Chapter 34 – Slappy's Big Mistake
In the darkness of the ventilation system, what was once the location of a game of cat-and-mouse between a pair of puppets and an Equestrian monkey, was now basically a miniature scrapyard filled with pieces of metal and wood. After what can only be described as a severely brutal method of deconstruction on Goggles' part, the Gizmonk had now spent the last several minutes piecing together some new form of weapon out of whatever was left from Torch after he took him apart one screw at a time.
"Okay just a little more tinker with this bit here and… perfect!" he muttered before finally finishing tightening the last screw in his new weapon.
As it turned out Goggles saw great potential in using Torch's former weapon to his advantage, since he was planning on making protective gear anyway and he already had some schematics for something similar in his head, then it was not much of an effort to make a fully functioning flamethrower just the right size for a Gizmonk to operate. Deciding to give the device one last test run before he moved on, Goggles then aimed the flamethrower down the vent and pulled the trigger, letting a stream of blazing golden flames travel into the darkness.
"Yeah! Burn baby! BURN!" he squalled excitedly, satisfied that his new device worked. "Now let's see those other puppets get the best of me!"
Goggles may not have liked the fact that he went a little… over the edge when he pulled Torch apart, but sometimes he did experience certain episodes of primal intensity should his anger be pushed too far and after everything that has happened, he was positive that he would get over it pretty quickly. After picking up his new flamethrower, along with all six of the late Six Shooter's pistol's, something he would more than likely need in case of an emergency, Goggles then continued on down the vent in the direction he was going until he had encountered Torch and Six Shooter. After slowly making his way further and further up the vent, the tension the Gizmonk was feeling was intensifying by the minute, he may have been used to getting chased by Gem Foxes back in his home realm but at the very least none of them were able to fit inside a vent along with him, much less carry weapons that were far more dangerous than anything he had seen in his version of Equestria. Suddenly Goggles heard movement from behind him and he stopped walking, he may not have been entirely since there was so much going on in the last couple of hours alone but with Torch and Six Shooter now out of commission and four of the other puppets now too big to fit inside the vents with him, then there was a strong chance that Frostbite was the one who was now sneaking up towards him from behind. Taking one small gulp, Goggles then readied himself and places his little finger on the trigger of the flamethrower, ready to reduce the icy puppet to ash should he come to close. Finally unable to take any more waiting Goggles then jumped and turned, ready to face the enemy… however as it turned out, the one behind him wasn't as threatening as he first thought.
"YAHH!" he squealed, almost dropping the flamethrower with shock as his tail lit up the vent and revealed the black filly in front of him. "Nyx, what the heck are you doing here!? You're supposed to be hiding downstairs!"
Nyx couldn't help but roll her eyes at that, granted Goggles was technically older than her but in comparison to size she still towered over him by inches, and given the fact that her horn was practically scraping the top of the vent they were both in, it only added to the filly's confidence as she made her excuse.
"Hey, I may be just a filly but I'm not just gonna sit around while my friends are in trouble!" she retorted to the Gizmonk's lecture, her determination showing with every syllable she spoke.
Needless to say, Goggles quickly became frustrated with this new situation, not only had Nyx once again put herself in harm's way for the sake of her friends, but she also once again disobeyed other people's instructions in order to do so, it may have been admirable but none the less it was still very annoying, even for Goggles who had come to expect this sort of behaviour from his version of Apple Bloom. Still seeing that there was no dissuading Nyx from her self-proclaimed mission Goggles felt it pointless to argue now, after all in times like this even the most timorous beings like Nyx usually needed to be strong for her friends no matter how much others tried to protect her from harm.
"Ugh fine!" Goggles finally sighed in defeat. "Come on!"
Satisfied that Goggles was willing to allow her to at the very least accompany him in his mission, Nyx then smiles and continued to follow the Gizmonk down the vent. After a few more minutes of walking, the two once again stopped as another series of maniacal cackles echoed through the ventilation system, this time only a lot louder than before.
"What's that?" Nyx squelled nervously, only for Goggles to quickly place a paw over her mouth before she could say anything else.
"Shh!" he uttered before lowering his voice to a whisper. "I think we're on the top floor, just below the attic I think. Look over there!"
It was then that Goggles pointed towards a small opening in the vents covered by a grate, more than likely connecting to one of the rooms in the hotel, nodding towards each other with a mutual understanding, Nyx and Goggles then quietly and slowly walked towards the opening, with Goggles putting out the light in his tail as to not be noticed by anyone who might be on the other side of the grate. As expected, as Nyx and Goggles peered through the grate of the vent, they did in fact saw one of the rooms of the hotel, a large suite from what they could tell given how dark it was. However it was WHO that was in the room that seriously concerned them.
