Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1 - Prologue

The lab was dark and quiet; the entire room was a mess with several papers and clutter scattered around it and items were left out and unorganized. The clock on the wall read the time was around 11.25pm.

The only source of light in the room was a single light that dangled over a small table in the corner of the room, overlooking a small table.
By the table was a man dressed in a lab coat, the man had a tired look in his eyes and was hunched over on a small chair.
The man’s attention was currently focused on a weird assortment of items that were placed across the table in front of him, a small container, and within it was a rat that laid motionless, the words ‘Experiment 814’ were written on the container.
The rat was submerged in a weird red gelatine with a set of wires attached to it, which led to a small button that the man currently had one of his hand hovering over and his other hand grasping a pencil pressed against a small sheet of paper.
“Alright, test one.” The man said to himself as he rubbed his head, a look of anticipation across his face.
The man proceeded to press the button with caused the small rat to twitch as a small electric shock was applied to it.
The man waited for a second to observe any results.

1 second passes.
2 seconds’ passes.
3 seconds’ passes.
The rat still appeared motionless.

“Damnit, applying second electric shock.” The man replied with a bit of frustration in his voice, as he started to take write down something on the sheet next to him.
The man then pressed the button again; a second electric shock was delivered to the dead rodent.

1 second passes.
2 seconds’ passes.
3 seconds’ passes.
Still nothing, the rat remained motionless.

The man scribbled down some more notes and then slammed his hand onto the desk, before wiping his head and standing up from his chair as began to stroll around the room.
“What am I doing wrong?” The man asked to no one while looking up to the ceiling “I know I’m close, just what am I doing wrong?” As the man gazed down to the floor, exhaustion began to creep into the man’s voice.

“I think you just need to look into different source, Mr Ludwig.”

The man nearly jumped up as he heard the new voice, he immediately turned around.
He was shocked to find that he was on longer alone in this secret lab as another person had somehow made their way inside. The man was properly dressed in a black tailored suit with a weird necklace hanging around him. The necklace was a circular shape with an interesting and complex pattern on the inside.
The mans was obscured by the shadows of the dark room, meaning this face was unable to be seen fully, but he could make out what appeared to be his piercing eyes that were staring right at him.

‘How was this man able to get into my lab, I didn’t even hear him come in.’

He tried to get some answers.
“Who are you and what are you doing down here? You nearly gave me a heart attack.” The tiredness in the man’s voice now gone and replaced with slight anger and shock.

The man stood still before giving a small chuckle “Oh, I’m so sorry Mr Elliot Ludwig, I did knock on the door, but you mustn’t have heard me, it’s just I’ve heard so much about you and I wanted to come down and see you as soon as I could.” He said as he began to fidget and rub his arms.

Elliot didn’t see anything wrong with the person in front of him, just after such a long day with no success he wasn’t in the right state of mind to have a nice conversation currently.
“Well, my inventions quire famous and I’m assuming you must be one of the new employees working here. I’m afraid you’re in a restricted area and its very late. I don’t know how you got done here but is it alright if we have a talk tomorrow, I’ve had a long day.” Elliot Ludwig said as he tried to motion the man to the door.

The man stood up a little straighter, “Oh, right Mr Ludwig, please forgive my intrusion, but I’m not talking about your toys. I’m referring to your research into the poppy flower. But I do find your toys very neat too.” The man said quickly to reassure Elliot.
Elliot’s eyes widened, as he slowly tried to obscure the view of his latest experiment from the man’s view “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

‘How does he know about that? That information is classified.’ Elliot thought in a panic.

“Oh, Mr Elliot there’s no need to lie to me, I know all about you research into the flower, I’ve been looking into you for a while a-and I wish to provide you with my assistance.”

Elliot didn’t know what to make of this situation, this strange person has just shown up in his lab and seems to have knowledge of what he’s researching. Anyone learning about what he was doing could cause great harm to both him and his company. So, he had to be carful about what he would say next.
“Who are you? What do you mean you’ll provide me assistance?"

The man dressed in black took a stroll around the lab, taking in every detail with great fascination and curiosity “Well, what I want is the same thing you want, I’ve also taken great strives to study the poppy flower and its special properties. Its association with life and death is not a new discover, but I think you’ve come closer than most reaching a breakthrough.”

‘For a Human it’s even more impressive.’ The guy thought briefly.

“You seem to already know a lot about it, so why exactly would we need each other for?” Elliot questioned the man.
The man stopped his stroll once again, turning back around to face Elliot. He seemed to try and say something, but then turned back around, once again fidgeting his arm.
“W-well, while I have taken good liberties, the people around me don’t see it that way. Much like you I’ve had to perform in secret and that’s only gotten me so far. I’ve reached a wall, a dead-end on my quest”. The man said in a dramatic fashion.
“So, I thought I could reach out to the one person that could help me, so we can help each other. I want us to pool our knowledge, research and resources together so that we both can achieve our goal.” The man had spread his arms out and then held both his arms together to emphasise the point.

Elliot looked over the man once again. It didn’t seem that he was lying but he still seemed sceptical about the man’s true intentions, he'd dealt with a few shady people in his years running the company.
“While that does sounds like a good idea, but I don’t know anything about you right now. How would we even be able to help each other out like you said?”

“Well, that’s simple Mr Ludwig, I have certain knowledge and resources I think could help you in your endeavour and you have the skills and talent that could help me. By combining both we might just be able to achieve something greater than what we could individually.”
Elliot was a bit confused at the question “What exact resources are you implying I need?”

The man responded by reaching his hand behind his back, before pulling out something almost out of the thin air, it appeared to be some kind of book. The thick book was black in colour; the cover contains an image that appeared to match the same as the on the man’s necklace painted in a gold colour. “Something from beyond this world.” the man said, as he began to wave the book around.

‘Oh, no.’ Elliot Ludwig thought to himself, as he took a good look at the book clutched in the man’s hands.

Doing research into the poppy follower had taken years, while he’d only really invested into it over the last few, he’d had a pasting interest in it before then.
While doing this research he’d gone through many different books that even had a small mention of the flower. This ranged from history, war and even mythology books.

One thing that popped out a lot though was the mention of black magic, stories that involved demons and angels. Demons that would come to make people deals when at their most desperate.
While he didn’t believe the stories at first, the more he investigated the more he started to realise something, if the poppy flower and its properties were truly real, that would mean that all myths talked about could also be real.
He now had a better understanding of what the man in front of him was showing him or even could be himself.

Whatever face Elliot pulled, appeared to give a clear indication to the man in front of him about what he was thinking. As his smile seemed to change into a more reassuring face. “Ok, I know you might understand what I want, but would you at least hear my out before you make your choice?”
‘Did I even have a choice?’ Elliot thought to himself.

“Look like I said, we both want the same thing, we both want to make a better world where people can be happier.” The man said as he began to walk around the room “You are a very capable man with a noble heart that wants to help out others in need.”

Elliot’s eyes followed the man as he moved around the lab, before he stopped at one of the many tables, he picked up a piece of paper laying on it. The man turned it around, revealing it to be a children’s drawing. A drawing was that of several toys that Elliot had created at playtime co, the words ‘We love you Ellot Lodvig’ crudely written on the top in crayon.

“You keep these drawings in here, because you use them for encouragement as you work. Every area you frequent in the factory has at least a few drawings that the children created for you.” The man then motioned his hand around the room. “Most people in the factory look up to you and all are inspired by your creations. I know your colleague’s upstairs were starting to get worried about you, they all look up to you.”

Elliot took notice as the man began to look down to the ground as he continued his speech “And you don’t do it through fear or even power, the people around you just see you as someone that wants to do the right thing.” The man said before looking back up at Elliot.
“You even went out of you way to build an area for orphancies to be taken care of. I’ve seen the children at the Playcare you’ve built; all those children look up to you. You’ve even had the children help you with making some of your toys.”

The Man proceed to pull another piece of paper from behind his back, this one showing an image of several small animals with massive smiles on their face all while standing on top of a logo containing the words ‘Smiling critters’.
“The children were even your inspiration to create these toys, you based them off the children in the Playcare, everything you’ve done was for a simple reason, you wanted people to smile.”

As the man continued to speak, he seemed to get more exited and enthralled with what he was talking about.
“You create things for the sole purpose of making people happy, this...” The man reaches his hand over to the experiment. “This is no different, you want to help benefit people.”
The man then walks up close to Elliot and put his hand on his shoulder “I can provide you with everything you need so WE, can achieve that goal, a world where even you daughter can be happy again.”
The man moved back and placed his hand out for a handshake.

Elliot knew that this decision could be bad, he knew what could happen if he chose to work with him, but at the same point, the man was right. If this person could really help him achieve his goal then it would be all worth it, if they wanted the same outcome would it not be a beneficial thing to work together?
“I’ll agree but I don’t know your name.”
“Oh, just call me Janus.”
Elliot Ludwig looked up at the man before reaching his own hand out to shake. Little did he know what would this one gesture would mean down the line for both him and the very company he’d ran.

*****************

The day in hell was the same as any other, the sky radiated the same red glow that illuminated the entirety of the pride ring.
The ring of pride was home to many different sinners and denizens of hell, that were currently going about their day.

On the outskirts of the ring was Imp City, a large area that was (as the name implies) largely populated by Imps, one of the lowest in hells society.
The place was mainly comprised of large red and grey buildings, that were almost mostly run down. The streets were littered with junk, and fights broke out frequently.

There weren’t many reasons for anyone to want to willingly come to a place like this, but one person currently had one.

The large figured stumped his way through the streets with rundown and dilapidated buildings on either side. Many different residents of the city, who were going about their usually routine seemed to stop upon noticing the individual. Some seemed to stop and stare, while much more were taking a step back and gave him a wide berth. One very scared individual even decided that jumping into an open sewer grate was a good course of action.

Whether the person was even taking notice to any of the passing glances was uncertain, but he didn’t seem to care and he continued to walk through the city.
His walk came to a stop as he looked up at a particular building, one of the very many large buildings that seemed to make up the bulk of Imp cities locations. This building however seemed to have 2 very large, pointed horns poking out the side of the building, giving it the appearance of Imp horns.

The person looks down at a piece of paper he seemed to be holding, the paper was a very crudely drawn promotion flyer.

Wunt, somewun dead?
Cum on down two I.M.P.

Under the flyer it seemed to give a list of directions and even included a small picture of the building in question. The man even brought up the flyer to judge if it was the same. While the art itself looked like it was drawn by a child, he could still see that it seemed to match.
‘Ok, this is the place.’

Chapter Text

Chapter 2 - A Mysterious Job Offer

It was a very slow day at the I.M.P Office, Moxxie was currently sitting down at the companies front desk. His head was down, looking over the business’s budget. He was also currently watching out for any potential customers that could walk in the front door.

The office was surprisingly quiet, outside of the occasion argument happening in the neighbouring buildings or even the street below. It was a nice change of pace.

This was because currently he was the only one of his team at the office.
Loona was taken a day off for being a ‘very hard worker’ as Blitz had put it (Much to Moxxie’s annoyance)

Blitz and Stolas meanwhile had gone out to do a bit of shopping.

Due to this Moxxie was left as the one in charge of everything until Blitz got back, this meant he had to answer any calls that came through as well as managing any clients, on top of any other responsibilities he would normally be doing.

Most of the time Moxxie didn’t mind the peace and quiet, he enjoyed in on a normal day, where he could just sit down and do his obligations without interruption.

