Ms. Chalice ran through the island as fast as her golden high-heeled shoes could take her. She ducked and weaved around bushes and trees as she traversed the dense forest that populated a decent portion of the island. Chalice knew of a hiding place. It was the same spot she had weaseled herself into last time she sought sanctuary. And nothing had found her there.
The sound of the angry mob following her seemed to die down. Ms. Chalice was making good distance between them and began to feel safe. She slowed her run and spun around to walk backwards. There was no sign of the mob. Not a flicker of torches or glint of their weapons could be seen.
"Phew! That was a close one." The golden chalice said to herself. That was just before the heel of her shoe caught on a tree root that was sticking out of the ground. "Whoa!" Chalice squealed as she fell onto her back. The shock from the fall, caused her to close her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them back up, Chalice was greeted with a dark sky filled with twinkling stars. Not the tree canopies that were above her just a second ago. Her porcelain body sat up and looked about. It no longer looked like Inkwell, but somewhere all too familiar.
"I'm…home? But how is this possible?" The golden chalice stood up and brushed herself off. She found herself just outside the boundary of her town, on a path that led to the Forest of Shadows. A flash of green light off in the distance caught her attention. It dimmed and brightened, coaxing her to come and investigate. Being the naturally curious person she was, Chalice jogged herself in the direction of the blinking light, which was further into the dark forest. The path opened up into a clearing. She stopped short as a horrid sight greeted her. Upon the blanket of grass lay a slew of corpses. And not just any corpses either: they were the bodies of her dead friends.
Chalice still saw the light blinking in the distance. But to get to it, she would have to pass through the garden of bodies. The golden chalice took a gulp before tip-toeing her way through. She made sure to keep her vision locked on where she was going, only taking glances down every few seconds to make sure she didn't step on anyone. Not that they would feel it, but more out of respect. Even though she dared not look at them for too long, it was clear that they had died horrible deaths the way their bodies were twisted and mangled. A greenish color of decay had painted over their forms.
"Chalice…." A wheezing, raspy voice called to her. The cup realized it was the corpse on her right talking. It was a mangled glassware person, indistinguishable from what he was supposed to be anymore. "Help us, Chalice. You can't leave us here." It begged. The head made cracking noises as it turned to look up at her.
"We're your friends. Don't we deserve better?" The one on her left wheezed. It appeared to be a bulky fellow that was missing a foot. Chalice's mind was reeling; how could they be talking right now? Had she been knocked out? This had to be a dream.
"This can't be real." Chalice shook her head, mostly trying not to make eye contact with the corpses. Their once hazy eyes began to shine a green light and stare deep into her soul. "I saw each one of you die. You can't be talking to me right now." She told them. It was all that the golden chalice could do to not freak out at this moment.
"That's right….we are dead….because of you!" They hissed at her. The five nearest bodies began to stand up and close in on her. "You saw us failing and did not call a retreat. You watched on the sidelines as we all died."
"You did nothing to help us…"
"And now our blood is on your hands." One of the corpses grabbed her hand.
"Let go, I say!" Chalice panicked and squirmed her hand out of its weak grip that was deprived of any muscle. Her glove was now stained red with blood. It seeped down each of her fingertips as if it were alive.
"It's time for you to join us." They chorused.
"Stay away from me!" Ms. Chalice shouted and pushed past their line of defense that was clearly lacking.
"You can run but you can't hide!" They called after her. Each one of them turned to watch her flee the scene. But the chalice did not notice this. Under no circumstance was she going to look behind her now. She pushed herself toward the blinking light. With any luck, the light would lead to a way out of this nightmare.
Chalice ran and ran. That was until something – or someone, actually – seemed to step in front of her. It happened so fast that she could not stop and ended up rebounding off them. The force of the impact sent her to the ground. She took a few seconds to catch her breath. Upon looking up, the golden chalice saw the silhouettes of the cup brothers.
"Oh, it's only you, boys." She sighed in relief and got up. "I sure am glad to see ya. Think you can help a gal out?"
"What's wrong, Chalice?" Said a raspy version of Mugman's voice. Both their cups creaked around in an unnatural fashion to look at her. Their movements were jerky, almost as if they were puppets that had just been animated and could not move very well. Their jaws hung open as they made eye contact with her. Chalice gasped as she realized these were demonic versions of the boys. Both sported their large fangs and bigger bodies. That green decay color coated every inch of them like it did the corpses she had just escaped. Cup and Mug's eyes seemed to glow an even brighter green than the people who were supposed to be dead.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." The cup one teased with an equally distorted voice.
