before her eyes trailed to her right hand, which featured the same golden swirl that it had the last time, glowing with a mystical energy unlike any other within the Cycle. Henry simply stared at her for several seconds before giving a half-hearted sigh.

“I suppose something like that is worth a shot. Maybe you’ll change things up in the Cycle more than I think you will. Even if it doesn’t work, the Cycle will just repeat. Here, take this.” The older man murmured as he reached for something that had been propped up against the chair that Audrey had been sitting on, being the fully-upgraded version of the Gent Pipe she had acquired during her first trip through the Cycle, specifically the Stun Pipe. Audrey graciously took it and felt its familiar weight enter her hand, hefting it before glancing back towards Henry.

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry; I’ll get a weapon soon. Come on now.”

With little elaboration, Henry suddenly began walking to a hallway at the end of the Foyer, leaving Audrey little choice but to follow him through the winding hallways of Joey Drew Studios, with only the sounds of their footsteps and the sounds of ink pumping through the pipes, coming from underneath the floorboards and above the ceiling at the same time. Audrey tried multiple times to initiate a conversation, but Henry only really gave her one word responses that gave little to go off of.

Not that it mattered much once the two had made it to the destination that Henry apparently had in mind. With one final hallway, they headed down in the direction of the Ink Machine Loading Dock, but they weren’t getting any further, as the entrance was strangely boarded up. Although Henry seemed to be relieved by this altercation, Audrey nearly jumped out of her skin as the area was coated in a thin layer of ink, with the Ink Demon suddenly peaking his head through an opening in the boards.

“Your plan is an endeavor that’s doomed to fail. The Cycle will continue. And the Dark Puddles will consume you.” The Ink Demon said in a voice that still sent a chill down Audrey’s spine, the entity’s demonic voice ringing in her eyes, deep and hollow. But just as quickly as it had appeared, the demon disappeared as well. Before Audrey could even process whatever just happened, Henry suddenly grabbed her by the hand and took off running in the opposite direction, through the entire set of halls and corners they had just ventured through, even past the foyer, back towards the door that seemingly led out of the studio.

But before they could even reach the door, the floor suddenly crumbled and fell out from under them, dropping them down deeper, left hurtling into the depths of Joey Drew Studios.

At least this time, there was some semblance of a plan.

Chapter Text

When Audrey re-awoke, there was a ringing in her ears and her head hurt. She wasn’t sure of how far she and Henry had fallen, but it was honestly astonishing they weren’t dead or at the very least injured in some way. Speaking of which, where was Henry? She used nearby debris from the collapsed floor to push herself up, before Henry’s hand suddenly entered her line of vision, assisting her and pulling her back onto her feet. The first thing she noticed was he was now carrying an axe in his other hand. She supposed that’s what he meant by not being defenseless for very long.

Once she stood back up and the pain in her head had subsided, Audrey shook her head before picking her Pipe back up off of the ground from where it had slipped from her hand during the fall. Without a word, Henry gestured for her to follow him before leading her past the room they had landed in after the fall. They eventually passed through a hallway with the floor coated in ink and wooden planks blocking the way, which Henry quickly cut down with his axe.

They made their way through a ritual room which Henry briefly paused in, glancing around as if expecting something to happen, before the two continued on. They cut down the wood blocking the door and moved on through to a t-shaped corridor with “HE WILL SET US FREE” written in ink on the wall. Henry took a brief detour to a shelf table with a miniature Bendy cutout and an audio log, before Audrey played it out of curiosity. It was a voice that Audrey recognized, but didn’t have an exact name to match the voice to. It was a strange message that spoke of the Ink Demon as some sort of deity to be worshipped, before ending “Can I get an amen?”

“I said, can I get an amen?” The same voice suddenly said, but it definitely wasn’t from the audio log. Audrey glanced around to try and locate the source of the voice, but she didn’t have an earthly clue. “Don’t bother. I’ve spent too long looking for him after he says that.” Henry replied with a deadpan expression before gesturing for Audrey to follow him again. He led her away into yet another ink-flooded hall, although this time the ink was up to Audrey’s ankles, drastically slowing both of them down regardless of how they tried to wade their way through. But as they reached about halfway, someone began to pass by in the room in front of them. But before Audrey could say anything, Henry spoke first.

“Sammy!” He called out in an almost desperate manner, causing the figure to stop in their tracks, being an inky-black man wearing a pair of overalls, boots, and a scrappy Bendy mask. Audrey recognized him as the same strange ink man who had played banjo in his cell in the Pit and had gotten shot by Allison while Audrey was controlling the Ink Demon. The man briefly stopped in his tracks, glancing off to the side, staring at Henry and Audrey for a few seconds silently before continuing on. 

“Huh… That’s new…” Henry murmured to himself as he and Audrey both finally waded out of the ink. She stepped into the hall the man had just passed by, only to see that no-one was there. “Where the hell did he go?” Audrey asked quietly, prompting a quiet laugh from Henry. “He does that every time. Although… he doesn’t usually stop to look at me. Usually he just ignores me.” He murmured and then immediately continued on before Audrey could ask any questions, although at this rate, she should be used to it.

After a bit more walking, the two reached a closed gate. Henry told Audrey to wait for him as he did a bit of quick backtracking before returning as the gate slowly opened after he flipped the switch next to it, saying that he flipped some other switches they had missed. After Henry chopped through a few more planks of wood, they made it to a large room with a sign, signifying it as the Music Department. Henry kept walking, leaving Audrey little choice but to follow him.

In times like this, Audrey missed the adorable companion that Bendy made, but Henry was a fine enough substitute for one, exuding this sort of comforting warmth that made Audrey feel significantly better about their chances. But there was something else about him that Audrey noticed, being a sense of pain in every action that Henry took. Not pain in a physical sense, but perhaps in a mental or emotional sense, although she couldn’t pinpoint how or why.

Henry led her to a stairwell that was nearly completely flooded with ink, the former of which sighed as he stared at it, resting his free hand on his hip. “Is there even a point to doing this? This stairway isn't an exit.” He murmured underneath his breath, but before Audrey could offer any comforting words or even a reassuring shoulder pat, Henry reached his hand out and flipped a switch labelled as a “Power” switch. The sounds of the power returning to the Music Department could be heard through the walls of the studio, before Henry and Audrey headed back towards the entrance of said department.

But this time, several Searchers popped out of the ground and began to crawl towards them, letting out angry gurgling sounds as they did so, about four of them in total. The two wasted no time in beginning to defend themselves, Henry using his axe and Audrey using her stun pipe. Henry sliced down two of the Searchers with complete ease, as if fighting them was second nature to him. Audrey bashed one Searcher’s head in with relative ease, before grabbing the other one around its neck with her right hand, the one with the golden swirl on it.

Normally, this would’ve simply banished the inky creature. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the glow that emanated from her hand grew brighter until it engulfed the entire room, blinding both Audrey and Henry in the process. During her state of temporary blindness, Audrey ended up accidentally dropping the Searcher to the ground. But once they could see again, the Searcher wasn’t attacking. It glanced around the room before alternating its gaze between Henry and Audrey, only to descend back into the floorboards.

“…What… just happened? That, uh, should’ve banished it. Why didn’t it attack?”

“…Call it a crazy conclusion, but… you either managed to make the Searcher docile… or you managed to restore its humanity.”

“R-Really? I mean… that would be pretty great if that was the case… We… we could save everyone.” Audrey murmured quietly as she glanced down at the back of her hand, taking in the sight of the golden swirl left upon it, only to be distracted as a gate to their right opened and a sign reading “Recording” lit up. The two entered through it to an office with the entrance flooded by ink. Suddenly, Henry turned towards a nearby trash bin and reached a hand inside, taking out a pair of keys. “Sometimes I wish I could’ve met this Wally Franks person. He seemed like an interesting guy to be around.” He mumbled to himself under his breath as he fiddled with the keys and unlocked the closet, before briefly unlocking the closet next to the office and playing another audio log that was inside.

It was the same voice from the first audio log they had played. He spoke about some sanctuary and a code in order to open it. After Henry listened to it, he led her to the music room, before instructing her to head up towards the projector room that oversaw it. From the projector, Audrey watched as Henry walked around the music room and played a single note on the instruments in a specific sequence, before a hidden door on the right side of the music room suddenly slid open.

Henry waited for Audrey to come down from the projector room before the two headed in. A message in ink was scrawled out on the wall on the right hand wall, above the desk and the toilet that were also in the room, which ever so briefly unnerved Audrey.

“SING A HAPPY SONG. WHISTLE A MERRY TUNE. WAIT FOR HIS ARRIVAL. HE’S COMING VERY SOON.”

Henry didn’t bat an eye at anything in the office, instead just walking over to a pipe marked “Flow” and spun the vial attached to it before immediately turning and walking away. Audrey got the impression that this was all simply muscle memory to him. The two made their way back through the halls until reaching the infirmary. Henry seemed to be expecting a fight, hefting his axe as if prepared for one, but there the hall was empty, before the man eventually glanced up to a balcony above the room where the inky masked man was standing, staring at them silently once more.

“Sammy!” Henry called out once more in mild desperation, but the composer didn’t listen, simply standing up from leaning against the balcony railing, turning around, and walking away. Henry glanced at Audrey over his shoulder. “We gotta catch up to him.” He said, to which Audrey responded with a nod, before the two began to run through the rest of the infirmary.

For some odd reason that really confused Audrey, this medical hall led down to the sewers below Joey Drew Studios. Although what was stranger was that there was a desk set up in a small alcove in the middle of the sewers, decorated with blank papers, music sheets, and even another audio log. 

“That desk used to belong to Jack Fain. We’re going to meet… what’s left of him soon.” Henry murmured quietly as he noticed her glancing curiously towards the desk. She wondered exactly what he meant, but decided that his words would explain themselves soon. And explain themself did they. After making another turn, the two entered a room with two large pipes with a Searcher that seemed to be larger and more swollen than ones that Audrey had seen in the past. But what made this one stand out in particular was a bowler hat that sat atop its head.

“Meet Swollen Jack, the corrupted form of Jack Fain… You might be able to save him like you did with that last Searcher. We just… have to catch him first.” Henry murmured quietly to Audrey as the Searcher alternated its gaze between the two of them, clutching the valve in its hand tighter. Henry ran towards it, but the ink creature quickly zipped into the dark puddles before he could reach it, popping up elsewhere in the room. Audrey attempted to reach a hand out towards it to touch it, but it repeated the process, each time they nearly caught Swollen Jack, it would just descend back into the ink.

The two chased Jack around for about ten whole minutes, only being able to finally catch it when Henry threw his axe at the Searcher. It didn’t stab into the creature, thankfully, only smacking it in the face and causing it to become briefly dazed. This gave Audrey the perfect opportunity to run in and touch Jack with her glowing hand. Just like what happened with the last Searcher, a golden flash filled the room and briefly blinded both Audrey and Henry. By the time it cleared, Swollen Jack still seemed a bit dazed.

Henry walked on over towards Audrey and the dazed Searcher, picking back up his axe along the way, before speaking. “Exactly like last time. He’s still here.” He mumbled before the Searcher seemed to compose itself and shake its head, before looming up towards both Henry and Audrey, glancing between the two of them again but in a much more… confused manner. Henry cleared his throat before speaking again.

“Jack? Jack Fain? Is that you?” Henry asked curiously, resting the axe in his hand on his shoulder. A few seconds passed and the Searcher nodded in response, along with an indecipherable gurgling sound that sounded like the Searcher was attempting to speak, only to realize that no words were coming out.

“Do you remember your past life? How you turned into an ink creature? All of that?” Henry asked again.

Another nod from Jack. This time, Audrey decided to speak up.

“Uh, hi there, Mr. Fain. I’m Audrey and this is Henry. You’ve all been stuck in the Cycle for years. We’re interested in saving everyone and potentially ending it permanently. Feel like helping us?” Audrey asked only for the Searcher to give an enthusiastic nod and hand Henry the valve in his hand after he gestured towards it.

“Alright. That’s one soul saved. Let’s get out of here and find Sammy.” Henry said as he glanced between Audrey and Jack. At the mention of the masked man’s name, Jack let out another guttural sound that resembled a gasp of surprise before beginning to crawl out of the room at an oddly fast pace for a Searcher, so much so that Audrey and Henry had to jog in order to keep up with him.

“What’s up with Jack?” Audrey asked curiously while glancing towards Henry.

“Sammy and Jack were friends and partners back when they were alive. I think you’re legitimately restoring their humanity, memories including. We’re restoring their human minds.” Henry said in a manner that made it sound like he genuinely couldn’t believe that it was a possibility either. Audrey had to think about that for a moment, deciding that she liked it more than what the banish ability used to do. Back when they just disappeared from her touch, it didn’t feel much different than killing them with a weapon. This was a much more preferable outcome.

Henry had to start leading once more (as Jack didn’t know exactly where to go) and led Audrey and their new companion back through the sewers and back up to the infirmary, placing the missing valve on a pipe and turning it, causing the walls to groan from the draining ink. But as they headed back out into the Music Department, something suddenly struck Audrey in the back of the head.

She let out a pained yelp before collapsing to the ground, hearing the fleeting sounds of a scuffle taking place as her consciousness rapidly faded away until everything was black and silent.

Eventually, Audrey’s eyes fluttered open as she slowly woke back up, finding herself in a completely new room, sitting against a pillar. She pulled herself to her feet with a quiet groan, rubbing her eyes and attempting to comprehend her surroundings. When she could, she saw both Henry and Jack standing nearby, glancing down at a tied up and annoyed looking Sammy Lawrence.

Henry turned towards Audrey as she got up, a small smile formed on his face, his arms folded over his chest. “Ah, Audrey, just in time. Sammy here knocked you out with a dustpan, but Jack and I were able to get the upper hand and knock him out. You have no idea how satisfying it was to knock him out for once.” Henry quickly explained with a brief chuckle.

“Unhand me immediately! And– why is this Searcher staring at me like that?” Sammy said annoyedly, interrupting himself with a sudden question, glancing towards Jack, who was staring towards the masked man with an almost concerned and sad expression on his face (although, Audrey had to admit, it was quite hard to tell). Henry glanced back towards Sammy, his smile fading away to a stoic expression.

“Well, Sammy, this is Jack Fain. You might just recognize that name.” Henry said while gesturing towards the Searcher with a calm and composed tone. Sammy seemed like he was going to continue in his annoyed tone before pausing and tilting his head back towards the Searcher, stopping himself from speaking before asking a question.

“You’re… right… I do recognize that name… Where…” Sammy muttered to himself as he stared at Jack, as if trying to figure out why he recognized that name. Henry glanced back towards Audrey, patting her on the shoulder and gesturing towards Sammy. Audrey nodded before stepping towards the masked man, reaching her hand out towards him, who quickly turned and noticed her approach.

“Do not lay a finger on me, you ingrate!” Sammy yelled out, thrashing around in an attempt to free himself and prevent Audrey from touching him, but it was a fruitless endeavor. After a bit of trial and error, Audrey managed to grasp his mask. He immediately stopped moving as the golden light returned once more to flash all around the room. Once it subsided, Audrey retracted her hand and stepped back. Sammy was silent for several seconds, hanging his head low, before muttering out in a weak and broken voice. 

“Dear… god… What… what have I done…?” Sammy asked quietly in a horrified tone, staring at the ground as Henry picked up the axe from nearby and carefully chopped through the rope he had used to restrain Sammy, pulling them aside before assisting Sammy up to his feet. 

“You’re alright, Sammy. It’s not your fault.” Henry said reassuringly as Sammy reached a hand to his mask and adjusted it, before glancing towards Jack, who tackled him with a hug. After a few seconds, Sammy hugged back. Once they split from their brief hug of reunion, Sammy spoke.

“Jack… It’s been many years, my friend. How… exactly did you end up like this?” Sammy asked curiously, resting a hand on his hip as Jack responded with a series of gurgling sounds, before Sammy let out an annoyed sigh. “Of course it was Joey. Who else would it have been?” He mumbled to himself under his breath. Henry and Audrey exchanged a glance.

