Bendy and Co's bios are located on my DeviantArt.
Sammy seemed very keen on perfection of the cleanliness of his department. Henry remembered he hated the ink and its messy problems before he was turned into an ink person; it was reasonable he would still keep his own personal dorm as kept as possible.
His office was untouched but had a few drawings on the wall that were signed by Ally, his and Susie's now adopted daughter. Shawn Flynn would be proud, assuming he was around somewhere. Bumblebee passed instruments stuffed in small open rooms and a huge piano that was undoubtedly Sammy's prized instrument as it was the most polished in the entire section. Bee looked closely in a window to another office setting and noticed schematics, one specifically labeled for the Ink Machine itself yet didn't resemble the current Machine. Perhaps it was a prototype?
Several old cassettes from the studio originally hidden or purposefully brought out for Henry to find prior now lined three shelves next to the desk and it seemed that every one of them was there. One of which held the words "The End" on it and Henry, against his better judgement, pressed it.
"It's simply awe-inspiring what one can accomplish with their own hands! A lump of clay can turn to meaning... if you strangle it with enough enthusiasm. Look what we've built! We created life itself, Henry!"
Bee peered down at him when he looked up, a sad expression very prominent on his face. Henry then looked around at the posters on the walls and other memorabilia from the show scattered about.
"Not just on the silver screen, but in the hearts of those we've entertained with our fancy moving pictures! But... when the tickets stopped selling, when the next big thing came along, only the monsters remained. Shadows of the past."
Henry moved to the right side of the wall where a Bendy cutout lied back against a familiar themed pentagram. He used to destroy them over and over yet the ones with the markings always came back, Always.
"But you can save them, Henry! You can peel it all away! You see, there's only one thing Bendy has never known: he was there for his beginning, but he's never seen... The End."
The audio recording cut and Henry placed a shaky hand on the Bendy's face. "That was how I defeated Bendy. He played his cartoons throughout the studio in a never ending loop because he feared seeing them end. Playing the final clip, the outro of the cartoon, made Bendy's grasp on my reality fade. I would wake up. But every night since the actual time I went back, I would always meet Joey and he would send me back to the studio and I would forget what to do, why I was there every time. It was always a nightmare, and I thought my sanity was leaving me."
Bumblebee's helm barely touched the ceiling but he had enough room to wander close to Henry. Then he had a thought. "Those audio clips, did those exist the first time? Or were they originally a memory that came to life as well?"
"What do you mean 'did they exist?' They're right here!"
"No, I mean the first time you went to the actual studio, not the one in your dreams. Were these logs originally there? You said that in the time loop, you always forgot each time. Why though? If it was a memory, you would have remembered how to get through it, the seeing tool wouldn't have been necessary. If…wait, if Bendy found a way to sync with your subconscious and make you relive that event, what if he created the logs after you left or had the remains of the employees do it for him so when you really did come back again, you would remember them like in your subconscious? The dream logs may have been created after you kept dying in certain areas where you didn't originally to keep the nightmare feeding Bendy's power over you constant. You said the seeing tool you had in your nightmares reflected things you did. If your conscious knew you had died somewhere, it added clues so you could go farther each cycle until the end. Wouldn't the logs add to that?"
Henry stood silently, glaring at Bee before his face softened and he looked toward the ground.
Bumblebee then pressed, "Those audio logs didn't exist before, did they? The seeing tool you had didn't exist before. Your mind synced with Bendy's like the curse synced your life with his; those items were created so your subconscious could fight him. Your subconscious wrote those messages you told everyone about that were hidden without the seeing tool. That's why it was a loop. That's why you only remember the things that happened in the loop once it was broken and not in the real event or anything before the last cycle. Was the studio really that big or did your brain think it was? What really happened at the studio?"
The human turned from the ground to the posters again and to the Bendy cutout. He squint his eyes confused. Suddenly, he whispered barely audible, "What happened?"
The walls towards Sammy's atrium began to twist and swirl clockwise into one another. The ground became mutilated and unnatural, and the ink burst out of the lingering pipes like a roaring wave that immediately swept over him. Darkness.
"Henry! You must destroy the Machine, Henry!"
Henry. Henry. Henry.
There he was. Henry watched…himself gathering the items, pulling the lever to the Machine down. He saw himself running, falling down, and visiting Sammy. He saw the monsters but he heard them screaming his name. Were they screaming his name before?
"You should have never left, Henry, I lost my way without you."
"Wait, that face…you look familiar…"
"You, a loving family, and me, a crooked empire."
The Creator lied to us. Joey lied to us. Henry saw his counterpart slicing through Searchers and Lost Ones.
"The studio was large. I remember that, but I went places my mind couldn't follow; it always felt like dream even then. Everything was brown, black, and white, not yellow."
