Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lorna woke up in a suspiciously bright room; she stood up, and her eyes adjusted to the fluorescent light. “Where am I?” she wondered, her eyes darting around. ‘Welcome to Banban’s Kindergarten’, said a chalkboard sign. Soon a woman about middle age with a lavender cardigan and chocolate brown hair, her face hidden by what seems to be a shadow, greeted,

“Hi, I’m Lauren. Do you work here?” Lorna asked, “Of course not! “This place has been abandoned for weeks now. I’m looking for my child. Have you seen her?” She asked, “Wait, why are the lights on then, and why is everything so clean for an abandoned place?” “Listen, I don’t know why this place is so well lit, but I just want my child so I can go home. “I don’t work here or have control over the power system,” she spoke in a more stern voice. “Are you a human?” Lorna interrogated, her face suspicious. “Why?” Lorna could sense the nervousness in her voice. “No reason,” Lorna said with a grating voice. “Well, I’m not human.” A nervous chuckle echoed from her voice. “Well, this must be another mascot,” she thought when noticing Lorna’s mouse ears and complexion. Both Laura and Lorna walked for some good time, constantly suspicious of each other.

When they reached a vast open space, filled with cardboard boxes and metal railways, something stood out: the seemingly infinite void that followed the indoor balcony. But the first thing that she noticed was that the metal plates were a bit uncomfortable for her paws, but then again, she persisted. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Lorna asked, “Once again I don’t know?” Lauren chuckled. After walking to the balcony , she noticed something.

A green monster with bulging veins and lifeless eyes, it slowly lifted its hilariously disproportionate legs and walked up with a squelching sound. She twitched. The creature put Lauren in a chokehold, and then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the life drained from Lauren’s eyes. Her limp body lay on the meal flooring. Lorna could only watch, her eyes widened with fear. She could feel every breath from her lungs, and the eyes of the monster were looking at her. As the monster was about to lunge at her , a birdlike creature with the same lifelike eyes pushed that monster off to the void, but before she could get a good look at it, another monster showed up and pushed the bird creature off the balcony.

“Hi, I’m Syringeon. Are you a monster?” The hot pink-skinned monster questioned, his eyes friendly yet suspicious, “Sort of, I belong to Bloodbath. What about you?” She sneered,He introduced himself “Well, I belong to the kingdom. You’re a creature. Why would you work with a human?”. That sentence prompted her to look in Lauren’s eyes, which were previously obscured by the shadow. Those were human eyes; she was fooled, but for her it was okay because at least she was dead. “Anyways, I know you feel stupid, and honestly you kind of are, so do you want to join the kingdom, yes or no?” He looked smug, his bored voice looking for an answer quickly. “Well sure,” she agreed hesitantly, knowing that her two options were to wander alone or to join another group. So she walked, walked to her new fate, walked to a new life, and walked to whatever the kingdom is.

Chapter Text

Syringeon woke up in the snow,the blinding white powder stuck to his skin and tools. His eyes refocused, and he noticed something, a sign in the cold fields. “What luck! Maybe there’s a building near here,” he wondered. Then he noticed what it said: ‘There is a lovely mouse here.’ A strange mouse-like creature was also printed there. He lifted his legs, and using his claw arm, he stood up. Walking to the hospital was great work; trudging through the snow, all he could see was white, but by some miracle something stood out: a grey building with a bright, almost blinding red light. Syringeon had something to follow.

After then the journey was easy; “just follow the red light,” he muttered to himself. “Finally!” he shouted; the building he seemed to face had revolving doors almost like a hotel. Quickly he brushed the snow off his feet and stepped on the carpet. After warming up, he began to notice the architecture: winding halls of stairs with what seems to be blood splattered in every corridor. Apart from the obvious, this was safe; besides, he could easily kill their species. What he assumed was that their representative was short and honestly quite fat, so there was no worry there.

Knocking at a door, he waited for what seemed to be forever but in reality was probably two minutes. “Hello!” the representative called with a bright smile. “Do you hate humans? Are you an animal? Do you want to join Bloodbath?” She asked, talking way too fast for him to comprehend in the normal amount of time it takes to reply.Syringeon thought for a bit at the large number of questions, then replied calmly as if he hadn't been overthinking every question, “Well, yes, actually, I’m a creature that's close enough, right? Also, what is a bloodbath anyways?” “Glad you asked, Bloodbath is an organisation where we torture humans and kill them!” She responded with glee. “Seems right up my alley, but how do you guys make money?” He questioned, “I honestly don't know, but the money seems to never run out, so I’m just not going to question it?” She said with confidence, “Also, if you don’t want to join, we can just leave you in the snow or throw you off the cliff,” she threatened with a friendly but grating voice. Syringeon looked around and saw no town in sight through the windows. “Fine, I’ll join; I don’t want to die” is what he would have said if he had no common sense, but he actually just said, “Okay, I’ll join!”

