This is your normal "*insert fandom*" meets Bendy and the Ink Machine.
Oh, sorry. The Hunger Games!AU is still taking time. I might finish this first before I finish it since it's really looooooong.
'Nuff said, let's get on with the story!
Disclaimer:
"Yeah, I don't own PJO," Louise grunted as she pressed a key wildly on her keyboard to kill the searchers. "Oh, yeah, I don't own BATIM as well." She grinned, hitting them with her axe. "Uh, yeah, I actually own that."
A puppet from her screen suddenly breaks the fifth wall and wacks her on the head. Louise rubbed it for a short moment of time before seeing oh my gosh is that Sammy Lawrence up there watching me? and quickly controlling Henry. "No need for that, Mister Meatly," she grunted and kept on killing the seachers once more.
"Oh, wow," Leo Valdez murmured, his hand on the walls, looking for inscriptions or strange symbols.
Stupid Leo, he whacked himself mentally. He had been exploring the aircraft hanger-sized bunker when he accidentally stepped on some trap tile or something, which flipped over and he landed into a hidden tunnel below.
Dude, what if this is THE Labyrinth? Didn't Pasiphae tell you that the Labyrinth would be growing soon?
He took a deep breath and lit both hands with fire. "Calm down, Leo. This isn't the Labyrinth, it's dead, Pasiphae's dead, the Labyrinth wouldn't be around anymore, because it wouldn't make an sense, so calm down," he rambled on as he walked, watching the flames on his hands dance with almost an eerie tune and with synchronization. He looked far left and far right, sighing as he kicked a pebble.
He sat on the ground and got all tools he need in making a compass. He needed to do something, maybe this time, a compass would work, even though he knew deep inside that the compass would go haywire-
As soon as his hand touched the floor, he felt gears and the moving of machinery underneath him.
Too late, he realized as something jerked behind him and he fell backwards into the opening, crashing on the floor.
He shuddered as he heard the wooden boards underneath him creak and groan under his weight, and if it was machine talk, Leo would've understood it as somewhere between the lines of shut up and be careful. He carefully stood up, making a mental note to avoid this part of the floor and looked around. "There is something definitely wrong in this place," he said out loud, looking at the hallway yellowed and worn away by time. It looked like it was abandoned for several years, cobwebs decorating the crooks of walls and cracks on the walls here and there. The place was ruined alright, and Leo didn't need to be an architect to see the walls swaying to hold the building and the slowly growing cracks held up by wood boards.
Man, he was getting a creepy vibe from this place.
"How is this place even holding up?" He asked himself, wandering as he heard something dripping in the distance. Oh gods of Olympus, please don't tell me there's monsters in here... Leo thought and slapped his forehead. "Geez Leo, you're an awful ray of sunshine," he muttered, lowering his flame so the place wouldn't burn up in flames.
He looked back, seeing a door that looked like it had been opened recently and pondered his options. Explore or escape?
His ADHD part of him said: "Go on, Leo, what could happen in an abandoned studio? You have your magical tool belt and you could whack any monster you wanted to die. Everything's gonna be okay" while the other part yelled: "Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea."
He didn't want to go further into this creepy place so he went for the door slowly, remembering the rotting boards and he inched around them, not wanting to fall down to his death. He reached for the doorknob and tried twisting it, even oiling it and making a makeshift key but the door stubbornly refused to open to him.
He looked at the hallway, gulping.
"Stupid magical door." Leo sighed as he inched around the floorboards and ventured into the hallway, gazing at the different posters decorating the walls.
"Bendy in Little Devil Darlin'? Bendy in The Dancing Demon? Wait... is this some kind of headquarters for this cartoon thing?" He wandered out loud, examining the posters.
He knew this cartoon, it was his abuelo's favorite cartoon back when he was young, and his mom loved watching it with him.
He snapped his fingers in realization. The figure on those posters IS Bendy.
Oh, man. His mom dreamed of coming to the studios, she used to wish on it, her fingers running through Leo's untamable wild curls as she dreamily wished that she would come to the studio where her favorite cartoon was born.
And Leo was here now.
He would've spend a long time staring at those posters but his ADHD made him alert and he needed to move. He didn't know why, but HE needed to move.