That would be if it wasn’t for a certain something that had happened, or rather a certain someone, someone that would change both his and his wife, Millie’s lives forever.

Moxxie looked over the desk, to a photo frame that was on the counter next to the papers. In the frame was a photo of him and his wife both holding hands, while his wife was holding a small image in the photo.

It was an ultrasound of a baby, their unborn baby to be more precise.

His wife Millie was on maternity leave and was currently visiting her parents in the ring of wrath. She had been gone how for a couple of weeks.

When Millie had first announced the news of her pregnancy, Moxxie went through a lot of emotions simultaneously, shock, happiness and worry were some of the more prominent ones.
Before he promptly fainted.

It was big news; they were going to become parents; he was going to become a dad and that news had Moxxie scared.

He’d been in a ton of dangerous situations, from a murderous family of cannibals, angels, assassins and he even had to stand in court in front of the seven deadly sins (or rather six of them). Yet none that made him feel more scared them the news of the baby.

So many new variables he had to be considered moving forward.

The biggest worry for Moxxie however, was if he was even going to be a good father.

It was no secret to the people in the company, that his own experience with his parents were not great ones to say the least.

His father was a nasty individual, an abusive mob boss, with a habit of taking his victims as trophies, and his mother had walked out on them when he was very young. It had Moxxie doubting if he would even be good with kids.
‘What if I screw up?’
‘What if the kid doesn’t love me?’
‘What if don’t turn out to be a good dad?’

These thoughts were all Moxxie could thing about while sitting down at the desk, he couldn’t think straight without his thoughts going back towards the baby. The only thing he could do now was try and distract himself as much as possible with his work.

He had already gone over all the companies weapon supplies, and he had made a list of their entire ammo stock and even was able to reorganise all the weapons in alphabetical order.

He had cleaned over all the surfaces around the office and the meeting room so that place looked presentable. He even refilled the water in the company's cooler, anything he could think of so that the negative thoughts wouldn’t come up, and he was running out of things he could do in the office.

There was nothing left for Moxxie to do except take another look at the budget that he’d already gone over, but it didn’t hurt to go over it again.

Most days, when it was slow he’d be able to at least excuses himself (With Blitz’s permission) and go for a little walk or even go out for a bit of food at the local café (or what passes for one in hell).
But, since he was the only employee currently present, it meant he couldn’t leave. What if client came in the short time he was gone?

‘Might as well go over these again, can’t trust Blitz to do this himself. How does one man spent so much of our needed budget on children’s toys?’ Moxxie rubbed his head, trying to make sense of his dumb boss’s compulsive habit.

“Excuse me sir, is this I.M.P?” a new voice said.

The new unexpected voice in the room, caused Moxxie (Who was already on edge) to jump from his seat and fall on to the floor, the papers he once had been looking over in front of him were now flung across the office and were slowly descending to the ground.

As the Imp picked himself off the ground he looked around to see that papers were now scattered around, but his attention was now drawn to the new arrival at the office.

He looked up only to be met with a very large individual.

It appeared to Moxxie that he was so focused on the papers in front of him, he had he failed to notice that a person had not only entered the office but had made their way over to the front desk without him noticing.

The person in question was almost completely covered in what appeared to be yellow fur, with extremely broad shoulders and upper body and 2 pairs of arms, a small pair that dangled from the chest area of the creature’s massive torso. Just above was the creature’s circular head, which had a big pair of eyes and a massive grin with sharp teeth.
Another pair of arms came out of the side of the creature and almost reached all the way down to the floor. The hands on either arm where differently colours, the right being red and the left one being blue. This person’s entire body was all being held up by what appeared to be a set of very thin and lanky legs.

This was all before Moxxie even mentioned how big the creature even was, as it appeared to be around 16” tall, to even fit into his office he was currently couching and leaning over him, how Moxxie didn’t notice this thing was astounding, he cursed his tunnel vision at that moment.

Moxxie could only assume that this was a sinner, but he’d never seen one that looked like this before.

Once the imp had gotten over his initial shock at noticing someone inside the office, he quickly readjusted himself and picked himself of the ground, after remembering this was most likely a customer.
“Oh, my apologies, yes this is I.M.P how can I help you?” Moxxie said in as much a professional tone as he could muster while picking up the some of the papers across the room.

“I need your services to help with killing someone.” The sinner replied.

‘Of course that’s why he’s here, that was a stupid question, Moxxie.’ Moxxie thought to himself.

Once Moxxie was able to finish picking up all the paper, he placed them all on the desk, before addressing the new client directly.
“Sorry for my tardiness sir, would you like to step into the office over here so we can discuss this further in a more private location?” The Imp said while motioning his hands to Blitz’s office behind him. The sinner nodded his head, as he followed Moxxie.

Unfortunately, Moxxie had not been allowed to touch anything in Blitz’s office while he was gone or even enter, unless to talk to a client. This also meant Moxxie was not allowed to clean inside the room.

As Moxxie walked into the Office, he was made aware of how tardy his Boss was. Around the room were several horse toys, on the floor, desk and even on the filling cabinets.

‘Ugh, why does Blitz have to make this difficult, it’s a curse that we haven’t had more incidents.’ Moxxie thought as he tried to keep his composure.

The state of the office thankfully, didn’t seem to bother the client, who had followed him inside. The creature’s big size also didn’t seem to effect or bother him as he made his way through the office while slightly crouched and sat down in one of the client chairs, across from him Moxxie began to sit down in Blitz’s chair, before staring the discussion.

Moxxie straightened up his uniform and cleared his throat before continuing. “Ok, so as you know our company’s speciality in the killing of people on earth, so who do you want killed?” Moxxie said with confidence.

Moxxie waited for the creature’s response, the sinner’s face didn’t seem to express any kind of emotion, it just seemed to have a permanently grin etched on to it. It was kind of creepy (though Moxxie would never say that out loud).

The creature reached one of his large arms to behind his back and rubbed it, before replying in a sort of bashful voice. “Well, there’s a bit of a problem… I don’t know who?”

Moxxie paused for a second “Wait, what do you mean you don’t know who?”

“I don’t know who I want to kill.” The sinner reaffirmed his answer.

Moxxie took a second to understand what the man was trying to say. “Excuse me sir, I don't understand, what do you mean you don't know who? Could you by chance provide more information about the reason Mr….” Moxxie stopped upon realising that he never actually got the client’s name.

“P, Mr P.” The sinner replied.

It was a weird thing with a lot of sinners, while they had excellent memories of everything that went on in their lives before death, the one thing that some seemed to have trouble with was recalling their own name. This led to a lot of sinners adopting new names once they entered the afterlife. It was theorised to be to be because the higher ups at heaven felt they didn’t deserve to keep their old name and so it was a way to punish them, but that was pure speculation.

But that wasn’t what Moxxie was focusing on right now, he needed to understand what the client even wanted killed.
“Well Mr P could you please explain why you want someone killed and who you want, could you by chance provide some more details?”

The sinner seemed to understand, as he started his story.

“Oh ok, so around 10 years ago, I used to work for this big toy company named ‘Playtime Co’. It was a big factory, famous for creating some the biggest toy brands several years ago.”

Another thing a lot of sinners liked to do, that Moxxie had noticed was that they loved to go on monologues about their past and who had wronged them. Blitz had concluded that you should just let them go through with their whole speech. No reason to try and upset and potentially lose a customer, money was important for the business after all.
Moxxie continued listening to the Sinner’s story.

“I didn’t hold a big spot in the company, but one day I had to take some time off, I don’t even remember what for. But the very next day I find out the entire company had been shut down and all the employees had apparently disappeared.”

‘Ok, that’s definitely weird.’ Moxxie thought to himself, while it wasn’t his business to get invested in the stories of clients, he was able to pick up on shady business practices when he heard them. His own father had been involved in many similar activities while he lived under the man’s roof.

Moxxie brushed off the thoughts of his father as the sinner continued his story.

“So, several years go by, I had almost completely forgotten about my time at the place. This changed however once I received a weird package in the mail, it contained an old VHS tape for a commercial for the factory and a letter that said that the employees didn’t disappear all those years ago. So, I was curious and decided to return to the factory and see if I could at least get to the bottom of who sent the letter.”

“Then what happened next?” Moxxie asked with a bit more intrigue than before.

“Oh, I actually don’t remember much after that.”

“That’s it, what do you mean?” Moxxie said really confused.

“Well, I don’t remember the rest clearly, everything else is kind of a blur for me. All I can remember was that I went looking around the abandoned factory for little while and then suddenly everything just going black, next thing I know, I’ve wake up down here.”

“So, you don’t know who or what killed you?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“And you want the person responsible for it to be killed?”

“Yeah” The sinner replied nodding.

Moxxie now understood the story a bit more, but determining who exactly killed him could prove to be a bit of a problem. I.M.P
wasn’t exactly made for investigation work.

Moxxie flinched upon remembering the last time he had to do something like that at the camp, it was what he considered to be one of his worst moments. But he also was aware that he couldn’t really miss an opportunity to get a potential new client.

‘I’ll have to discuss the actual way we want to proceed with this, once Blitz returns.’

But until any of that something else needed to be taken care of.

“Well, Mr P you will have to wait until my boss gets back before we can finalise this job, we don’t usually do investigations missions, but we might be able to handle your problem.”

The sinners face didn’t change at all while hearing about the news, in fact Moxxie can’t recall his expression changing at all during their entire conversation. It was like his face was stuck in that one position.

Moxxie waited with bated breath to what the response from the sinner would be.

“Alright” The sinner said, much to the relieve of Moxxie. “I can wait if you want, but just know I’m willing to pay a lot to get the job done…” The sinner gave a quick pause before continuing. “You… do accept earth money down here right or maybe even items?”

“Yes, we can accept human currency down here.” Moxxie said.

Luckily due to their access to the mortal realm, I.M.P were able to use both hell and earth currency, it opened a way for sinners to pay that didn’t really have anything yet.

Which was convenient for the company because a lot of sinners wanted revenge the second they entered hell.

“Everything that I own from earth is yours, I lived by myself and assuming no one has come looking for me, which I doubt, my house should still be full. I have no use for any of it and no family to take it, so it’ll all be yours.”

Sinners were also willing to give anything to get revenge. But Moxxie wasn’t complaining.

“Ok, that sound reasonable, how do you want us to confirm that the target is dead, usually our clients want us to bring a memento from them as prove, but in this case, we might not be able to do that. But we also could provide you with a photo of them once the job is done as substantial evidence.”

“Yeah, a photo will do, I want to get a good look at the son of a bitch who murdered me.” The sinner’s said as his words slowly became laced with venom. Moxxie however was used to this type of reaction and was nonchalant about it.

‘Ok, that’s taken care off, just a few more things.’

There was still the problem of the target’s identity, Moxxie knew he would need to get a bit more information out of the sinner to help with the job.

Before doing so Moxxie opened Blitz’s desk, looking for something as he rummages around in his boss’s assortment of items he kept inside.

After moving around the many weird pieces of junk his boss kept in his desk draw, including a few more horse figures, several condoms (hopefully not used) and even a picture of his boss naked in the shower (he’ll get back to that later) he was able to find a small note pad and pink pen with a unicorn ornament at the end.

“Mr P while I do appreciate you cooperation so far, is it alright if I ask you some further questions that could help me with the mission.”

The sinner merely nodded.