“You… You can speak to Jack?” Audrey asked quietly, to which Sammy responded with a nod, folding his arms over his chest as he did so.

“Mm. I don’t know how, but I’ve always seemed to be able to communicate with Searchers and other similar creatures… Who are you?” Sammy asked before tilting his head curiously as he gazed towards Audrey. She chuckled nervously, scratching the back of her head before replying. “Um, I’m Audrey, Mr. Lawrence, nice to meet you… I’m kind of a newcomer here.”

“Just Sammy, please. I’m tired of formalities at this rate. Say… you managed to restore my memories… That’s a… useful ability to have… I suppose your plan is to save everyone?” Sammy asked in response, to which Audrey and Henry both added. Sammy let out a sigh and continued. “I’m coming with you. It’s the only way to atone. Especially to you, Henry.” Sammy added guiltily.

“I don’t harbor a grudge, Sammy. But the help is appreciated. Here,” Henry replied casually as he tossed the axe to Sammy, who caught it out of the air. “Let’s go.” Henry added before the group of four began to head out. They entered the hall in front of them, Sammy chopping through some wood planks blocking them with his newly equipped axe, before they continued on.

“It’s strange… Usually, I’d be in the process of reviving myself from being killed by the Ink Demon. But now… I’m here. It’s strange to think about.” Sammy mumbled to himself as they walked, with no one really replying other than Jack letting out another groaning sound.

“And yes, you’d usually be crushed by a box right now, Jack.” But before the conversation could continue, they entered a corridor with the floor covered in ink. It began to bubble before the Ink Demon suddenly appeared, ripping itself out from the ground.

“You cannot end the Cycle. I will make sure of it.” The Ink Demon said to them in its threatening voice before beginning to chase after them, the walls around the monster coating themselves with ink. Immediately, the group turned and ran, with Sammy picking up Jack so that he wouldn’t be killed due to his slower max speed compared to the rest of the group.

They ran through the halls, making twists and turns as the Ink Demon’s pounding footsteps could be heard right behind them, getting closer and closer with every moment that went by. Audrey didn’t look back nor did she want to. But just when she was sure they were going to be caught, the four made it through a door, before Henry immediately spun around and slammed the door shut, before locking it with a wooden board. The Ink Demon pounded against it multiple times before it growled and seemingly left.

“It’s more… ruthless than usual.” Henry muttered to himself as he took a step back from the door, taking a moment to briefly catch his breath. Audrey glanced between the group to see that everyone was here and in one piece, before asking the question that had just gotten on her mind.

“Can’t the Ink Demon phase through walls? Teleport even? Why did locking a door stop it?” Audrey asked in a concerned manner, half-expecting for the Ink Demon to suddenly appear once more as she asked the question. Sammy let out a sigh as he set Jack back down on the ground.

“Because it's toying with us. It’s sadistic and enjoys murder. I can’t believe I ever worshiped that thing .” Sammy replied with disgust evident in his voice, glancing towards the door briefly. With another few moments to catch their breaths, the group kept on going, making their way through another door, before Henry stopped them.

Suddenly, a Bacon Soup can rolled past from around the corner. Audrey was put off by it, but Henry didn’t seem bothered by it. In fact, he seemed rather relieved. Suddenly, footsteps could be heard getting closer and closer until a familiar face walked from around the corner.

“...Boris?” Audrey asked.

Chapter Text

Once she had fully woken up, Audrey let out a yawn and slowly willed herself out of the hammock, stretching her arms above her head before glancing briefly at the nearby Boris poster and picked up her Gent pipe from nearby. Across the room, Jack was sleeping underneath another hammock, which earned an amused chuckle from Audrey as she walked past him and out of the room.

She shut the door slowly and silently behind herself before continuing on through the hall of this Safehouse, a location within the Cycle where they were all residing in for the time being, with the original resident being Buddy Boris (the name that Henry was designated this particular Boris clone), whom she had already restored the memories of. Although he didn’t do much after gaining his memories, other than giving Henry a hug. By writing on a piece of paper, Buddy was able to communicate that his name in life was Daniel Lewek, a name that Sammy recognized and prompted him to apologize.

But for now, the group of (what was now) five individuals were lying low. Audrey walked into the central room of the Safehouse where they had been residing for the past couple of days. Buddy was sitting at the table, idly drumming a finger against the table, Sammy was sitting across from him while strumming a banjo in his hands, and Henry was standing off to the side at the small kitchenette, boiling some soup up for the group.

“Good morning,” Audrey greeted as she stepped forward towards the table and set her Gent Pipe down, earning a wave from Buddy and a nod of acknowledgement from Sammy as he was more focused on strumming the banjo. “Are we heading out today?” She asked as she turned her head towards Henry, who nodded in response while stirring the pot of soup with a ladle.

“Mm. We’re gonna have a group discussion first. And some food,” Henry murmured before eventually leaning to glance past Audrey and towards the musician behind her. “Sammy, could you wake up Jack?” He asked to which the masked man responded with a grunt as he set his banjo aside and stood up from his chair before walking off and disappearing down the hall.

Audrey glanced towards the door that led out of the Safehouse, the lever to open it right next to it. Meanwhile, Henry grabbed five bowls from the cabinets above the stove and filled them with the steaming bacon soup that he had boiled within the pot, all while Audrey grabbed three more chairs and pulled them up to the table.

“JACK! WAKE UP!” The sounds of Sammy shouting came from the bedroom, quickly followed by the panicked sounds of gurgling, indicating an awoken swollen searcher. Soon enough, the two walked back into the central room, as Henry set down the bowls of bacon soup, one for each member of the group, before they all sat down and began to dig in. Audrey briefly wondered how exactly Sammy was eating, considering he didn’t seem to have a mouth underneath his mask, but she decided that it didn’t matter, there were more pressing matters at hand.

“Okay, let’s discuss. What’s our path?” Sammy asked curiously as he glanced up from his bowl of bacon soup and glanced towards Henry, who swallowed a spoonful of the steaming stew before responding to the composer’s question.

“We’re going to stick to the usual path that the Cycle takes me down, albeit with more company this time. I’m hoping to save a few more people.” Henry murmured in response before taking another bite of bacon soup. “Like who?” Audrey asked as she set her spoon down in her bowl, glancing between both Henry and Sammy.

“For now, there’s two that we’re the closest to meeting soon. Alice and the Projectionist.” Henry replied as he finished his bite. Audrey knew who Alice Angel was. In fact, she was probably the third most traumatic thing she faced during her first excursion through the Cycle, only beaten out by the Ink Demon and Wilson. But the second name, she didn’t recognize. Jack didn’t seem to recognize the name either.

“The… Projectionist?”

“The Projectionist,” Sammy echoed. “A feral and violent creature that lurks in the lowest levels of the studio. I’m pretty sure he used to be an actual projectionist named, ah, Norman Polk. Someone I, er, sacrificed…” He added quietly as he set his spoon down and folded his arms over his chest. Jack reached an inky hand up and patted his friend’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Jack.” Sammy said as he briefly glanced towards his friend. Suddenly, Audrey heard the sound of scribbling and turned her head over to Henry as he had taken out a piece of paper and had drawn something on it. He slid it across the table until it was in front of Audrey, showing an oddly detailed drawing for something he whipped up in just a few seconds.

“That’s the Projectionist.” Henry mumbled as Audrey stared down at it, taking in the image of an inky humanoid that seemed to have technology sticking out from it, reminding her a bit of the Keepers, which was not something she needed to be reminded of. But the most prominent feature of this figure was the projector that he had for a head, fitting of his namesake.

Audrey recalled during her last trek through the Cycle, a glass cage she found in the Pit, the Keeper’s private prison for Cyclebreakers, that was much smaller than the rest, only ever housing a projector that seemed to be on without any sort of power source and made a roaring-like sound whenever Audrey got close to it. 

“So… for clarification’s sake… is this the thing that was sitting in the small glass case in the Pit?” Audrey asked as she idly tapped the image of the Projectionist, prompting a nod from both Sammy and Henry.

“That’s him. A life poorly wasted. Norman used to be a very bright man.” Sammy murmured to himself quietly, prompting the entire table to go silent. Audrey glanced around for a few seconds before speaking to break said silence. “Well… we can save him, right? We saved Sammy, I’m sure we can save him.”

“It’s not going to be easy, that’s for damn sure. Besides the Ink Demon and maybe Alice, the Projectionist is probably the most dangerous entity down here.” Sammy murmured in response as he folded his arms over his chest and casually leaned back in his seat. 

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it's not worth trying,” Henry murmured as he finished his bowl of soup, standing up and setting it on the counter. “Speaking of, we should head out soon. We’re not going to get much done just by sitting here and talking.” He added on as he moved to the door of the safe house and flipped the lever to open it, as Audrey and Sammy retrieved their weapons, joining Henry while followed by Boris and Jack.

The five of them all stepped out into the hall and proceeded down left until reaching another door, which Henry opened to an incredibly dark hallway. “Wow. It’s really dark.” Audrey commented before noticing Boris walking over to a nearby table and picking up a flashlight, shining it into the hallway and gesturing for the other four to follow him through, even though he seemed to be a bit shaken by the thought.

“Don’t be scared, Buddy.” Henry reassured in a calm tone.

“Everything will be fine.” Audrey added on in a soft tone.

“The darkness is only threatening if you allow it to consume you.” Sammy muttered in his own attempt at quelling Boris’ fears. Jack also threw in a supportive gurgle for good measure. Combined with the other comments, Boris gave a slight nod and seemingly composed himself, not trembling nearly as much and managing to forge ahead without as much wavering.

They continued through the dark hall with Boris serving as their light source, until reaching the end of the darkness, a closed metal gate blocking them from going any further. At least until Henry nodded towards Boris as the latter crouched down and opened a vent in the wall, climbing into it. Jack slithered up and peered into the vent, before briefly glancing back towards the other three, and then moved into the vent after Boris.

After a bit of waiting, the floor lightly trembled as the metal gate opened to reveal the Heavenly Toys area, the location that Audrey remembered vividly during her first trip through the travel, the place where she had met Allison Angel.

“ One thing at a time, Audrey. One thing at a time. ” She reminded herself as she followed Henry and Sammy into the room and past the sign, into the workshop behind it. At first, Audrey couldn’t see a way forward through the room with shelves filled with various Bendy, Boris, and Alice dolls, until Henry pulled a few that were blocking conveyor belts and then flipped a lever, which opened the way forward.

The next room seemed to be outside of a recording booth sealed off by glass, the lights dimmed and a large ‘SHE’S QUITE A GAL’ message displayed above the booth itself. All of a sudden, music began to play, Audrey recognizing it as Alice Angel’s song, giving her an idea as to who was about to make their appearance. The song played for about thirty seconds before the lights quickly flickered and the twisted version of Alice Angel made her appearance from inside of the booth.

“I’M ALICE ANGEL!” She shouted in unison with the song, albeit in a much more angry and loud manner, before suddenly smashing the glass right before the lights went out completely and the music cut. Cruel chuckling echoed throughout the room before the twisted angel’s haunting voice spoke.

“I see you there…” She murmured in a deceptively smooth tone. “New flies in my endless web… Come along now. Let’s see if you’re worthy to walk with angels.” She added before laughing in a manner that sent a chill down Audrey’s spine. She raised her Gent Pipe just in case she needed to defend herself, even if she was at a huge disadvantage in the dark, but to her surprise, the lights soon turned back on, the only difference in the room being the smashed open glass and a missing Twisted Alice.

But as shaken as Audrey was, she noticed that Sammy seemed worse. In fact, he seemed terrified out of his mind. During the slight commotion, he had stumbled backwards and fallen over in the process, moving away from the booth until his back hit the wall, panting fearfully in quick succession. “Su… Susie…” He mumbled to himself as he gripped the sides of his head, shaking slightly, axe slipped from hand and dropped to the ground.

Henry and Audrey briefly glanced towards each other before looking back towards Sammy, who had gripped his hand onto his mask and threw it across the room, bouncing off of the wall next to the smashed-open recording booth, before he went back to holding his head in his hands.

“I… I’m… I… I let… I let this happen…” Sammy mumbled to himself quietly with a horrified voice, before going completely silent, sitting there with his face buried into his hands. Audrey carefully approached and kneeled down next to him, offering a hand of reassurance onto his shoulder, although she forgot that her left hand was the one with the spiral. It was the kind of detail that you would forget in the heat of the moment.

All of a sudden, the spiral began to glow a bright golden color. She tried to pull her hand away, but it seemed to be stuck in place. Audrey was briefly worried that she was about to accidentally banish Sammy, but something else happened. The entire area around them suddenly faded away into darkness, besides Sammy and Audrey. Even Henry disappeared in the process. The darkness was soon replaced by a golden glow as they were transported into what appeared to be the Music Department again. But instead of being colors of sepia and black, it was in full color, almost as if this was the real world.

They were right next to Sammy’s open office, where a blonde-haired man sat at the desk with a mild scowl on his expression, writing away at a piece of paper, the radio in the middle of the room playing a tune that gave the scene a warm atmosphere. Audrey wanted to approach, but her hand was still seemingly stuck to Sammy’s shoulder. But soon her attention was taken by the sound of two pairs of footsteps moving down the hall and stopping at the entrance of Sammy’s office.

She turned her head to see the two standing in front of the office, a man and a woman. Audrey recognized the man as Joey Drew, her father, but the woman she did not. But they weren’t facing towards her, they were both looking in the direction of the man at the desk. Eventually, the blonde-haired man glanced up, his scowl lessening briefly as he darted his eyes between the two.

“Oh, hello, Joey. What is it now?” The man asked in a voice that practically revealed his identity to Audrey - the former human version of Sammy Lawrence -  after briefly glancing between them and then focusing on his boss, a deadpan expression that suppressed his true emotions written over his face. Joey chuckled before speaking and gesturing towards the woman standing next to him.

“I’m glad you asked, Mr. Lawr– er, Sammy! This is Susie Campbell. She’s auditioning for the role of Alice Angel! Think you can get her through that?” Joey asked the other man with a tone that told Audrey he had a cheerful smile on his face even if she couldn’t actually see it. Sammy let out a small sigh under his breath before nodding, sliding the paper and pencil off to the side as Joey turned and disappeared back down the hallway. Eventually, Susie would step into the office while taking a look around, her movements implying that she was in partial amazement.

“Miss Campbell, was it? It’s nice to meet you. I’m Sammy Lawrence.” The past version of Sammy said as he stepped around his desk and stopped a respectful distance from her, offering out a hand, which Susie accepted graciously.

“It’s nice to meet you as well, Mr. Lawrence!” Susie replied brightly, her enthusiasm being barely restrained with a massive grin on her face as the two shook hands. “I'm ecstatic to get started!” She added while slightly bouncing up and down on her feet. A rare smile flickered across Sammy’s face as the two let go of their hand shake, before stepping past her and gesturing for her to follow him.

“In that case, let’s head on down to the Music Hall. Then we can get your audition under way.” He said with a small smile persisting before the two took off and descended down the hall, their footsteps echoing out as the scene suddenly plunged back into the darkness and then returned her to the Recording Booth where Henry was staring at her with concern.

“…Audrey? You alright? You’ve, uh, got a strange look in your eyes.” Henry asked with a cocked eyebrow, his arms folded over his chest as his eyes flickered across her expression, which was in partial shock from what she had just witnessed. Once her thoughts compiled together, she got an idea of what just occurred as she was finally able to take her hand off of Sammy’s shoulder.

“I… I think I just got a look through Sammy’s memories…?”

“…Huh?”

“I just got a vision of Sammy back when he was a human, I think. And a woman named, uh, Susie Campbell?”

“…Your abilities seem to affect the inhabitants of this world in strange ways. Wait, did you say Susie Campbell?”

“Uh, yeah, why?”

