//------------------------------// // Art of Darkness // Story: The Multiverse in a Nutshell // by Pennington Inkwell //------------------------------// "Where are we?" Penn let go of his grip on Missy to examine their surroundings more closely, and she floated away far enough to stretch her wings again. "I mean... We're definitely still in the studio." He tapped his chin. "You don't know where you took us?" "Look, Ghostrick Vanish isn't exactly picky, and I wasn't too focused!" Missy folded her arms. "You're the one who was walking out of film reels and stuff, don't you know this place?" Penn took a moment to look carefully at the walls around them. "It's... familiar, but let me take a look at the book." "Book?" When Missy turned around, Penn was leafing through the pages of a book, one that seemed similar to the book on "his" desk in the short film. She floated down to get a better look at the title: The Illusion of Living. "What's that got to do with this place? Does it have a map?" "Not... exactly." Missy floated around behind him and further up into the air, taking a second to lean on his shoulder. Her eyes widened as she looked down at the book. It was blank. The pages were all blank, and yet he was studying them as if they were some wisdom-filled tome. "Are you... sure there's something in there we could use?" she whispered tentatively. "Definitely." He didn't even look up. As he read, Missy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She tried to focus, tugging on the ephemeral threads rooted in her chest to send a message. "Sunset? Are you okay?" After a few seconds, she felt Sunset's response come echoing back to her. "Yeah. I got washed downstream by the ink, so I'm banged up, but I'll be okay. What about you guys?" "We're okay. Not sure where we are, and Penn's source of knowledge seems to be a book with blank pages, so... If I hadn't seen him walk out of a video earlier, I'd worry he was losing it." "Well, I've got somebody watching me. She sounds... Sunset's thoughts were tinged with anxiety, "Well, pretty crazy, if I'm honest, but she says she wants to help..." Missy sighed. "I doubt I need to tell you to watch out for traps..." "And I won't bother warning you to be careful, either. Just... if 'Penn' isn't all there, keep a wary eye on him, okay?" Missy rolled her eyes. "I can FEEL the air quotes you put around his name. Not cool." "Sorry. Just stay safe, okay? Let me know if anything goes wrong." "You, too." Missy turned back around to face Penn, watching as he finished rolling up the sleeves of the white dress shirt he was wearing. He'd completely removed the suit's jacket and tie, clearly aiming for a more practical outfit. "I think we're somewhere in the floors between the toy production and the theme park prototypes..." he sighed and stretched his neck from side to side, resulting in several loud pops. "This place is like Aperture, they just kept expanding downwards as they grew, so we could be a lot worse. Any idea where Sunset is?" Missy took a moment, concentrating on the feeling in her gut. "Down. She's under us." "Then down we go." Penn smiled and held out a hand to her. Missy ignored the hand, rushing over and wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. "Don't run off on your own like that again, okay? Nothing good ever happens when we leave you by yourself..." For a moment, he seemed stunned before finally settling into a warm hug. "I'll try not to, okay?" Missy nodded, wiping the beginnings of her tears on his sepiatone shirt before floating up and onto his shoulders. "I've got an idea... what if we tried using Ghostrick Go-Round to take us to Sunset?" "I don't think-" The card was already in her hand before he could finish his objection, forming a stone door in the hallway wall. After the two of them examined it for a moment, Penn stepped forward and pressed his hand against it. Together, they passed through to the other side. "YIPE!" Miss wrapped her arms and legs around him from behind, gripping as tightly as she could when she saw what was on the other side. It was a small room with no entrances or exits other than the one she'd made, with only another of the cardboard cutouts of Bendy in the center. To their horror, this one had been altered from the rest, with wild-looking, more realistic eyes and splattered ink dripping from the crown of its head, the corner of its mouth, and one of its eyes. All around them, they could hear an unsteady wheezing sound, like something struggling to breathe. Clutched in its hands was a hand-painted sign, clearly intended for them. WANDERING IS A TERRIBLE SIN. "Well, I guess we got our answer about taking any shortcuts..." Penn muttered as he backed through the door again. Soon, they were right back where they started, and Missy dismissed the trap card with all of the enthusiasm she was capable of. "Wha- What- How did-" "Illusions." Penn sighed and started to walk down the hallway. "This whole place is one, in a way." "Uhm, Penn?" Missy reached up and knocked on the wooden ceiling. "This ISN'T an illusion!" "Maybe not, but it started as one!" He held up a finger in a matter-of-fact way. "Think about it! Before you can build something, you need to be able to draw out some plans for it, right?" "Meh, I think it's more fun to do things without instructions!" "And yet you still SEE what you're trying to accomplish! It's an image right