Mr. Bubbles

"Mr. Bubbles…" the little girl managed to sputter out. They had been walking for a very long time, and her feet had started to get sore. She brushed down the hem of her skirt, which was old and ragged, and continued following after this person she called 'Mr. Bubbles'. After what seemed like miles to her, she managed to spit out some words, albeit nervously, to her parental figure.

"Where are we going now?" she asked, genuinely intrigued. Their destinations changed time and time again, but ultimately she knew where it was going to end; with an angel. An angel her daddy needed her to get some sweet angel dust from. From time to time again, she wondered why she had to keep doing this, but the thought was quickly pushed from her head by some unknown force.

The little girl looked up at the man she called 'Mr. Bubbles". She thought he looked cuddly, but sometimes she heard the other people call her daddy a monster. She heard them call him a freak. But they were mistaken, not HER daddy! Her daddy was nice, and kind, and never left her alone. She sometimes tried to find her daddy's eyes through the shiny suit of armor he wore, but these were efforts that were always useless in the end. All she ever saw was the lights that came out. She reached up and tried to grab his hand, like she saw the other little girls do with their daddies a long time ago, but she felt the cold response of steel and noticed she was grabbing her daddy's 'work hand'. She ran to the other side of him and tried to grab the other one, but it was wrapped around the base of one of his toys, some called it a "rivet gun", and she couldn't wriggle her fingers through the iron grip. She sighed, and just kept walking.

After another couple miles, at least to her, her hardened bare feet were pricked by a piece of wood. She couldn't bear the silence anymore, and cried out. "Daddy! It hurts!" she screamed. It didn't really hurt, so much as slightly inconvenienced her, but the silent ambiance was killing her. She was met with more silence as he just trudged on. The little girl pouted and bent down to rub her feet, before running along to catch up with her big daddy.

The lush world of carpet and fabric she came to know and love was the world known as Rapture. Lovely as it was, it was hidden, far below the confines of the deep, cold ocean. Pretty dreary after a while, but every so often she would see colorful fishes pass her by. Sometimes she would try to play with them, but the ever present glass showed her how limited her freedom truly was. She ignored the fishes this time, though, and just trudged along.

They walked into a small room. It was really dark, and besides the small amount of light that poured in from the hallway they just came from, no other light permeated the room. Directly ahead of them, at the end of their line of sight was an "angel". Easily visible to her, as it glowed with an otherworldly light, she ran towards it. Without hesitation she stuck the needle into the corpse, and the "angel dust" began to flow into the syringe.

In a flash, the plush world she knew was stripped away from her and replaced with a much darker scene. She still couldn't see inside the room, but the hallway she came from was different. Instead of being full of carpet and pleasantries, it was the vision of chaos. The little she could see was old and decrepit looking, accumulating dust here and there. The lights were flickering and some were even broken. The carpets that were there before were torn and spread about, and some pieces were even put on fire. A chill ran down her spine as she heard the scream of a being that chilled her to her spine. She only ever heard it when she came to collect the angel dust, which now looked like a thick red substance akin to blood. It meant the bad people were coming, and they wanted to get her.

She looked to her daddy for support, but as usual he only responded with a grunt that meant for her to keep going. She trusted her daddy, so she turned back around and continued to extract the dust. No sooner had she done that, had she heard the fight begin. Screams of pain could be heard as the bad people were being torn to bits by her daddy. There were more than there were usually, which alarmed her, but these guys were scrubs. It was nothing HER daddy couldn't handle. True enough, soon after it started, the fight had ended, and all sounds outside the room were vanquished and the place became as silent as it was when they started.

The little girl laughed, she was nervous for nothing. She adjusted herself and continued to extract the dust from the angel: a middle aged man mutated almost beyond recognition. His body was decaying, and it looked to be for a while. When her syringe was halfway full, she heard her daddy walking back towards her room. She turned around to flash a smile, and it disappeared from her face almost immediately as her face blanched.

The Big Daddy groaned out loud as a brute splicer jumped on his back and started pounding away at his helmet and armor. Normally these things wouldn't be much of a problem, but he was caught off guard. He spun as he tried to get it off, but the gorilla like splicer had an iron grip and would not let go. He smashed his back into the wall to try to get it off, but the Alpha Series Big Daddy knew that would only damage it a little. The beast finally managed to pin him to the ground, and off in the distance one could hear shouts of triumph as several normal splicers ran forward, presumably to rush the room for the small girl.

The little sister shrieked in terror as she heard the stampede of footsteps rushing to the room she was in. She could see down the hallway that there were a lot of them, some carrying pipes and other blunt weapons to hit stuff with, while some carried guns. One pointed at her, and at that moment she knew she had truly given her position away.

That wasn't all the shriek did, however. The shriek also reached the ears of her daddy. Finding new untapped strength, he managed to get himself back on his feet and the brute off his back. With a swift thrust and a spin, the drill that was grafted onto his left arm went straight through the brute's torso, sending it to the ground with a deafening thump. Some of the rushing splicers gasped and the mob stopped for a second, but the victory was meaningless as they began their rush anew. The Alpha groaned and limped in front of the door. He looked over his shoulder and at the syringe, and saw it nearly full. He turned back around only to be hit in the face with a pipe. He groaned in pain and stumbled a bit, but his position at the door was still intact.