"Holy Scrap," Goggles uttered as he looked on to see the figures gathered around the empty living area.
There, sitting amongst each other in a small huddle was a strange blond woman in a pinkie onesie with a black cat in her arms, a life-sized dummy in a straw hat, and a much smaller one that judging from the movements he was making, was very much alive.
"Is that Slappy?" Nyx thought aloud, not liking the looks of the creepy wooden figure in the slightest.
"Must be," Goggles uttered, answering her question. "But who's that weird lady with the cat?"
Of course neither Goggles nor Nyx were around when Hazel made her big reveal so obviously they wouldn't know what the woman really looked like, of course it wasn't too hard to figure out due to both of them having a keen sense of observation.
"It kinda looks like Miss Hazel, only… well, a little weirder," Goggles continued, voicing both of their conclusions. "And that other dummy Slappy is sitting on, I think it's that Luffy guy Ruby was talking about."
At those words Nyx couldn't help but feel a little saddened, seeing something that was once a living person being used as nothing more than a chair was depressing to look at.
"Poor guy," she sighed, soon narrowing her eyes with determination. "What do we do now?"
It was then that Goggles started rummaging around in his vest to try and find the walkie-talkie G gave him.
"We'll have to tell G about this," he said frantically, pulling out the device and starting to fiddle around with the buttons. "Okay how do you work this thing again?"
However upon taking another closer look through the grate of the vent, Nyx's jaw dropped as she noticed something in particular about one of the individuals in the room below.
"Wait!" she quickly said in a hushed tone, placing a hoof on the walkie-talkie before the Gizmonk could actually use it. "I think G already knows."
Goggles raised an eyebrow at that.
"What do you mean?" he asked confusingly.
Nyx then pointed towards the cat in Hazel's arms.
"Look at that cat's front left paw," she said, gesturing towards the skeletal figure of the cat's odd limb.
"Bones?" Goggles exclaimed, scratching his head with confusion. "But why would… oh no."
It was then that Goggles began to piece everything together in his head and slap a paw to his head with mortification, knowing what he did about the side effects of G's transformation, it was too hard to figure out that it was indeed G who was being smothered in Hazel's chest… whilst also wearing a small tutu. Needless to say the sight was something that resulted in a mixture of reactions, the mutual understanding from Goggles because he knew such humiliation first hand, and the stifled giggles from Nyx, who tried desperately to hold back her laughter as she and the Gizmonk continued to listen in on the conversation being held in the room below them.
#
"I must admit G, my tail is somewhat of a confusing one for me," Slappy said as G kept his eyes focused on him to make sure he didn't try anything. "Though in all honesty it doesn't matter in any case. After all the here and now is so much more fun than what I had to endure back home."
G rolled his eyes at that.
"My heart bleeds for you," he said sarcastically, earning himself a growl from Slappy.
"I began with such promise in my life," The Living Dummy proclaimed poetically. "Carved out of coffin wood by an ancient sorcerer, my dark soul dwelling inside only to be awakened every time someone says the words. Oh that reminds me, I want my card back."
At first G was reluctant to give Slappy the satisfaction, in fact since he was in cat-form then there would have been no way to access his pockets anyway. But then Hazel added to his humiliation by literally opening up his ear and somehow magically pulling the card with Slappy's incantation out of it, much to G's shock and dismay.
"Here you go Slappy," Hazel giggled, passing the card over to the Dummy with her magic, after which Slappy gladly snatched it up and placed it back in his jacket pocket where it belonged.
It was then that the Dummy decided to continue on with his story.
"As for how I ended up here, well it started out as a standard workday for me at first," he said, his wooden eyebrows lowering to put his face into a scowl as he thought back to what had happened to him. "I wake up, claim the next poor sap who reads the words as my slave, nothing new really. But then before I was about to perform my finest trick with my old pal, Rocky, me and my trunk end up getting sucked up into a crack and ended up right here in this hotel."
Of course G knew exactly what Slappy meant when he mentioned someone named Rocky, no doubt he was have come from the story where he was with a family known as the O' Dells, more than likely the crack occurred when he was right in the middle of it, which begs the questions as to just how badly the cracks in creation were affecting everything. If Slappy was taken mid-story then there was a strong chance that there are others too, and with supposedly deceased characters like Laura popping up as well then there was only so much that G or anyone else could ever make sense of. Suddenly G noticed something odd about Slappy's last sentence, something that just didn't tie in with the other stories he heard today.