up here!" He tapped on his temple. "It's an illusion that only YOU can see!" Missy felt herself pout slightly as she realized her point had been made moot, but Penn didn't seem to notice. "Dreams, Missy! Everybody has them while they're sleeping, but the creators? The people who take things from illusions to reality? They can dream while they're wide awake!" he held out his hands to gesture around them. "Illusions, dreams, reality... to the right people, it's all really the same thing, isn't it?" He waited a moment for her response before quickly collecting himself. "A-anyway, to get back to the point, all of this started as SOMEBODY'S illusion, even the ink demon. What makes it so powerful, though, was that it was able to harness that process partway through. Now, other people's illusions are being warped to match another vision..." Missy's brow furrowed. "So... when I used my trap, I was... making an illusion in my head real? And the ink demon hijacked it?" "I mean, it's just a theory..." Penn held up the book for her to see. "Joey Drew really had a lot of thoughts on the lack of a line between fiction and reality and the power of dreaming. I'm still trying to get my head around it all." Once again, Missy found herself staring at blank paper, but Penn had settled into a pattern of "reading" and glancing up every now and then to double-check where he was walking. "So... then why wasn't anything happening to the things you made? Back in the band room?" Missy scratched at her head. "The doppelgangers and that whole thing with the boat? It wasn't messed with at all by the demon!" Penn responded with a shrug, pushing her up and down again. "I didn't even know I was MAKING anything, I was just thinking about you and Sunset..." "Hmm..." Missy settled herself by leaning forward and against the top of his head. "What if the things you make aren't corruptible? He can't get between you and your creations?" Penn chuckled to himself, as if he found the idea funny. "Oh, I don't think I'm special like that. There probably wasn't any point in it, to be honest. The things I was making weren't doing any harm or threatening him." They both stopped as they spotted an irregularity in the hallway: a door in the left wall. There was the sound of a voice speaking inside, but the area behind it was obscured by frosted glass and a sign. Liason to The Please Please Pleese Get a Life Foundation. Penn and Missy both stopped for a moment to stare at the door before Penn reached down and turned the handle, causing it to swing open. "In 'Time 2 Duel,' Joshua uses Sebek's Blessing to gain life points after inflicting PIERCING damage with Ra, but the spell's card text clearly states that it can only be used for that purpose after a DIRECT attack! He was clearly using the ANIME'S version as it appeared in episodes 117 and 118, but that's wrong. And don't even get me started on the fact that Ghostrick Costume Change isn't even a REAL CARD!" Both of them stopped short, hardly able to believe what they were seeing. It was PENN... as an inky recreation similar to the other doppelgangers. He was overweight, wearing a thick pair of glasses, and typing furiously on a typewriter. "And honestly, doesn't he know that the order of rooms is 'New Home, Asgore's Home, THEN Judgement Hall and THEN the throne room?' It's like he just gave up on trying to be accurate at the end of that arc, it was BARELY enjoyable! One Google search and he could have found a perfectly good map to work off of! The same applies to Sunset finding the service elevator in the Heavenly Toys department, it doesn't appear there!" Missy opened her mouth to ask a question, but didn't have a chance before Penn's hands came up to gently remove her from his shoulders and set her on the floor. "And UGH, could his duel spirit partner BE any more obvious? I mean, his love of classic cards, the motto to use his enemies' own strength against them, being described as so monstrous that her gender is impossible to tell by looks alone, and the eye motif that appears over and over on top of taking possession of his body when he was dead? It's CLEARLY Thousand Eyes Restrict, Maxmillion Pegasus's trump card from the Duelist Kingdom arc!" This was actually enough to give both of them pause. Both of them glanced at each other, each shrugging for a moment before Penn began to walk towards his double. "If the portal gun really DID unleash an uncontrolled singularity, the entire world should have been consumed immediately! Isis mentions Hawking Radiation as a catch-all, but black holes massive enough to have the event horizon diameter presented in the Aperture Science schematics would take GIGAYEARS to decay, even if it wasn't being fed by Salem's castle and the planet underneath it! He went to BYU to study astrophysics before he dropped out and doesn't even know THAT?" The copy stopped his typing for a moment to tut condescendingly and shake his head. "Hey!" Penn shouted, getting his double's attention as he closed this distance between them. "I'VE got a critique for ya!" "Oh yeah, what's tha-" The double didn't get a chance to finish his question before Penn had planted his fist in the center of his face. The fake Penn's chair (which happened to be on wheels) rolled back at high speed, throwing him through the far wall of the room with a crash of splintering wood and tearing paper, leaving a perfect