The little sister covered her eyes and ears as she heard the screams of her daddy echoing throughout the halls and into her memory. She could barely hear it over the sounds of the splicers' screams, but she was sure that it was getting fainter with each passing second. After a while she could hear nothing more. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around and at the door stood… her daddy! His position was never compromised, and not a single inch was allowed for the bad guys! She ran to him, syringe still in the body, and was about to hug him when, he fell over, straight into the room.

"D-daddy? Daddy… it's no time to be taking a nap… Daddy wake up! Daddy!" she screamed. She couldn't understand why he wasn't getting up. Sure, there were dents and gashes in his not so shiny armor… but that was nothing, right? Her daddy was invincible… right? She grabbed his now open left hand and shook it, knowing that she could never hope to lift the heavy thing. It remained a slave to her touch, a sign that he was giving no resistance. "D-daddy?"

"I'm sorry, you little brat, but that Big Daddy of yours isn't going to be waking up anytime soon. Why don't you just come here for a second…? I'll make sure you can get the same…" came a distorted voice from behind her. She spun around and saw another of the bad guys approach her. She knew that she was supposed to run whenever she saw them, and that was exactly what she did. She dropped the hand she was holding and ran back into the room with the angel. She jumped over the body and ran for a place to hide, hopefully into the never ending darkness that seemed to envelope the room. She jumped into something soft and plushy, and then proceeded to hide behind it. She peered from behind her hiding place and saw the bad man walk slowly towards her, grinning like a madman. The little sister cursed in her head, she was never as good a hider as the rest of them.

As the bad man stepped into the room, he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He stopped suddenly and looked down, to see a large land wrapped firmly around his… well… leg. He tried to shake it free, but the Alpha was resilient. Alpha knew he couldn't move anymore, hell, even holding on was a challenge for him at the moment, but he was going to protect his precious sister.

"Heh, still got some life in you eh? Most others would be dead by now, but you truly are a trooper, ain't cha?" the bad man said and picked up a pipe. He proceeded to repeatedly smash Alpha over the head with it, eliciting small, barely audible groans from the big daddy, but still the hand persisted. It wasn't until the girl ran out to stop him and was grabbed that consciousness fully faded from the loyal guardian. The light from his helmet faded along with it.

"Finally dead" he said, before turning to his captured prize. He held her up by the scruff of her dirty dress, and to the light from the hallway.

"When I'm done with you, you're going to have a huge hole in your tummy!" he screamed, reaching for the slug that resided in her stomach. The little girl screamed, feeling the slug move nervously inside her and accepting her fate.

Then the seemingly dead Alpha smacked his fist on the ground. A shot rang through the air. The splicer was no more. She looked up cautiously and saw a huge shadow moving towards her. She stumbled backwards, tripping over her feet yet again and falling on her butt. The man managed to catch up to her, and was now towering over her. A bolt of electricity sprang from his hand and hit the light of the room, illuminating it and freeing the room from its endless dusk. What she saw surprised her.

The room was full to the brim with fish based stuff; fish dollies, plush dolls, carpets and pictures. Fish pictures adorned the walls, and fish bean bags littered the floor, one of which was disheveled, probably being the one she was hiding behind before. The way the room was prepared made it obvious that it wasn't that way by coincidence. Everything else was in a state of disrepair, but everything in the room looked brand new. Realization shook her as she fell to her knees and read the banner that was draped across the room.

Happy Birthday Wendy

Wendy… her name… the name given to her by her original parents. Tears came to her eyes, and soon she was outright crying. She felt a large hand pat her reassuringly on her back. She looked up through her tear filled eyes to see another big daddy. While similar to her own in the fact he was still wearing a diving suit, he was different in all other ways. He matched the description of a Delta, the only one of his kind, and many of her sisters had feared him, but then started to like him. He pointed to her daddy's open hand, and when she approached it, she saw a keychain with a fish on the end of it. She reached to pick it up. As her hand wrapped around it, the big hand wrapped around hers. She gasped, before closing her eyes and sobbing a bit more. She knew what was about to happen. She heard it from other sisters. She held the hand tightly for a few minutes longer. She wished it would never end, but she knew that it couldn't be so. After a while the grip on her hand softened, and she was able to retrieve her keychain. She held it tightly to herself before walking over to the syringe and finishing the draining. She tipped her head back and took a sip of the ADAM. Instantly the fish room was replaced with the plush room it was destined to be.

She turned around and head over to Delta.

"C'mon Daddy!" she screamed, walking ahead and stubbing her toe on a loose floorboard.

"Crap… this is always happening" she said, her tears returning.

Delta was surprised. He never knew of a little sister retaining her memory. He picked her up and put her on his shoulder, slowing the pace of her sobs. He started to walk out the room, when he was stopped by the little sister. Wendy, as was her name, was staring directly at her previous daddy. She fetched the keychain out of her pocket. She held it close to her chest…

And in waking, I am reborn

…and then returned it to her pocket. She put on a smile and looked at her new daddy.

"L-look Daddy… an angel…"