"Join us, Chalice. It's time to stop fighting." The mug held out a clawed hand for her to take.
"No, I won't go with you!" She shouted and backed away a couple steps.
"What's wrong, dear? I thought you wanted to be friends forever." The mutated cup cooed.
"Cuphead, I…" Chalice looked away, realizing she had said that to Cuphead during their adventure. She had meant it at the time, but wasn't so sure about being with two possessed cups. One was enough with the demon embedded in Mugman. Two was definitely too much to handle.
"It will be all over soon. Try not to struggle or it will only hurt more."
Chalice had not really been paying attention to what the green Cuphead was saying. She had just been trying to process her feelings regarding all this turmoil going on. When the female finally looked up, Cup's clawed hand was reaching out for her. And so was the oversized jaws that were widening by the second. His mouth was getting so big that she was certain that he would be able to swallow her whole. She screamed and scrambled away from the jaws that closed loudly on nothing.
"This has to be a dream. I have to wake up from this nightmare!" Her gloved hands started to pinch and slap at herself. Anything to try and get out of this cycle of psychological torment. She continued to run, not even towards the blinking light anymore. Chalice just hoped to go far enough away from any other unfortunate encounters. That was until she heard a familiar voice and stopped on the spot.
"Challie? Challie, is that you?"
She looked to her left and saw her big brother emerging from the forest.
"Demitasse? Demitasse, is that you? What are you doing here?" She sobbed tears of joy at the sight of her sibling. Completely forgetting about her present conundrum, the golden cup ran over to the bronze colored one. He sported the same shaped head as his sister but was taller and had a bulkier build and muscle tone thanks to years of combat training. Chalice threw her arms around him and sobbed into his chest.
"It's really me." He said. "Where have you been all this time? Mom, Dad, and I – we 've been so worried about you. Why didn't you come home?"
"I'm sorry! It's all my fault!" Chalice continued to sob, not even able to meet her brother's gaze.
"What is?" He asked innocently and gave a gentle pat to the back of her head.
"You told me not to go, but I did anyway! I thought I could be a great warrior like you, but I was wrong. I'm just a little girl who doesn't want to admit she's scared. I wanted to prove to you, Mom, and Dad that I wasn't a spoiled brat. That I could actually amount to something meaningful. But I did something terrible and now all my friends are dead! And now I'm scared that I'll be stuck alone in the astral plane forever!"
"There, there." The bronze cup cooed. "I'm here. Everything's going to be okay now."
Chalice felt a hand rest on her back and over her shoulder. Her gaze looked to the hand only to find a clawed hand that did not belong to her brother. She gasped and squirmed away from the hand's grasp. The golden chalice watched as her brother grew tall and transformed into the very demon that she was trying to hide from. Its red fur sprouted all over. The creature grunted as the thick horns popped out from its head and wings from just below the shoulders. Tanuki chuckled evilly, knowing that he had truly tricked her. And this gave him great pleasure. It was one of his favorite hobbies: tricking others right into his arms (or tentacles if he were in his origin form).
Chalice attempted to run away from the maniacal creature. She headed towards what looked like an open pathway. All of a sudden, she slammed into something hard. For she had run full force into a tree. It was due to the demon's illusion that it had looked like a possible way to go. The golden chalice fell back onto her bottom as her environment blurred and morphed back to Inkwell. Ms. Chalice groaned in pain as the world seemed to spin.
"You are too easy to trick, Ms. Chalice." Tanuki growled and began to stalk toward her on all fours. "You are indeed a lost soul. Even more lost than I originally thought." The demon used his otherworldly powers to summon bony hands from the ground. They held onto Chalice by her wrists and ankles. The golden cup struggled in vain to get free, but their grip was too strong to budge or wriggle out of. "It's time for you to hold up your end of the deal, Ms. Chalice." Tanuki was now within two feet of his prey. A clawed hand reached for her.
"Y-you don't want me." She said, turning her head away from the white claws. For Chalice was trying everything she could to stay away from the creature's grip. She had only been this scared one other time in her life. And the situation seemed pretty similar as well: brought on by her own careless actions and at the mercy of a powerful creature. "I'm a nobody, a fake!" The girl tried to deter the demon.