The scene then changed to him placing a hand on the white Boris poster only for a flash to replace it with the Seeing Tool over a yellowing version that read "I'm sorry, Buddy."
"Boris, Buddy. Buddy Lewek, Joey's former apprentice. I'm so sorry, Buddy."
Henry's counterpart was now on the floor in front of the Ink Machine and Bendy was approaching, but he was reaching for something just out of sight. Then Henry himself made eye contact with the darkness and Joey stood there, shaking his head. "Henry! You must destroy the Machine, Henry!"
"Wait, don't leave me!"
The memory faded to another and showed Henry swinging his axe at the center of the Machine just after he and Joey touched it and everything around him turned white upon impact.
Henry. Henry. "Henry!"
"Henry!"
The human snapped out of his trance and peered up at Bumblebee who stared shocked at him, "You done rambling?"
"Uh," Henry started, "Yeah, I just remembered Joey was there."
"I heard everything, you don't need to explain yourself," an instantly amused Bee quirked.
Henry grimaced at himself as the mech continued, "So the layout of the studio was nearly the same but your encounters weren't. Joey ran away after somewhat helping you and left you to basically die. Sounds like the Joey I've heard before. But you mentioned a Buddy…Lewek. Who was he?"
"Buddy was the Boris that accompanied me back in the studio after my ritual with Sammy. He was captured and turned into a brute monster by Susie later on; I had no choice but to kill him. I don't know if he got revived with the others as a Searcher or Lost One but the Boris who is alive right now apparently doesn't have a human soul attached so Buddy's not Boris this time around I don't think."
"Bendy said Boris has no human soul. Was it ever confirmed by the Machine?"
The question threw off the man quite well. "I never heard Bendy mention it and most of the animals the Machine created are implied to be without human souls. It's possible Buddy might be him, maybe not. Highly doubt Bendy lied. I remember there were others like Wally, Dot, Audrey, Lacie, and Dave but I don't think they are around or at least they haven't made their presence known."
"Bendy's also not the type to give direct answers, that or he really doesn't know if everyone is as they say they are. Maybe even he doesn't recognize many of them. Well, we need to keep going. You can tell me more after this if you wish," Bee dejectedly spoke, feeling remorseful. "I shouldn't have forced you to remember. I…this is a stressful time and right now, anything can happen and the details of this whole ordeal is something beyond anything I've ever dealt with. Any answers help but not like this. I'm sorry."
He let Henry climb back onto his servo and placed him back onto his shoulder.
Henry smiled, "Don't be, I know you mean well."
The atrium was one of the few rooms Bumblebee had somewhat of a problem getting in. The other sections were probably built to accommodate the new forms of the toons, but some just couldn't be modified due to the layout of the rock they were built around so only those who could change size to that of a human could enter them. He managed to slip through but he knew it would be a struggle to get out again.
The atrium was larger than Henry remembered. There was a larger orchestra set up with several more microphones lying above to capture the sound better. The upper deck where he recalled Sammy used to watch him as he explored the latter's secret sanctuary was altered severely into new booths for toons and former humans alike with one central booth being the projector room only. It felt like a grand opera house.
The projector abruptly turned on and made both of them jump back and a Bendy cartoon began to play. Tombstone Picnic wasn't exactly something either of them wanted to see but it was a good warning. Bee, however, was having none of the supernatural aspect of it.
"Who's up there? Show yourself!" Bee growled as he activated his weapon.
The sound of its charge made something behind the projector squeak like a toy duck on cue. Whispers and weird chatter began becoming distinguishable and Henry cocked his head to the side as he listened carefully. His eyes widened when throughout the whispers, small squeaking also was prominent and there was only one character who squeaked.
"Edgar?"
Silence filled the room and Bumblebee glanced at Henry confused.
"Charley, Barley, Edgar, is that you? Come on out, it's okay."
The projector snapped off and small foot falls wandered from the booth down the stairs and to both their surprise, the Butcher Gang emerged. But they weren't the normally monstrous versions of the Gang as Henry was used to. They were the real deal. All three of them were as big as Minicons but despite a few modernized aspects of their appearance, they were indeed the Butcher Gang.
"Who are ye trespassers?!" Barley suddenly spoke to the astonishment of the two.
Bee then muttered in Henry's ear, "You never said they could talk."
Barley was the most human out of all of them and was decently portioned with a beer gut and his pipe. He appeared more human too than his toon appearance somewhat like Alice did. No doubt this was also the Machine's doing. Charley was an ape and his appearance was a bit gruffer than his cartoon fixture, but he still held some human qualities like his signature clothes and boots, his regal but devious stance, and he was still balding. Then there was Edgar who Bumblebee could only describe as Blackarachnia's alt mode with a different color scheme. He appeared more like an actual spider with eight legs and his head matched it, but his white face remained though with black pinchers and four pie-cut eyes instead of his normal two.