“That would be her old identity.” Henry murmured in response as he gestured over his shoulder towards the shattered glass of the Recording Booth. His implied message was understood; Susie Campbell was the past version of Twisted Alice. It explained to Audrey why Sammy had reacted in such a way upon seeing Twisted Alice. Speaking of, Sammy suddenly pulled himself back up to his feet.

“I… I apologize for acting like that. I was… overwhelmed. That was… years of memories suddenly flooding back to me,” Sammy murmured quietly as he walked across the room and picked his axe back up, followed by his mask, which he settled back onto his face. “Let’s go, we’re wasting time.” He added on as he glanced over his shoulder and gestured for them to follow him. Audrey and Henry exchanged brief glances before the latter helped the former up to her feet and then nodded towards Sammy. Then the three continued on.

As they made their way past a hallway and two different turns, they suddenly reached a crossroads with two different paths to trek down. One pathway was labeled as “The Demon” and the other way was labeled as “The Angel” with only a wall between them with little designation on where to go. Audrey was about to ask Henry about it, but then Sammy decided to make an executive decision and walked through the Angel pathway, causing a metal gate to suddenly come down and close off the Demon pathway. Audrey and Henry briefly looked towards each other before continuing to follow him.

Naturally, the room that proceeded was very bright and filled with Alice Angel related decorations. All of them remained silent as they continued on, passing through another hallway and then turning the corner to see Buddy and Jack waiting for them, offering waves as they caught sight of the three. 

“Good to see you two are still intact.” Audrey said to them with a smile once they properly reunited together, to which Buddy responded with a nod and Jack responded with an unhappy gurgling sound, prompting an odd look from Sammy towards the swollen searcher.

“Quit complaining, Jack.” He said to the lyricist as Buddy stepped past the two and offered an unmodified Gent Pipe towards Henry, but the older man simply shook his head in response with a stoic look on his face.

“Keep it, Buddy. I’ll be fine.” He stated calmly as Buddy reluctantly retracted it and adjusted it in his gloved hand’s grip. Now a group of five once more, they continued on and headed through the next door in front of them, walking through a small toy workshop with a door that required two levers to be flipped in order to open it. Audrey stayed back with Jack and Buddy as they flipped the first lever while Henry went towards where the second one was with Sammy following. There were the brief sounds of some ink entity around the corner, but Henry and Sammy soon came back unharmed as the door suddenly slid open slowly.

“What was over there?”

“Just a Piper.” Henry reassured calmly before the group continued on into the next room, a small lobby with an elevator in the very corner of it. Audrey was a bit concerned about the safety of stepping into it, but Henry assured her that it was necessary to move on. But her fears weren’t helped by the fact that the elevator had suddenly closed behind them as soon as they stepped in. All of a sudden, Alice’s voice could be heard over the intercom.

“Hm… a group? What an interesting development…” Her voice rang out in cruel amusement, as if she had just gotten an unexpected reaction out of stabbing the corpse of someone she had just killed, sending a shiver down Audrey’s spine.  “I have to say, I’m an instant fan. Looks like you’ve got a date with an angel. Come to me. Level Nine. Just follow the screams.” She added onto her spiel, before the intercom was suddenly shut off. Audrey was frozen, but Sammy and Buddy seemed almost petrified, albeit for likely different reasons.

Unphased by Alice’s words, Henry went ahead and pressed the button to Level Nine before the elevator began to descend downwards to the respective level, the sounds of screeching and groaning metal briefly echoing out as they began to descend.

“Come on, step out of your cage. There’s a whole twisted world out there…” The angel’s voice echoed out over the intercom followed by quiet chuckling, although Henry stopped any of them from leaving the elevator.

“I’ll go. She’s probably not going to be happy with any of you entering her central domain. Just… stay here.”

After what felt like several hours, the five of them had managed to successfully carry out all of the seemingly pointless tasks that Alice had laid out for them, with the only real interesting being a few encounters with the Ink Demon and Henry noting that there didn’t seem to be much of a change in Alice’s behavior or speech.

Although there had been the other strange moments that occurred during the tasks; Audrey catching a glance of something walking by a window with a beam of light coming out of its face and Sammy going completely silent after Alice had made some remark about him and her talent, but now they were on their last task.

“I hate leaving work unfinished!” Alice growled over the intercom once more, before immediately shifting her voice to a calmer tone. “Fortunately, I have you to pick up the pieces. But you’ll have to go even deeper. Down, down, down into the abyss. Take the lift down. Say hello to an old friend.” She said a bit ominously as Henry pressed the lowest button of the elevator panel, causing it to close once more and go downwards, further down than they had before.

The first thing that Audrey noticed upon stepping out of the elevator was a corpse with its chest ripped open and its heart exposed. The second thing was the fact that they were standing on a balcony with stairs that led to the floor below, although it was covered in what appeared to be an ocean of ink, although Henry had explained that it was only about half a foot deep (not that it quelled her worries much honestly). Within the inky abyss, a beam of light was briefly visible from one of the hallways that led further in, followed by a loud roar that caused Audrey to jump. 

“There he is,” Henry murmured as he leaned forward, pressing the palms of his hand against the railing of the balcony. “Norman Polk. The Projectionist.” He added on just as the figure he was talking about appeared out from the hallway and into their line of sight, matching fairly well with the drawing that Henry had made of him - an inky figure with a speaker and film reel lodged in his chest and a projector for a head. It stopped briefly to stare at the group, being strangely silent as he did so. It seemed to Audrey that every other member of this group seemed to have some sort of history with this Norman Polk man, which made her curious, and prompted her to ask:

“So… who was this Norman Polk?” Audrey asked inquisitively as she tilted her gaze away from the Projectionist and towards the other members of her group before each of them gave at least some semblance of answer.

“A projectionist. A seeker of dark places. An outside observer. A man with an uncanny ability to notice trouble. A man who avoided drawing attention to himself. A man who saw everything–” Although Sammy’s (admittedly rather dramatic) description was cut off by Jack making a gurgling sound (which Audrey could’ve sworn sounded rather snarky, but maybe she’d just actually lost her mind by now).

Sammy sighed. “I respect him, Jack, as a peer.” Sammy said mildly annoyedly. Jack let out another gurgling sound that resembled chuckling. Henry let out a quiet sigh as he shifted to fold his arms across the top of the railing, crossing his legs.

“An old friend of mine. Sure, he had a strange sense of humor, but a friend nonetheless. Buddy?” Henry murmured before glancing towards the Boris clone standing next to him with a somber but interested expression. Buddy gave a slight shrug before pulling a piece of paper and pencil from his overall pocket and wrote down on it quickly, placing it down on the bannister in order to write, idly tapping a free finger against it while he did so. Eventually, he’d hand it to Henry while putting the pencil away.

“ Norman helped me. Gave me info. Couldn’t save him. ” Henry read out loud before nodding his head and glancing around the group, seemingly about to say something before Sammy spoke first, arms crossed over his chest while glancing towards Jack, who seemed to be a whole lot less sentimental about the whole situation.

“What about you, Jack? Anything to say about Norman?” He asked calmly before letting out a sigh after Jack gave a gurgled response. “He was good at his job? Is that it? I mean, you aren’t wrong, Norman was probably the person who annoyed me the least other than Susie, but seriously ? That’s all you have to say about him?” He questioned before Jack just sorta awkwardly shrugged, earning a giggle out of Audrey.

“Hehe. Well, uh, you may not have been able to save him then, but we can save him now.” Audrey said encouragingly to the rest of the group while glancing around at them. The group was fairly equipped, with everyone but Jack (who was more than capable of fighting with his hands) being at least armed (Henry had gotten a Gent Pipe from Alice), a total of three Gent Pipes (one of them being fully upgraded) and one axe between them, they definitely could fend off the Projectionist and even kill him if they needed to. Although Audrey hoped it wouldn’t have to come to that.

The other four nodded at Audrey’s words before following her down the stairs, being illuminated by the Projectionist’s light as they did so, as he had not moved an inch during their entire conversation, simply staring at them from the inky floor below. Audrey was a bit nervous about coming into contact with the ink that went up to their ankles, but it seemed to be fine. Even Jack, the least physically formed of them all, was perfectly okay. The Projectionist did not approach as the group slowly came to him, keeping his light trained on them.

“Be careful. The Projectionist is a lot stronger than your common searcher, lost one, or Butcher Gang member. But try not to injure him fatally. He can take quite a punishment, but he isn’t invincible.” Henry warned as they continued to proceed, nodding in response to his explanation, until the Projectionist suddenly let out a scream as if on cue, sending a chill shooting straight down Audrey’s spine and even causing the ink all around them to ripple and billow.

Suddenly, the Projectionist began rushing towards them. He wasn’t the fastest enemy Audrey had ever faced, but his speed still wasn’t something to take lightly, especially considering that he seemed to be able to maneuver in this place a lot better than she could. Like some sort of bullfighter, the group waited for the Projectionist to get close before dodging. Henry and Buddy moved off to the side, Jack descended into the Ink, while Audrey and Sammy both teleported several feet behind the Projectionist with the flow ability, albeit catching each other off-guard in the process.

“You can use Flow!?” They asked each other in complete surprise while staring at each other, although the Projectionist soon regained their attention by turning around before they could ask each other any more questions. Audrey shook her head before surging forward, reaching a hand out in an attempt to touch the Projectionist’s head, but the monster ended up grabbing her wrist before she could, suddenly twisting and turning to throw Audrey away, causing her to land face-first in the ink.

As she got back up and wiped ink off of her face, she saw Jack had suddenly re-emerged from the ink behind the Projectionist and had latched onto his back. But before the monster could remove the searcher off of its back, Sammy intervened and swung his axe, briefly embedding it into his shoulder. Although the Projectionist wasn’t nearly as stunned by this pincer maneuver than Audrey thought he was.

The Projectionist lifted his leg out from the ink and suddenly struck Sammy’s stomach, sending him backwards and sent rolling through the ink, leaving the axe in his shoulder, before he reached back and grabbed the searcher off, slamming him into the ground in front of him. In an attempt to execute Jack, the Projectionist raised his foot, but Buddy got close enough without drawing attention to drag Jack away from the blow right before it made contact, before the monster suddenly turned and backhanded Buddy, sending both of them flying several feet backwards.

Meanwhile, Henry had managed to sneak up behind the Projectionist, striking him in the back of the head with his Gent Pipe. With another screech, the monster spun around and swung his arm, but the man managed to just narrowly duck under it, and then striking him again in the chin. But before Henry could continue his assault, the Projectionist suddenly lunged forward and snagged the man by his throat, lifting him up into the air.

Not wanting harm to befall onto Henry, Audrey quickly ran up behind the Projectionist and jabbed the top of her Gent Pipe into the monster’s back, delivering an electric shock that ran through his body and caused him to drop Henry, along with briefly stunning him. But Audrey could see that the Projectionist wasn’t quite knocked out just yet. The two exchanged a quick look before backing off, going to help Sammy, Jack, and Boris get back up.

The searcher descended into the ink while the other four made a run for it, directly into the halls of the inky abyss. The screams of the Projectionist echoed through the halls around them as he supposedly followed the group, although the sounds of splashing generated by his footsteps soon ceased to reach Audrey’s ears. Henry guided the four to a corner with a crate decorated by multiple inky hearts.

“Jesus. I knew he was strong, but not this strong…” Sammy commented while attempting to catch his breath from the running on top of his attempts at fending off the Projectionist.

“He’s got too big of an advantage here. I don’t think we can beat him head on.” Audrey murmured through panting as she glanced over her shoulder to see if the monster could be potentially spotted off in the distance (thankfully, he wasn’t).

“We can beat him with strategy,” Henry responded as he moved towards the crate with ink hearts on it, glancing back towards the group and continuing. “The Projectionist has incredibly poor hearing and is easily distracted by someone touching these ink hearts. Potentially lure him into an ambush.” He explained right before Jack offered a few gurgling sounds.

“…Jack just said we’d get our asses handed to us again. His words, not mine.” Sammy translated for the rest of the group. Audrey thought to herself briefly before an idea came to mind, looking around at the different members of the group before speaking.

“Mm, it could work. We just need the right plan of attack…” Audrey mumbled, briefly trailing off before picking back up on her thought. “How about this? We use the ink hearts to lure him in, Jack hides in the ink and then leaps onto his back, Sammy distracts him from the front, then Henry and Buddy use the Gent Pipes to knock him over, the four of you pin him down, and then I finally finish the job!” She explained quickly to them while holding up her left hand, continuing to glow with its golden spiral. The other members of their group exchanged glances before giving each other a sort of “I’ve got no other ideas” look before nodding.

“Well, I don’t have any other semblance of a plan,” Sammy admitted, briefly reaching a hand up to adjust his mask. “Go and hide, you four. I’ll touch the Ink Hearts when you’re ready.” He added on before Jack descended into the ink while Henry and Buddy went to duck behind the corners. Audrey glanced around and spotted a Miracle Station, opening the door and hiding inside of it until she was ready to make her appearance.

Once he was sure everyone was ready, Sammy turned towards the plate of ink hearts and reached a hand out, brushing his fingers against it. But as soon as he did, the Projectionist’s screech suddenly reverberated through the halls, sounding much closer than it had before. A few moments later, the Projectionist came charging in from the hall, turning the corner and emitting another screech towards Sammy. 

As the monster began to move towards the masked man, Jack suddenly lunged out from the ink and clambered back onto his back followed by Sammy stepping forward and grabbing the axe that remained embedded in the Projectionist’s shoulder, before the two did their best to drag him down to the ground. He began to fight back against them, only for Henry and Buddy to run in and swing their Gent Pipes at the monster’s knees, causing him to stumble as the four of them began to keep him down. That’s when Audrey decided to step out of the Miracle Station.

“Any day now, Audrey… He’s not getting any harder to keep down.” Sammy muttered under his breath as Audrey approached, the four of them struggling to keep the Projectionist down. She kneeled down and reached her left hand out, using it to directly cover the light of the monster’s projector head. The Projectionist let out a final screech that slowly died out as the golden light returned and engulfed the area briefly, blinding everyone in the vicinity for a few seconds, until it dimmed out completely.

Audrey took her hand off of Norman and stood up, soon followed by the other four as they glanced down at the man. The light from the projector had gone dim, albeit it didn’t go completely out, but it was still enough to worry her.\

“Did… Did I kill him?”

“Doubtful. Most creatures from the studio turn back into ink after death. He’s likely just unconscious,” Sammy replied with a slow shake of his head. “I believe this means we’ll have to drag him back.” He added on, much to the dismay of Jack, who suddenly let out a groan. But despite his protests, the four managed to pick him up and drag him all the way back to the elevator in a process that took about an hour or so (at least it felt that way).

They took it back up to Alice’s floor where Henry moved out and delivered a few ink hearts to the angel that he had collected for her on the group’s way back to the elevator. As he returned, both him and Buddy seemed almost anxious as the elevator’s doors closed apprehensively and began to ascend. As they did so, Alice began to muse to the group over the intercom.

“Have you ever wondered what Heaven is like? I like to dream that it’s quite beautiful. A soft valley of green grass, blanketed by a warm sun… I don’t think I’ll ever get to see it.” Alice murmured out-loud before going oddly silent and then suddenly beginning to cackle in a cruel manner as the elevator suddenly shuttered before beginning to accelerate downwards, metal screeching loudly against the walls.

It was almost as if… Audrey’s eyes suddenly shot wide. The elevator was going to plummet all the way down to the ground in a violent manner. As she felt her feet coming off of the ground from the sheer speed that the elevator was moving at, she heard Alice shout over the intercom once more.

“NO! You know how this plays out! This time, I’m going to make it even WORSE! I’m going to take MORE than just precious little “Buddy,” Henry! I’m going to kill that DISGUSTING searcher! Rip out the INSIDES of that girl, and TAKE BACK SAMMY!”

As she finished, the elevator seemed to be nearing the ground, before Audrey suddenly felt herself black out.