"Oh, but you're the perfect candidate." Tanuki breathed his foul breath into her face as he talked. "You just told me all that I need to know." His clawed hand grabbed her by the underside of the cup. The demon's fingers seemed to coil around her throat as he kept hold.
"You don't know anything about me!" Chalice argued with the creature, still trying to uphold a brave face. But she felt anything but brave at this moment.
"Oh, I don't?" Tanuki challenged. "Perhaps we should review…" His claws poked at her, sending a pulse of energy into her head that forced her memories to come to the front of her mind. She cringed as a summarized version of her story played out. The demon was more than happy to narrate. "First, you run off against your family's wishes…." The image of the golden chalice and her friends walking off appeared in her mind's eye. "And to a battle that you couldn't win…" The two sides clashed, but it was so quick that she couldn't recall any concrete details about her friends or the enemies. "Watched as each one of your friends died in front of you…" They all fell one by one. "And then you – Ms. Chalice – the only survivor, were cursed by an ancient creature to the astral plane." A pair of boney hands came at her, pulsing with blue energy that looked like electricity. "Doomed to roam the earth for eternity, never growing old, and always alone. And all this time you've been on the run….too afraid to face your family….too afraid to face what you had done." The memories faded from Chalice as a couple tears rand down her cheeks. "The perfect combination of trauma and guilt." Tanuki cooed.
The sound of the angry mob catching up echoed to their location.
"Wh-what are you going to do with me?" Ms. Chalice asked, knowing well that the creature had her trapped and was now at its mercy. A couple more tears fell down her paling face.
"You said you wanted to be a warrior, right? Well, I can make you the most powerful warrior on earth if you join me." The red demon gave a satisfied blink and swish of its skinny tail.
"No!" She tried to squeal but the grip on her neck tightened and cut off her protest.
"You don't have a choice." It grumbled to her. For it was about to take great pleasure in possessing her soul. Tanuki reared his head up and curved it back down toward the top of her head. The demon intended to enter her soul through her cup. Taking a headfirst dive, the creature forced himself in. His body folded in and shrunk in an attempt to actually fit into the opening. Chalice, on the other hand, screamed in agony as Tanuki forced himself into her soul. She had never felt such pain in her life. Not even her transformation into an astral figure could compare to this. The red demon was nearly in. Only a leg and the tail remained outside of her soul at this point. Unaware to her, these last appendages reverted to thick red tentacles before ultimately being pulled in. The bones holding onto her wrists and ankles had disappeared by now.
The pain stopped and everything went quiet for the moment.
"I-is that all? E-everything's done?" Chalice cautiously asked the empty space.
"Oh no, my dear. We're just getting started." Tanuki's voice boomed from inside her. Ms. Chalice realized her hand hurt. She looked down to find that it was pulsing and steadily growing larger. That same pain washed over her entire body. The golden chalice cried out and lurched forward. Now on her hands and knees, her body snapped and grew. The relic that had attached itself to her chest grew out and covered her front like a piece of armor. Claws grew from her hands and large teeth inside her mouth. Her once golden porcelain skin turned a sickly pink color. Eyes came open to reveal that they were glowing yellow with fiery red pupils. The handles on the sides of her cup broke in two, leaving half dangling down and the other half reaching up.
The mutated chalice breathed heavily, slowly looking around. Tanuki did his best to acclimate to the new body and fast. For he knew his first victims were close by.
"There she is!" Announced the mob as they gathered round. The enlarged pink head turned to greet them. "What happened to her?" Asked one of the members. The female growled in delight and brought herself onto her feet. Tanuki forced her to walk towards the foolish mortals. The mutated chalice stumbled a bit. For the demon was not used to the heels that Chalice wore.
"Stay back!" The mob said, now clearly the ones scared and at a disadvantage. Their weapons pointed towards her. But the creature was not deterred by this one bit. A growl still rumbled in her oddly colored cup. Piercing yellow eyes slid over to the bystander that was standing closest. It was a wizard-looking fellow dressed in purple robes. He trembled horribly as her gaze met his. "N-nice chalice… w-we were just kidding…." The man tried to tell her. A sly smile came over the mutated chalice's face. This was followed by an ear-piercing roar before she leapt toward her first victim.