He moved into the big room in front, with an old, dusty projector on the far left side of the room that was still unbelievably intact. A creepy Bendy cutout was innocently propped up beside the table where the projector was set up.
Leo shuddered. The Bendy cutout was placed a little too conveniently placed to look like its pie-cut eyes were watching his every move.
He walked away and ventured into the right hall until he found rows of desks caked in dust, small doodles of Bendy scattered here and there. He saw a faint shimmer of gold at a tiny plate beside a desk and blew away the dust, reading "Henry".
Maybe this was the creator? Or just a plain animator working here? The guy's name looked important, seeing as there was a gold plate with his name on it.
He frowned at the Bendy cutout beside the small drawing desk. These cutouts seem to be everywhere. Were they that big of a Bendy fanatic?
Oh, wait. Yes, they are. They made Bendy and it would make sense that cutouts were everywhere.
But still. It was seriously creepy.
Leo heard sudden soft music coming from the lobby as he inspected a small jar of ink, dropping it. He carefully went back to the main room and found the projector playing a soft tune and a glow on the walls. "Hello?" He called out. "Anybody there?"
Nobody answered him. There was someone here with him in this studio. Because, who could've possibly turned on the projector?
"Alright, whoever you are, what do you want to do with me?"
The dripping of something seemed to grow louder.
He stared at the Bendy cutout innocently looking at him with a cheshire grin.
Did it look that evil before?
He shook his head. Don't stay in one place for too long, his brain reminded him. Remember those rotting floorboards? Oh, right. Feeling a bit suspicious, he wandered down the hallway on the left.
The sound of dripping became louder and Leo was astonished. He wasn't looking at raindrops leaking through the roof. It was a black fluid substance that oozed slowly from the ceiling and dripped on the floor.
But Leo wasn't freaked out at that. He was straight up terrified by the sinister writing on the wall.
DREAMS COME TRUE
Leo extinguished his fiery hand and held it out, letting the strange substance scatter over it. He suddenly remembered the puddle of ink splattered on his shoes as he dropped the small bottle of ink over it before. "Ink?" He wondered out loud in disbelief. "This is seriously creepy now."
He went forward and found a row of doors on each side. He noticed one had a light shining from underneath, so he tried to open it.
The word being 'tried'. Leo pounded his fists on the door. "Hey dude!" He yelled. "I don't know what game you're playing with me but stop it!"
He heard no response and he punched the door in frustration. Oh, gods of Olympus, does he have to find and confront that prankster just so that he can get the Hades out of here?
He went further down the hall, turned a corner and tripped headfirst on a large pipe. He sighed, rubbing his sore forehead and stepped over it, seeing a majestic view of enormous chains hanging from the ceiling and going deep down into what seemed like an endless black abyss from a balcony with railings to keep him from falling down.
"Woah." Leo stared at it in amazement, and looked around, finding a large lever peeking out from the walls. He also spotted the controls and moved over to it, examining it. "Hmm. I think it needs some nice batteries," he said, searching for it in his magical tool belt's pockets and frowning at a wet cell battery.
"I'm gonna need something bigger," he grinned, finding a shelf with dry cell batteries. "Let's just see if this actually works."
He carried one and fit it inside the slot for the battery then did the sensible thing his mechanic self always did: to pull the lever, while his other side yelled "NO!" every step of the way.
Suddenly, the room began to rumble and move. Leo had to clutch on to the railings to avoid suddenly pitching forward. He hoped the balcony could hold him and not crack-
The chains suddenly creaked as they moved sluggishly and Leo watched with fascination as it pulled a giant machine from the black hole.
The thing... the machine was half as big as Festus! Probably bigger than the Zeus cabin too!
Drip, drop, drip, drop echoed in the large, empty room as Leo saw the black fluid - more ink? - trickle from the nozzle of the machine and down into the hole. "Ink Machine?" His mind slowly caught up with his eyes looking at a sign.
"I don't know what you're making me do, mysterious prankster that doesn't want to show himself, but thanks for showing me this cool machine," Leo whistled. Why would there be an Ink Machine in an animation studio? Leo knew that ink was precious before, in the 1920s or so, but this was a bit more overkill. Was it a trend to get the biggest Ink Machines back then?