After what felt like forever, Audrey’s eyes eventually fluttered back open, seeing the entire group sprawled out on the ground around them on a floor that she didn’t recognize. The only person who seemed to be awake was Buddy, who was desperately trying to wake up Henry by shaking him. 

In the background, the faint sounds of footsteps and humming could be heard, slowly getting louder and louder. Buddy froze and glanced over his shoulder before shakily standing up, picking up his dropped Gent Pipe before pointing towards the door. Soon enough, Audrey would see none other than Twisted Alice walk into the room, a cruel grin drawn across her face, chuckling as Buddy attempted to stand his ground, pointing his Gent Pipe towards the angel while trembling.

“Oh? Is the poor little wolfy attempting to stand up against me? Instead of running away, you’re finding it within yourself to fight an angel? An adorable, but fruitless gesture, Boris.” She began to say with her evil grin remaining, before briefly glancing off to the side towards what Audrey could only assume was Sammy, only to tilt her head back towards Boris who continued to tremble.

But before she could gloat or threaten further, a familiarly-distinct screech caught Alice off-guard. The Projectionist had risen up from unconsciousness and rushed past Buddy, towards the angel, bashing into her and throwing her backwards. Alice disappeared from Audrey’s vision, but she could hear running, which she figured must’ve belonged to the angel.

The Projectionist briefly stared down the hall before tilting his head and stared at Audrey, but something about him seemed… different. His light from his projector seemed to be… warmer. 

Norman kept his gaze on her until her eyes fluttered shut once more.

Chapter Text

Audrey’s eyes eventually fluttered open and managed to keep them open, gripping her head as she got back up, still very much dazed from the elevator crash. She looked up to see everyone around the room. Henry, Jack, Buddy, Sammy, and even Norman were all in the room… although not for long, particularly Sammy. As he was pushed up against the wall with his axe dropped to the floor and a hand wrapped around his neck.

Norman kept Sammy pinned to the wall by his neck with one hand, not even breaking a sweat at the musician’s attempts at freeing himself from his grip. The other three stood around Norman and seemed to be trying to get him to stop. Jack let out gurgling sounds while Buddy waved his arms back and forth, doing their best to help, although Henry was definitely the most convincing.

“Norman, it’s not his fault. The ink corrupted Sammy. He wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t.” Henry tried to reason in a steely calm voice, inching closer and closer to Norman to potentially intervene if any actual harm was done to Sammy. At that moment, Audrey recalled a comment that Sammy had made all the way back at the safehouse, something about how he had been the one to “sacrifice” Norman to the Ink Demon.

It made complete sense that Norman would be holding a grudge towards Sammy. Audrey took a shaky step forward, still not fully used to moving around after the crash and what was likely at least an hour of lying on the ground unconscious, just as Henry took a step forward. But the angry projectionist didn’t like that, backhanding Henry and knocking him several feet away. Buddy and Jack immediately backed away as Audrey helped the fallen man back up to his feet.

As she did so, Norman turned his head and stared towards her, seemingly inspecting the young woman with the light trained on her. Eventually, he made a strange sound that seemed to be the whirring of his projector head, turning back to Sammy and shaking him by his neck that he kept an iron grip on.

“That’s Audrey. She’s the one who restored you, Norman.” Sammy said with a cough after enough shaking. Norman briefly stared at Sammy before tilting his head back towards her, continuing to gaze at her for several seconds before making the whirring sound once more. Sammy coughed once more before turning his head towards Audrey and speaking.

“Norman says he owes you a debt, Audrey.” The composer muttered under his breath, nearly prompting Audrey to say that such a thing was unnecessary, but then an idea came to her mind, one to possibly alleviate the situation they had found themselves in.

“You can pay it right now, Norman. Just… please let Sammy go.” Audrey responded while attempting to conceal the nervousness that racked her tone, only for Norman to immediately let out a defiant screech in her direction. Audrey glanced towards Sammy as he gave her a weak shrug.

“He’s only saying what’s true.” Sammy mumbled under his breath which told Audrey all she needed to know about what exactly Norman had said. Audrey took a deep breath before speaking once more.

“Norman… I know what Sammy has done in the past,” Audrey reasoned. “But Sammy’s been restored to his former… less weird state, no longer in his… more psychopathic state. And he’s going to help us if you let go.” She tried to say as reassuringly as possible, raising her hands up in an attempt at a peace offering. Norman remained silent for a few seconds before eventually (albeit reluctantly) letting go of Sammy’s neck, dropping the man to the ground and causing him to fall down to his knees, coughing as he was suddenly able to breathe again.

Henry stepped past Audrey and assisted Sammy up to his feet while Norman glanced around the room, the light from his projector head sweeping around as he glanced at the others in the room. He stepped over to the searcher and crouched down to his level, making a shutter sound before Jack communicated back with bubbling.

Norman nodded and stood back up before staring at Buddy for several seconds, before making another whirring sound, prompting Buddy to nod in response. The projectionist offered a hand out towards the Boris clone, who took it nervously as the two shook hands.

When they let go, Norman finally turned towards Henry, who offered him a warm smile and held a hand out. Norman stepped forward towards him, his body trembling as he did so, reaching an inky hand out and shaking it with a shudder.

“Welcome back, Norman.” Henry said warmly before Norman nodded, the light of his projector head flickering, backing up as he placed a hand on his head, as if just realizing that his head wasn’t a normal head, but instead a film projector. He shook his head as everyone else picked their weapons back up, before Henry gestured for the group to follow him down the hall. Norman let out an inquisitive shuttering sound followed by Sammy giving a response.

“We’re, uh, going after… ahem, Twisted Alice.”

Norman made another whirring sound.

“You remember your time as the Projectionist? Your time in the Cycle?”

More whirring and shuttering sounds as the projectionist nodded.

“Hm… I see… I don’t know if you know this, but for your information, Twisted Alice is Miss Campbell.”

Another round of whirring rang out as a response.

Sammy didn’t respond to whatever Norman had said, instead simply turning away from the conversation as the group of five now turned to a group of six descended down the hallway with a ‘Level S’ sign next to it. At the end of the hallway was a sign that signalled different locations through either the right or left halls adjacent to it.

Level S

Account & Finance

Management Office: Grant Cohen →

← Archives J–L

← R&D Access

Before Audrey could ask Henry, the man gestured for the group to head down the right path down towards Grant Cohen’s office, which had its walls entirely coated with various mindless messages scrawled in ink, giving Audrey the impression that this Grant Cohen person must’ve cracked under the pressure and completely lost his mind, although it didn’t make her feel any less sympathetic for him (it did the opposite in fact). Henry grabbed a valve wheel from the back of the room before leading the group back the opposite way, down the right path towards the Archives, putting the valve wheel on the large metal door that seemed to be missing one and then opened it.

The first thing that Audrey saw when they walked into this room was a small statue of the Devil Darlin’ in the middle of the room with four inky humanoids standing around it and seemingly praising or worshipping him. A message had been written in ink above it, reading: “ HE WILL SET US FREE. ”

“No, he won’t.” Sammy murmured under his breath as spotlights suddenly turned on as they got close enough, illuminating the statue in front of them before the group walked on past it into the Archives. At the back end of the room was a door with a “ PRIVATE ” sign above it, along with five lightbulbs that were all off. Henry pushed in a book on the bookshelf next to the door that happened to be sticking out, causing one of the lightbulbs above the door to suddenly turn on, before instructing the rest of the group to find more books sticking out.

After about a minute of searching, they managed to find all of the books and cause all of the lightbulbs to turn on, causing the door to open. And the scene on the opposite side was not exactly what Audrey had been expecting. Instead of a room that was a part of the studio, it led to a cave-like chasm with cages hanging from chains dangling above it. She figured it must’ve been an addition original to the Cycle, but she supposed she couldn’t be entirely sure.

Henry led the group up the bridge and then pointed across the chasm to the opposite side. “If we fix the bridge, we can get across.” He explained before continuing to lead them down the hall next to the chasm and flipped a lever and then turned a valve, causing a searcher to suddenly pop out of a nearby pool of ink. Henry reached out and took a glob of ink off of it before the searcher suddenly descended back into the pool and then led the group back out of the hall.

With a strange machine next to the hall, Henry somehow managed to turn the glob of ink into a gear, which he put into place inside of the pulley device for crossing the chasm, flipping the lever and causing the platform for carrying people across to move towards the group, allowing them to get on. They did have to go one or two at a time due to the platform only being clearly meant to accommodate one person at a time.

It creaked multiple times but didn’t actually give out until they had all crossed the chasm in its entirety, the rope finally snapping from all of the tension it had to endure, falling down and flipping wildly as it hit the edge of a cliff below them before disappearing as it spiralled into the abyss below.

“Well… Guess this is a one-way trip,” Audrey mumbled under her breath as she peered over the edge and into the dark chasm below. “Only one way to go now.” She added on as she glanced over her shoulder towards the others before following them onwards towards a door that was opened slightly ajar. Upon going through, it opened to a long hallway, the most notable detail being the many openings along it from the ruined state of the walls.

For some reason, Henry was rather adamant that everyone came into the hall before continuing onwards, which became rather prevalent once they took a few steps forward, the room became suddenly enveloped in a strange amber light, but more alarmingly, were the hands reaching out of the walls, grasping at nothing, seeming to belong to Lost Ones or similarly shaped inky humanoids. The sounds of muffled screaming echoed out from just behind the walls. And yet, despite the unnerving scene, it all returned to normal after taking a few steps forward.

“They’re just visions. Nothing to be afraid of.” Henry said in a reassuring tone, glancing over his shoulder to the rest of the group following him, who were a bit off-put by whatever the heck that just was. But once they reached the end of the hall, the intercom crackled to life as the voice of Twisted Alice echoed out in her melodic but ominous voice.

“I see you there, my little errand-runners. Your angel is always watching. What is it that keeps you all going? The thrill of the hunt? The thirst for freedom? Surely one of you is having doubts about the success of your mission, right?” Alice asked in a mockingly curious manner as the group came to a stop, deciding to listen to what she was saying. “I mean, do you seriously think this ‘mission’ of yours would be successful in any world? Even in one’s dreams, it’s a fantasy. The Cycle will continue like it always has.” She finished off in a sing-song voice before the intercom deactivated.

“Don’t listen to her. She’s just trying to get into our heads.” Henry murmured with an adamant shake of his head, although it didn’t seem like he was just trying to reassure the group, sounding like he was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince them. The group made their way up a flight of stairs that led to some sort of lounge, with relaxing music playing from a record player. Up on a balcony above, a Lost One walked by, looking around frantically in a panic, sounding like he was in the middle of crying.

“H–He’s going to find me! He always finds me! Oh no!” The Lost One’s voice briefly gave way for more crying. “I just want to go home! When do we go home? WHEN DO WE GO HOME!?” The Lost One screamed out before running off, out of the group’s sight.

Norman let out a faint rumbling sound.

“Mm. Very few Lost Ones have even a shred of sanity left.” Sammy murmured in agreement to whatever Norman just said. The group moved forward to the only door that was within the room, although Henry stopped them before they could go through the door, gripping the handle while glancing towards them over his shoulder.

“There are about twenty-five or so Lost Ones inside of this next room. They're usually passive, but I don’t know how they’ll react to all six of us together, especially Norman and Sammy. If they attack, don’t kill them, okay? Just knock them out so Audrey can use her power on them, got it?” Henry instructed before the group shared a quiet murmur of agreement. Once everyone understood what Henry’s goal was, he turned the door knob and pushed it open.

Just like Henry said, there was a crowd’s worth of Lost Ones in the room, some of which were standing around aimlessly, others huddled against the walls and curled into balls, and then there were a few locked away in cages for some odd reason. But as soon as the group made their way into the lounge, all of the Lost Ones slowly turned their heads towards them, staring at them with their glowing yellow eyes, even the ones who were sitting on the ground getting up to their feet.

Jack let out a somewhat gurgling sound.

“Yeah, I’m not exactly a huge fan of how they’re looking at us either.” Sammy murmured in response.

Suddenly, one of the Lost Ones began charging towards the group with a shout, but was quickly dissuaded by getting grabbed by the neck by Norman, who stepped up in front of the group, and hoisted up off of his feet. With just one arm holding it up, the Lost One was heaved across the room, mildly fracturing the wall that it collided with upon hitting it. The other Lost Ones stared at their fallen peer and then immediately recoiled in fear from the group.

“Well… that’s certainly one way to do it.” Henry murmured as he surveyed the room, studying how scared each of the Lost Ones looked, with one of them reluctantly helping up the one that Norman just threw across the room for charging the group, although it didn’t seem interested in attacking anymore. 

Before continuing on, Audrey tapped one of the Lost Ones after approaching it with her left hand, causing a slight glow and seemingly restoring humanity into the Lost One, who then assisted her by telling the others that it would be worth it. Reluctantly, they all lined up to be affected by Audrey’s glowing left hand, and soon enough, they were all restored of their humanity, seeming much more sane and happier than before. One of them handed Henry a flashlight before gesturing towards a vent at the end of the room.

“Thank you,” Henry said with a nod before stepping forward and removing the cover. “This is our way forward. Jack, you can go on ahead, but be careful,” The swollen searcher nodded before sinking into the floorboards and disappearing. “The rest of us, we’ll have to forge through one at a time.” He murmured before tossing the flashlight to Buddy and then beginning to crawl through the vent.

As an act of goodwill, Audrey allowed Buddy, Sammy, and Norman to go through the vent before her, but she soon regretted this decision shortly after she crawled into the vent herself. It was all fine until she made it to the first turn in the vent, seeing a grate that led to another room, but before she could take in any of its details, the Ink Demon suddenly sprung up on the opposite side of the grate, causing ink blots to form on the surfaces around it.

“Hello, Audrey,” It spoke out in its menacing voice, paralyzing Audrey in shock and fear, although it didn’t make any effort to break through the grate, even though it could definitely have gotten to her. “I do not usually recommend listening to the Angel, but she is right about one thing. The Cycle will continue regardless of what you do. I will leave you to think about this.” It growled out before walking off and out of Audrey’s view, scraping one of its claws against the walls as it left.

After taking a moment to compose herself, Audrey made her way through the rest of the ventilation, deciding not to mention her small encounter with the Ink Demon once she made it to the other side with the rest of the group. A small room with a sofa, a few chairs, a few crates, a large statue of Bendy, and two signs. One sitting on a wall next to a shut metal door read ‘Storage 9’ and the other, which sat adjacent to a flight of stairs and was written out with ink, read ‘Come up and see me’ with an arrow pointing up towards the stairs.

Henry told the group to stay on the ground floor while he traveled up the stairs briefly, before the metal door suddenly slid open, soon followed by the man coming back down the stairs, briefly explaining how there was a switch up there that opened the door. 

As soon as the group moved past through the now opened metal door, a large sign hanging in front of them suddenly lit up, similarly to the sort of sign you would expect to see at an amusement park, although it was rather obvious that ‘BENDY LAND’ had been painted over to read ‘BENDY HELL’ instead. 

But it wasn’t just the sign lighting up, as the rest of the area below them lit up as well, revealing three stands with different games to play, along with several crates, pallets, shelves, and cement bags. After going down the stairs directly to their left, Henry explained what the goal of this room was to the rest of the group.

“In order to progress, we need to power that door to get to the haunted out,” he explained, pointing to yet another tightly shut metal door, before gesturing to a set of switches with wires that connected it to the door and the three different stands with the games on them. “These three games will power it so that we can progress, so… let’s play?” Henry shrugged with a quiet chuckle.

“…This was Wally’s idea, wasn’t it?” Sammy asked incredulously. Henry nodded in response, which prompted a groan and faceplant from Sammy, and then what sounded like quiet laughter from Norman (although it was admittedly a bit hard to tell with the whole ‘projector head’ thing he had going on).

“Wally Franks did seem like… quite the individual to me.” Audrey murmured under her breath. Jack let out a gurgle in response followed by what almost sounded like a laugh.