“From what you’ve told me you were most likely killed from behind, did you by chance get any kind of glimpse of the person that might have done it?” Moxxie said as he opened the notepad to a page and prepared to write down what he needed.

“Nope, I’m sorry I really don’t remember anything, the last thing I can kind of remember is this weird room I was in and some bright lights.”

“Do you have any details on what the room looked like?” Moxxie said as he writes down some small notes on the paper.
The sinner brought one of his large arms up to his face as he tried to remember anything.

“I think there were these big machines with eyes on them.”

Moxxie stopped writing and looked at the client with a look of confusion, “Eyes on machines?” he said, trying to sound professional.

“I think it was designed that way to look child friendly, I mean it was a factory for children’s toys” The sinner replied while struggling.

Deciding to move on, Moxxie quickly scribbled something down and began asking more questions.

“Well, can I ask you who sent the letter, that might help us?”

“There was no address on it when I got it, not sure who sent the package.”

‘Well, that doesn’t help.’ Moxxie though, another answer not providing adequate information but still determined he continued.

“If you don’t mind me asking, where is the letter right now?”

“If it hasn’t been moved it should still be in my car, and that should still be by the factories entrance.”

“What type of car was it and were there any other cars around when you did this.”

“My car is a For Mustang, its black and No, there weren’t any other cars around when I was there, just mine.”

‘Hmph’ Moxxie thought that this was a little odd, the imp had originally thought that someone had just set him up to be killed. But if that was the case wouldn’t there be another vehicle at the scene, of the culprit?
None of this was sitting right in Moxxie’s head. But he at least had some form of place he could start looking.

“Is there anything else you can tell me about the package you received; you mentioned a VHS tape.” The imp questioned once again.

“Yeah, it was a commercial for a toy called Poppy playt-” Mr P stopped mid-sentence as he suddenly remembered something “Oh that’s right, the letter also mentioned something about finding the flower.”

“The Flower?” Moxxie questioned, ignoring how silly it sounded.

“Yes, the letter I got talked about the staff that had vanished 10 years ago, that they were still there and they said I should find the flower.”

Before Moxxie could try and infer what the yellow sinner was saying, Mr P seemed to glance around the room. His eyes stopped suddenly as he spotted one object on top of one of the many overfilled cabinets: a small box of crayons.
Immediately after, the sinner’s red hand seemed to shoot off from its wrist and latched onto the small colouring box, Moxxie was able to make out what he could only describe as a weird fleshy robe coming out of the sinner’s wrist and was attached to the hand.

At the same time the sinners blue arm did the same thing, only it grabbed onto a discarded piece of paper on the ground, at a quick glance the paper seemed to have a piece of Blitz’s ‘artwork’ scribbled on it.

Moxxie then witness, as the weird fleshy robe seemed to retract back into both the sinner’s wrist which also retracted both of his arms, bringing both the held items with them.

Mr P then placed the paper down on the desk and began to draw using the newly acquired items.
While Moxxie would question what he was doing, currently he was still trying to process the absolute absurdity of what the sinner had just done.

While working at the company, he had witnessed a large range of different sinner, but he’d never seen one that had retractable arms.
Hell was a weird and bizarre place.

His daze was interrupted once he heard the sinner slam down the piece of paper onto the desk in front of him.
Once Moxxie was able to get a good look, he saw that the picture Mr P had drawn was that of a flower with 4 large almost heart-shaped red petals with a black centre.

Mr P then began to point using one of his large retractable hands at the picture.
“The bottom of the letter said, ‘look for the flower’ and had a picture just like this.” he said while tapping the picture continuously.

Moxxie didn’t know what to make of all this information, none of it really helped identify who the target was, the story just made no sense to him. Why would someone from this guy’s old workplace just happen to post a cryptic message to him around 10 years after the fact for no reason?

But Moxxie took a breath and decided to still go along with it. ‘How does Blitz put up with these kinds of people all the time.’ he thought to himself.

The only solution would be to check around the area he mentioned and see if he could find any more information.

Unfortunately, the crystal they use to access the human was currently in the hands of his boss Blitz, who wasn’t currently here, so any further investigation at the actual location would have to wait until he arrived.

Moxxie turned his attention away from the clients drawing and back at the yellow sinner.

“Well, thank you for your time, Mr P, the information you've provided will helps us out, like I said we will look around the area and try to find your killer, you won’t have to pay until the job is done of course.” Moxxie said to assure the customer.

“We will, however, need to know the exact location of where the factory is and we will also require that you leave a contact number for us, or if you don’t have that you could always come back tomorrow around the same time.”

The sinner quickly took back the paper he had given Moxxie and scribbled out his contact on it before giving it back.

“That should be alright, thank you for your time, Mr IMP, just call me when you’re done.” The sinner said as he brought up one of his massive hands over the desk in an attempt at a handshake.

Moxxie relented for just a second before accepting the man’s hand, not wanting to be rude. The hand was surprising gentle, giving the imp’s track record with getting hurt he was expecting something more painful.

After which Mr P made his way out of the company’s compartment and disappeared out of sight.

Once out Moxxie did a small fist pump in the air with a giddy look on his face ‘Good job Moxxie you got a job.’ Moxxie said proud that he had accomplished his job correctly.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3 – Preparation

Target: Unknown
Location: Playtime co factory
Description: Client was unable to describe target.
Info: Client was given strange VHS and told to meet up at old workplace, Killed from behind by unknown target.

Moxxie gave the document one last look over, before placing it back on the desk, all he had to do was wait for blitz to return. He’d just cleaned up the budget documents he had accidently dropped on the floor earlier and was currently on the computer searching up any sources of info he could on the playtime co factory.

It was a good thing that the mortal realm’s internet was also accessible from hell. Thank Lucifer that Blitz paid for the special ‘Vox Living world package’. Its much better for investigation work then the pony show about friendship that his boss originally bought it for.

Moxxie didn’t have any other things he could do around the office and since the job couldn’t get done until Blitz got back with the crystal, this meant that the sharpshooter could wait take his time to research what he could and plan for the job.
So far Moxxie had been doing just that for the past few hours, not that he was complaining about it.

Honestly, he wished he could do investigation work more often. Moxxie never really got an opportunity to do so, he was even able to prepare a selection of weapons he thought would be ideal for the mission.
Usually when they got a mission Blitz would immediately open a portal and push them through, no plan, no research and it would usually end with the job getting done, but with a lot of unnecessary carnage.

Didn’t even matter what Moxxie was doing at the current time either, Blitz would sometimes just pick him up and lob him through the portal. Moxxie still remembers the time Blitz thought it would be funny to open the portal right under his feet. Thankfully he stopped doing that after the first time.

Although after the last time he'd done investigation work, he now knew not to get too carried away with it and focus on the mission.

Moxxie had been able to go through the history of the company, and it was interesting to say the least.

It was founded in 1930 by a man named Elliot Ludwig and the company had been very successful when it was around.

The man from what Moxxie could find was considered a hard worker who saw everyone in the factory as his family, the man strived to make sure that every child could smile. It was the very reason that he created play co in the first place.

It said that he devoted every waking moment of his life to bring joy to children, it was honestly very inspiring.
He even felt a bit bad once he started to read further into the info about his life that was available.

The man was so devoted to his work that it ended with his own wife divorcing him, due to his work ethic going above his marriage. The man had even lost his daughter.
‘The man had lost so much, yet he continued to bring joy to everyone around him, he didn’t care about himself but other around him’ Moxxie thought, feeling a bit sad for the man.

Moxxie looked through more of the articles, until he seemed go across one that stood out to him.

- Body found on Elliot Ludwig Estate -

Moxxie had to stop for a second to reread what the article said, he really hoped it was a joke.
With a little bit of hesitation opened the link and started going through the article.

“On the morning at 9:45AM, local authorities report that the body of a young boy was found on the estate of the late Elliot Ludwig, an esteemed toy maker and originator of the Playtime Company, the identity of the boy was never confirmed.
Reports say that the child’s body was located upstairs in the man’s bedroom inside a large duffle bag, it detailing that boys remain were disturbed, with organs and even bones from their skeletal structure missing from there body.

“Dear, Satan” Moxxie said aloud to himself almost horrified, he had to take a few moments to really grasp the words he had just read. He was thankful that he hadn’t taken a sip of his coffee that was next to him, otherwise he would have to explain to blitz why both the floor, and the computer were soaked and ruined.

Its moments like this where Moxxie was reminded that every human could look nice on the surface, but underneath it all they could have the most nasty, vile and putrid souls imaginable.
What made it worse in Moxxie’s case was that person could still be around in the pride ring somewhere, assuming he wasn't a victim of the yearly extermination.

Moxxie may have been trained to kill through his whole life, he may even assassinate for a living. But there were lines he wouldn’t cross and jobs he would never like to take.
He had his morals.

Really needing a palate cleanser after reading something so vile, he decided to investigate other topics involving the company.
And after doing a bit of digging, he was able to confirm that yes, what the client had said was true. All the staff had just disappeared one day.

The report went over how on the 8th of August 1995, suddenly all the staff seemed to just up and vanish from playtime co.

Except for one person.

A man by the name of Leith Pierre, the new head of the company. It seemed after Elliot Ludwig had passed away, Leith went from the head of innovation, to become the successor to the company.

Now of course it raised eyebrows to Moxxie that the only person to come out of this ‘Incident', was the current person in charge.

This lead Moxxie trying to do research on Leith Pierre. However, while Elliot Ludwig was a very public figure who always seemed to be in the mood for talking, Leith was a very different kind of person, as there was next to know information about him available, Before, during or even after his time at playtime co.

The only thing he did know was that Leith was investigated after the incident and it he was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Anyone (or at least any sensible person) would point to him as the most likely culprit, but Moxxie wasn't sure.
‘This doesn’t make any sense, don’t you need employees to make profit. If so, why would the one in charge make such a convoluted incident?’
From Moxxie could tell the company never seemed (or what was reported) to suffer any financial problems, so money might not have been a reason.

It did raise a very big question to Moxxie though.
‘What did happen to the staff?’
‘How was it not a bigger story?’

Humans seemed to just want to move on from some tragedies, it seemed.

This lead Moxxie to checking through playtime co’s back catalogue of things they were involved in. while it wouldn’t help with the job currently, it would help distract him (Also he was curious).
This brought him to the list of the many toys and products the company had made over its 65-year run. Moxxie spent a little while going through the different products the company had produced.

A weird doll with red hair, a blue thing called ‘Huggy Wuggy’, a group of collectable animals and even a creature made of doe, just to name a few of the things they made. It was fascinating how vast and varied all their products were. I guess they had to be to stay in business.

But, while Moxxie looked through all the toys, only one thing seemed to come to his mind.

‘I don’t get the appeal.’ His face was blank as he tried to make sense of any of the toys.

Not that Moxxie hated the toys he was looking at, it was just he didn’t get them. He didn’t have any toys growing up.
His father didn’t allow him to have any toys whilst he was a child, his mother had bought him a few. Which were found and probably burned by his father right in front of him.
“I’m raising a MAN, not some DAMN baby, so NO BABY TOYS.” He heard his father’s voice say as he remembers another one of his ‘Lovely’ childhood memories.

He still remembers when he told his co-workers and wife that detail about his life, which he didn’t think was that big of a deal.
The only reason they even got on the topic was because they were discussion what kind of toys they would get for Millie and his baby.
Which lead into a discussion on what kinds of toys everyone had growing up.
However, once the conversation drifted to him, and he stated he didn’t have any toys. It seemed to spark everyone in the office, (Even Loona) to look at him in weird ways, it seemed like they pitied him.