silhouette-shaped hole in the wall. Penn took a moment to shake his hand out before blowing off his knuckles. "Just repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'" Missy caught a glimpse of a hand rising into the air through the hole, weakly holding up a finger. "Umm... actually, Hodgson's Rule, which was named after Joel Hodgson, the creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, doesn't excuse canonical inaccuracies, just scientific ones made for the sake of simplification of a narrative..." Missy floated back up and sat herself on Penn's shoulders as he made his way back. "Man, this guy doesn't QUIT, does he?" Penn smiled and dusted his hand on his shirt. "Maybe not, but getting to punch my inner critic in the face is still the single most satisfying thing I've done since I blew up Salem's castle!" "HA!" Missy couldn't help laughing. "I bet most artists would give their right arm for a chance like THAT!" Together, the two of them returned to the hallway, shutting the office door behind them again and continuing to walk deeper into the studio. It was only a matter of time, however, until they ran out of hallway. He drew up short as the two of them approached the end of the hall, where a closed door waited for them. "Now, if I'm right, then this should take us through some of the business offices. From there, we can find some stairs or an elevator to take us downstairs." "So... what are you gonna do when we find Sunset?" "Well, we're gonna have to get out of here before the ink demon catches up to us..." He brushed his fingertips against the wall, barely touching the edge of a dark symbol painted there. "You know, in the game, the ink demon can use these things to get around the studio really fast... I wonder if there's a way we could do something similar?" Missy glanced back and forth, beginning to worry. His eyes were looking glassy, and the edges of the circle were beginning to run with fresh ink. She reached down with her foot, kicking Penn's hand away from the pentagram. "Hey! I think using the satanic black magic is a bad idea, if Sunset is to be believed!" Penn stepped back, the spell broken. After shaking away the last of the entrancement, he nodded. "S-sorry. Guess I just got lost in thought. There's a lot of possibilities in this place, you know? But I guess we're gonna have to do things the old-fashioned way!" With that, he opened the door, and confidently strolled through. The two of them immediately stopped, of course, when they did NOT find themselves among business offices. Instead, they were standing in what seemed like an enormous underground cavern, one that went all of the way up back to the surface, by the look of it. Above them, a steady stream of ink was dripping through the center of the column. As Missy continued to take in her surroundings, however, an important detail stood out to her. It was one that Penn had clearly missed. "Huh... I guess I was wrong!" Penn muttered, beginning to flip through the pages of the book again. "I could have SWORN that this would take us to the secondary business and marketing office for the official toy lines!" "Um, Penn?" "Still, it looks like THIS is where the ink machine is moved between floors!" He pressed his hand to his forehead as if to block out the sun as his gaze turned upwards. "Wow! Even so far away, you can really tell the kind of mechanical GENIUS that went into making it!" "Penn..." "Maybe it says something about that room we passed by in Joey Drew's memoirs..." "PENN!" Shouting at the top of her lungs seemed to finally break through his focus, drawing his attention up to her. "What?" "Don't look down." Of course, looking down was what he immediately did, revealing the fact that they were standing on NOTHING, and the tunnel continued down into pure darkness. Penn cleared his throat, then swallowed loudly. "I know this defies the law of gravity, but, uhh..." he mumbled nervously, "you see, I never studied law..." With that, the two of them tried desperately to run back to the safety of the door, but nothing they did seemed to make any progress. After several seconds of desperate sprinting, Penn finally seemed to give up, shrugging for a moment before gravity asserted itself. "Welp, worth a shot... Gravity is a harsh mistress." Having spoken his peace, he plunged out of sight. "YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-HHHHHHOOOOOO-HHHHHHOOOOO-HHHHOOOOOO-HHHHOOOOOEEEEEEEEEY!" "PENN! HOLD ON, I'M COMING!" Missy shouted, flying down after him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset shuddered as the elevator began to move downward. She could watch the floors passing by from behind a wrought-iron fence that served as the door. She was relieved that Penn and Missy were okay, but that didn't do much to assuage her fears for her own safety. "Now then, why don't I pass the time as you travel down here to me with a story, hm?" the voice asked from a speaker in the corner of the elevator. "Don't suppose I can stop you..." Sunset muttered under her breath. After a second, her eyes widened and she rubbed at the back of her head. "Wow, I turn into Blake when I get grouchy..." If the stranger had heard her, she didn't take any notice. "Once upon a time, there was a wizard, one who promised to make everyone's dreams come true... Fame, fortune, joy and freedom were just a few of the dreams he sold to his followers, and