“Indeed, Jack, that certainly is one way to put it.” Sammy murmured in response after taking his hand off of his face.

The first game was Strength Tester, but Norman was able to easily clear the game with only one hand to hold the giant mallet. With a single strike, the bell rang out and the game was completed, causing what appeared to be an electrical spark to travel down the wire and towards one of the switches over on the panel. Henry glanced around towards the ceiling, almost as if he had been expecting something else to happen.

“Odd… Usually, Alice would speak over the intercom and taunt me… maybe because she doesn’t have Buddy…?” He murmured to himself while glancing towards the Boris Clone in question, who gave Henry a nod and a thumbs-up in response.

The second game was Bull’s Eye Bonanza, which featured a series of targets and even a fake rifle. This time, Buddy gave it a go, picking up the rifle and starting the game, firing the various targets while the timer slowly went down. Unfortunately, he ended up being one target short of actually beating the game, at least until Sammy threw his axe directly at the remaining target, knocking it down and powering its respective switch.

And the final game was Bottle Wallop, a simple game about throwing balls and knocking down bottles, with only three throws, which was divided amongst Audrey, Sammy, and Jack, who all took their throws. Thankfully, with precise enough aiming, each of them were easily able to knock down their respective piles of bottles, powering another one of the switches, but there seemed to be a fourth switch and another wire that let through an opened door in the corner of the room, which Henry soon led the group down.

“There should be…” Henry murmured as he walked up to the railing on the other side of the door and peered over it. “Butcher Gang members down here…” He added on after briefly trailing off, but once Audrey and the rest of the group joined him, there was no-one down there.

“Strange… I usually have to sneak past Butcher Gang members.” Henry mumbled as he scanned the room before folding his arms over his chest.

“Perhaps our efforts are beginning to… alter the Cycle, so to speak. If anything, it’s encouragement to keep going forward.” Sammy responded in about as enthusiastic a voice that the rather monotone-voiced man could muster. Regardless, the group continued onwards, passing by a series of similarly structured rooms until reaching one with a massive open space.

All that there was a table with an audio log on it along with a large amusement park ride with four large mechanical arms that each had three carts attached to it, in the fashion of some sort of carousel, with theme park lights lining the arms and centerpiece of it. Once they made their way inside, Henry ushered the group towards the table.

“Prepare yourselves.” Henry warned before pressing the play button on the audio log, beginning to play the voice of Bertrum Piedmont (at least that was the name that Sammy whispered into her ear once she asked him who exactly was speaking). 

“The biggest park ever built, a centerfold of attractions. Each one, more grand than the one before it. It makes my eyes come to tears at the thought,” Mr. Piedmont began to say in a rather gentle tone of voice, making Audrey briefly think the message was going to be heart-warming, at least until his very next line that completely shifted his tone to one of anger and deep annoyance. “But then… oh, Mister Drew… For all your talk of dreams, you are the architect of so many nightmares. I built this park. It was to be a masterpiece! My masterpiece!” He continued on, making Audrey feel a bit guilty, knowing exactly who her father was.

“And now you think you can just throw me out? Trample me to the dust and forget me? No! This is my park! My glory! You may think I’m gone…” Betrum briefly trailed off as the theme park ride in front of them began to rumble and shake, all of the lights beginning to slowly turn on.

“But I’m still here!”

All of a sudden, a set of panels on the carousel opened up to reveal a face on the other side of it, one that Audrey actually recognized. That large disembodied head that had been sitting in the corner of the pit with a few mechanical pieces sitting around it, but this time it was in better condition, with no injuries on it or anything.

The arms lifted up and began spinning around Betrum’s centerpiece, before one of them was swung and came crashing down into the table, shattering it to pieces while also revealing an axe, identical to the one that Sammy carried with him, which Henry picked up, tossing aside the Gent Pipe he had been holding aside to replace with the superior weapon.

“There’s bolts attached to the arms! We have to break them!” Henry shouted to the group over the sounds of whirring machinery as Betrum began to spin the mechanical arms around the carousel centerpiece before lifting them all up and slamming them into the ground once more. Henry moved forward and headed towards one of the arms, seemingly ready to strike at one of the aforementioned bolts, but then the arms suddenly jerked back up, slamming into the man and throwing him across the room, seemingly knocking him out cold.

Jack let out a gurgling noise.

“Don’t call him a ‘tour guide,’ Jack. Focus.” Sammy mumbled while shooting the lyricist a quick glare before the group turned their attention back to the spinning theme park ride while it occasionally slammed its arms into the ground, causing it to shake and tremble with every single strike. The group exchanged a few glances before engaging Betrum.

While Buddy Boris ran off to the side to check up on the unconscious Henry, the others went towards Betrum, with both Audrey and Sammy using Flow to get onto the arms of the spinning carousel, while Jack sunk into the floorboards in order to wait out the perfect opportunity to strike from below and Norman had to approach carefully.

After warping onto one of Betrum’s arms, Audrey slid down it towards the centerpiece and attempted to reach her hand out towards the opening where Betrum’s head could be seen, but the wooden panels suddenly closed and blocked her attempts at reaching him. She tried to strike at the wooden panels, but even her fully upgraded Gent pipe only made a slight dent into it. Sammy was perched on another arm and seemingly trying to strike at one of the bolts, but the spinning was making him occasionally lose his balance and force him to focus on not falling off.

The next time Betrum lifted up one of his arms to slam them down, Norman made his way over to it and side-stepped the swing, before grabbing it and preventing Betrum from lifting it back up, finally bringing an end to his spinning while finally giving Sammy a chance to strike out one of the bolts on the arm he was perched on, while Audrey used Flow to warp over back to the ground and take out two more, before Jack finally emerged from the ground to rip out the final one, detaching the arm and causing it to fall off.

Betrum attempted to continue spinning but faced heavy resistance due to Norman’s dedication to keeping him grounded, dragging his heels across the ground from the slight movements that Betrum managed to get over the projectionist, leaving an intent in the wooden floors, but Norman stood his ground, letting out the Projectionist’s signature roar to add onto the sounds of metal groaning from the strain.

By now, Buddy had managed to wake up Henry and bring him back into the fight while Betrum attempted to pull his arm back up, but Norman remained as unrelenting as ever, albeit very clearly struggling to keep him down while the rest of the group took advantage of this, striking and destroying the different bolts and detaching the different arms until the only one left was the one that Norman was holding down.

But before they could break any of them, Norman’s strength finally failed him and was thrown across the room by the sudden jerking of the carousel arm, slamming him into the wall. After another cycle of spinning and slamming, the group destroyed the bolts of the final arm and finally defeated Betrum, although the panels remained closed so Audrey still couldn’t get to them, at least until Sammy physically pried it open with his hands, allowing Audrey to reach her hand in and tap Betrum’s forehead, emitting another golden light, although nothing happened afterwards.

“He’s probably unconscious. Come on, we’ve got someone else to deal with.” Henry murmured before finally flipping the final power switch, allowing the group to head into the Bendy Hell room and finally unlock the door that was marked with a Maintenance sign, leading to a room with a few posters and the phrase ‘Choo-Choo’ written in ink multiple times on the walls.

Eventually, they reached another area, this one much larger, that resembled the Inky Abyss where they had first seen the Projectionist, with the floor all covered in a knee-high sea of ink, along with a set of trains with cartoon faces on them, exactly what Audrey would’ve expected to see at an amusement park or something like that. On the opposite side of the room was a switch labelled ‘Lift Control’ which Henry flipped and then continued leading the group.

“Usually, the Projectionist would be roaming this room. But, not anymore. Which I’m glad for, you were probably the second most stressful thing in the Cycle, old friend.” Henry murmured while glancing towards Norman, who let out a shuttering sound that vaguely resembled laughter as he patted the other man on the shoulder. After moving up to the room’s balcony to flip yet another switch (which Audrey was beginning to get sick of if she had to be honest), they made their way up a flight of stairs which led to a hallway with a Miracle Station at the end of it.

Norman froze as he glanced around before stepping past Henry, scanning the beam of light that emitted from his projector head around the room as he slowly creeped forward, as if he was anticipating something was about to jump out. Which was soon the case as a large, black blur suddenly tackled into Norman, pinning him to the wall, soon revealing itself to be the Ink Demon itself, letting out a growl as it wrapped one of its clawed hands around Norman’s head, beginning to tug.

Sammy rushed forward and swung his axe, striking the Lord of the Dark Puddles right in his grinning face, briefly stunning the demon before being backhanded and sending him rolling across the floor, but giving Norman enough time to break its hold and shine his light directly in the Ink Demon’s face, sending him recoiling. The rest of the group charged the Ink Demon, but he quickly neutralized all of them, sending them sprawling across the floor, until only Henry and Audrey remained standing.

“Ah, my two favorite playthings.” The Ink Demon muttered with a throat chuckle after dropping a now unconscious Norman to the ground amidst their other knocked out friends, while turning to the two, who held their ground, Henry wielding his axe and Audrey wielding her fully-upgraded Gent pipe. The Ink Demon rushed at them, swinging its claws over its head, but the two side-stepped behind it as it dug its claws into the floor.

Henry attempted to swing his axe at the demon as it pulled its claws out of the ground, but it moved faster than he anticipated, spinning around and grabbing the older man by the collar of his shirt, before throwing him directly into the Miracle Station, causing it to break on impact. With everyone else knocked out, the Ink Demon turned towards Audrey with a growl while stepping towards her. On instinct, Audrey shielded her face with her hands, before a golden glow suddenly flashed from her left hand, causing the demon to back away with a grumble.

“Hgnh… It’d be too easy to kill you here. But let it be known that you stand little chance against me, even with your posse of misfits,” the Ink Demon muttered before casually walking past her and down the hall behind her, glancing over its shoulder. “The realm will endure. My realm will endure.” It phased through the wall next to it after delivering its final words.

Once the demon made its departure, Audrey’s legs gave up from how much wobbling they were doing, collapsing down to her knees, panting heavily while glancing around at the group. The only one not knocked out cold was Henry, who rubbed his neck as he got back up from the remains of the Miracle Station he was thrown into.

“H–Henry. Are… Are you okay?”

Henry chuckled. “I should be asking you that. I’ve taken worse crashes than being thrown around, trust me,” He murmured with a weathered smile before grimacing, leaning against a nearby wall. “…Might be a good idea to rest here for a bit. Let the others wake up and get their bearings.”

Audrey nodded before glancing down the hall where the Ink Demon had disappeared to, taking note that it extended beyond where it had been standing based on the open door. “What’s after this?” She asked quietly, prompting Henry to think for a moment.

“Uh… all that’s left is to flip the final switch. It’ll… restore power to the Haunted House. From there… usually, that’s where I’d encounter Brute Boris, a monstrous version of…” Henry gestured towards the resting Buddy. “But I don’t know what we’ll find now that Alice doesn’t have Buddy in her possession. Could be her or… maybe she’s made something else in Buddy’s absence.” He explained through heavy breaths. Audrey simply nodded in response, too tired to form a response, leaning against the corner of the wall she was next to.

After what felt like forever, the rest of the group finally woke up and were rested up enough to continue onwards. Just like Henry had said, they returned to the Bendy Hell room and flipped the final switch now that all of them were powered, finally opening the Haunted House attraction that Audrey had actually failed to notice during their trek through here.

Audrey’s tunnel vision aside, they made their way inside and found a railway with a series of carts that led towards a closed gate with a drawn skull on it, with ‘TURN BACK’ scrawled in ink on the wall opposite to the door, making sure whoever walked in would see and read the message. But Audrey knew that they were too far gone to turn back now.

Rather than take a cart (being too few to carry everyone), Norman and Sammy instead worked together to tear down the gate that blocked their path forward before opting to simply walk along the tracks towards the end of the ride, with cardboard ghosts and vampires popping up from behind cardboard gravestones as a cheap attempt to spook them.

Norman let out a clicking noise followed by Jack’s gurgling.

“Mm, yes, I must agree. I can’t say this is a highlight of Bendy Land.” Sammy murmured in response while adjusting his mask.

“I can’t say I would ever consider a Haunted House to be a highlight of anything.” Henry replied with a dry chuckle. Buddy shook his head in response, but that didn’t surprise Audrey, given his nyctophobia tendencies.

“I mean, it can be, it just needs to be done right,” Audrey responded herself, before gesturing towards another cartoon ghost that popped out from behind a gravestone. “ This is not done right.” She concluded with a quiet giggle.

At the end of the tunnel was another gate that opened on its own, revealing a large room with a tiled floor, the railroad leading all around it, velvety sepia wallpaper with large portraits hanging up on them, a large chandelier dangling above, and a series of random objects in the center of the room, ranging from sofas, crates, barrels, chairs, carts, and sandbags.

It certainly fit into the idea of a haunted house and was certainly a step-up in the creepiness department, but Audrey had a feeling something was about to happen, based on how tense both Henry and Buddy had gotten all of a sudden. Suddenly, across the room, another gate slowly swung open, and out walked none other than Twisted Alice herself, a cruel grin across her expression and a Tommy gun gripped tightly in her hands.

“Ah, there you are. I was afraid you’d be late for the party, but you’re just in time,” Alice called out to the group as she brushed a hand through her hair idly. “Now, due to my lack of a Boris, I wasn’t able to make my usual perfected version of him, so I had to do a bit of improvising! I hope you’ll find it just as entertaining!” She added on before letting out a laugh as… something began moving in the shadows of the tunnel before eventually emerging from it. The Lurker, also known as Big Steve, emerged from the darkness with a roar that caused the room to tremble.

Alice let out a whistle, which Big Steve responded to before turning towards the group with angry expressions and then suddenly charging towards the group. Now, as Audrey knew, the Lurker posed an incredible danger due to its hulking size and incredible strength. Although there was something about Big Steve that seemed off, being the metal collar around his neck with four metal rods sticking upwards that connected a circular piece of metal just above his head, almost as if it was some sort of mind-controlling device or something.

As if having an angry Lurker trying to kill them wasn’t stressful enough, they also had Alice to deal with, wielding her Tommy Gun, who took aim and began to open fire on the group. They all split up in order to avoid being peppered full of holes, hiding behind the various items that scattered the floor, at least until the Lurker picked up the crate that Audrey was hiding behind and attempted to smash her with it, but she managed to roll away at the last moment.

Alice began to open fire at Audrey as she scrambled away, but she was suddenly intercepted by none other than Sammy Lawrence, who had managed to use Flow to get up next to her, pushing her away before she could actually pull the trigger. Although Audrey couldn’t exactly focus on what they were doing while Big Steve was still after her.

The Lurker lifted its massive arms but was interrupted in the middle of his attack by Jack popping out from the wall and leaping onto its back, being incredibly small compared to the sheer size of Big Steve, but being just heavy enough to throw the inky creature off. Buddy Boris also leapt up to climb up the Lurker’s back and tried to strike at the metal collar around Steve’s neck with his Gent pipe, but he didn’t make any progress before both him and Swollen Jack were tossed off of him.

“That collar! If we can break it, we can bring the Lurker back to our side!” Henry said while pointing to it after he and Norman ran to Audrey’s side and helped her back up to her feet. Big Steve let out a roar towards the three of them, only for Norman to roar back in response and step forward in front of the Lurker. He swung one of his massive arms at the projectionist, but Norman sidestepped the strike, before delivering a punch to Big Steve’s face.

The Lurker took a step back from the sheer force of Norman’s fist before letting out another roar and then attempting to smash Norman after grabbing a nearby barrel, but the projectionist managed to raise both arms in order to catch the barrel before it flattened him. With Steve now locked in a game of Tug Of War with Norman, Audrey used Flow in order to move up onto the Lurker’s shoulders.

With a single swing of her Stun Pipe, Audrey managed to break through one of the metal bars that held up the circular object above Big Steve’s head, loosening it greatly, before she got busy with the others, although it did take some time thanks to the Lurker’s movements and inky body making it a bit difficult to move properly, while Norman struggled to keep Big Steve at bay, even now that Henry was assisting him.