Still. The machine was pretty cool.
"I wonder how you turn it on." Leo thought out loud, turning to where he came from. He was stuck down here so why not explore? He couldn't stay in one place for so long too because, stupid ADHD.
He made sure to hop over the large pipe and head back down the hall, suddenly freezing. That door on the right - wasn't there light glowing underneath it before? He rubbed his eyes. Must be a strange coincidence. Or probably that stupid prankster that lured him to that Ink Machine.
I think that prankster wants me to fix or repair this Ink Machine thing.
Sighing, Leo turned the corner abruptly and came face to face with another hallway, a chill crawling up his spine as he took a step backwards. "Oh no. Oh no. Oh Hades no." He muttered. Was he going insane? He swore there was shutter closed tightly there before...
Was this studio made into some kind of twisted haunted house? Yeah, that would probably be it, it just wasn't swarmed because it wasn't opened it, yeah, that was probably it.
He felt himself moving. Stupid ADHD. He just got to had the worst case of ADHD known to demi-gods.
He forced himself to look and nearly peed his pants as he came face to face with another Bendy cut-out, its eyes staring amusingly at him like it was saying: LOL, scaredy-cats aren't allowed here.
Leo's tightly balled hands twitched. Styx, these cut-outs were annoying and scaring him to Hades. He continued onwards, summoning a flashlight from a pocket in his tool belt and stepped forward to be interrupted with a long wood board drop from the ceiling exactly right in front of him.
That was a definite sign that someone was there with him. He looked up and glared at the spot where the board fell from. "I know you're there, you nasty prankster," he let out in a warning tone of voice.
Silence greeted him. So they were going to play this game, huh? Leo could play that.
He suddenly spotted something large and dark in the corner of his left eye and glanced at it. He squinted at the darkness and felt his stomach turn inside out and he had the sudden instinct to barf.
Come on, Leo. Don't make assumptions, that might be something else... he thought grimly to himself as he inched forward, chills running up and down his spine as he could make out the gruesome sight before him, feeling sick to his stomach as he got closer-
And saw a black and white toon wolf gutted, with cartoonish X eyes that signified that the toon was dead. It was funny in the cartoons but definitely not funny in real life. Leo weakly put a hand to his mouth as he leaned against the wall for support. It's chest had been gutted out brutally, it's ribs pried apart and he found a wrench sitting in his rib cage. It was strapped to a slanted table, where is that inky blood was staining it's clothes, the straps and the table.
Leo shuddered. "There is no way in Hades this is real. This is just a prop for the haunted house, yeah, I forgot that part," he gulped as he watched the shadow dance from the illumination of lights underneath him, the candles surrounding it softly illuminating the unreadable ink prescriptions behind it.
"Oh, yeah. I think I AM going to be sick."
It looked like a sacrificial ritual... but how did they get a wolf like this that wore overalls...?
Wait, there was a wolf toon in the Bendy cartoons that looked exactly like this wolf, he glanced at the walls, spotting a poster. "Oh, yeah. Boris the Wolf," he snapped his fingers, looking at the other walls, seeing another inky prescription written in ink:
WHO'S LAUGHING NOW
"I've got enough of these for one day," he made a face and turned back to the gutted wolf. "I am definitely NOT taking that stupid wrench on your chest."
The gutted Boris said nothing, only staring at him with those lifeless X eyes, as if daring him to take it.
Dear Zeus, this prankster is too overkill. Did Leo did something wrong to that prankster? Maybe it was the Stoll brothers. Yeah, that could be it. They were planning an extreme prank on him. Probably payback for setting their cabin on fire when they fired those paint balloons at the Hephaestus Cabin. Yeah, that's probably it.
Or... maybe to get out of this, he has to collect some items down here or solve a puzzle or whatever. Or fix something? He didn't know. The Stolls were tricky and cunning. Probably to do something for them.
He grabbed it quickly and glared the wolf. "There. Happy?" He asked it.
Boris said nothing again, only staring at him dead in the face.