Walking himself to the dormitory was surprisingly nice, though the smell was the opposite of that. Something that smelt of rotting food or the maintenance guy that showered way too little festered into his nose-like thing, which was actually just his mouth. Then he panicked about how he didn’t actually have a nose, something he hadn’t noticed before, which meant he had been breathing and consequently eating the smell, which then prompted him to quickly close his mouth, holding his breath in the process.

Opening the door, he found a rather normal room, well, for his standards (he has never seen a bedroom before), a white bed, a beige carpet and a rotting corpse stapled with a note in Sharpie that said “DINNER”. Syringeon was furious at the fact that he received a rotting human instead of a fresh one. Taking the elevator this time, which he just noticed, and instead of feeling extremely stupid for walking up the stairs, he thought that the elevator was broken, but just after pushing the plastic button a total of a bazillion times ‘just in case’, the elevator finally opened. He quickly got inside and would have blushed in shame if he were a human with blood vessels, but he wasn't, so he just stood around quietly before pressing the button to the next floor.

After leaning on the metal wall, he realised that the elevator was actually broken, and then the elevator proceeded to drop him straight down to the first floor, effectively breaking all his nonexistent bones. After that catastrophe he decided that he wasn't hungry anymore and threw the body at the nearest animal. This time the stairs felt draining; despite being the same length, he felt like they were definitely more exhausting. He even noticed that there was dust on all the grey walls, which explained the rotting corpse and the failing elevator. Arriving in his room again, he just fell on the floor and slept there since it was nearly four am.

Waking up from three hours of sleep was not easy, and answering the phone call that came from that person who got thrown a rotting corpse was harder. “Motherfucker, why did you do that?” She screamed louder than his alarm clock. Immediately shaken awake, he answered that she looked hungry. The answer was fast: “I already ate; promoting food waste is bad!” She immediately hung up, so Syringeon concluded that the problem had been fixed.Syringeon just took the stairs this time; he was not going to risk making himself look like a fool this time. Lorna greeted him, “Hi, welcome to your first day in the bloodbath. Also, this is a question from the higher-ups. Are you a stripper since you're naked?” Syringeon abruptly answered, “What’s a stripper?” Lorna then rubbed her chin. “Well, if you don’t know, you shouldn’t know anyway,so here are your faker clothes!” Changing her tone to an anxious-nice voice full of worry. Syringeon then realised that he almost reached the end of the stairwell and so quickly put on his fake doctor clothes.

Lorna quickly introduced everything. “Here is the slaughterhouse!” pointing to a grey room with orange or just rusty chains “Here is the torture room!” pointing to the bloody space littered with weapons and spikes “And here is the cafeteria,” pointing to the surprisingly normal cafeteria. “Also here is our great leader, the director.” She introduced him proudly, doing a quick salute in the process. Syringeon looked at the photo for a short while, then realised. “Isn’t that a human? I’m confused. I thought you hated humans?” Turns out he actually had no common sense because when he looked, everyone at the hospital was staring at him like he messed up big time. The realisation hit him like a brick because seconds later he was hit by an actual brick. “Hey mofo.” A person was screaming so far away from the white tile floor that Tom was standing on that he could barely hear them. “I’m challenging you to a match!” The person shouted again to no avail. “You’ll need to speak louder,” Syringeon bluntly said. “The hospital owner is challenging you to a match.” Lorna told while listening some more. “How can you hear so far?” he asked genuinely. “Who can’t?” Lorna answered, surprised. At that moment Syringeon concluded that he was probably hard of hearing and just didn’t notice because everyone else was too, or Lorna had the best hearing ever (the latter was probably the correct one, as Lorna had huge mouse ears). Anyway, there was no avoiding the match, as Lorna was metaphorically holding him at gunpoint with her syringe of what seems to be sedative. So he walked, he walked to begin the fight.

The fight began as normal. The owner began with trying to shoot him with a rifle. Luckily he missed all of his 69 shots, which shocked no one, as he looked painfully unwell. Syringeon could now begin his move; he grabbed a random chair and threw it at the owner, but it turned out all the furniture was shitty, so it immediately broke into a million pieces. The fight continued like that with stupid tools and strategies until Mimi just gave up and shouted tiredly, “JUST GIVE UP! IT’S THREE AM; WE ALL NEED TO GO TO SLEEP!” Mimi was right; this quite uneventful fight was going on for way too long. In fact, it began at about late morning with breaks for lunch and dinner included, but now it was nearly morning.So Syringeon and the owner wrapped up the fight, the first of its kind with a score of nil-nil. After that rather embarrassing moment, the hospital owner got him a helicopter ride and just let him leave to wherever he needed to go.