The Lurker tried to reach one of its hands up to pluck Audrey off of its back, but having taken his attention off of Norman resulted in the projectionist throwing the barrel directly at Big Steve’s face, causing him to stumble backwards, clumsily twirling around and tripping, falling onto his face. Given an ample opportunity, Audrey continued to strike at the collar, taking out the four poles suspending the device until it eventually popped off.

Audrey crouched down and reached her left hand down to the Lurker’s head, emitting a golden glow that covered the area briefly before it died down. She hopped off of him as Big Steve slowly got back up, shaking his head while holding his head.

“Hey there, big guy. How’re you feeling?” Audrey asked gently with a smile as Steve recovered from his daze before eventually glancing towards her with a nod, offering out a hand, to which Audrey responded by giving him a high-five, which he seemed happy with. But before the two could catch up any further, bullets suddenly grazed over their heads.

Across the room, Audrey caught sight of Sammy’s struggle against Alice, with the former seeming to be wounded, judging by the way he was holding his arm. Alice was trying to aim past him, but everytime she did, Sammy would step to the side in order to block her way.

“Get out of my way, Sammy,” Alice snarled. “Or I’ll blast a hole through that god-damned mask of yours.”

Sammy shook his head adamantly. “If you want to kill them, you’ll have to kill me too.”

Alice seemed to hesitate at his words before quickly regaining her composure. “Fine, be that way–” But before Alice could even finish her sentence, Sammy suddenly darted forward and pushed her aside, just in time for her to avoid being impaled from behind by none other than Allison Angel, with Tom the wolf standing a couple of feet behind her, a surprised look on her face.

Sammy looked down and ready to begin attacking at that very moment, but Henry suddenly ran over, stopping between them, holding out his hands to keep the two away from each other. The rest of the group walked over to join the conversation while Norman stepped over to the fallen angel, using his foot to keep her pinned down after kicking away her Tommy Gun.

“Now, now, everyone, stay calm, okay? Allison, Tom, just… let us explain, okay?” Henry murmured briefly to the group before turning to the other two. 

“You better have a good reason that you have Sammy Lawrence, the Projectionist, and a Searcher traveling with you, Henry and Audrey.” Alisson murmured as she reluctantly sheathed her blade and folded her arms over her chest while Tom rested his axe on his shoulder.

Audrey stepped forward next to Henry, giving a wave and a smile to Allison and Tom. “We can explain, promise.”

Chapter Text

The hideout that Allison and Tom had put together was surprisingly well-made, effectively just being a much more secure version of Buddy’s safehouse that they had left a long time ago. Although Audrey figured that the others would have appreciated it more… if most of them weren’t all forced to share a single cell as there was only one.

Jack, Sammy, Norman, and Alice were all forced to share a cell for the moment as neither Allison nor Tom exactly trusted them just yet, while Audrey, Henry, Buddy, and even Big Steve were all allowed to roam freely around the hideout as they were trusted by Allison and Tom. Alice had put up quite a bit of a fight, but they were eventually able to force her into the cell with the others, although she retreated as far into the corner as she possibly could in an attempt to avoid being touched, at least that’s what she claimed.

Not to mention, as it turned out, there were two lost ones living with Allison and Tom in the hideout as well, having waited for them, being Porter and Heidi, the ones who gave Audrey her powers of Flow and the ability to move through the pipes of ink respectively.

“So, why the hell are you traveling with… I don’t even know how to describe them all together. A Searcher, Sammy Lawrence, the Projectionist, plus Twisted Alice is being allowed to live,” Allison asked in a bit of an incredulous manner while gesturing towards the cell with all of the ink entities inside of it. “So… why are you travelling with them, Henry and Audrey?” She asked slowly with a strained tone of voice.

“Well, Audrey’s powers are manifesting in strange ways. When she tried to banish an ink entity, they became… almost passive. You can ask them yourself - other than Alice, that is - Audrey hasn’t had the chance to use her power on her yet.” Henry explained briefly with a shrug before folding his arms over his chest. 

“Yeah, we’ve been trying to put a permanent end to the Cycle once and for all, but we can’t do that alone obviously. The Ink Demon is far too powerful. Even together, we stand a miniscule chance, but still…” Audrey briefly trailed off before giving a bit of a sheepish grin. “…A miniscule chance is still better than zero chance, right?” Before Allison could give a response, Porter suddenly snickered and spoke.

“Oh bother, what’s the point in even locking them up? Certainly, there’s a bigger threat to focus on, right? The Ink Demon is far more dangerous than a lyricist, a composer, and a projectionist combined, wouldn’t you say?” Porter asked while looking up towards Allison from where he was sitting.

“It’s a precaution, Porter. We can’t trust them.” Allison murmured in response.

“Precaution for what, exactly? Most of them can leave whenever they want. Why don’t you demonstrate?” Porter asked slyly while turning his yellow-eyed gaze towards the three inside of the cage, seemingly ignoring Alice Angel in the process, briefly adjusting his goggles.

Sammy and Jack exchanged glances before both of them casually exited the cage despite the barriers put in place, with the former using the Flow ability and the latter simply using the cracks in the floorboards in order to leave just as simply. Meanwhile, Norman glanced at the only other remaining prisoner inside with him briefly before casually breaking down the barrier that kept him locked in the cell and walking out. Tom was about to suddenly stand up, but Porter reached a hand up in order to get him to sit back down.

“Haha! That was amazing!” Heidi cheered while clapping her hands, her cheery expression being a stark contrast to Allison’s one of confliction. Seeing an opening, the twisted version of Alice Angel tried to make a run for it, but her attempt was thwarted by Big Steve suddenly lumbering in front of the door to leave, followed by the angel being thrown to the ground, with Norman using his foot to pin her down on the ground, glancing towards Audrey and making a shuttering sound.

She didn’t even need Sammy to translate in order to understand what Norman was asking her to do, rising from her chair and walking over to Alice, ignoring the fact that she was screaming and wriggling in order to try and not let the girl touch her, but it was a bit difficult considering that she was pinned to the ground. Upon placing a hand on Alice’s shoulder, the angel suddenly ceased all movement as a golden glow engulfed the room.

Just like when she’d placed her hand on Sammy’s shoulder, her hand was stuck in place and the spiral began to glow brighter and brighter. The entire area and everyone surrounding her faded away, soon being replaced by what appeared to be the music department of Joey Drew Studios, at one of the recording booths. The human form of Sammy Lawrence was there, standing next to a blonde-haired woman, seemingly awaiting someone’s arrival. His expression was one of guilt while the woman’s seemed more… innocent and maybe a bit confused at the same time.

Eventually, another woman entered the room, one with medium-length black hair, who seemed a bit perplexed after seeing both Sammy and another woman standing there. Audrey soon realized that this was the same woman who had been in Sammy’s memories as well, meaning that… this woman was most likely Susie Campbell, the voice actress for Alice Angel… or perhaps… former voice actress for Alice Angel.

“…Sammy? What’s… going on?” Susie asked quietly, seemingly already noticing that something about this situation seemed off. Sammy let out a long sigh before gesturing for Susie to come closer, which she did hesitantly, stopping a few feet from him, occasionally glancing towards the blonde-haired woman, who offered Susie a slight wave as a greet, which she returned reluctantly.

“Let it be known, Susie, that this was not my decision to make. It was Joey’s decision.”

“…What decision?”

Sammy paused for several moments, as if unsure on how to phrase the next part of his statement. Eventually, he half-heartedly gestured towards the blonde-haired woman standing next to her. “This… is Allison Pendle. The… The new voice actress… for Alice Angel.” Sammy murmured with great reluctance, his voice getting smaller and smaller with every word uttered.

Immediately, Audrey could feel Susie’s entire world being crushed in that very moment. The woman had finally been living out her dreams of making it big in a role she enjoyed greatly, but now she’d just been informed that someone else was going to play that role, that someone else would be living her dreams. After a few moments of stunned silence, Susie’s eyes began welling with tears, slowly ruining her makeup, as she seemed on the verge of collapsing, but Sammy stepped forward and kept her upright.

The memory faded out as Audrey was suddenly plunged back into the real world, able to take her hand off of Alice’s shoulder once more. She stood up and rubbed her temples while gesturing for Norman to step back, lifting his foot off of her in the process.

“Did you fix her brain?” Heidi asked as she stepped towards Audrey, peering down at Alice over her shoulder. Audrey chuckled quietly in response as she retreated her hand from her temple, letting her arm droop down to her side.

“Debatable if I did or not. But… she should properly remember who she is now. And hopefully be less… murdery, I guess.” Audrey replied with a slight shrug as Sammy walked on over and crouched down towards Susie, who seemed to be out cold for the moment. After a few moments, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder before hauling her over to an empty chair, setting her down in it carefully.

“She’s breathing. Seems like she’s having a similar reaction to Norman when his memories were restored…” Sammy mumbled to seemingly no-one, possibly just thinking out loud as opposed to actually attempting to communicate to someone, as Jack crawled up next to him to look over Alice as well. Allison had been watching all of this happen from where she was sitting, shifting her gaze between the multiple ink entities that had been previously inside of the cage in their safehouse.

“I… don’t know how to feel about this.” Allison muttered while glancing between them uneasily, arms folded tightly over her chest. Norman regarded her with a light rumbling sound, which Sammy responded to after a few moments, albeit not taking his gaze off of Susie.

“He makes a good point. If we spend all of our time trying to prove our trustworthiness, we’ll be open to the demon’s attack,” the composer murmured while rising to his feet and turning towards Allison. “You have plenty of reasons to not trust us - I fully understand that - but Audrey and Henry’s efforts have been working so far. Do you really want to be the obstacle blocking their path, Allison?” He asked deliberately in a low voice. Allison remained silent for several moments, quietly debating with herself.

“Fine. But, if you–”

“Do anything to potentially betray you, you’ll kill me? I’ve experienced your wolf planting his axe into the side of my head enough times.” Sammy finished for her while reaching a hand up to adjust his mask idly, allowing Allison to sit there in silence once more, with Tom scowling towards the composer.

“We don’t need to trust each other fully – but we all have a common enemy. The Ink Demon.” Henry muttered while stepping past Allison and over to Tom, resting a reassuring hand onto his shoulder. Allison let out a sigh as she stood up from her chair.

“Well, that means this is a group of twelve now. It’s going to be a bit difficult to properly navigate all of us through the studio. We’re probably gonna draw the Ink Demon’s attention a lot more than usual. But… Well, working together, we’re certainly a force to be reckoned with.” Allison murmured with a small smile growing on her face, her confidence seemingly to grow over time, idly twirling her blade in hand. Tom still seemed a bit uneasy, but his expression softened after he saw Allison’s expression.

“…nngh… My head hurts…” A sudden small voice murmured weakly, which Audrey soon realized belonged to Twisted Alice, or rather, Susie Campbell. She lifted her head up while rubbing her temples with one of her gloved hands, before eventually pausing when she spotted Sammy standing over her.

“Susie.”

“Sammy. I–” But before she could properly say anything, Norman suddenly stepped forward and proceeded to grab both Sammy and Susie, hoisting the latter out of her chair, before pushing the two into the alcove where Allison and Tom’s beds were, letting out a shuttering sound before leaving them there and walking back.

“Norman? Are you seriously insisting we work out our problems on our own?” Susie asked incredulously from behind the wall. Norman responded with what almost sounded like laughter, although it sounded a bit strange given the mechanical nature of Norman’s appearance. From there, Susie and Sammy began conversing with each other, speaking quietly to the point where Audrey couldn’t hear them at all.

In the meantime, the rest of the group prepared themselves in any way they could, making sure their weapons were in good enough condition to be wielded efficiently, mostly done by Tom at Allison’s request, even performing a bit of maintenance work on Norman and his projector head, seemingly letting him be a bit more comfortable with the whole ‘Norman Polk is the Projectionist’ thing and just general existence. Eventually, they were about as prepared as they could be, now just sitting around and waiting for Sammy and Susie to finish their conversation.

“Hey, Audrey, how did you figure out that you could… well, fix others for lack of a better term?” Allison asked curiously while idly tapping the point of her blade against the surface of the table next to her, turning her gaze over to the other woman she was addressing.

“Oh, uh, I found out about it when Henry and I made it to the Music Department. We were jumped by Searchers and started to fight them. I tried to banish one of them, and they suddenly acted strangely, as if its mind was restored. We soon confirmed this after encountering Jack, restoring his humanity.” Audrey explained briefly before gesturing towards the Swollen Searcher in question, who waved towards Allison in response.

“Heheheheh!” Porter chuckled in response, nearly tumbling over from his amusement. “Of course! You’re the savior this world has been looking for, Bobby! To liberate all of the poor souls trapped within the Cycle!” The Lost One cheered enthusiastically to which Heidi responded with equally excited clapping. Henry glanced towards Audrey with a mildly confused look.

“Bobby?”

“I don’t know - he came up with it.”

Before the conversation could get past that point, Sammy and Susie both suddenly walked out back into the main room, with the former grabbing his axe and the latter taking the tommy gun respectively, being extremely quiet to the point where the rest of the room fell silent as well. Everyone but Sammy and Susie exchanged glances among each other before continuing what they were doing, preparing for the journey ahead.

“Why are you all so silent? We have things to do.” Sammy asked after he picked up his axe and noticed the strange expressions on everyone’s face, getting them out of their state of pause and resume what they were doing. Eventually, everyone was good to go, with Tom opening the door to leave their safehouse. As soon as they did, the door was opened to a hallway where something swiftly dipped behind a corner as a familiar low growl echoed throughout the room.

“He already knows we’re here and together. What a big meanie-head…” Heidi murmured in a whisper-like voice from where she was perched atop one of the Lurker’s shoulders, with Porter on the opposite one, as Big Steve followed behind the rest of the group as they carefully ventured out into the hallway, turning the corner where the demon had ducked behind only to find that no-one was there, to nobody’s surprise, naturally.

A few Searchers popped out of the ground as they made their way down the hall, but they almost immediately descended back down into the ink as soon as they saw the twelve of them making their way down the hall. Maybe they were smarter than Audrey initially assumed them to be. They continued making their way down the hall before reaching a larger room that more-so resembled a cave, with a sea of ink that led into a tunnel.

“Ah, right. I forgot about that. We need the rafts to cross the sea of ink… but no way all of us are going to fit into just one. We’ll need two… or maybe even three. Actually, more likely at least three. Come on, everyone.” Henry explained to everyone before they made their way over to what appeared to be a loading bay for pushing wooden rafts into the ink. 

As could be expected, with twelve of them in total and some of them… not proportionally sized to the rafts to put it simply, three of them were needed in order to properly ferry all of them across the ink. Riding in the first one was Audrey, Henry, Allison, and Tom. Riding in the second one was Jack, Sammy, Buddy, Norman, and Susie. And in the third one had Big Steve with Porter and Heidi riding on his shoulders.

The three paddle-powered rafts chugged along the ink until reaching a crossroads with two paths, being one that diverged to the left and the other that diverged to the right, with the latter having an empty raft in it, making Audrey briefly wonder how it got there, but her attention was quickly taken by what appeared to be a giant Bendy hand reaching out of the ink, hovering above the raft briefly before suddenly slamming into it, dragging it down only for it to never resurface.

“What the–”

“I wouldn’t question it,” Henry murmured nonchalantly before Audrey could even properly express her confusion. “It’s nothing worth looking into - trust me, I’ve tried.” He added only while turning towards the back of the raft, using his axe to clear away some ink that had jammed in the paddles, allowing the raft to move forward once more as Allison steered it to the left while the giant hand sunk down into the ink.

As the three rafts moved through the ink, all of a sudden, the giant hand re-emerged from the ink over by the second raft with Jack, Sammy, Buddy, and Norman, raising upwards as if preparing to slam into the raft, but Norman stepped in the way and managed to prevent the hand from sinking their raft. Sammy tried to slash at the giant hand with his axe and Susie tried to fire at it with her Tommy gun, but neither were doing very much to get it off, the raft beginning to sink from the hand pressing down against Norman.