people FLOCKED to him, begging him to be a part of his empire..." Sunset watched the sign indicating Level Nine pass by without the elevator showing any signs of stopping. She reached out and pressed the button with the nine next to it multiple times in succession, but to no avail. Wherever it was going, she was along for the ride. "He told them stories, gave them honeyed words and empty promises until they would follow him to the ends of the earth... and none of them realized the truth until it was too late. There was magic, yes, but he was NO wizard... he was something MUCH darker." The elevator shuddered to a stop, but Sunset wasn't in a hurry to leave. The place it had stopped had no lights, just more empty hallways and machinery. She tensed as she began to hear unsteady, limping footsteps coming from the edges of the light the elevator provided. She already had both hands on her saber when the creature began to emerge, but she had to use one to stifle her scream as the thing shambled into view. It was another cartoon character, one whose body had been mangled and nearly torn to shreds. Its head had been completely removed, and was swinging from the end of a fishing pole that had been shoved into the stump of its neck. Strapped across its bloated abdomen was a sign that read "LIAR" in black lettering. She suppressed her revulsion enough to avoid vomiting then and there when the thing's sole working eye locked on her, somehow still alive in spite of its decapitation, and it picked up its pace, hobbling up to the door and reaching a hand through the gaps in the gate, madly swinging a crescent wrench in her direction. Sunset kept herself ready for a fight, but noted with relief that the barrier seemed to be holding easily. "He was a madman, building his dreams on the massacred corpses of his followers. He twisted their wishes to serve his vision, and the wishers along with them. Despite all of his ambitions, however, his creations were soulless husks, and he knew that he would do anything to make them real. He created a factory rather than a paradise, and no one but the wise and the lucky were ever able to escape. When the tide of followers began to slow, and the wolves and creditors were knocking at the door, he grew more and more desperate. Be began throwing the ones who had placed their dreams in him into the cogs of his great ink machine in the hopes that their souls would give his creations true life and recapture the magic of his glory when everyone believed his lies... The elevator began to move downwards again, leaving the creature behind as it removed its arm moments before it was sliced off. Sunset didn't put away her weapon, keeping her thumb on the switch and ready for a fight. "He was WRONG." The elevator descended into a large, open room, and Sunset felt herself recoil at what was waiting inside. It was a huge crowd of dark figures, all idly standing around as if they had nothing to do and no place to go. She could see many of them looking up at her with glowing yellow lights where their eyes ought to be, but others seemed too lost in their own worlds to notice her descent. What followed as she was lowered closer to them, however, was even worse: despair. It washed over her like ocean waves, strong enough to disorient her physically and send her reeling. She stumbled into the back corner of the elevator, using the wall to slowly lower herself to a sitting position. Even at a distance, even when they weren't touching her, Sunset could feel their pain, their agony, and it was unbearable. When the elevator came to a stop at ground level with them, she could hear countless murmuring voices. "I wanna go home!" "I want to see my family again!" "I'm so tired..." "PLEASE, JUST LET US OUT OF HERE!" They looked almost like the man in the mask she'd seen upstairs, but their bodies were emaciated and... melting. Their faces had been reduced to a pair of eye lights and a mass of dripping ink globules that left them without the rest of their face. They made no move to attack her, they had clearly lost any hope eons ago. They simply continued to stare at her with sad eyes. "The cycle... it's hell..." "Why won't it let us go?" "Help us... please..." Sunset couldn't. Deep down, she could tell that these people... they were beyond helping. Perhaps if she'd had all the Elements of Harmony they could have been helped, but on her own... she was powerless to do anything. She pulled her knees to her chest, burying her face against her knees as her tears began to fall. Tears at her own lack of ability, but also tears that weren't hers, crying for those who no longer could. She stayed like that for a long time, barely noting when she felt the elevator beginning to lift her upwards. "THIS is what happens to those who draw too close to the ink machine. Tempted by its power, the possibility of their dreams coming true... they don't realize that the machine and the ink demon will consume them, rob them of everything so precious to them and give nothing in return!" the voice sneered. "Joey Drew fooled us all with his talk of dreams, kept from us what should have been rightfully ours! And I can already see the cycle beginning anew now that you and your friends have arrived here. So... The elevator came to a stop, proudly displaying that she had reached her destination: Level Nine. "What'll it be? Will you fall prey to the