Moxxie just didn’t get what the fuss was about, maybe because he didn’t have any that he didn’t get the appeal. But he really didn’t see any problem with it, unlike his co-workers, who seemed to think he was missing out.

When your being raised in a mob family, your priorities seem to go in a very different direction. His dad had never gotten him any toy growing up and had gone out of his way to make sure he didn’t get any.

He gave another look at the clock on the offices wall.

3.15 pm

His boss (and his boyfriend) had been gone for an almost the whole day at this point. ‘Where is he? He isn’t usually gone this long when doing something.’

Moxxie’s answer was given shortly after, as the silence was broken up by the sound of the front door to the office being slammed open.

Moxxie jumped for the second time that day and looked up towards the door. In the doors entrance was I.M.P’s lovely boss Blitz, as he strolled his way into the office with a few bags in each hand, carrying that confident smile on his face. Shortly followed right after by his Boyfriend Stolas, the former Goetia prince, who was also carrying several bags in each hand, their little outing appearing to be completed.

“Hey, Mox, sorry we’re late, ran into a bunch of assholes at the clothing shop and had to teach them a lesson, got a bit heated and we had to run once the police were called over.’ Blitz said.

‘Well, that at least explains his absence’ Moxxie thought.

He never understood how someone could always get themselves into so much trouble and yet always find a way out of it. His Boss had some insane luck, which he couldn’t explain.

Blitz had since made his way over placing his bags on the counter before making his way over to Moxxie. “So, how’s the day been going, we got anything?” He said as he placed his hands front desk were Moxxie currently sat.

Moxxie sat up in the presence of his boss. “Actually Blitz, we just had a client come in a little while ago.”

“Alright Mox, look at you putting on the big boy pants, can you hand me the client’s sheet, I take it you’ve already made one.” Blitz said while gesturing his hand to be given the file.

Moxxie happy handed over the sheet, that was still on the desk. “Well, Blitz I did what you asked, but I figured I should talk to yo-

Moxxie couldn’t finish his sentence before the sheet was snatched out of his hands by the boss of I.M.P.

As Blitz took a quick look over the file, his smile dropping slightly into confusion upon seeing the client’s sheet, before looking at his employee. “Moxxie what the fuck is this? There's hardly any information, I told you to only accept clients that can provide every detail.” Blitz said with slight annoyance and confusion.

Moxxie was quick to defend his actions while keeping his cool “While that is true Blitz, you also said to always take jobs for sinners that were willing to provide everything they had. I figured I’d wait for you to come back to see if it was doable.”

Blitz was quick to change his tone. “Oh, we got a freshly dead sinner with a massive hate boner, my absolute favourite kind of customer.” Blitz said as the smile returned to his face. “Ok never mind then, good shit Moxxie.” Blitz said as he began to flip through the client’s sheet.

Moxxie sighed, he was nervous for a second thinking he had upset Blitz again. “So, do you want us to do, Blitz? They left a number so if you want to ca-”

“Well no time to waste, I want you to go up and kill the target” Blitz said interrupting Moxxie, as the place the sheet back on the table.
“One amazing benefit we’ve been provided for this kill by the looks of it is that the client isn’t aware of who did it, so we can just kill any old asshole and call it a day.”

Moxxie didn’t look pleased with that answer. “But Blitz, with all due respect I still think we should try and kill the actual target, so I propose that we could go and so a bit of investigation on the fac-”

Moxxie seems to stop talking as he just realised something his boss had said. “Wait, I’m sorry Blitz but I must have misheard you, it seemed like you were implying I was going up there by myself.”

Moxxie looked at Blitz’s hoping to get an answer, but he noticed that Blitz had slowly started to form a bigger smirk across his face, and Moxxie knew when Blitz ever pulled that face it meant something bad was coming.
‘Oh, no’ Moxxie thought.

“Yes Mox, you heard me right, while I would like to just do it my way I know you’d throw a hissy fit if this wasn’t handled correctly and I’m kind of tapped out after going shopping.”

“But are you really sure?” Moxxie seemed to get a bit nervous and rubbed the back of his head. “It’s just last time I was tasked with leading an investigation mission It didn’t go so well.”

“Aargh” Blitz threw his hands up into the air before looking back at his employee “Moxxie there you go again, overthinking things and doubting yourself.” Blitz moved over and placed both his hands the imp’s shoulders “You made a mistake, you know you’ve made a mistake and we both know if anyone in this company is capable of learning from their mistakes and improving, it’s you.” Blitz said with a smile on his face.

“You really mean that?” Moxxie said with a glitter in his eye.

“Of course, I think this will be a good test to see how you do while running solo.”

“Wait, will I get the crystal? Moxxie said questioning if his boss.

“Oh, no no no nope” Blitz said placing his hand over the crystal that was on his glove. “I trust you with the mission for now, let’s not get carried away.”

Moxxie thought about reminding him of mission in Antarctica but chose to not change the subject.

“So, how it this mission going to work then?” Moxxie as asked his boss.

Blitz reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone “Simple, you’re going to go into the factory, do you little ‘investigation’ as you put it, find the asshole and kill them.” Blitz using his fingers to form a gun to pretending to shoot.
“Then once that’s done, you’re going to use you phone and sent me the picture of the dead target, then I use the crystal to bring you back. You get the target, we get the money, everyone wins.”

Moxxie nodded before making his way over to the storage room to get some weapons he had already prepared for the job, before he could though he was stopped by Blitz.
“Oh, before you go digging around for a few weapons, I don’t think you’ll be needing many for this mission, I think you should just take a pistol.” Blitz said to Moxxie.

“Blitz, don’t you think I should at least have more than one weapon for this mission?”

Blitz looked at Moxxie with a look of reassurance, a face he’d rarely seen on his boss’s face “Moxxie, you have to understand, you tend to overthink things, so I think you should try to only bring a single gun on this mission, that way you won’t spend a while fussing.”

Moxxie didn’t like the answer, but he also trusted Blitz enough to know figured he was right about this. “Fine, if you say so.” Moxxie said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his trusty pistol.
The gun was a custom M1911 pistol with a red and black colour scheme. He’d just completed an inspection of the weapon early, so he was aware that it was in good condition (like all the weapons he uses), but Moxxie still wanted to give it another quick look over before leaving.

It never hurts to double check.

He’d used this pistol a lot and was aware of its workings, inside and out. The weapons currently had a full magazine inside with 7 rounds.

While Moxxie was checking over his weapon, Blitz had begun to raise his hand, the crystal on his gloving orange colour before a portal began to martialize in the middle of the office.

Blitz went and placed his hand on Moxxie’s shoulder “Ok, Moxxie remember don’t overthink it, also feel free to take your time, I know that didn’t work well last time but I know you won’t disappoint me.” Blitz said as a final act of reassurance to his faithful employee.

Blitz gave his employee one last smirk “And beside it’s a toy factory, so this might be a good time to break your toy virginity.”

Moxxie looked back and Blitz with a look of ambivalent, “While I do appreciate the encouragement, I wish you didn’t have to word it like that.”

Moxxie then turned towards the portal.
‘It’s just an old factory; how bad could it be?’ Moxxie thought as he entered through the portal, and it closed behind him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4 - Conversations

Stolas sat idlily by as he watched both Blitz and Moxxie have their conversation and as the small imp entered the portal. He’d watched the whole exchange between the two imps from the side of the room. Once the the portal had closed behind Moxxie, he decided to make his way over to Blitz. As Blitz turned around he was quick to notice that there was a small knowing smile on owl's face as he approached. Blitz looked at Stolas with a confused look. “What? What’s with that face?” Blitz questioned his owl boyfriend.

“You really do trust him don’t you blitz, otherwise why would you let him go by himself, I think it’s kind of sweet.”

Blitz rolled his eyes in a weak attempt to play of his emotions. “Well duh of course I do Stolas, I trust him an awful lot. I think he’s capable." Blitz continued to speak as the brought his hand up to his head. "The problem is since he found out he was going to become a dad he’s become more distracted, and now he's even started doubting himself. So, I figured, as his boss, that he needed a little confidence.”

Stolas eyes lit up as he began to realise what Blitz was doing. “Is that why you had him work here by himself and also why you had us take out time during the day?” Stolas questioned Blitz.

Stolas was kinder curious why Blitz had left the little one by himself all day in the building, he got even more confused once he had them both just go around the city just doing random stuff, that his Blitzy wouldn't normally want to do.

Blitz nodded his head “Like I said, I truly do think he’s very capable, he just got a lot of issues up here he had to deal with up here." Blitz said as he pointed his two fingers to his head, "luckily one of his best qualities is that he always gets back up, learns from his mistakes and tires again.”

Stolas’ smile grew a bit bigger “You really do love him, don’t you?” Stolas said softly.

Stolas while growing up had been taught to always keep his eye out for danger, this included always making sure to read the body language of other people around him.
So, while the former Goetia hadn’t worked for IMP very long, he was quick to pick up on a load of little quirks that each of the members displayed. One thing he noticed quite a bit was that Blitz always seemed to check over on Moxxie, when he seemed down and Moxxie did the same thing.
It was honestly quite sweet.

He never told either of them this, granted, while spoil a good moment.

Blitz was quick to defend himself as he throw his hands up and began to walk around the office space. “Yes platonically, he’s one of the only people that’s stuck by me through a lot of my bad moments, I mean I’ve been an ASS to him a lot over the years.” Blitz head looked down at the floor guiltily.
“I tried being hard on him to try and teach him how much I care. I now only realise how much that didn’t help, If anything he has the opposite effect on him.” Blitz raises his head again to look at Stolas, the owl was able to make out the guilt in the Imp's eyes. “Moxxie’s father was a truly awful person to him growing up, I generally think up until he met me his life was only miserable. Even now, his dad is still having a influence on how he thinks, and now with the baby on the way Moxxie is more on edge than ever.”

Stolas listened to Blitz with intent, it was becoming more clear to him why he always made sure to look out for Moxxie.

Stolas nodded his in understanding, while doing so he began to slowly walk over the window, before peering out and glimpsing at all the different imps going about their lives below. The old Stolas would of looked out and not seen much of anything, but being with Blitz and the others had made him have a new understanding for them, these people went through the same problems as him. “I can understand why that would be a problem. When my little Octavia was born, I worried every day that something bad was going to happen or I was doing something wrong.” Stolas said, reminiscing on old memories.

Blitz spoke up “Even though I didn’t raise Loona from a baby I always tried to make her feel loved and tried to help her along, even when she was horrible to me and others.”

Stolas leans down so that he’s face to face with Blitz “Which is why we both can help Moxxie and Mille, when they need it.”
Blitz enthusiasm came out once again “Hell, yeah we can.”

Both of them had a small chuckle to themselves, sometimes it was just nice to have these moments.

But while the moment was nice, it did also have pull up some bad memories about his own family, his face slowly formed into a frown as a consequence. “I also know what it’s like to have a bad father, my dad didn’t even have time for me, or any of my siblings.” The owl said to Blitz “I don’t think he cares for any of us, he didn’t even come to my trial.”