"But Ruby said that she read the words that woke you up," he pointed out. "By the way you were describing things its sounds as though you were awake when you arrived."
It was then that Slappy couldn't help but let out a small cackle, it was as if the very statement was a huge joke that only he got.
"Well I must admit, I may have spun a little white lie on that one," he chuckled.
"Naughty, naughty," Hazel added, trying to stifle her own giggles.
It was then that G began to quickly piece together what he meant, after all it wasn't the first time that Slappy merely played dead just to get closer to his potential slaves, however he also wanted Slappy to confirm it just to be sure.
"So what really happened then?" he asked, trying to put on a confused act though he clearly had a rough idea as to what was going on.
"Well the truth is that I actually arrived here before any of these other yahoos did," Slappy explained before gesturing towards the witch in front of him. "And Hazel arrived mere minutes after I did… and almost ended up squashing me with that fat butt of hers.
This was about the only time Hazel dropped her smile and let her face reveal an angered scowl, as if the very statement was a sheer insult to her, in fact in a way it was.
"I said I was sorry," she pouted, squeezing G even more tightly into her cleavage.
Seeing that Hazel was clearly hurt by that statement, G's instinctive emotions suddenly took over for a moment, he didn't know whether this would make him sound like a gentlemen or a complete pervert but to him he needed to say it.
"Don't listen to him sweetie, your butt is very nice," he said comfortingly, his eyes suddenly widening with shock once the realisation of what had just escaped his mouth hit home. "Wait, did I really just say that!?"
WHY did he just say that!? This chick was an enemy! The very same one who had trapped him in the form of a cat and made him her personal toy, it was at that moment that G cursed his attraction to bad girls and dropped his head in shame, lowering it even more as he could swear that he could hear tiny muffled laughter, which he didn't realise at the time was Nyx and Goggles chuckling from inside the vent. Of course Hazel herself quickly regained her smile upon hearing that, in fact she was so grateful that she once again brought G up to her face and started nuzzling his cheek with her own.
"Aw, who's a good kitty?" she cooed, once again making G sob with humiliation.
"ANYWAY!" Slappy snapped, hating the fact that he was rudely interrupted. "After realising that this broad had the same sense of fun that I did, we both decided to form a little partnership. Of course that meant nothing at the time since we didn't have anyone to play with, but then one day later…"
"Five more little playmates came to the party!" Hazel squealed happily, finishing Slappy's sentence.
"Of course the first thing we did was observe them," Slappy continued. "Skulking around every corner to give us a better understanding of who or what we were dealing with, after which we took out the stronger ones before they even realised we were here."
Now things were beginning to make sense, Jenny's disappearance and reappearance in the Junkyard, Luffy's current state, it was all part of Slappy's plan... but to what end exactly?
"Luckily we had even more toys right here in the attic to help us out with that," Hazel pointed out, adding to Slappy's explanation.
Slappy's wooden face gained an evil smirk at that as he released a small puff of ghastly green smoke from him mouth for emphasis.
"One little puff of magical smoke from my mouth, and I had myself a merry little army," he explained, thus confirming what G already knew. "With them I had one of them drain the robot's power, while I handled tall, dumb and woody over here."
"And you stole everyone else's belongings including Franky's cola just to make them easier to control?" G asked, once again positive that he already knew the answer.
"You got it, bub!" Slappy chuckle in response. "After tossing the robot in the dump and stashing Luffy in a safe place, all that was left to do was to have our fun with the others."
G couldn't help but growl angrily at that, if there was any good time to ask his question then this was it.
"But what was the point of all of that!?" he snapped.
However at those words, Slappy's scowl returned.
"The point?" he repeated with a mocking tone. "Why, because it's what I do, dummy! You don't ask a parrot why it squawks or why a shark swims, do you?"
At those words the Dummy let out yet another inane cackle, so much so that he almost fell off Luffy's lap from laughing so hard. Seeing Slappy's little to no regard for any other reason other than his own twisted enjoyment for the emotional torture he had inflicted upon Ruby and the others, G's anger grew even more, so much so that he felt like his teeth would crack from grinding them too hard.
"You're insane," he commented darkly.
"Why thank you," Slappy replied, as if he were basically flattered by offensive statement.
But even with that statement aside, G felt like he should continue to ask question, even if it were only for his own curiosity rather than buying time for the others to find him and Luffy.
"You said that I'm the reason you're not happy," he pointed out. "I assume it's because you believed that I'M the one who's gonna take your playthings away from you?"
Once again Slappy chuckled.
"Our survey says…" he said, pointing towards Hazel, who in turn beamed with delight.
"DING! DING!" she squealed, a loud bell literally ringing in G's ears as she said it.
