A/N: Welcome to the chapter update where I further lost my mind over this fic and decided to just go with it.

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Henry had to make a decision quick, and he had literal seconds to make said decision, unless he wanted an axe to the chest. Henry narrowly threw himself to the floor beneath the swing of Alice's axe. Henry would prefer to not take another disemboided swim through the well of voices, or worse, be sent back to the beginning of the loop if the damage was bad enough.

There was no real good outcome in this situation, really.

That first dodge had been sheer dumb luck.

Henry scrambled to his feet, using the short amount of time he bought himself to shout to Boris.

"Go! Get out of here!" Henry ran a short distance away as Alice rounded on him. "I don't want you to be hurt like all the times before this!"

Please.

Please let Boris get away this time.

Let something go right this loop.

Henry would deal with the well again if that meant his friend would be able to escape.

Boris lingered in the doorway of the way forward with the Tommy gun. It looked like the toon wolf wanted to shoot, but Alice was getting too close to Henry with her axe. Boris couldn't make a shot without the chance of accidentally hitting Henry and not the deranged angel. The toon reluctantly lowered the gun.

And spoke.

"Come back." Boris didn't wait for a response. He turned and ran down the hall with the Tommy gun instead.

Henry felt he should have recognized the voice, but was too shocked that the toon had even spoken to begin with. Besides, Henry was definitely more concerned with that axe coming at him again.

Alice swung the blade a few more times before she lost the axe head by slamming it hard into the metal bits of the elevator as Henry stumbled out of the way.

His luck didn't hold out, as losing the axe not deter the crazy woman in the slightest.

Alice merely threw herself at Henry, swinging a fist.

Damn.

Alice sure packed a punch.

Henry reeled backward, pain blossoming through his abdomen, followed closely by his head from the sharp slap Alice gave him next. Before Alice could land another strike, Henry clenched a fist of his own and punched Alice hard in the twisted part of the left side of her face.

Alice seemed to be briefly stunned by being struck, before she redoubled her efforts to beat Henry back into the ink with her fists.

Henry honestly never saw himself in a fist fight with this crazy Alice, but Henry had no qualms of striking a lady because he doesn't see Alice as one. All Henry saw was a sad, twisted monster taken in by lies, who caused pain to others in an attempt to gain what she believed rightfully belonged to her.

Alice would never have it.

Henry grunted as Alice socked him in the abdomen again, and this time, it hurt a little more, as he had already been hit there earlier. Henry caught Alice by the wrist, throwing her off balance, but the twisted angel rammed back into Henry and pinned him up against the broken metal of the elevator.

The whole time, Alice was screaming her fury as she relentlessly clawed at Henry.

"That Boris was perfect! The most perfect Boris I've ever seen! And now...and now...!" Alice wrenched a broken bit of metal from the broken elevator and swung it hard, clipping Henry's shoulder.

The ink was starting to cloud Henry's vision.

"He's no longer perfect! Boris spoke! He isn't supposed to speak!" Alice kept Henry cornered against the broken elevator, her voice rising in a terrible shriek as she swung the metal again. "You must be responsible for that! To make that Boris less than perfect! You've done something in order to foil my attempts to become beautiful!"

Henry misstepped and felt only a crack of white-hot pain lancing through his head before he was back in the dark with the whispers.

Back in the well of voices.

This time, Henry had no trouble making his way back. He wasn't going to allow Alice to take Boris again. Not this time. Henry even had the added benefit this time of scaring the hell out of Alice when he came back. Henry reformed right at the base of a Bendy statue, right in front of the twisted angel.

"No! Stay back!" Alice hastily moved away, losing the metal she'd been holding. "I won't let you touch me, demon, and send me back to the screaming well of voices! I own't go back!" Alice vanished up through the rafters.

Henry was honestly still reorienting himself from his return from the well, so he didn't see how or where Alice had gone off to. Henry happened to also be rather confused by Alice's reaction to him, until Henry looked down at an inky puddle to check out his reflection.

And grimaced.

Great.

How absolutely spiffy.

Henry now looked like a mix of toon Bendy and the ink demon, with no human features left in his face. The only thing that hadn't been transformed yet were his human arms and legs.

An odd combination.

Henry stared at himself again.

He looked like a lanky toothpick in the sweater now, his horns twitching a little.

Henry rubbed the back of his neck and let out a heavy sigh. It was a weird sensation, sighing through slightly bigger teeth than before, as Henry walked through the door to the finance department. Henry's tail swished back and forth uneasily as he heard muffled sounds coming from his right.

Grant's office.

Henry decided that he may as well pick up the valve handle needed to go on to the next area of the studio. But as soon as he walked inside the office, Henry paused.

Boris was there.

Relief flooded through Henry.

Alice hadn't gotten the toon wolf this time.

Alice hadn't stolen Boris away.

But in return...

...something was very wrong.

Boris had set the Tommy gun down on the desk. The toon was trembling, gloved hands clutching his head. The helmet with the light that the toon wolf had been wearing was on the desk as well.

"Boris?"

"...no, not Boris." The toon wolf spoke again, his voice worn and resigned. The toon turned around, briefly freezing up at the sight of Henry, before relaxing again. "She sent you to the well again."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes." Henry stared hard at the Boris yet not Boris. "Your voice...it's familiar."

"I should hope so, though it has been 30 years. And however long this has been going on." The toon wolf said, looking away as his shoulders slumped. "And yet I only remembered who I was a short time ago. It's...difficult, but seeing Norman...and this office..." Not-Boris waved a hand at the writing covering the walls of the office. "It helped bring me clarity, and I'm not sure I want it, Henry. Being just 'Boris' was much easier."

"Grant?" Henry asked, putting the other's words together.