Blitz looked at Stolas with a look of understanding and his face morphed into a sad one, he still remembers the day he first met Stolas and bared witness to the Owl's father's attitude when he slapped the young prince for bowing to him. “Yeah, I know a thing about bad fathers” Blitz remembering their very first encounter (or second technically).

Stolas looked around “That’s not even the worst thing he’s done to one of my siblings.”

Blitz seemed a bit intrigued by the sentence “Why, what was the worst you crummy dad did?” Blitz said unsure if he was going to regret the answer.

Stolas looked sad “He killed one of us, for falling out of line.”

As he turned back to Blitz, the imp was able to see the hurt in his eyes. “Oh, oh shit, I wasn’t expecting that answer and I thought my dad was bad.”

Stolas face immediately shifted from one of sadness into a sterner look soon as the words had left Blitz mouth. He crotched down to be on Blitz level and grabbed his hand before bringing him closer to him. “Don’t undermine what you, Moxxie or anyone else went through, what you went through is just as bad.” Stolas said.
Blitz nodded as he looked at Stolas, he forgot while the owl could be seen as very sweet and nice, he was still a former Goetia, that title bares weight and responsibility, no doubt he had to deal with some bad people.

Blitz let out a small sigh “None of our dad’s really cared, did they?” he said sorrowfully.

Stolas could only give a sad node in response. “Never forget I also saw what your father was like, and from what I saw he wasn’t a good person either, my father also never cared for any of us, all he cares about is getting in the good graces of everyone above him, we were all just a means to an end.” Stolas replies sadly, his face looking down to the ground.

“I can’t say I’m any better. Even if I didn't mean to, I still neglected my own daughter and her feelings. Now she won’t even speak to me or have anything to do with me. But unlike my own father I’m going to try and make it better.” Stolas said as he clutched his into a fist.

Blitz seeing this, decides to brighten the mood, “Ok, that enough trauma dumping for a while.” Blitz says as a smile returns to his face.

Stolas look at Blitz confused for a few seconds, he had no idea how he was able to bounce back from bad experiences.

“Hey, you know while I was in that store, I was able to pick up some more of that special coffee you like.” Blitz said to Stolas grinning.

Stolas looked at Blitz as he face contorted into grim expression upon remembering the taste, “I didn’t say I liked it, I said it was the best they had.”

“Yeah, well welcome to the life of an Imp, everything can suck, and you make do with what you get, none of that rich shit here.” Blitz said trying to lighten the mood.

The way Blitz had said it made Stolas lose his serious face as it slowly formed into a smirk before he started laughing.
“Hahaha ok, I guess your right, can you give me two sugars?”

All the people across the building would hear as they pasted the I.M.P office would be the sound of two men laughing there assess off.

----------------------------------------------------

In the matter of a second, the hot and choking air of hell was suddenly replaced with the much more calm and pleasant air of the living world as Moxxie stepped through the portal and began to look around, as the portal shut behind him.

After making sense of his surroundings. The first thing that caught his eye was the massive factory Infront of him.
The factory was made up of several smaller buildings ranging in shape and size with several chimneys on top of it.

The two things that stuck out the most to Moxxie was just the sheer size of the place, while he had seen pictures of the place will doing research, he couldn’t get the real scale of how big it was until he was the front of it. The other thing that stood was the variety of colours that made up the building’s appearance. The whole thing almost gave off this weird whimsical vibe. Growing up in the Greed ring for most of his life, Moxxie was very familiar with these types of buildings, heck they were the most common building in Greed.

The only difference being that the ones back in Greed were always extremely nasty that spewed out toxic fumes into the open sky, clouding the entire ring’s skies in a nasty black smog. The colours used were also very drab and miserable.

This factory gave of almost the complete opposite vibe, the warm colours and hues applied gave it a nice feeling. The difference was night and day.
‘Ok, that’s enough admiring the building Moxxie, you have a job to do’ Moxxie reminded himself as he slowly made his way down the road to the factories entrance.

Approaching the huge factory, the first thing he was able to notice was the massive archway loaming over the front entrance. Right behind he could see a massive open area, that was assumed to be the companies carpark. Making his way under the arch he began his slow track across the open area, the road was cracked and damaged, the walls around the place had vines and tress growing across them and the entire carpark itself was empty. No doubt when the factory was still running, the place would have been filled with vehicles, but no it was just a reminder that the place was shut down.
It honestly felt a bit weird, going through area now it made Moxxie feel on edge, the lack of any kind of sound wasn’t helping.
That was until reached the end of the carpark, where he noticed a single vehicle that was parked at the very entrance.

It was a black mustang. Moxxie immediately went over to it upon realising that it mostly likely was his clients.

‘Ok, I guess the investigation starts now’ Moxxie thought as he tried to open the car’s door.

Griping the driver side door, he pulled up the handle to try and gain entre, to no avail, it was locked.
'Should of asked the guy where he kept his keys.' Moxxie thought reminding himself to mentioned that question in any future investigations.
It was most likely that the keys would be on the clients body somewhere in the factory, luckily growing up the mafia Moxxie had to perform several shady dealings and practices. One of the lesser skills in the imps repertoire that he acquired from it, was that he knew was carjacking, so opening the car door itself was no big deal. While a little rusty at the job, he was eventually able to open the lock.

Upon forcing the car door open, he started to climb into the front seat. He began to scan around the vehicle hoping to find the package that Mr P told him about. His search didn’t need to last long as low and behold on the passenger side seat was a package.

Moxxie reached over the seat and picked up the package, the brown envelope didn't have any address or even any words on it at all. The only real clue on its content was the 'Playtime Co' brand logo on the front of it. He began to tilt on its side to empty its contents. Two items fell out on to the seat in front of Moxxie's hooves, a letter and an old yellow VHS tape.

Moxxie firstly picked up the tape to inspect it, the front of the tape reading ‘Vintage Poppy Commercial’ on the front of it.
The other thing was a note, the same note that supposedly lead the sinner to this place (and his death), so Moxxie picked it up an began to read it.

EVERYONE THINKS THE STAFF DISSAPEARED 10 YEARS AGO
WER'E STILL HERE.
FIND THE FLOWER
With a picture of the same flower that the sinner had drawn laying at the bottom of the letter.

‘Hmph, I guess this proofs that what Mr P said was true, but the big question is who sent him here and for what purpose?' Moxxie said as he brought his hand up to his chin, as he began to ponder.

The other thing Moxxie was quick to pick up on was the fact that letter in fact had a few spelling mistakes on it, not only was the disappear spelt incorrectly but apostrophe was in the wrong place in the we're.

“Still better then Blitz’s handwriting though” Moxxie said getting a chuckle out of himself.

The ‘wer’e’ in the letter implies this was written by an old employee of the factory, but the poor grammar used made Moxxie call into question that detail.

‘I’m starting to think that this was prank or something more sinister, they lured him here to kill him or somethi-’
Moxxie’s thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sound of a buzzing noise.

Moxxie quickly jumped, nearing hitting the car's roof as he also lost his grip on the letter as it fell out of his hand and onto the floor of the car. Moxxie quickly scanned the environment to find the source of the noise, reaching into his jacket pocket reading to pull out his weapon. Before realising that it was coming from his jacket pocket or more specifically, his phone.

Moxxie gave a sigh of relief relisting that he had over reacted over nothing 'I've got to keep my cool, did Blitz want to talk to me already?' Moxxie thought before taking his hand off his gun and reaching into the adjacent pocket which contained his phone before pulling out the still vibrating device.
He took a second to read the ID, before all the shock in his body was replaced with surprise.
‘Loving wife (With baby)’ was displayed with a picture of his wife Millie behind it.

Moxxie’s eyes lit up upon reading the phone. ‘Oh, crumbs that right she said she’d call around this time, I completely forgot’ Moxxie then quickly fumbled with the buttons before finally answered the phone as he sat up right on the car’s seat.

‘Hey Moxxie, how's ya doing?” The voice on the phone said, Moxxie began to relax upon hearing the voice of his lovely wife on the other end of phone, it was a much-needed relief hearing her soothing voice.

“U-um yeah, I’m doing alright just about to start a mission, but how are you two doing?” Moxxie said as he started to relax a bit more.

“'Giggle', we’re both doing fine Moxxie, I just got through helping the family make dinner, Ma kept insisting that I sit down and just relax.” The deathly voice of his wife said through the phone.

Upon hearing that news Moxxie's eyes began to grow with concern, he new his wife didn't enjoy being pregnant, or rather she hated that she might have been seen as a liability.

“For once I think I agree with you mother on something, I hope you’re not putting too much strain on yourself, not that I don’t think your capable.” Moxxie said as he tried to correct himself, he knew this situation was delicate.

“Oh, don’t worry Hun, I know my limits” she said in a reassuring voice. “I really do wish you decided to come down with me through.”

Moxxie felt a bit guilty once her heard her say that. “Yeah, I know I should have but we still need to think about money and besides I don’t think your parents would have liked me being there.” He said as he began to remember how they handled the news about the baby.

“Oh, Mox.” Millie said in a slightly sad tone before brightening back up, “Trust me, once the baby arrives, they’ll both be congratulating you for making a beautiful baby." Millie said. "Also that reminds me, both my ma and pa are going to give us my old ‘hand-me-down’ baby clothes that me and my siblings used to wear so we won’t have to worry about buying baby clothes.”

Moxxie couldn’t help but smile, his wife always found a way to reassure him whenever he felt down. How he was ever able to meet someone like her was a curse for him.

“That’s great news Millie, also I was thinking that when you get back, we can go and look for a cot for the baby.”

“OOOHHH” Millie said across the phone with enthusiasm, “That’s a great idea Mox” Millie said causing Moxxie to smile more.

“I’m also thinking that maybe we could get some different decorations for the room, I’m thinking you pick out half and I pick out half, we can both pick out different decorations for the baby.” Moxxie said as kept thinking about how the child’s room would look.

“Oh, I love that idea Mox, we might not even have to actually buy the cot, my family built all of ours from scratch, so we might be able to build our own.”

Moxxie didn’t know what to think of that idea, but it could help him with bonding with the In-laws, and it seemed like something he could get behind. “You know what, I do like that idea, we might have to make a trip back up there, just you and me, and the baby of course.”

“I’m glad you like the idea Moxxie, Sorry this was only quick hun, but I’m gonna to have to go now, I’ll see you again next week.” His wife said.

“Wait, Millie before you go.” Moxxie said attempting to stop here from hanging up.

“Yeah, what is it?” Millie asked confused

Moxxie hesitated for a second, he wanted to say this to her before, but he didn’t have the courage too, but the talk with Blitz from earlier and Millie here, it gave him the confidence to say it.

Moxxie took in a huge bit of breath before finally speaking his peace.

“Just know that I’ll respect you decision about what you want to do once the baby does arrive. I’m more then willing to stay home and take care of it, while you go and work at IMP, don’t let anyone tell you what YOU want to do.” Moxxie said with confidence in his voice.

Yeah it had been a few rough months for the couple, when the baby was first announced Moxxie and Millie had a very long talk about there next steps, It was a tough talk to get through, but it needed to be said, whether they were even ready for a baby or not.
Millie seemed to be having doubts about herself and if she would even be able to carry on her job if she had the baby. So Moxxie constantly reassured her that if she didn’t want to have a baby, he would follow her decision.