demon... or be saved by an angel?" The gate slid open on its own, letting her free again. Sunset did her best to collect herself, rubbing away the tears and pushing herself back up onto her feet. She descended down one flight of stairs and up another, finding herself staring at a heavy-looking pair of steel double doors. A sign above them showed a cute-looking face and the words "SHE'S QUITE A GAL!" Beside the door was another poster for the cartoons, this one eschewing Bendy in favor of another character. She had both a halo and small horns poking up from under her hair, and a shoulderless flapper's dress. Alice Angel in... Sent from Above! The doors creaked and grated as they parted and were pulled aside by aging machinery, letting her into another hallway. She hesitated to enter knowing that they could close behind her and lock her inside, but... they looked thin enough for her saber to melt through if worst came to worst. She stepped through, quickly making her way down the hall and around the corner. Her breath caught in her throat at what was waiting for her there. It was a large room, most of which was filled with a wide pool of ink. The pool was bridged by rickety wooden planks, but that wasn't what was so horrifying. Along with the numerous pieces of memorabilia and broken decorations floating in the ink, the spare space in the ink and everywhere they could fit on the solid surfaces, were more operating tables just like the one upstairs. There must have been DOZENS of them scattered around, and not a single one was empty. Every table had a copy of Boris or one of the other characters strapped down, cracked open, and mutilated to death. Every one of them was missing some piece of their body, having been either surgically removed or violently ripped away. "It took so MANY of them to make me what I am! So... ALMOST perfect... But now that you're here, my quest can finally come to an end! Sunset swallowed the vomit in the back of her throat and forced herself to press onward, beginning to balance her way across the makeshift bridge. "You're not doing a lot to inspire confidence in my safety, here..." "Oh, I'd NEVER hurt you, my precious little errand girl. As I said, we can BOTH help each other! Just a little farther and we can set the terms of our agreement..." Sunset managed to reach the other side without falling into the ink, finally passing through one more door and finding herself in another room. This one was a dead end, with the far wall taken up completely by a glass window. Behind it was a fresh operating table, more machinery that looked as if it were meant to be used for unsavory purposes, and a figure standing behind the control panel. She was clearly supposed to be Alice Angel from the posters, but she was different. More... realistic, for lack of a better word. Her limbs were long and slender, replacing the white gloves and heavy shoes of the cartoon with black ink stains that created the illusion of long black satin gloves and stockings. She had the same horns and halo as on the poster, but the halo was crooked and half-buried in her hair. Just like the rest of the ink-born creatures, she was completely black and white, with a black dress matching the posters and pale skin in the places that weren't stained by stray lines of ink. All of her proportions were within the realm of realistic possibility, if a bit on the skinny side. The biggest difference, however, was her FACE. She didn't have the cartoonish pie-cut eyes or simple features of the other ink creatures. Her face was... human, mostly. She had a proper eye, though Sunset could see extra lines around the iris, as if someone had tried and failed to draw a circle multiple times. The left side of her face, however, was what stood out the most. It was unfinished, with a large black hole where her eye ought to be and a complete lack of lips to cover her exposed teeth. Her skin looked like it had been stretched back and pulled out of shape, creating a fleshy ridge holding back part of her hair. She smiled a predatory smile as she spotted Sunset from the other side of the glass, giving a small wave. "We meet at last." Sunset nodded, unable to stop herself from giving the operating table a nervous glance. "I'm Sunset. Sunset Shimmer... You must be Alice Angel, right?" "In the flesh!" She placed a hand over her heart and gave a small curtsey. Sunset knew that the sooner she could get out of here, the better, so she decided to skip the small talk. "So... you said we could help each other. What kind of 'deal' were you thinking about?" "Well, now." Alice tapped her chin in mock thought. "I can help you get back up to the surface, back to where you came into this place you don't belong. You and your little 'angel' friend could be back home by morning, safe and sound before the ink demon feeds you both to his machine and adds you to the throngs of souls in the abyss!" She smiled and flashed Sunset a knowing look. "Yes, I KNOW that you don't belong here, it was obvious from the moment you arrived. This world of makeshift creations and the illusions of twisted men is no place for a lady. Especially not one who shines as... colorfully as you, Sunset." Sunset found it easy to brush aside the flattery with a momentary thought to all of the vivisections she'd passed on her way in. "And what is it that YOU would want in return?" "Oh, nothing YOU would miss..."