Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Woo, I am on a roll with these chapters! This one was super fun to write and I love how it came out! Enjoy!
The ride down to the ninth level seemed longer than it was as Henry, Betty, Boris, and Alice waited for it to end. They were all still terrified of what had happened earlier when Henry had spoken to the woman. Henry had nearly died for asking a simple question and they knew that if they talked, the woman would be able to hear everything they said. So they had stayed in silence as the elevator descended. The creaks and noises from ink monsters on the floors they passed unsettled them all but they stayed quiet out of fear of displeasing the woman again.
The elevator let out a small ding and the doors finally opened. Henry was the first to step out, taking a few steps into the large room where their journey had led them.
"Come on, step out of your cage," came the inky woman's wicked voice again. "There's a whole twisted world out here."
This room appeared to be some kind of entrance to a warehouse, with a bridge leading across a river of ink that flooded some nearby hallways. On the other side of the room, there were stairs that led to a large metal door with an Alice Angel head above it and two hands holding a banner. The banner read, "SHE'S QUITE A GAL!," just like the one above the window that had had the inky woman behind it. With a couple of posters on the wall that depicted Alice, seemed this was the wicked woman's domain.
Henry could hear the others following him as he made his way down to the bridge, slowly walking and taking in all the details of this room. Near the metal door was a bin, and a large cylinder that seemed to rotate. Boris suddenly went ahead of Henry, running to the stairs and up to the door. The former animator looked at him in a confused manner. He didn't know why Boris seemed to be in such a hurry, but this seemed out of character for him. The wolf didn't even say a word as he ran up the stairs.
Betty and Alice took their time as Henry led the way, all of them making their way up to wooden boards and to the door. The room seemed to rumble as the doors slowly slid open and Boris ran inside. Henry quickly said, "Boris, wait up!" and the wolf slowed his pace so the others could catch up to him. However, just as they reached him, he sped ahead once again. They looked around as they walked down the halls to this warehouse, seeing cutouts of the darling angel staring at them from all sides. "What in the world," Henry whispered under his breath.
"OH MY GOD!"
A shout up ahead from Boris had everyone running to reach the end of the hallway. As they reached an opening, Henry asked in a worried voice, "Boris, what's wrong?! What-" What they saw next made all their jaws drop.
They had come into the main room of the warehouse and its lowers floor was flooded with the blackness that had consumed the studio. A few boards acted as a bridge to the other side of the warehouse, but that wasn't the part that made them gape in shock. No, what was… was the clones of Charley and Boris that were strapped to operating tables and another couple of disfigured cartoons hanging from the ceiling. They all had their eyes replaced with x's, the classic cartoon sign of being dead. The clones of the wolf and other cartoons were still as could be.
A whimper came from their right and there was their Boris, staring at one of his dead clones with his body shaking and hands over his mouth. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. This is just like what Joey had done to him by Joey all those years ago… or so he had been told. What if it wasn't Joey who had killed him though? What if Boris had been killed by that woman and didn't even remember it? What if she had really been the one to gut him all those years ago and Joey was just doing the dirty work for her? The thought… it terrified him and he let a few soft whimpers escape his lips.
Alice noticed the noises of distress from Boris and walked over to him, softly patting his back in an attempt to comfort him. It seemed to work, as the wolf's cries stopped and his shaking became hardly noticeable. "Boris," Alice voiced once she was sure he was calm. "We gotta see what this lady wants. C'mon."
The wolf wiped a tear from his eye and nodded. They made their way back to Betty and Henry and the group began to move across the wooden boards that acted as a bridge to the other side. Alice easily floated over the makeshift bridge with her powers but the others had to hold out their arms and take much more careful steps to avoid falling into the dark liquid that surrounded them. The air was thick with tension as they made their way through the room, the "angel" speaking to them and catching their attention.
"Look around. It took so many of them to make me so beautiful. Anything that was less than perfect was left behind. I had to do it. She made me."
Henry looked behind him at the others as those words were uttered. Who made her do this? What did she mean by using the cartoons to make her beautiful? Whatever the answer to those questions was, they would have to think on it later. For now, there was someone they had to see and they were nearly to the other side of the ink pool.
The former animator stepped onto the other side with a small hop from the bridge, turning and holding out a hand for Betty to hold onto as she stepped off too. Boris, though still holding his arms out as he walked, was being guided by Alice holding onto his shoulders. When all the crew had made their way to solid floor, they turned and looked up at the large metal door that was slowly opening for them. When it was out of the way, Henry led the way again with Betty, Boris, and Alice following close behind. Their footsteps echoed in the small hallway, along with what sounded like some sort of electrical noises, like something was being shocked, and wails of agony. Many more Alice cutouts and posters stared at them from the corners of the halls. It was what was at the end that had them all in surprise. They all moved from behind Henry and stood side by side as they took in what was before them.
There, behind a glass window, was a tall black and white figure behind a control panel. She was about as tall as Boris. She had long black hair and bangs, wore a black dress with two white bows and her arms and legs were drenched in the dark, inky blackness that had covered everything else in this place. Two pointed horns and a broken halo were embedded into her head. The thing they could now see about her was exactly what Boris described: while one yellow eye was in the right eye socket, the left one was completely hollow. Half of her mouth was missing lips as strands of white stretched across the exposed teeth. She looked exactly as Boris had described.