While a long discussion, they did come to the decision that they did want the baby. The other big question was what Millie would do once the baby was born. Being pregnant meant that she had to take time off doing the thing that she loved most. She loved it more than anyone else at the company. But would she even want to come back to the company once it was born? It worried her if she would still be able to go back after 9 months of inactivity. It became evident that she was having doubts about her usefulness after a while, but Moxxie and the other were quick to reassure her that she was not a burden or useless. The other question would be who would take care of the baby? If they were both had to go on missions, someone would need to take care of the baby. Moxxie had given it some thought but hadn't really spoken up about it yet, he had come to the decision that if they weren’t other options he would quit his job and take care of the baby, so she could continue her favourite job. He could always get a job in a different field he liked. He also knew that Blitz wasn't going to like the decision that he was making, but it wasn’t his to make.

He heard her voice starting to starter a bit before you answered.
"Sometimes I wonder how I even got someone as lovely as Yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-“

Moxxie pulled back the phone for a second, for some reason the phone appeared to be glitching out and his wife's voice was just on repeat, this had never happened before.

“Um, Millie can you hear me you appear to be glitching on my end of the phone.”
The repeated glitching lasted for a few more second before it appeared to go back to normal.

“ Yo-yo-yo, Hey Mox, can you hear me now?” his Wife said, her voice returning to normal.

“Yeah, I can now, I don’t what happened there.” Moxxie was just as confused as her.

They’ve never had any issues like that before; whether it was across different rings or even across the mortal realm and hell, the connection would always stay good. Maybe it was because it was a combination of both at the moment, either that or he had he should get his phone checked once he gets back home.

“Well, like I said, I’m really glad to have a husband like you.”

“And I’m glad to have a lovely wife like you.”

“Well, I got to go, happy killing Moxxie and say hi to everyone else for me.” Millie said whilst she gave a kiss to the phone.

“I will once I’m done, I love you both.” Moxxie said as he also kissed the phone.

With that the phone call ended, as Moxxie placed the phone back into his pocket with a new fuelled determination to get the job done.
He firstly picked the letter off the ground and put both it and the VHS tape into his seemingly infinite jacket pocket. Before opening the car's door and marching towards the front door of the factory.

He now had a new reason to complete the job, he wasn’t doing this job for himself, he was doing it for the two most precious things currently in his life.
His Wife and Baby
He opened the doors to the Playtime Co building,
'Time to find my target.'

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 - Entering The Playtime Co. factory

The silence of the playtime factory was broken as the front door was opened and Moxxie began to enter inside.

Once inside, he began to scan around the contents of the first room. It didn’t seem that different from any other factory entrance. A typical visitors’ reception desk laid out in front of Imp, with two doors right behind it that lead further into the factory and another couple of doors placed on the left and right sides of the room.

The first thing that stood out however, was a drawing of a creature on the wall right behind the reception desk, with a speech bubble saying ‘Welcome’. Moxxie was able to identify the creature as ‘Huggy Wuggy’ one of the very many toys that had been produced by the Company during its active time.

The floor itself was decorated with white square tiles with an occasional, blue, red and yellow tile that brightening up the dull décor.

The entire room seemed to showed its age, as all the colours and decorations on the walls and floor were muted and the art on the wall was faded and the room also appeared to be littered with random stuff such as boxes and other clutter.

But Moxxie kind of did expect the factory to look like this, this place has been abandoned for 10 years after all. However, what he didn’t expect was the place to be so bright, as the lights for the room appeared to be on, bringing a bit of life into the room.

‘Why the heck is the power still on?” Moxxie thought to himself.

Moxxie not deterred by the weird questions he currently had, slowly made his way up to the reception desk, with his pistol gripped tightly in has hands and a determined look in his eyes as he made sure to continuously scan the area for any signs of movement, he knew someone was in the building somewhere, so he had to be as cautious as possible and keep an ear out.

Making his way closer to the desk, his attention was drawn to a green VHS tape on the front counter with dust covering, it making it difficult to read. Picking up the tape and giving the tape a quick blow revealed the words ‘Leith Pierre Closing’ written on the front of it.

‘Leith Pierre, isn’t that the old head of the company?’ Moxxie thought as began to glance around the rest of the room.

He was quick to notice that a conveniently placed green VHS player was just off to the right side of the room, with a tv attached to the wall right above it, which seemed to matched the same colour as the tape. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where the tape was meant to go.

‘Why is there just a video tape lying here though?’ Moxxie thought while looking it over.

Could this potentially be some sort of trap, after all who would leave a tape lying on the counter like this? especially after so long.

Moxxie was also aware that if he played the tape inside the building, the noise produced could attract anyone hiding nearby, and that could pose a serious problem.

Then again that could also be beneficial as it could lure out his potential target, and there was also an off chance that the tape could provide some much-needed information on the company.

Moxxie’s placed his hand under his chin as he contemplated what the better outcome could be for this situation. In the end Moxxie’s curiosity won out on this cautiousness, maybe he was hanging out with Blitz too much.

Walking over he placed the green tape into the VHS player, to be careful Moxxie made sure to back up just enough so he could watch the tape but also keep an eye out for any potential assailants.

A second later the tv screen transition from it’s a black display to any image that was mostly made up of static. Moxxie focused his eyes on the screen, he could just about see what appeared to be an image of an arm of some sort among the tv static.

‘The tape is old and presumably been just lying on the counter for ages, so the possibility that it didn’t work isn’t farfetched.’ Moxxie thought as he was about to move on. That was until he heard audio began to play.

"Hi, my name is Leith Pierre and I'm the head of innovation here at the Playtime Co. Toy Factory.” The voice on the tv said.

‘Must be an old introduction video for people visiting.’ Moxxie assumed now paying attention to the tape’s audio, while his eyes would occasionally dart around the room.

“If you're seeing this, then you're trespassing. Yeah, we play this little tape on loop whenever we close the factory for the day. So, trespasser, just to make you aware. While we pride ourselves primarily on our high-quality toys and excellent childcare, we also pride ourselves on our security.”

‘Or maybe not.’ Moxxie thought, as he continued to listen to the tape.

“For example, this facility is full of hidden motion triggers which, once set off, will turn on the factory's emergency alarms and directly contact the authorities! And that's one of the more tame aspects of our security system. No spoilers...”

“So, you've got my warning. It's not too late to turn around. I just hope you're certain whatever you're doing is worth it."

After that the screen went dark again, indicating its end. Moxxie made his way out over to the VCR, with a confused look on his face.
‘That’s a weird way to give a warning, why would a toy factory even need so much security, is the toy industry really that cutthroat?’

Moxxie was also sceptical about the security mentioned in the tape, why would you outright say you had hidden sensors and security? Unless you were trying to bluff and there actually wasn’t any.

Just from the way he heard Leith Pierre speaking, he kind of got the feeling he was a bit arrogant, so him bragging about it couldn’t be too far off.

Also, even if they did have security of that calibre, there was a strong possibility that that it would’ve most likely been inoperative after 10 years. Considering his client had already gone through the factory and the authorises appeared to have not shown up was further proof of that.

But he still was a bit curious what he could have meant by it being the ‘Tame’ method, what could the more serious method be, assuming Leith wasn’t lying.

‘I should be careful while exploring.’ Moxxie said as he prepares to go deeper into the facility. ‘I can’t assume anything, the last time I did I almost got my team in serious trouble.’ Moxxie thinking back to a certain Murderous family.

Moxxie's 'tour' of the factory continued, as he first checked the two side rooms next to the entrance. Both appeared to not have much in them, the room on the right was a small gift shop with nothing but empty boxes and the left room seemed to be a small security room with nothing inside.

Finding nothing of value in either of the side rooms, Moxxie began to follow the corridor past the reception desk. Following the path through a colourful archway and a small corridor he found himself in a big circular room, with a set of windows making a skylight, letting in the soon to be setting sun.

The walls were all decorated with an assortment of cut-outs of the companies’ mascots.

The room seemed to act as some kind of hub from what Moxxie could tell, as around the room were several doors with Plagues above them assumably saying where each one lead.

The words theatre, testing, innovation, cafeteria and power were all written on the plagues above the doors.

He could also see two other pathways that didn’t seem to contain a plague of any description and archways that lead to different areas.

The centre of the room had a raised circular platform with a few oversized blocks on top of it. An information board was also placed just in front of the platform, with several toy boxes that appeared to contain Huggy Wuggy toys littered about.

Looking just above the platform, the Imp saw a Playtime co sign, with several stage lights around it that beamed down onto the platform itself.
Moxxie gave the room a quick scan and found that almost all the doors appeared to be locked. The only way he could seem to take forward was one of the two doors with no plague above it.
Moxxie decided to go up to the platform and do a quick inspection.

The description seemed to just give a brief history of the Huggy Wuggy toy and how it helped make the company as big as it was today. Moxxie was also only now able to notice that the blocks placed out on the platform all had letters on them that spelled out Huggy when lined up in front of the description, which he thought was sort of fun and clever.

The history of the Huggy toy and the playtime company wasn’t anything Moxxie hadn’t already found out while doing investigative work.
It really only seemed fitting they would have something like this dedicated to the toy in the front entrance.

Picking up one of the boxes Moxxie was only now able to get a clear look at the Huggy Wuggy toys. The toy in question was covered in blue fur except for their hands and feet that were instead a yellow colour.

Its body was also slender and very lanky, with disproportionately long arms and legs with a weird triangular shaped head that contained two large eyes and a big, oversized smile.

The only piece of clothing that toy seemed to have on him was a thin bowtie around its neck, which Moxxie could help but think looked quite nice.

The rest of the thing though, Moxxie couldn’t help but be a little creeped out by it. It was just something about the dead eyes and the smile that just rubbed the imp the wrong way.

“I don’t get it, why would people be interested in a toy like this, what’s the appeal?”. Moxxie said to himself. 'Maybe I'm just too old to enjoy them now'.

The other thing that Moxxie was quick to notice and make him feel off, was the fact that all the lights appeared to just be shining down on a big empty space on the platform.

In the centre of the platform was a slightly small circle that was raised lightly more, the problem was there was nothing on it. It felt like something was missing for the area.

The lights were clearly supposed to shine down on something and yet there nothing in the spot.

‘Was something supposed to be here?’

That wasn’t really an important question now, the real big question was were was his client’s body?

Moxxie had enough of the room and with only one door he could take forward that was available to him know he decided to follow it.

Making his way through the archway lead down another hallway, the pathway was comprised of several more archways with a sign reading ‘MAKE-A-FRIEND’ placed above one. The hallway also displayed posters of the mascots, giving out motivation advice.

‘At the very least there’s only one way that P could have also gone down, so tracking him might not be a hard as I thought.’ Moxxie thought as he carried on along his path, through a corridor, down a maintenance hall and then through a big metal door until he seemed to find himself in a storage area of some description.

Multiple boxes were scattered around the room alongside multiple racks of shelves. Toy parts were also strewn about the room, across both the shelves and the floor. A conveyor belt system also was set up on the right side of the room.

‘This definitely wasn’t the scenic route’

Moxxie made his way through the room as he began to check around as he noticed that several of the toys were dismantled and thrown around the room haphazardly.

‘There has to be away out of this room somewhere’ Moxxie thought as he continued to scan around, P would have to have come through here assuming the imp hadn’t missed a door somewhere, which he doubted as he was very thorough.

He couldn’t seem to find another open door in the room anywhere, before he noticed that the conveyer belt door were the toys and other items go was open and appeared to lead through a vent.

Moxxie was a bit sceptical about going on to the conveyor belt. ‘Its highly unlikely he could choose to go in through the vent system, but a quick check wouldn’t hurt.’