Charley laughed with ape-like grunts before throwing them off with a deep British accent. "Bloody hell, it's Henry Stein! And Bumblebee, the Autobot bugger who turned our home into a war zone. Never thought I'd see you blokes here."
Bee didn't know what the word "bugger" meant but he knew it was an insult. Henry didn't seem as affected, probably because he may have anticipated that attitude from such a character.
Edgar's squeaks darkened before he spoke in a similar accent as Charley, definitely younger, "You don't mean that, do you? They couldn't have known we'd be in trouble, mate. It was just a roll of the dice, that was."
Charley raised his gloved hand to strike at Edgar who promptly curled down into ball. "I mean what I say, boy. Don't question me!"
"Yes sir."
Bee, growing fed up, snarled, "Listen, we don't have a lot of time. We need a vinyl record we can use to 'appease' the Ink Machine for tribute on a podium but we can't find one. Would you happen to know where one would be given this is a music department and usually stuff like that is abundant yet it is not."
Charley frowned, "You patronizing me, mate?"
Henry got wise really fast as he began to recognize his own character's personality. Charley was very easy to anger. "Oh no. Um, no, no, we're just…stressed. If we could only have a moment of your time, we need help finding a vinyl record. It would mean an awful lot to us if you could help us, please."
Barley laughed, "Aye, we may have seen one lying about but we ain't gonna help ye without something in return, matey."
Bumblebee clicked his glossa in annoyance and tried his best not to moan. More hunting, just what they needed. "Like?"
The chimp-like humanoid chuckled, "We want some soup made hot. Do you think you can get that for us, lad?"
Edgar put on puppy eyes to the best of his abilities and Bee's spark sunk. "Guys, are you serious? This isn't Grand Theft Auto where I run around doing tasks for you. Not going to happen."
Barley growled, "Then I guess ya won't need yer stinkin' record, will you?"
At this point, Henry was far from surprised. He should have known gluttony was also a factor for many toons. Boris and the Butcher Gang were the most gluttonous of all of them. "You know what? Fine, I'll go get you some bacon soup. Bee, head over to Bendy's station and I'll get the record."
"Are you sure with Caesar roaming around? He knows we're here and he's going to do anything in his power to stop us."
Henry nodded and held up his axe with a smirk, "I'll be fine, Bumblebee. I've done this before."
And with that, the human left and Bee ignored the now chattering Butcher Gang. He really needed recharge and to talk to Bendy about how screwed up this place was. From trains that eat everything to talking monkeys and spiders, this was going to be one of the last adventures he would take for quite some time. He needed a vacation.
He carefully exited the atrium and one of the Gang, Barley if he remembered correctly, called out to him, "Oi, don't get yer knickers in a twist, son! Wait, what size are ya, ten x large? They might not twist but they'll sure knot!"
Bee felt his optic twitch as they burst out laughing and growled lowly, "I hate this place."
The Timberwolves were losing ground and the Baron was losing patience. What everyone could agree was funny was that the Baron had holed himself up near the cliff side in fear of Tigressa returning. Upon occasion, a shadow of winged animals flew past which made him jump but he dare not step out of his place.
Blurr slid to halt with his elbow on the Baron's shoulder and smiled, "What's up, bacon breath? Listen I know you're having dragon troubles but I want you to know that I was rooting for you. No hard feelings, right?"
The Baron growled and shoved the speedster away, "Why won't you leave me alone?"
"Baron!" An angry voice called. Blurr quickly left the scene as the warthog's tempered flared.
Bendy approached fueled with hatred, "You took my studio, held my fellow toons and employees captive, and you decide to try and turn the world into your own twisted empire. You're as bad as Joey."
"Like you're so innocent, Bendy? You killed Bumblebee's lover, killed a lot of humans, and you're terrible at keeping your emotions in check which always leads to heartache. Tell me, do you know your side because I certainly do," Baron Bacon hissed.
Bendy swung his mallet to pose behind him in a threatening manner, growling demonically. The Baron didn't hesitate to roar back like a feral monster. He may have had no luck with Tigressa but Bendy was fair game. They both charged at each other and his fist clashed with Bendy's hammer creating visible sparks.
Bumblebee entered Bendy's section of the studio and the thing that stood out the most was the throne still covered with shimmering but damaged roller coaster parts attached to a nice cushion and ink foaming around it, oozing like black lava. To the left of the throne over the entrance to Bendyland, several decaying bodies hung. Those were the remains of the trespassers. When Bendy was first ousted to the world, he recalled he killed anybody that decided to venture into his lair. Apparently, he liked his new decorations of death way too much to still keep them for this long.
Knowing Bendy, the dolls were probably stored in Bendyland and he was less than enthused to go in the carnival from hell. Slipping under the ungodly entrance, he tried his best not to look up at the bodies even as some of them dripped pieces of flesh peeling off. The fact that the Baron didn't take them down in his rule meant that they both shared a sick sense of humor. At least Bendy was nice about it and apologized if he saw he crossed the line.