Thinking quickly, Audrey moved to the back of the raft and took a deep breath, before leaping forward off of the raft and using Flow to move to their raft, before using it again to move on top of the giant hand, specifically landing on the back of the palm. She crouched down and placed her left hand down on it, before a scream rang out and the oversized hand suddenly began to dissipate rapidly with a golden glow, eventually disappearing and causing Audrey to fall down straight onto Norman, causing them both to tumble to the floor of the raft.

“That… was ridiculous, Audrey. And I used to worship a cartoon character as some sort of god - I know ridiculous when I see it.” Sammy mumbled quietly before helping her up to her feet to which Audrey chuckled sheepishly in response as she rubbed her back after the impact, deciding to stick on their raft over risking to jump over to the one that Henry was on.

“Gotta say, honey, that was a pretty slick move,” Susie said warmly with a small smirk on her face as she pulled Norman back up to her feet while glancing down towards him with her expression remaining. “You did well as well, Norman, before you start to feel self-conscious about it.” She murmured in a while patting the projectionist on the shoulder, who probably would’ve rolled his eyes if he had the face to express that. Audrey had to admit, she much preferred this version of Alice compared to the one obsessed with tearing her limbs off… and her insides out.

After a long ride through narrow and twisting tunnels, they eventually came to an end, to what appeared to be a town with the inky sea on one side, almost like some sort of fishing village. There was even a Lost One sitting on a tower as they exited the tunnels with a cast-out fishing rod, who waved to the group, who Audrey waved back to.

They eventually made it to a dock at the edge of the small town and all boarded off of the rafts, finally reaching dry land. The small houses seemed to be positioned in a circle around the center clearing of the town, the floor of which consisted of the cavern floor. But as they made it closer to the middle of the clearing, a sudden rumbling shook the entire town.

“Was that… ‘him?’” Audrey asked a bit nervously but quietly as she glanced around warily.

“Doubt it. The Lost Ones and Searchers built this place a long time ago. At some… far-off point, Sammy was the one keeping them at bay. I doubt they’d listen to him anymore,” Allison murmured in response while gripping her blade tighter before several ink creatures began to gather around them. Lost Ones, Searchers, Fishers, Pipers, Strikes, Widows, Gwens, and even a few Boris clones with eyes that glowed gold strangely enough. Eventually, the entire group was surrounded on all sides. “Looks like we’re in for a fight! Get ready!”

All of a sudden, they all began charging the group, forcing them to defend themselves as they were ruthlessly attacked on all sides, although the twelve of them were more than enough to fend them off even if they were outnumbered. Audrey managed to use her abilities on a few of them, but the Butcher Gang members didn’t seem to respond nearly as well, while the Lost Ones and Searchers she affected simply just fled. Many of them were easily dispatched during the battle, exploding into ink. Can’t save everyone, Audrey figured.

Like a well-oiled machine, the group was easily capable of fending off the ambush of Lost Ones, Searchers, and Butcher Gang members, even working together in a few select moments to finish them off quicker. They seemed to keep coming and coming until they seemed to collectively realize that they weren’t making any progress, turning tail and fleeing.

“Yeah! Run away from us!” Heidi yelled after them as they all ran off from where she was sitting on the Lurker’s shoulders, gleefully giggling while playfully kicking her legs back and forth while the rest of the group was catching their breath from the conflict.

Sammy let out a sigh. “And that’s only the beginning…” He murmured quietly as he adjusted his mask before stretching his arms to try and restore some feeling in them after exerting himself so much while everyone mumbled out their agreements. After all, they still had the Ink Demon to worry about. Once they had all caught their breath, they all continued onwards until reaching a hallway where the only pathway was a few boards over a dark pit.

“That… doesn’t look like it's going to support any of our body weight.” Audrey murmured as she briefly glanced towards Henry, who nodded in response, folding his arms as he gazed distantly at the boards with the slightest hint of contempt in his eyes.

“Every time I make it, they break and I fall through,” Henry agreed after nodding. “There’s a way to progress down there, not to mention that the fall’s incredibly safe. Come on.” He said before casually stepping forward and allowing himself to fall down the pit, disappearing into the darkness.

“There’s no way in hell he actually just did that.” Sammy murmured as he walked over to the edge and glanced downwards, as if trying to confirm where Henry would be landing, although it was useless considering how dark it was. Norman let out a sound that vaguely resembled a laugh before he stepped over behind Sammy and then casually pushed him off of the ledge, sending him down towards Henry with a surprised yelp, soon followed by Norman hopping off the edge.

“How childish can you be, Norman?” Susie asked quietly before glancing over her shoulder towards the Lurker. “Hey, big guy, how many people do you think you can carry? I don’t exactly fancy dropping down a dark hole, especially when I don’t know what’s at the bottom.” She asked Big Steve, who let out what Audrey could only assume was a grunt of agreement before crouching down to allow the others to board onto his back.

Susie, Allison, Tom, Buddy, Jack, and Audrey all clambered onto Big Steve’s back along with Porter and Heidi. Audrey was a bit concerned that the combined weight of all eight of them would prove too much for the Lurker, but he soon proved her wrong by standing upright with ease, nearly causing Audrey to topple off, although Buddy thankfully managed to grab her arm and hoist her back up, earning a thanks of appreciation from the young woman.

“Watch out below!” Porter shouted down the hole after cupping his hands around his mouth as Big Steve lumbered over to it and eventually allowed himself to slip off the edge, falling downwards and plummeting towards the ground, prompting all of them to brace for impact, which was needed after the Lurker landed on the ground, which would’ve caused them to collapse from the force had they not have been holding on.

Slowly but surely, all of them but Porter and Heidi slid off of Big Steve, with the three that had fallen down here first helping them off and not accidentally fall into the ink that covered the floor below them in a rather large puddle, although there were wooden floorboards that stood just above the ink thankfully, which led to an open door.

“The Administration Lobby?” Sammy asked after he glanced out of the open door, looking back up towards where they had fallen in from. “What is the Administration Lobby doing under the Lost Harbor?” He added on, only to receive a response from Norman with a non-descript shuttering noise generated via his projector head.

“Mm… Yeah, you’re right. The Cycle’s never made much sense in the first place,” Sammy mumbled in response. “I mean, the studio’s practically stacked on top of itself. An endless labyrinth of sepia walls and ink stains…” He mumbled under his breath while crossing his arms over his chest. Susie walked up to him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“You can brood later, dear.”

“I’m not brooding.”

“From the bottom of my heart, you are brooding.”

The group had a brief chuckle over Susie’s quip while Sammy just grumbled under his breath, at least until Henry got everyone’s attention with a quick clap of his hands, before quickly leading all of them out of the room, taking them through a small lobby and then going through a door marked “ Film Vault ,” where a large panel sat with multiple pipes being visibly missing.

“We need three pipes to fix this panel so that we can drain the ink over here,” he said while gesturing towards a door on the opposite side of the room that was completely flooded on the other side of it. “There’s some globs of thick ink in Joey’s office lying at the end of a maze past the gate right there.” He added on while gesturing to the closed gate in the lobby with a sign reading “ Administration ” above it.

The group headed back into the lobby while Henry walked through another hall before emerging behind the desk where Audrey presumed a secretary was supposed to be, flipping a switch that caused the gate to slowly open, revealing a hallway with offices and multiple paths. As soon as they did, a Piper walked past the hall, catching a brief glimpse of the group and immediately running off.

“I’m going to be honest - grabbing all of that thick ink one at a time is really time-consuming, especially since it’s all in Joey’s office. There’s twelve of us… so teams of four will go one at a time to Joey’s office. I’ll go with Audrey, Allison, and Tom first.” Henry explained while gesturing to the three in question, before gesturing for them to follow while the others hung back and waited.

-

Just as Henry had said, Joey’s office did have a glob of thick ink inside of it.

It was just sitting on the left-hand side of his office, but that wasn’t what stood out to Audrey about this moment. What stood out to her was actually what happened when they were beginning to leave the office, where a sudden and familiar voice spoke out to them, for better or for worse.

“Before you go, you mind if I have a word with you four?” Audrey spun around to see Joey Drew sitting at his own desk, although it very evidently wasn’t the real one. It was the apparition of Joey Drew, the replica made by the ink that shared his memories. Allison and Tom exchanged quick glances before looking towards Henry, who had paused completely in his tracks from the sound of Joey’s voice.

“Let me just say; you’re all doing a great job so far! I’d hate to keep you from your friends, but… I wanted to speak with you,” Joey said enthusiastically before glancing towards Audrey with a warm smile. “Bendy is still inside of the Ink Demon, but is trapped there until he’s defeated, so… sorry, but you can’t get Bendy back until you beat the Ink Demon. But still, you’re doing great, Audrey! Keep at ‘em!” He said as encouragingly as possible, before shifting his gaze over to Allison and Tom.

“…Perhaps you two have realized by now, but… well, you two don’t share the same qualities that some of your allies do. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful that you’re helping everyone out, but… I hope you don’t feel discouraged just because you two aren’t actually lost souls; only recreations of them.” Joey said to them sympathetically before finally looking towards Henry, who hadn’t moved an inch since Joey had suddenly appeared.

“Henry, I–”

“Don’t even. Don’t defend yourself. Don’t paint yourself as the victim.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, old friend.”

Henry didn’t respond. Joey simply sighed.

“I’m not going to pretend like I’m the victim. Not anymore, at least,” Joey mumbled while crossing his arms over his chest. “I would say sorry, but… well, I get the feeling that nothing I could say would convince you, right?” Henry didn’t respond to Joey’s question, instead remaining still as his breathing slowed down momentarily.

“Look - I made a lot of mistakes, Henry. And I could never even begin to atone for all of them. But you can finally put all of this to rest. Do… Do something better with your life! I’m sure anything would be better than the Cycle. Just…” Joey briefly faltered. “Well, you’ve got new friends behind you, Henry. Ones that… are a lot better than I ever was. If anything, just… just live for them, okay?”

Silence fell upon the room until it was deafening. But just as Henry turned to face Joey, the latter suddenly disappeared into black inky particles that sunk into the ground. Henry took in a deep breath before gesturing for the other three to follow him back to the others, who all exchanged glances before they all walked back to where the others were waiting, remaining silent the entire time.

-

“Does it have to be Joey’s office?” Sammy asked in an aggravated manner under his breath as he, Susie, Norman, and Jack all stood outside of their former employer’s office door, resting his axe on his shoulder and resisting the urge to chop the door down out of pure spite.

Jack responded with a gurgle as he reached a hand out and slowly pushed the door open. Sitting at the desk in front of them was the man who the office belonged to, who offered a wave and a smile towards the group and was seemingly about to say something, before a gun shot rang out from Alice’s tommy gun, prompting Joey to dissolve back into ink… only to reappear moments later, standing up next to his desk.

“I’m afraid that isn’t going to work,” Joey murmured with a quick sigh, although his smile didn’t fade from his face, seemingly only becoming more resigned than anything. “As much as you want to, you can’t–” But he was cut off once more by Sammy stepping forward and grabbing him by the neck, shoving him against the back wall, axe raised and ready to swing. Joey didn’t get scared or even irritated, instead simply sighing.

“Yeah… that’s… fair.”

“Henry told us you appeared to him as well, Joey. You have some gall to appear to us specifically,” Sammy said in a dangerous tone of voice, tightening his grip around his former employer’s throat. “ You’re the reason why I ended up in this… inky abyss I call a body! You’re the reason that Jack became a Searcher! You’re the reason that Susie became so twisted! You’re the reason that Norman ended up as a sacrifice!” He exclaimed before suddenly shoving Joey down to the ground and placing a foot on his chest.

“SLEEP.”

Suddenly, Sammy’s axe ended up becoming planted in Joey’s chest, causing the man to disperse into ink once more. But just like before, he ended up reforming next to the table with the thick ink they needed, picking it up and looking at it with a somber expression.

“As I was trying to say… As much as you want to, you can’t kill me. Just like everyone else in the Cycle, I will come back over and over. Sure, a good way to relieve stress, but in the grand scheme of things? You all have bigger and better things to be doing! I mean, Susie, who do you hate more? Me or the Ink Demon?”

Susie paused with a frown for several seconds before slowly lowering her Tommy Gun. “That’s not fair.”

“Look. Nothing I do or say will ever change the past nor the present. It’s true that everything is my fault. And while I may not technically be the real Joey Drew… I imagine that the real me must’ve realized that at some point as well. But if you defeat the Ink Demon and escape the Cycle… Well, you have the chance to change your futures for the better! I–”

“ What’s your ploy here, Joey? ” Norman suddenly asked in the way that he usually spoke in his new form, through sounds of his projector head shuttering, as he walked past Sammy and stopped in front of the man he was addressing, his tone low and restrained. “ You’re a snake oil salesman if ever there was one. It’s hard to believe you’re doin’ this out of the pure kindness of your heart. ”

“Norman, I promise you that–”

“ I DON’T CARE FOR YOUR PROMISES, JOEY! ” Norman suddenly shouted while accompanied by the Projectionist’s roar, reeling a fist back and punching the wall right next to Joey’s head. “ Now I can’t claim that I’m overly informed about whatcha exactly did, but I have certainly overheard a few things. So what I want to hear is the god-damned truth, Drew. ”

“I am telling the truth, Norman,” Joey replied in a calm voice, his smile fading from his face. “Believe it or not, I have nothing up my sleeve. No tricks, no traps, nothing. I ruined all of your lives. No point in sugarcoating it. I’m happy to go down with this ship if it means that you all get to go free. At the end of the day, you’re still people , not monsters.” He added on after a sigh and then handed the glob of thick-ink to Norman before fading away, leaving the room in silence.

-

After hearing how the other’s experiences had gone inside of Joey’s office, Buddy wasn’t exactly thrilled to be walking with strangers. He was leading Porter, Heidi, and Big Steve through the administration halls for the last glob of thick ink needed to make the last pipe to fix the panel back at the entrance. And when it came to what he thought of Joey in the present… Well, he was a bit conflicted.

Honestly, he would’ve preferred if anyone else was with him. Not that he had anything against Porter, Heidi, or Big Steve, but they were complete strangers to him, not to mention that he wasn’t exactly used to the concept of friendly Lost Ones. Most of them had lost their mind to the state of hostile lunacy, but both Porter and Heidi seemed friendly enough, if a bit unhinged, but it would be more surprising if they weren’t. As for Big Steve? Well, he wasn’t exactly a Lost One nor an animated cartoon. He seemed nice enough, but his size and strength made him a bit intimidating, even if Heidi claimed that he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

But still, Buddy barely knew any of them. It wasn’t exactly confidence-inspiring. But yet here he was, standing directly in front of Joey Drew’s office after forging his way through the administration offices with three glorified strangers. It was at times like these Boris wondered why he bothered helping with this plan when he knew how to escape the Cycle, having figured it out when the Keepers were capturing everyone. Thomas Connor’s old Ink Machine prototype was capable of making a portal out.

But it was too late to be dwelling on that. The Safehouse was too far away, more than likely several levels above or below, Buddy wasn’t too sure. Despite the amount of searching he’d done in this studio, he hadn’t mapped out the entire place.

So much for a delivery boy.

Once upon a time, Buddy was able to vaguely recall the person he once was by name, but he forgot it after a final glimpse, only for all of his memories to resurface after Audrey laid a hand upon his shoulder. In one moment, he was Buddy Boris. And the next, he was back to being Daniel “Buddy” Lewek.

“Oh bother… You’ve been staring for a while now. Are you nervous?” Porter asked quietly from where he was standing behind the wolf, but still loud enough to snap Buddy out of his thoughts, only just now realizing that he’d been staring at the door to Joey’s office for about a minute now. After a moment of reluctance, Buddy nodded hesitantly in response.