Moxxie put his weapon back into his jacket pocket, before he began gripping on to the ledge of the conveyer belt and hoisted himself up to get on top and followed it along into the vent systems open hatch. Moxxie was quick to noticed that the convey belt took a sharp turn at a 45-degree angle, once inside the vent.

Not wanting to fall, he edged his way forward slowly to try and get a better look at what was down the other end of the conveyer belt.

However, as he edged his way forward, he failed to notice a small sensor across the side of the conveyor. As once his hooves moved across it, it triggered the conveyer belt to start moving, in a second Moxxie found himself being almost pushed over the edge.

“Oh, Crumbs!” was all Moxxie could say before he began to tumble his way down the vent. The Imp landed face first on the Convery belt as he felt himself the belt began to move him.
As he got up, he looked around the small vent as flashing red lights blared in his face and his ears. As the alarms went off, side compartments on the walls of the vent opened dropping toy parts on to the conveyer, and Moxxie’s face.

“OW” Moxxie said as the hard bits of plastic began to assault his noggin.

A few second later he’d reached the end of his journey as the vent opened into a new area as he began to slide out the vent and into an open tube filled with toy parts inside.

Immediately the Imp attempted to pull himself out, in fear of potentially more toys parts falling on top of him and hurting him. He made his way over to the edge of the tube, he tried to reach out but accidentally found himself falling out and a few feet straight onto the ground below.

*Thud* as Moxxie’s face hit the concrete. 'That didn't hurt much, but still.'

Moxxie took a second to pick himself up and readjust to his new environment and contemplate why he always found himself getting caught in these types of situations, at least no one was around to see it this time.

He began to turn back around to see that the vent he had exited from was in fact one of three similar vents that was feeding the toy parts into big tube-like devices. The one he had been put in fortunately was broken so he was easily able to climb out.

The tubes all seemed to have hatches on their front and levers were placed on the side of the devices. The hatch leading onto a conveyer belt that run alongside the tubes, that assumably would take the toy parts out.

Moxxie followed the conveyer belt as it appeared to lead through a series of three machines, with the conveyer belt next leading to another closed door that would take it to another area, once going through the machinery.

Looking above the machine, there were letters which spelt out ‘MAKE A FRIEND’. As well as a series of catwalks running just above the machines.

In the centre of the room appeared to be another description displayed, along with what appeared to be a button on some weird looking podium right next to it with the words ‘MAKE A FRIEND’ written on it.

He also noticed that all three of the big machines were decorated to look like faces with…googly eyes.

‘Wait, machines with googly eyes? Isn’t that what P said he last saw?’ That meant he must be close to where he got attacked.

Checking around the room some more, he saw the exit door in front of the machines. Deciding to try and leave the room he went up to try and find a way out. Whilst walking over he saw a message was on the door saying, ‘Nobody leaves without a toy!’, Moxxie was also quick to notice some kind of scanning device placed next to the door, indicated that it might be used to open the door.

Moxxie gave an annoyed sigh as he rolled his eyes, well guess he had no choice. There didn’t appear to be another way in or out of the room.

The universe it seemed, wanted him to have a toy and so he would have to get one if he wished to proceed. He turned back around and made his way over to the ‘Make-A-Friend’ machine.

Going back over to the description by the machine and he looked over at the button displayed right next to it. He raised his hand and raised over the button for a few seconds.

‘So, what do I just press this? I really hope people didn’t have to pay for these when they visited, that’s the kind of shit Lord Mammon would pull off.’

Moxxie hesitated for another second before pressing the button, the imp then watched as the three big tubes dispensed the colourless toy parts onto the conveyor belt, which took them into the machines.

He first watched as the colourless toy parts were then coloured as they entered the first machine, then began to get assembled as they entered through the second, the assembled toy then exited out of the third machine and the belt stopped moving.

Moxxie couldn’t lie he thought the whole process was fun to watch, he could see why the place was enjoyed by tons of people, as he began to walk over to his newly created toy.

On closer inspection of the toy, it looked like a cat, but it had features and a colour scheme that made it resemble more a bee then a feline. It was coloured yellow with several black stripes across its legs, body and tail, it also a set of antennas along with cat ears on the top of its head and small insect like wings on its back.

‘Why does this remind me of Beelzebub?’ Moxxie though, hoping he hadn’t accidently offended the Queen Bee.

Moxxie however couldn’t deny the appeal that the toy had. It looked cute and unlike the other toys he’d found, this one didn’t look that creepy and it was in pristine condition (Due to being brand new). He honestly felt it was at least worth keeping.

‘Well, it does say I can’t leave without getting a toy, maybe Millie will want it, or we can keep it for the baby later.’ Moxxie said has he began to pick up the fructiferous feline.

“Meow, meow, meow, meow, buzz!” Played from the toy as he began to pick it up, toy’s voice echoing around the room.

He made his way over to the door and placed the toy on the scanner next to it, a few bright lights began envelope the toy and a small monitor above the door, showed an image of the ‘BeeCat’ toy. A few seconds later the door began to slowly raise up. Moxxie took the toy off the scanner and put into his jacket, ‘I’ll find somewhere to put you when I get hom-.’

Moxxie’s thoughts were immediately interrupted upon witnessing the sight that greeted him on the other side of the door, his eyes growing wide as he quickly reached back into his jacket pocket and fumbled to pull out his weapon, before aiming it ahead.

On the other side of the door was another hallway like the others he had already been through, only the first section of the hallway was illuminated while the rest of the hall was swallowed up by utter blackness, that made the way forward hard to navigate.

But just in sight before the darkness was an horrific sight.

Blood, bones and guts were everywhere, with a few toys parts and mechanical parts thrown about the hallway, the walls were painted crimson.

Moxxie couldn’t even tell what he was looking at. He expected a dead body sure but not… this.

He’d been on a lot of different missions, with a lot more different types of circumstances, and some job… got messy. But he’d never seen anything this brutal before.

There was no way he would even be able to identify the body. There was practically nothing left.

As Moxxie began to take in more of the massacre in front of him, he was able to identify something just out of sight in the shadows.

It was the sound of crunching and grinding, the crunching of bones and to be more specific.

Someone or something was eating the body.

Was it even a person? Moxxie had never considered that the target could potentially have been an animal of some kind. Maybe a stray creature had taken up home inside the abandoned factory.

He couldn’t make out anything while it was concealed in the darkness.

This fact only fuelled the fear that was slowly building in the imp’s mind
as he began to visualise what the creature would even look like as his s head to fill in the blanks.

‘It tore apart this person, what could it be, it must have sharp claws and teeth, heaven knows what else its capable of.’

All these thoughts were starting to influence Moxxie, his arms began to slightly shake as he held his weapon, a few drops of sweat poured down his face and his breathing started to become more rapid and shallow, he could even begin to hear his heart in his ear.

He began to take slow and calculated steps backwards to provide more distance between himself and the creature, his pistol never lowering and never taking his eyes off the darkness, too afraid to even blink.

The only two noises that Moxxie could hear was the sound of entity chomping away at its meal and his own heartbeat. He started taken more steps before his fear began to increase once he realised something else.

The chewing noises had stopped.

Moxxie breathing began to become more rapid and his heartbeat became louder. His heart felt like a jackhammer, like it was going to burst out of his chest at any moment.

The utter silence in the dark hallway was then replaced by the sounds of growling noises that became increasingly louder.

He had been spotted.

Moxxie tried his hardest to keep his cool, he was a trained assassin, he’d dealt with worse. He knew that whatever was hiding could reveal itself any second and once it did Moxxie had to take the shot.

He steadied his breathing, making sure his hands were firm on the gun’s grip, his finger on the tigger ready to fire with the hammer pulled back.

As he took one last small step back, no sooner had Moxxie move, something fast had darted out of the dark hallway and directly at the Imp.

*Bang*

Without missing a beat, Moxxie fired his weapon and immediately jumped to the side to avoid whatever was charging at him. Moxxie could feel the air whoosh passed as the thing just brushed past him.

The thing appeared to stumble past Moxxie further into the make-a-friend room.

Turning around quickly Moxxie raised his weapon preparing to aim at the target.

But once he turned around Moxxie, could only look confused.

Now hunched over in the middle of the make-a-friend room was a big blue creature which Moxxie instantly recognised, he’d only seen it like five Minutes prior in the main area.

Huggy…. Wuggy?

Only this one was much bigger, it appeared to stand at around 17 to 18 feet by Moxxie’s rough estimate, making its lanky form all the creepier.

As it began to turn back around to face him, he saw the sweet innocent smile that was adorned on all the others of its kind was gone and was open, revealing several rows of very sharp jagged teeth, with bits of meat stuck inside of it and hanging out. The front of its blue body was also stained and covered red from the blood of it's victim.

Moxxie didn’t even know what to say about what he was looking at. You could've given hundreds of guesses for what the target could have looked like, but he never would have expected this.

On another quick inspection of the thing the sharpshooter was also able to notice a small bit of blood leaking from a small hole around the left shoulder of the creature.

His bullet had met its mark. Though it didn’t seem to have any effect on him, as it was still standing.

Both just seemed to look at each other for a few seconds, before the Huggy Wuggy let out an animal scream.

Moxxie’s questions would have to wait for now. The investigation was now over, and the assassin job had begun.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6 - A Tight Squeeze

No sooner had Moxxie readied himself, Huggy Wuggy had began to charge at him, his right arm raised as it attempts to hurt the imp.

*BANG*

Moxxie without missing a beat, fire his second round from his gun and immediately jumped to the opposite side of Huggy’s raise arm to dodge the attack.

The bullet met its mark, hitting Huggy in the chest area as he stumbled past Moxxie once again.

The way Huggy was moving around was making it a little harder to get a direct hit on him, but at least the bullets were still landing.

As the imp begins to steady himself, he twists his body around to fire another shot at Huggy. However, upon turning around Moxxie's eyes began to widened as he found that Huggy had already recovered from the shot to the chest and begun to charge at him again and was only a foot away from Moxxie, with his arm raised once again.

Moxxie had very little time to think about what to do, dodging this time might not be effective, but he couldn't thin of anything else as Huggy took another swipe at the imp. Moxxie with no time to think of a new plan, once again tried to avoid in a similar fashion as the first.

Only this time while Moxxie was able to avoid the attack, he felt his arm was suddenly empty and he could hear the distinct sound of metal object hitting the floor. Moxxie looked towards his hand a found that it his gun was not missing.

While Huggy hadn’t been able to swipe at Moxxie directly, his swipe had been successful in knocking the gun right out the imp’s hand, as it got nicked by the swipe.

Moxxie quickly turned his head, only to see his favourite weapon sliding across the factory floor and into the middle of the room.
In a panic Moxxie attempted to run over and retrieve it, but this idea was short lived as Huggy Wuggy had moved in the way, getting right between him and his weapon, blocking any chance of retrieving it at this point.

Looking up he was able to get a better view at his opponent. The first thing he was able to notice was the two new bullet wounds he was now sporting, in the torso and shoulder. However, despite the gunshot wounds and blood leaking from them, indicating a good hit, Huggy didn't think so, as he showed no signs of pain and it also appeared that he had not slowed down either.

This wasn’t good.

Without a weapon this would prove to be a problem, guns were Moxxie's specialty, without them he couldn’t work at peak performance. Not that he hadn’t lost or even dropped a few guns before while on a job, but that was why he always made sure to carry at least a few spare weapons.