Leo scowled at him. "Fine. Be that way," he huffed, gripping the large wrench tight in his hand as he forced himself to look away and go away, glowering at the Bendy cutout that grinned at him creepily.
He calmed his nerves that were jumping in fear. Why would somebody do that to Boris? He backed out of the doorway and tried to leave but...
A room with seven pedestals caught his eye, and he ventured towards it, spotting the lever in front.
Probably the thing he had to fix?
He went for the lever and pulled it down. The sign behind it whirred to life and glowed LOW POWER.
"Low power? How do you get this to turn on?" Leo asked himself, walking back and forth as he wracked his brain for a solution. Leo was a good mechanic, he could do it if he put his mind into it...
He suddenly face-planted on the floor as he tripped over something. "What is up with things lying around for me to conveniently trip over?" He complained, rubbing his once-again sore forehead, picking up the object. He blew away the thin layer of dust. "The Illusion of Living" was elegantly scribbled on the front, written by Joey Drew.
Ohhh... so Joey Drew was the one who owned the studio, he remembered. Who knew he wrote books too?
He flicked through the dusty pages, his eyes glossing over the messy print, crossed out phrases and replaced with illegible scrawls. A few words such as "ritual", "sacrifice", "blood", "ink" caught his eye as he read through the pages so fast the type had blurred altogether. "What the heck?" He whispered as he found more markings and symbols that had been scribbled over the true words of the book.
Reading this reminded him of Aunt Rosa. If she knew he was reading this kind of book, she'd yell at him, pinch his ears then yell at him again twenty minutes about he shouldn't be reading this then throwing him to the priest to get him baptized again.
He reached a page where everything was crossed out and a inky scratch that held the phrase: "DEATH AND SACRIFICE FOR HIM WHO'LL SET US FREE"
He made a face at the phrase then set it down on a nearby pedestal, being instantly blinded by light coming from a spotlight. "What the? What the Hades is a spotlight doing here?" His eyes scanned the room and met the picture of a book behind the pedestal.
What was he supposed to do? Find all these stuff and put them in their correct pedestals? But HOW can you turn on an ink machine by putting stuff in the columns? Did it trigger some switch inside when placed there? Or did it somehow power an outlet for a generator that was stationed underground so that the machine could be powered? Or was it THE generator?
At this point, Leo didn't know. This place was weird. It was crazy off like the Labyrinth. His bunker just had to contain a trap tile that headed for the Labyrinth that he fell in and fell in another weird place like this abandoned studio.
Leo really hated his VERY, VERY, VERY bad luck.
He groaned, turning around and almost dying of a heart attack as he faced a stupid and creepy Bendy cardboard cutout, his heart almost running out of his chest as he stared, frozen, for awhile at those dark pie-cut eyes.
That was DEFINITELY not there before.
"Styx!" Leo yelped in surprise, a little too late as it grinned at him with that creepy sketchy smile, frustrated and scared over this creepy prank that those Stolls had made. "CONNOR! TRAVIS! SERIOUSLY?"
Nothing answered. Leo was fuming and at boiling point at this moment.
Angrily, he punched a hole through the cutout. He was angry AND freaking out. Normally, when he punches or hits something, the Stolls would usually show up and apologize (through kidnapping him and then making him watch the stuff he hates then end it with a chocolate cake saying 'sorry', so it was usually worth it...)
The Stolls are completely going overkill, he thought, his mind whirring with his next plans to murder the Stoll Brothers brutally. Suddenly, it looked like it blinked, despite the hole in its eye.
Heart pumping in sudden fear, he ran down the opposite hall and into a room that he wished had no creepy inscriptions or stupid Bendy cutouts. He had enough for one day. He turned around, found a normal table with a tape recorder sitting on top of it. Leo took time to breath before his hand reached for it, but stopped his hand in time.
"No, Leo," he said outloud. "You'll get curious and do whatever you usually do: screw up even more."
Stupid, his brain scolded him. You have to fix that Ink Machine right? The Stolls wouldn't leave behind a tape recorder if it was essential.
He was silent for a count of ten, made a mental decision and pressed play.
Chapter one ain't finished. Yetttt.
Agh, I was supposed to study but my cinnamon bun was calling for meeeee.
Marrione and Louise