“Heh heh heh! That’s no surprise! Mister Drew’s a hard fellow to talk to from what I gather! Stein had that sad look on his face while Lawrence, Polk, and Campbell all looked mad or annoyed at the very least!” Porter said nonchalantly before chuckling again. “But where’s the use in waiting around? Everyone’s a-waiting, y’know!”

“Yeah! We’ve still gotta get another… er… whatchamacallit!” Heidi added on cheerfully as encouragement.

Buddy let out a near silent sigh. They had a point. Henry and the others were waiting back at the beginning for them to get another blob of thick ink in order to move on. This wasn’t a time to be dwelling on the past. It was time to face the present instead. So the wolf reached his hand out and grabbed the door knob, before turning and pulling it open. The first thing he saw was Joey leaning against the left side of his desk, holding the blob they needed in one hand, staring at it quietly before glancing towards them with a smile.

“Why hello there! It’s, uh, been awhile, hasn’t it? Sorry if I seem a bit… apprehensive, my earlier interaction with some justifiably angry members of your group has left me a bit jumpy, so my deepest apologies,” Joey explained before pushing off of his desk to stand up on his own two feet. “First off, I want to thank the three of you who helped Audrey during her first time through the Cycle. The abilities and assistance you provided her was a big help I bet! And as for you, Buddy…” Joey trailed off with his smile fading.

“…To be honest, there’s no excuse for what happened. The old me would’ve blamed it on someone else, like Thomas Connor or Alan Gray, perhaps even the whole Gent corporation, but… in the end it’s all my fault. I stripped away your humanity, Buddy, after taking advantage of you. I wouldn’t blame you if–” But Joey was suddenly cut off by Boris placing a hand on the man’s shoulder and giving a simple nod. While he may have been predominately mute, Joey seemed to get the message.

“I… I see,” Joey murmured with a nod of his own, handing him the blob of thick ink. “Well… If we ever meet again, I hope it’s under some… happier circumstances, don’t you?” He asked one final time before crossing his arms as he faded away into black inky particles, leaving the room in silence until Buddy gestured for the others to leave.

-

With all three blobs of thick ink collected, they were all turned into the correct pieces of pipe from the nearby Ink Maker and inserted into the panel, the light bulb above the Film Vault door turned on and Henry was now able to open it without any issue.

The other side of the door was a short hallway that led to a room with a pried open vault door and an empty box that Henry opened, sighing as he saw the contents inside (or lack thereof), before turning back to the rest of the group.

“Naturally, the Ink Demon took the End Reel. We need to track him down to find it.” Henry explained before Tom walked past him and then casually broke the metal door in half that blocked the path forward with one swing of his prosthetic arm, creating an opening big enough for most of them, although Big Steve had to rip it off of its hinges in order to get through, and even then it was a tight fit.

Following along further down the hallway eventually led to a room with a large window, peering into another hall, with ink suddenly climbing up the walls on the opposite side as the Ink Demon suddenly lumbered past with a snarl before eventually walking out of their field of view.

“It never fails to send a shiver down my spine… I miss Bendy.” Audrey mumbled to herself under her breath after it disappeared, before shuddering and then moving on with the others. But another turn and an ink-written message on the wall reading a casual “ DEATH → ” later, the group made it to a large cave-like opening with what appeared to be a giant version of the Ink Machine on the other end of a large pool of ink while the real one was lowered in from directly above it to be slotted in.

“I was dreading this,” Allison murmured as she folded her arms over her chest with a frown. “Henry, Audrey, all of us want to come with you, but we can’t all cross this. Some of us can wade across, but others will just disappear into the blackened depths.” She said while gesturing towards the giant pool of ink that separated them from their objective.

“No… No, I think I have an idea,” Audrey said with a grin forming on her face before looking towards the Lurker. “Hey, Steve, you’re big and strong, right? You’d be able to wade across, right? How’d you feel about ferrying our friends across to help them out?” She asked Big Steve himself with as much confidence as she could muster. The Lurker seemed to think on this for a few moments before giving a thumbs-up, followed by an enthusiastic response from Heidi.

“Oh! Oh! He agrees! Stevie can get us all across!”

The only ones who didn’t need to use Big Steve in order to get across was Henry, Audrey, Sammy, and Norman, as they were all strong enough to wade across themselves, meanwhile everyone else had to be carried across on the Lurker’s back, who had no problem wading through the ink considering it barely went up to his calf, going four at a time until everyone had made it across, finally allowing Steve to step out of the inky pool himself.

“Huh. That was… a lot easier than I was envisioning.” Allison mumbled in response after watching Big Steve step into the large Ink Machine-like structure before the group continued onwards. The halls of this structure had ink dripping in from the ceiling and rolling down the walls, at least until they were replaced by glass tubes built into them, some of which had either Lost Ones or Boris clones inside of them, with exhaust being filtered out through pipes.

Soon, a large metal gate blocked their path, but was quickly parted by a lever on the side that Audrey flipped, leading to a large room with a fancy chair in the very center, the ceiling around it being surrounded by projector screens pointed towards it from every angle, each of them having clips from random cartoon episodes played over and over again.

But what grasped everyone’s attention immediately was the fact that the Ink Demon was sitting in the chair, holding the End Reel, flipping it up and down idly before catching it in its large palm and curling its razor-sharp claws around it, letting out a growl as it rose up from its chair, the room seeming to slowly grow darker and darker with every moment that went by.

“You’ve all finally made it,” It uttered with a snarl. “Straight to your tombs. I told you multiple times that this ‘plan’ of yours is a fool’s errand, and yet here you stand. Flanked by monsters that you believe to be redeemed just because you’ve humanized them while denying what they’ve done.”

“They’re not monsters. They’re people. It doesn’t matter what they were, who they were, or even what they’ve done. They are human. And I want them to have a chance at being human again.” Audrey replied sternly as she pointed her fully-upgraded Gent Pipe straight at the Ink Demon, who chuckled in response.

“Says the only non-human here aside from me,” The Ink Demon replied with light humor in its voice. “But if you wish to die upon this hill, then I will grant that wish. I will tear all of your insides out and stain it with them.” It replied with its voice lowering before suddenly charging directly at the group, only for a groan to come from the back as Big Steve pushed past them all to stand at the ground, catching the Ink Demon’s attack and sliding back a few feet from the force, attempting to hold it in place to the best of his ability.

Henry ran forward and swung his axe at the demon’s arm, striking in such a way that it caused the End Reel to be thrown up into the air, where it was caught by Porter, who used his Flow ability to leap off of the Lurker’s back and grab it.

“Gotcha!” He yelled out enthusiastically before landing behind the demon and running off, being quickly followed by the rest of the group with the exception of Big Steve, with Norman bashing through the left-hand wall upon Henry’s direction for everyone to leave the room.

“No… NO!” The Ink Demon yelled before grabbing the Lurker, managing to hoist him into the air, and then tossing him aside, before a large mass of ink bubbled up from below and amassed onto the Ink Demon until he transformed into Beast Bendy, immediately charging after all of them, breaking through the wall and chasing after them immediately.

The demon charged through the halls of the Industrial Maze right next to the Throne Room, until spotting Porter with the End Reel in hand, clutched to his chest as he ran through the halls, with Beast Bendy being easily able to catch up and attempting to smash the Lost One with one of his massive hands, but with a carefully timed use of the Flow ability, Porter managed to move out of the way with a gleeful laugh.

“Insignificant gnat,” the demon spat angrily. “Your body trembles at my presence. The ink that binds you together struggles to keep you in shape just as a byproduct. Drop the reel or die a fool’s death.” It added on as it snagged Porter off of the ground and lifted him up to its face, but the Lost One just shrugged.

“Oh, bother, that ‘End Reel’ doohickey? Sorry, I already passed it on!” Porter replied nonchalantly to the demon’s threats without so much as a care to give. Out of the corner of its vision, it suddenly spotted the other Lost One, Heidi, holding the End Reel, sitting in a criss-cross manner on one of the large piles of crates scattered throughout with a surprisingly light-hearted giggle.

The Ink Demon snarled angrily as it tossed Porter aside, throwing him straight through one of the metal walls lining the maze, before stomping towards her and shaking the structure around it with every step it took, raising both arms into the air upon reaching the pile of crates, but right before it swung, the wall next to Beast Bendy suddenly burst open, as Big Steve returned to bash into its side.

The Lurker may have been only around half of Beast Bendy, but he was still strong enough to shove the demon back and throw it off balance, sending it toppling to the ground. But that was far from enough to even daze the Ink Demon, who swung its massive arm forward and threw Steve aside once more, turning back towards Heidi, only to catch the moment she teleported away. Before it could even react to that, something sharp was quickly lodged into its leg as Tom ran out from below Beast Bendy with the End Reel in his metal hand.

“Is this your plan? A game of cat and mouse?” The demon asked as Tom turned a corner of the maze, only for Beast Bendy to burst through the wall and cut him off, backing the wolf into a corner and staring him down with a ferocious snarl. “This is where your distrusting nature lands you, wolf. A spot you can’t escape with no-one to save you.” It murmured before attempting to finish the wolf off with a giant punch.

“Hey, he’s working on that!” Allison’s voice suddenly called out as she dropped in from above next to Tom, her machete-like blade in hand, pulling the wolf out of the way, before he smashed a hole in the wall for the both of them to pass through, along with giving the End Reel for her to carry.

Beast Bendy was quick to follow, bursting through the wall and chasing after the End Reel once more, swiping at Allison with one of its giant claws, but the angel hopped onto another one of the piles of crates, climbing up before leaping off right before the demon smashed all of them to bits with a single swing. 

“You are hopeless!” The demon yelled angrily as it reached one of its giant claws above Allison, swinging downwards, but the angel slid the End Reel across the ground right before being pinned down by the beast’s large hand, fracturing the ground around her. The End Reel skidded to a stop right next to the heel of Susie, who smirked before pressing her foot on the edge of it hard enough to flip it into the air, where she caught it in her free hand.

“You want this, freak!? Come and get it!” Susie shouted with much more confidence than she was really feeling, firing a few rounds from the Tommy Gun into the demon’s face, before darting around the corner as it charged past and straight through a wall, and then continuing to run down the hall as Beast Bendy re-emerged to chase her down.

“Back to the dark puddles with you!” The demon shouted furiously as it slammed the wall with a balled fist mid-run, shaking the entire structure and nearly causing Susie to lose her footing, allowing for Beast Bendy to quickly catch up, backhanding her down to the end of the hall and slamming against the wall.

“Ngh… Never… Never again…” Susie mumbled before shakily aiming and firing the Tommy Gun at it while clutching the End Reel close to her chest as the demon stepped forward and eventually reached forward to try and grab the film reel, but the sound of a roar followed a crate slamming into its head from the side caused it to briefly swerve to the side. The Ink Demon looked over just as Norman picked up and threw another one, only this one was smashed in mid-air by the beast.

Suddenly, Alice used what was left of her strength to throw the End Reel towards Norman, who caught it out of the air and stepped off to his side where a large metal door sat, an opening big enough for the projectionist to slide through was opened with his bare hands before he let it slam shut behind him, leading him into the Ink Machine’s pumping station, where four glass tubes moved ink from below to above, where the Ink Machine was more than likely located.

“You can’t defeat me. My realm will endure.” The Ink Demon growled through gritted teeth from behind the metal door before ripping it to shreds like tissue paper with its large claws. Norman took a step back as Beast Bendy raised one of its massive arms and slammed down towards the projectionist, who just barely managed to catch it as the grated floor fragmented around his feet. The demon began pushing harder against him as Buddy suddenly peaked out from behind one of the glass tubes and waved to Norman, who nodded before tossing it towards the wolf, right before being overpowered and sent straight through the crumbling floor below.

“You’re all pests. And you’re the most timid of them all.” The demon growled with barely restrained anger in its voice, which reverberated all over the mostly empty metal room,  as it lumbered towards the wolf and swung an arm through the glass tube he hid behind and completely shattering it in the process, glowering down towards Buddy despite lacking any proper eyes.

Several glass shards clattered to the ground as Buddy took a step backwards from the beastly demon, leaping off to the side and falling to the floor as it swung one of its massive arms, just narrowly missing but leaving Buddy in the prime position for a follow up slam, which Beast Bendy attempted to follow up on, only for Sammy to suddenly appear and move Buddy out of the way using Flow, before the latter handed the End Reel to the former and got out of the way.

The demon growled in annoyance as it watched Buddy run out of the room before shifting its attention back to who was currently holding the End Reel as Sammy slowly backed away from the demon as it stomped after him, towards another one of the large glass tubes.

“Yet again, your blind devotion leads you to damnation, composer.”

“I’ll lead you closer to your damnation, Ink Demon .”

The Ink Demon let out a roar in response before charging directly towards the composer, who stood his ground until the last moment, running forward and ducking down into a roll to move right between Beast Bendy’s legs, as the demon smashed straight through the glass tube with its whole body. As the demon began turning back around, Sammy suddenly tossed the End Reel up into the air, where it was caught by Jack emerging from the ceiling.

The swollen searcher retreated back into the ceiling with the End Reel as Sammy used the Flow ability to leave the room as the Ink Demon glanced around the room, occasionally slamming the walls with one of its giant hands whenever it felt Jack’s presence nearby. Eventually, with a growl of annoyance, Beast Bendy let out a roar that suddenly forced Jack out of the ground next to it, before he was backhanded straight through the third tube, with the End Reel being dropped to the ground.

The Ink Demon attempted to grab it, but Henry suddenly slid past and snagged it right before it could, along with rolling out of the way of the following attack from it, shaking the room with another slam of its arm. Beast Bendy let out another roar before swinging wildly towards Henry with both arms, who ran ahead while narrowly dodging each swing, until stopping in front of the fourth and final glass tube, the Ink Demon standing above him with an even more angry expression than before.

“You’re cornered, Henry,” the Ink Demon snarled. “Nowhere left to run.”

“Actually…” Henry glanced towards the three other glass tubes that had been broken during the struggle before darting his eyes down to the axe he held in his other hand. “This is the end.” He murmured before striking the axe into the tube directly behind him, cracking the glass and causing it to crumble as he pulled it out, right as the lights went out. When they came back on, the Ink Demon had disappeared.

After catching his breath from the amount of adrenaline pumping through his veins, Henry walked out of the room and back through the Industrial Maze, where the others had gathered in the Throne Room, either dazed or recovering from their brief scraps with the Ink Demon’s more monstrous form, with Audrey standing in front of the aforementioned throne, staring at it silently until Henry tapped her shoulder.

“Here. I’m sure you can make better use of this than I can.” He said calmly with a supportive if weathered smile as he held the End Reel out towards her while taking slow and steady breaths. Audrey stared at it silently for a moment before accepting it, holding it up in her left hand.

“Is… Is this it? This is where we finally put an end to everything?”

“I hope so.” Henry replied before stepping down from the throne’s pedestal and then rounding everyone up, instructing them to get behind the throne as opposed to standing around and in front of it, assisting an incredibly dazed Norman to get absolutely everyone behind it. With a sigh, Audrey slowly sat down on the throne, eventually looking back in front of it to see Beast Bendy standing there with its teeth barred and face contorted into a snarl.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Audrey. You’re in over your head, dealing with a power your feeble mind couldn’t even begin to understand. You’re more likely to crush yourself under the weight than do any meaningful damage to me.” The Ink Demon growled with a dangerous edge to its voice, its body tense and seemingly ready to pounce.

“Perhaps I am. But it isn’t a power I need for very long. Just enough to make a difference.” Audrey murmured in response as the golden spiral on her hand began glowing brightly while the End Reel floated up out of her palm. In pure instinct, Audrey clenched her hand into a fist, which caused the reel of film to fade away into golden light as well, amplifying the light coming from her hand.

Audrey rose to her feet as time seemed to come to a crawl, feeling power pulsing through her body as she raised her hand towards the Ink Demon and unfurled it, before casually waving it forward and then uttering one sentence: 

“Set them all free.”

And then, everything went white.