"We have a winner!" Slappy announced. "Handling five potential slaves in enough of a hassle even with Hazel's help, but you're arrival with those friends of yours only made things more complicated than they needed to be… and I for one wasn't gonna let you or those miserable little gaggle of freaks take my toys away from me!"
As he said that last part, Slappy's anger was practically flying through the roof, in fact at first it seemed like the Dummy was going to attack G out of pure rage as he stood up from Luffy's lap and stomped towards him with an accusing finger pointed directly at his face. Thankfully with Hazel squeezing him protectively added to Slappy's quickly changing attitude, the Dummy's flash of fury seemed to pass, at least for the moment.
"You know, at first I was a little concerned as to how I was going to deal with you," he said coldly, sending a shiver down G's spine. "Should I turn YOU into a dummy, scrap you like I did Jenny, but then dear Hazel brought something to my attention earlier today."
Now THIS particular sentence G had trouble understanding, granted Slappy was unpredictable when he wanted to be but G should be able to read him like a book, however that was when Hazel once again gave something to Slappy after pulling it out from an odd place, this time from inside her own ear.
"Found this on a notice board while going food shopping for the slaves," she explained as she past the scroll of paper to the Living Dummy.
Much to G's horror, when Slappy showed the full image upon the paper to him he saw none other than his own face, with the high price of $1,000,000 printed just below the image. Without a doubt this had to have been one of the Wanted Posters Chi mentioned in her text, now things have gotten from bad to worse, knowing Kneesocks she probably had a method of contacting his home realm somehow, thus signalling the other villains to his location. If those other dark horrors actually end up coming here then everyone was now in more trouble than they already were.
"Turns out you are worth a fair bit of dough to some weird people," Slappy mocked waving the Wanted Poster in G's face much to his chagrin. "Someone must want you REALLY bad, now I may not know just how this poster works just yet, heck I don't even have any use for money, but I think it would be fun to see just what little goodies your hunters have in store for you when they come to pick you up."
However even as Slappy let out another cackle, G's gasp wasn't the only one that could be heard.
"But… but you said I could keep him!" Hazel protested.
Of course Hazel's protest fell upon deaf wooden ears, though of course G's reaction to that statement was somewhat conflicted, granted if Hazel DID keep him a her pet then at the very least he would be alive, humiliated but ALIVE, which was more than he could say if the other villains arrive, especially if Ranamon finds out what Hazel's been doing to him
"Plans have changed sweetheart!" Slappy scoffed before returning his attention to G with a dark look upon his face. "With you gone, all of your friends are mine to play with!"
With those final words Slappy let out his loudest cackle yet, one that was so tarrying that even Hazel got a shiver down her spine.
#
Little did anyone in the room realise at the time, their entire conversation had been heard from a certain Gizmonk and Alicorn listening in from the vent, and needless to say neither of them were happy when they heard what Slappy was planning. First the puppets and now somehow he was planning to bring the other villains here? Just how bad can this night get!?
"We gotta do something!" Goggles squealed, frantically pulling at his hair.
"Yeah, but what!?" Nyx asked, sharing in the Gizmonk's fear.
But of course neither one of them would ever get the chance to figure the answer, as it turned out, while Nyx and Goggles were too busy keeping their focus on the conversation below them, a third figure was slowly creeping up from behind them, namely a certain cold-themed puppet with a syringe. Frostbite need only raise it and drive it directly into Nyx's neck and he would have claimed his next victim, however things didn't go quite go according to his plan as Goggles suddenly felt the need to turn his head.
"LOOK OUT!" The Gizmonk screamed, shoving Nyx out of the way of Frostbites attack.
It was only then did Goggles realise how little carrying the other puppets weapons had did for him, especially since he now had the end of Frostbite's syringe poking out of his stomach
"NO!" Nyx screamed, her fearful cries echoing throughout the entire ventilation system.
It was only then that Slappy along with everyone else in the room below realised their presence as Goggles' twitching body was thrown crashing through the grate and fell onto the hard wooden floor.
"What the…!?" Slappy gasped as the Gizmonk rolled to his feet.
What made the event even more surprising was when a black filly also flew out of the vent, rushing straight towards Goggles as he continued to twitch in agony and gasp for air, whatever Frostbite had injected into him it was basically tearing him apart from the inside out. However while Slappy and Hazel were surprised to see these two appear in the room, none were more shocked than G was.
"Nyx!?" G gasped, astounded that she had yet again disobeyed his request to stay safe.
"Aw, she's so cute!" Hazel squealed in delight, a pair of stars latterly popping out of her eyes as she beamed with delight at a potential new plaything.