As soon as he passed the door, a huge sign suddenly lit up with lights bordering it but one light was blinking and another shorted out. A part of the sign had a word written in ink over a portion of the normal font. He grimaced as he read the sign, "Bendy…Hell? Yikes."
Beneath the sign hanging just above the end of the platform, a huge cavernous area with rock-like pillars housed carnival rides and games throughout. There seemed to be a drop-off near the far end into an ink pool of sorts. In the middle of the room, a large "octopus"-like ride sat unused yet pristine in condition like it had been put together just yesterday which was odd considering how old the studio was and its artifacts. Perhaps Bendy fixed them in his spare time?
On a table in front of the octopus Bendy ride, an audio recorder and a plush Bendy doll sat suspiciously. Narrowing his optics, he slowly walked down the stairs and searched around timidly as he approached the desk. He had recalled Henry mentioning Bertrum Piedmont, the amusement park director and engineer, and what had become of Bertrum…but Bendy had mentioned his name as well and said he was never awakened.
Reaching out, he was about to press play and the audio device when he suddenly pulled away. He spoke to himself, "What are you thinking, Bee? Bad things happen when mysterious audio recorders play. We've been through this. Just take the doll and go."
He snatched the Bendy doll and held it close, quickly peering around to see if anything was moving that shouldn't be or something activated because of it. A few drips of ink from old pipes echoed faintly as the awkward silence dwelled on. Standing more upright, he shifted his optics left to right a few times with a neutral frown. Everything was silent, too silent.
Bee slowly turned away from the ride and headed back up the stairs. "I'm just paranoid."
Something metal dropped onto the floor in the distance and Bee froze, staring blankly at the stairs before turning his attention to beyond the ride. Silence again. A normal person would probably investigate…
"Screw that, I'm out of here. I ain't doing this," Bee mumbled and fast walked back to the exit.
"The biggest park ever built…"
That made him stop and look back at the octopus ride questionably. He didn't hit the play button. The entrance to Bendyland shut before Bumblebee could leave and it scared him enough to back him against the railing overlooking the storage carnival. Swallowing hard, he turned towards the ride again and peered down at it as well as the audio. For a few seconds, he thought he had only heard Bertrum's voice in his head as the audio wasn't playing anymore as far as he could tell. Just as he was about to power up his weapon and shoot through the door turning his attention away, he heard it.
"…a centerfold of attractions."
"Unbelievable," he whispered, this time keeping his optics locked onto the audio log for good. This time he saw the button slowly click inward on its own.
"Each one is grander than the one before it. It makes my eyes come to tears at the thought. And then, oh Mister Drew. For all your talk of dreams, you are the true architect behind so many nightmares. I built this park, It was to be a masterpiece! My masterpiece! And now you think you can just throw me out? Trample to me to the dust and forget me? No! This is my park! My glory! You may think that I'm gone, but-!"
"I'm not Joey Drew!" Bee yelled over it.
The audio grew silent again, the click of the stop button confirming it.
"I'm still here."
Bee shot up with wide optics at that growl and it wasn't the audio, it was the carnival ride itself. Immediately, one arm of the ride shifted up rotated forty five degrees clockwise then abruptly lowered and shot back fast to destroy the desk and audio and sending what remained across the room.
"Not good!" Bee cried, clutching the railing tighter and ducking when another arm hit a metal horse cart towards him. It smashed against the wall and the horse's grinning face was directed at him as if taunting him. He heard the sound of the ride top shifting and stared as something unexpected began to happen.
Parts of the ride broke apart as ink gushed out of the empty panels that formerly had mirrors. The arms of the ride were separated from the main body and raised onto tracks engulfed by ink. An arm completely made of ink sprang up from the center and hit the ground, pieces of the ride building around it to form armor. Another arm came then what appeared to be a body and a head on ink with fiery orange yellow glowing eyes. The remains of the ride became armor and kibble while the octopus car arms positioned on its backside like demon spider legs. Two were above its shoulders and two twirled below the ink armored arms.
Bumblebee could only peer up in horror as the monster gave a deep bellow, raising its two mechanical arms and its ink arms up menacingly. He found himself engulfed by its shadow.
"Bertrum!"
AN: Long time no see, eh? Decided to bring in characters that needed a little loving and who would probably look dope as Transformer-Allspark-infused improvements. I know it's like "why are you making Bee go through the essential cutscenes of the real BATIM game?" Well I figure maybe the way we were seeing things in the game did really happen to Henry in his "real" life but maybe not the same as he knew them to be and with the Allspark infusions improving everyone, things are bound to be different now. I never explored in detail the new studio Bendy has except for the main room, the Machine's labyrinth, and Bendy's throne room so this is a good time to do it.