Not-Boris gave a single nod, still looking rather unhappy.

"I don't know what to say to that. This loop just keeps getting crazier." Henry told the other. "Do you want me to call you by your actual name then?"

"It would be appreciated." Grant's toon wolf face looked grateful. "It would be better than whatever Joey enjoyed calling me when I kept insisting he stop wasting the studio's money on such expensive special projects." Grant looked around his office, the toon wolf's ears flicking as an irritable expression crossed his face. "Though I guess money isn't something that needs to be worried about any longer. This studio crashed and burned a long time ago, leaving only monsters and bad memories behind." Grant caught Henry staring at him. "What?"

"It is really bizarre to see a character I designed and intended to be mute speak so much, but it's nice." Henry relaxed a bit more. "Being able to speak to you makes things a lot easier, so I'm not just asking questions until I get a yes or no shake of the head."

"Hmm, and it is good that I have most memories of myself back, even if a lot of it from before I started working in the studio is...hazy." Grant looked over to the Tommy gun. The toon wolf bared his fangs more visibly.

Did...did the Boris clones always have sharp teeth like that?

"Would be real nice if Joey Drew himself showed up." Grant continued on. "Could give him an explosive welcome back."

"I think you'd get along with Tom great." Henry commented, thinking of the unfriendly, ready to beat his ass toon wolf that had a mechanical left arm.

"Tom's still down here too?" Grant asked, pie-cut eyes back on Henry.

"It's another toon Boris clone that I usually meet a little deeper in the studio." Henry was having trouble adjusting to horns instead of hair, among other things like suddenly speaking to Grant. "There's another Alice Angel too, but she's not crazy like the one we just saw. Call her Allison."

"Henry." Grant frowned at Henry. The toon wolf looked very unhappy. "You do know who Allison is, right? Worked at the studio as Alice Angel's new voice actor after Joey decided to replace Susie out of the blue? Without even telling her?"

"I know. I've heard the different tape recordings scattered around the studio." Henry flipped the valve around in his hand after he leaned down to pick it up. "Found out that Joey lured Susie back to the studio for an 'opportunity'." Henry stopped moving the valve. "That crazy Alice angel has to be Susie. I've heard her voice pitching around between 'Alice's' voice and another. It has to be her. All of this..." Henry waved his hand around to indicate the studio as a whole. "The lost ones...the Butcher Gang clones...all of the Boris clones...Joey wanted living toons."

"That..." Grant managed to convey deep disgust with his wolfish features. "The Ink Machine. That's where a lot of the money was going in the end. Why Tom was around so much with all the Gent business." Grant scowled at the walls of his office. "Why Joey was so damn desperate." The toon wolf sighed. "I should have listened to Norman before things went to hell. Before I forgot who I was, living day to day trying to survive this place." Grant was quiet for a moment. "There was another Boris with me, you know."

Henry didn't say anything. He didn't want to interrupt.

"Wally Franks left the studio, but it seems he got lured back too, at some point. If what you're saying about Susie and the whole bringing toons to life is true. But the thing is, I don't remember Wally coming back, because that's where my memories start to get hazy." Grant picked up the Tommy gun and exited the room. "And no, I do not know if he is still around the studio right now."

"Has it been you I have been meeting this whole time, or was it...Wally?" Henry followed along after the toon. This was not at all like the Boris he had come to know.

"It's him you meet in that safe room." Grant said simply, halting in front of the closed vault door. The toon wolf sighed. "After he goes in to open the door for you to the Heavenly Toys room, it is me that you met next. Wally usually goes off into hiding."

"You can remember that?" Henry put the valve onto the door in order to open it.

"This time, I do." Grant helped Henry push open the door. "Can't say I remember anything before that. It's... it is bits of memory that I recall. But I don't know if it's happened or not." Grant felt quiet, ears flattening. The toon bared a hint of fang as Grant's eyes fell on the lost ones on the platform. "Do we need to worry about them?"

"Not right now. They're usually pretty harmless." Henry stiffened when the lost ones actually moved, shuffling closer to him and Grant.

"Hope they stay that way." The toon wolf held the Tommy gun at the ready.

"I'm pretty sure most, if not all of them, are former employees of the studio."

"This is worse than I thought." Grant said with another disgusted shake of his head. "Joey never could be satisfied with what he had."

"No, he couldn't." Henry said, keeping still all the way to the tip of his tail as the lost ones formed a small circle around him.

The inky beings stared at the tall, skinny-looking Bendy with human arms and legs like he was the most fascinating thing in the whole studio.

Henry resigned himself to this treatment, figuring that he was being treated like he since he now looked like their savior. The lost ones weren't as afraid of him as they were the Ink Demon, because of the faint mix of toon Bendy that Henry had in his appearance.

Yet another difference this loop.

The lost ones seemed...they seemed happier and not as down-trodden and morose as they normally appeared. Their glowing eyes actually conveyed interest and a great deal of hope.

Henry wondered if looking like a mix of his own creation and a monster wasn't so bad, despite his initial misgivings about the transformation in the beginning.

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A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I appreciate them a lot! And holy wow 12K+ hits? I'm definitely glad people are enjoying this fic.

And to specifically answer ParasiticSquid: I figure for the purpose of toon Bendy's power in this fic that he wouldn't be able to bring out Alice or Boris that Henry could potentially draw because it would take too much energy. That toon Bendy can only bring inanimate objects off the paper. Plus I maaaay have something coming soon to the fic that solves the lack of toon Alice's presence, at least. And you also picked up on part of my plan. That that this loop Henry is in (aka this fic) won't actually end at the end of chapter 5 of the game.

...This means that this fic is gonna either be very, very long or I can make a new fic to be part 2. I guess I can see how long it takes to get to that point.