At that moment G wanted to break free of Hazel's grip and rush over towards Goggles and Nyx to see whether they were okay, however as the witch gripped even tighter to him g could only watch in horror as Slappy merely edged even closer towards his friend, a look of curiosity etched across his wooden face.
"Why hello little one," he said creepily, instantly grabbing Nyx's attention.
"Uh… hello," she said fearfully. "N… nice to meet you, Mr Dummy."
That was a sentence that Nyx would soon come to regret ever saying, in fact knowing what he did about Slappy hearing the "D word" from someone else, as soon as those words left Nyx's mouth, G gasped in horror. As expected, Slappy's look of curiosity turned into a furious glare.
"Who are you calling dummy? DUMMY!" he yelled.
It was then that Slappy performed a most despicable act of cruelty one can do to child as young as Nyx, before the filly even had the chance to react to the Dummy's statement, Slappy then raised his right leg and delivered a powerful kick to poor Nyx's stomach, sending her skidding across the floor directly in front of Hazel and G. As the Living genre looked in horror upon Nyx, who was now clutching her stomach and gasping for air after Slappy latterly winded her his that kick of his, his eye began to twitch with fury, even Hazel felt what Slappy did was too much.
"Hey don't ya think that was a little harsh boss!?" she snapped, coming to Nyx's defence. "She's just a cute widdle kid!"
However Slappy didn't care in the slightest, in fact he merely laughed at the statement.
"Aw shut your trap!" he retorted. "Keep in mind who the puppet master is around here! Now where were…"
Suddenly Slappy stopped mid-sentence as he caught of the glimpse of the fire that was latterly spurting out of G's cat-like eyes, one of them now transforming back into its skull-like pupil. As it turns out, G's fury at Slappy's disgraceful act against his friend had pushed his anger too far and the build-up of pure rage was now beginning to crack the collar that bound him in his current form as a blazing aura began to surround him.
"Uh… kitty?" Hazel said nervously, quickly transforming her clothes back into her normal attire as she gently placed G on the ground, slowly beginning to walk away from him as the aura around him burned even brighter
"You're going to pay for this," he growled. "YOU'RE ALL GONNA PAY!"
And with that scream, the collar around G's neck shattered at the aura completely consumed his entire body, by the time the light dimmed G was back in his regular form, though as Nyx looked up at him, G could only gasp in horror at what she was looking at. What Nyx saw was indeed G's true form, only this time there were a few changes that completely terrified her, it was as though a shadow had consumed every inch of him as his darkened form looked towards Slappy with the ferry glow of his now burning red eyes. Within moment he then let out a loud, deafening roar that literally shook the entire hotel, in fact it was so loud that the shockwave latterly sent Slappy and Hazel backward, causing them the fall on their back.
#
Not only that but the roar, along with the shaking that came with it, echoed throughout the entire hotel, so much so that Ruby and Blade were forced to stop their fight just to keep themselves from collapsing to the ground
"What the…!?" Ruby exclaimed, using Crescent Rose to keep her balance as a series of debris fell from the ceiling around her.
Even Blade was surprised by this sudden turn of events, so much so that he almost fell over had he not pieced one of the walls with his knife.
#
Elsewhere the shaking continued as Franky, Chef and Jenny tried to stop themselves from falling through the floor and a series of cracks began to form below them.
"What's going on!?" Jenny screamed, hanging on to both Chef and Franky to stop them from falling.
#
"I don't like this!" Laura yelled frantically as she and the others from the pantry quickly began to leave the kitchen.
As it turned out their search for Nyx after she had escaped would have to wait for a little bit
#
Back inside the attack, G's roar soon came to a stop, as did the shaking. Looking down towards the Living Dummy in front of him, a figure merely a foot shorter than he was, G couldn't help but growl in fury as he edged further towards him. Slappy on the other hand, merely looked up at him with mere terror as he tried to back away.
"You like scaring people Slappy?" G snarled, holding up his now clawed, skeletal hand. "Well, let me show you what REAL horror is!"
It was then that G's red eyes glowed even more brightly and every bone in his left arm became engulfed with black flames, not only scaring Slappy but also Hazel and even, much to her own displeasure, Nyx.
#
Author's Notes:
The Character Nyx belongs to Pen Stroke / :iconPenstrokepony:
The Character Laura belongs to :icontwokinds:
The Characters Chi and Mimi belong to :iconbleedman:
The Character Ruby Rose belongs to Rooster Teeth
For the Image of G: art/The-Living-Genre-563434744
For the Image of Witch Hazel: art/Character-Reboot-Witch-Hazel-585406440