The inky woman pushed a button on her control panel at seeing her visitors, stopping the flow of electricity running to the cartoon strapped to her table. Oh, so they had actually obeyed her orders to come to her? Interesting… Her one eye slightly widened upon seeing the man, but it grew wider when her gaze landed on the two cartoons that had followed the humans in. Another Boris clone, but something about this one was different. He had no flaws that she could see. It was the same Boris she had met in the Heavenly Toys room. The perfect one.
And then her eyes landed on a smaller cartoon, an Alice Angel one. A small glare was sent her way. She thought she was the only angel around here. She was the perfect one around here. However, this little one looked just as she had in the cartoons, and "Alice" felt a fire light in her core. She would get this little angel out of her way and then… then she would be the only angel around here.
"Alice" noticed that everyone was staring at her now, so she composed herself and cleared her throat. "Now, we come to the question..." came her echoing voice. "Do I kill you all? Do I tear you all apart to my heart's delight?" She chuckled and used a hand to brush back some of her hair. "The choices of the beautiful are unbearable. How's a girl to choose?"
Henry gulped and felt his hands trembling at the mention of killing them. He didn't want to die down here, he wanted to get home to Linda and get his friends out of here. He just wanted to erase that damn pentagram and go home with his friends close behind. The former animator stepped forward and spoke to the angel in a slightly quivering voice. "Madam, I don't know what you want with us… but we don't want any trouble. We're just looking for a way to get to the lowest floor."
"Alice" furrowed her brows and looked quizzically at Henry. What on Earth were they doing trying to get down there? She shrugged that off and shook her head. "It's not as simple as that, my dear. Down here, I rule, and I do not take to intruders lightly." She gestured to the operating table next to her control panel, the humans and cartoons now noticing the Charley clone strapped down to it. "Take this little freak for instance! He crawled in here… trailing his tainted ink to my door! It could have touched me! It could have pulled me back!"
Henry and the others noticed how "Alice" seemed to shrink back and curl up in fear and how her voice morphed into a medley of voices, one standing out and seeming to be filled with fear. "Do you know what it's like? Living in the dark puddles?" She stood straight and her face changed to more anger than terror. "It's a buzzing, screaming well of voices! Bits of your mind, swimming... like… like fish in a bowl! The first time I was born from its inky womb, I was a wriggling, pussing, shapeless slug. The second time… well…" She held out her arms and held her head high. "It made me an angel!"
"Alice" quickly composed herself and glared down at the group, speaking to no one but herself for a moment. "I will not let the Demon touch me again. I'm so close now. So… almost perfect." The inky woman's gaze lightened and she smiled in a monsterous manner. "Yes, I will spare you all. For now." She pointed a finger at the humans and toons. "Better yet… I'll even let you ascend and leave this place." "Alice" held up a hand as Betty opened her mouth to speak. "If you will do a few eensey, weensey little favors for me first." Her halo seemed to bounce on her head as she gestured to the hallway leading out of the room. "Return to the lift, my little errand boys and girls. We have work to do!"
Before anyone could say another word to the angel, a large door clapped down and shut them away as she pushed the button to continue her work. Henry gazed at the spot where "Alice" had been moments before, his blue eyes filled with confusion. She said she would spare them, but what kind of tasks would they be doing for her? Would they have to kill monsters for her, just so they wouldn't, "pull her back?" Would they need to gut more clones for her? Henry shuddered at the thought.
Betty noticed how Henry was on edge and put a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"
Henry shook his head. "Not exactly. I don't know what she wants us to do, but I have a bad feeling about it. Besides, she said we can leave when we've finished her tasks, but I don't want to leave yet! We need to get down there and erase that pentagram so everything will go back to normal!"
Boris and Alice moved a little closer to Henry as Betty spoke to him. "Well… Maybe these tasks won't be so bad, Uncle Henry. Besides, if we do them, maybe we can find another way down to the lowest floor after she lets us go. And… I don't think we have a choice as to whether or not we can do these tasks. After what happened in the elevator, I feel like she has more powers and influence down here than we thought. It's almost like she's the queen of the studio down here and Bendy is a king and they're fighting over who rules." She pointed to where "Alice" had been. "I have a bad feeling that if we don't do as she says, we might not make it to the pentagram. I say we do her tasks, then find another way down."
Henry thought for a moment. This woman had great power, likely from Joey's magic and takeover of the studio, and she had great influence here. Fighting her wasn't an option right now, so they really didn't have a choice. But like Betty had said, maybe there was another way down to the pentagram. If they met "Alice's" demands, and she let them leave, they could sneak away and find some way down. At this point, with all of the things that Joey had added in Henry's time away from the studio, he wasn't sure how far down everything went. But there had to be another way to get to the lowest room.
Henry gave a nod after some moments of thought. "I guess you're right. We just need to be careful down here. Know that there's Charley monsters here, I'm guessing there's also monsters of Edgar and Barley, so we need to watch out for anything trying to hurt us. And with the four of us, we should be able to get these done. The sooner we get her tasks done, the sooner we get out of here. We should all find some weapons, just in case we need to defend ourselves, and then we do as she says."
Boris and Alice nodded, the angel speaking up. "Sounds like a plan to me. Let's get going!"
Alice lead the way this time, her little heels clicking as the group followed close behind. They had no idea what was waiting in these dark halls, but they had a feeling in the pits of their stomachs that whatever creatures were down here, they wouldn't be friendly.
Author's Note: So, looks like our crew are now errand boys and girls for "Alice." But what awaits them in the inky halls of the studio? Find out soon! Feel free to leave a review!