While had started to take combat training with both his wife Millie and co-worker Loona, he doubted it would prove to be efficient against at target that so easily was shrugging off injuries like this.

Huggy Wuggy once again went for another attack and without a means to fight back properly, all Moxxie could do now was dodge. As Huggy came in for another swipe, the Imp attempted to avoid again.

*Swish*

However, this time Moxxie proved to be slower, as he peered down at himself only to see a slash across his trousers’ leg, exposing his red skin underneath. While the attack didn’t appear to have drawn blood or hit flesh, any closer and it might have been serious.

“Oh, this is my favourite outfit.” Moxxie said slightly annoyed and concerned.

‘This is bad, a bit closer and he would have got me.’ Moxxie thought as he started to panic. His calm demeaner had started to vanish once he lost his weapon and the creature was getting closer to hurting him with each attack and all the Imp could do was dodge now, he needed to think of a new plan and quick.

As Moxxie tried to think of a plan, Huggy had started to take another swipe at him.

*Swish*

“Arrgh.” Moxxie groaned in slight pain as he looked to find a small cut on his jacket’s shoulder.

Moxxie turned to look at Huggy once more, as he did his gaze turned to right behind where Huggy was standing and he could see his weapon laying just a few feet right behind the blue creature. Huggy had moved back around to where his Gun was and was once again blocking his path to his weapon.

In that instant, Moxxie had an idea, but it was risky and in any other situation he wouldn’t even dream of doing it.

Huggy Wuggy stepped towards the imp once again, his figure towering over the imp as he approached. Only this time Moxxie didn’t try to move, he just stood still as the blue toy got closer. Once Moxxie was in arms reach, Huggy raised both its arms up, ready to attack his prey once again.

Only at that very last moment Moxxie put his plan into action and dived forwards with his arms stretched out in front of him. Using his small size, he was able to jump right between Huggy’s legs and began to scurry across the floor to reach his weapon. He knew he had to be quick; the creature would be on him in about a second.

He saw his gun just a few steps away as he scrambled across the factories floor, reaching out his hand as he tried to grasp his weapon. But just as he reached it, he felt a sharp tug on his tail and his forward momentum grinded to a halt as he fell forward and he smacked his head on the floor with a small thud.

Moxxie felt his body being dragged across the floor for a brief moment before he found himself being hoisted up by his tail, now face to face with Huggy Wuggy as he dangled him by his tail like some cheap piñata.

He could hear the growls coming from the creature and feel the creature’s hot breath on his face. Moxxie watch as Huggy began to slowly open his mouth wider revealing several more rows of sharp teeth, the foul smell of flesh also hit Moxxie's nose as Huggy Wuggy pulled him closer towards his mouth, preparing to make him his next meal.

The creature however couldn’t fulfil this task, as he soon heard the click of a gun and found himself face to face with a pistol aimed directly as his face. It seemed that Moxxie was just able to pick up his gun before Huggy had successfully grabbed the imp.

*BANG*

The gunshot echoed around the room followed by the unholy screams of the blue mascot as a massive splatter of blood, exploded from the creature's face.

While Moxxie was unable to line up the shot perfectly, due to being both upside down and dangling, he was still able to land a shot into the creature's left eye.

Moxxie’s victory was short lived as soon the creature in a fit of pain and rage, began to fling the imp around violently by the tail before throwing him. The imp flew for a few seconds before he slammed against the one of the factories walls, all the air leaving his lungs, as he also began to feel a sharp pain his back as he peeled off the wall and fell to the ground, his pistol dropping beside him.

‘Oh right, in the diaphragm.’ Moxxie thought in pain as he braced both his hands against the floor and attempted to pick himself up, while gasping for air, that had HURT.

Luckily it wasn't the first time he’d been thrown into a wall, the only difference being this creature also wasn’t calling him ‘Fatty’.

He slowly looked up through the pain and looked at Huggy Wuggy, who was currently screaming in pain and clutching the eye that he had shot, he also noticed blood had began to seep down from under the hands creatures hands as he grasped its face.

If Huggy wasn’t angry at him before, he definitely was now.

He knew in a few second Huggy would once again attempt to attack him and while winded and hurt, he would be in trouble. He needed a few more seconds to recover before he could properly fight back.

Looking around for something that could assist him, he was able to notice a flashing light just to the right of him. The flashing light was located above the now open vent that the toys from the machine were supposed to go through.

It appeared to be big enough for him to get into to and it looked like Huggy wouldn’t fit. At the very least it could provide him with a few seconds.

Not wasting anymore time, the imp was able to push himself up, grabbing his gun and made his way over as quickly as he could while still recovering from the blow to the back.

Every step felt like a struggle as heaved his way over to the safe spot, he was too sacred to look back as he knew Huggy could no doubt be right behind him. His fear was confirmed once he started to hear Huggy Wuggy’s growls and they sounded lot more angrier now.

With one last burst of energy, he jumped into the open vent and turned around with his gun aiming, ready to fight back. Only for the doors to immediately close from behind him. Leaving Moxxie alone in an almost pitch-black vent.

Moxxie reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone to use its light. As the phone illuminated the darkness, he noticed that it wasn’t any different from the last vent shaft he was in.

Slowly Moxxie’s deep breaths returned to normal and he started to traverse the vents to find a way out. Now that he finally had a moment to reflect on his situation, he started to have questions.

‘What the heck did I just fight?’ Moxxie thought to himself, the answer appeared to change rapidly in the Imps head as the encounter went on.

When he first saw the carnage that the thing was responsible for, he suspected it to be an animal of some kind and not a human.

This answer was quickly proved wrong when he was able to see the thing for himself and he then suspected it was some kind of old robot used by the company. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had dealt with a robot on the job, thinking back to ‘Loo Loo Land’.

But that couldn’t have been the answer either, as it was shown that the thing had bled once shot, although it didn't show an immediate reaction to the bullets.

So, the only conclusion Moxxie could come to was that the target in question was just some guy in an old mascot costume, most likely some random homeless person or someone with mental problems that had taken refuge inside the factory and was also potentially on drugs of some description. That would explain both the lack of a reaction to the bullets and unstable reactions the creature appeared to be displaying.

If so, then this would change how Moxxie would have to approach the target.

The most important rule he’d learnt while being an assassin is always making sure to kill the target quickly and efficiently. Otherwise, you risk the change of the target getting away or even blowing your cover and alerting other people to your presence.
This meant making sure to hit a target in its vital areas and while that was easy normally, when inside a mascot costume it presented a unique challenge of being unable to locate the vital points, effectively.
Granted you could still make a rough estimate, but it did still pose a small problem.

The other issue was the possibility of the target either being ‘not of sound mind’ or using human narcotics.
Another important rule when doing an assassin job is being able to predict what the target is going to do next so that you can prepare. While the target is unstable it becomes more harder to accurately predict what they would do next, leading to a higher chance of getting hurt.

The use of certain drugs also meant that the target might be unable to feel pain properly, or just mitigate it, something Moxxie had noticed was true about his current target. This could turn a simple job into a much harder one as the target posed a bigger problem and wouldn’t go down as easily.

Moxxie still remembers one such mission where I.M.P had to kill the leader of a drug cartel, only for him to fall into a pile of his own drugs and go on a rampage. The guy kept refusing to die and it almost felt like he wouldn’t (At least until Blitz used that rocket launcher).

While these things, individually wouldn’t normally pose a problem, they both had the effect of costing both time and ammunition when on a mission, and currently Moxxie only had 4 bullets remaining, with not back up or additional weapons to rely on.

So, if he wanted to kill this thing, he needed to be extremely careful. A single wrong move could prove to be fatal for him in this case.

Moxxie began to walk further down the vent shaft, his phone illuminating the path forward, as his hooves clunked on the metal floor, the vent system seemed to branch out into different paths as Moxxie made his way further through.

‘Well at least this conveyer belt isn’t moving.’ Moxxie said trying to look on the bright side of this situation.

As he moved through the vents a bit further, he was soon able to hear something ahead. It was the sound of the metal walls rattling and clanking, he didn’t take long to figure out what was doing it as he soon noticed his tall, blue and creepy target manoeuvring down the vent shaft in front of him. Its figure crouched down so he could fit inside.

‘Oh, crap it’s in the vents now, at least it saved me the trouble of looking for him.’ Moxxie thought as he raised his gun again to hit the target dead on. ‘Now all I have to do is sho-’ Moxxie paused as he realised an important detail he nearly overlooked.

‘Shit, I can’t shoot in the ventilation system.’

Shooting a gun in this enclosed metal space would cause the gunshot to echo off the walls and potentially damage his ears and could even lead to permanent loss of hearing. A bullet being fired also had a high chance of ricocheting off the vent’s walls and hitting him instead.

The only solution would be finding a way out of the vents first, so he put his gun back into his jacket pocket and began to run down another vent path, away from Huggy.

The vent twisted and turned as Moxxie tried to Navigate his way through the place properly. Every wall looked the same, with multiple paths to choose from and the occasional flashing red light adding to the tension of the chase.

All the imp could hear was the sounds of Huggy also making his way through the vents as it relentlessly pursed its prey, the sound of clanking and banging metal in his ears as he tried to find a way out.

The only silver lining to this whole ordeal was the fact that due to Huggy’s immense size, it made it difficult for him to properly fit into the vent and so they had to hunch down and pull himself along using his arms, which greatly effected his speed. A problem that the imp didn’t suffer from.

‘I guess being little proved to be a viable component in this mission.’ Moxxie thought trying to keep a cool head while being hunted down by the creature behind him.

His chase lasted for a bit longer as Moxxie desperately tried to find anyway he could to get out, he didn’t want to use the gun, but at this point he was contemplating if it would come down to that being the only option.

This all changed once one of the maintenance doors decided that Moxxie was having too much of a good time and closed right in front of him, leaving Moxxie trapped at a dead end.

Moxxie turned back around, as he began to hear Huggy getting closer. Shortly after he was able to see the creatures face appear from out of the shadows and was making his way towards the Imp, its one good eye almost seemed to pierce into his soul as he made his way towards his trapped target.

Moxxie didn’t want to do it, but it looks like he had no choice as he reached into his jacket for his gun. The options right now were between a potential bullet wound and ear damage verses guaranteed death.

But just before he could fire his gun, the door next to him opened once again.

‘Must think I’m a toy or something’ Moxxie thought, stashing his gun back into his pocket and diving into the now open door as he began to run as fast as he could through the open shaft, with Huggy Wuggy still in close pursuit.

As he ran further down the path he looked ahead and noticed that the conveyor belt took an incline upwards, which would make it more difficult to move up.

“Oh, COME ON!” Moxxie shouted as he began to approach the incline and began to scale the conveyer belt. As he began to run up it it he also started to slow down due to the added effort needed and the imp started to feel tired.

This tiredness was short lived as he turned around and saw Huggy Wuggy was getting closer. In that very moment Moxxie doubled his efforts, his legs going into overdrive as he began to go as fast as possible up the vent, he clenched his teeth and shut his eyes as he went faster, his legs were aching and begging him to stop, but he refused.

‘G-got to keep going until I reach the to-.’ Moxxie’s thoughts were cut short as due to his eyes being closed, he was unable to notice that he had not only reached the top of the vent, but he also didn’t notice that it took a noise drive straight down.
Moxxie had no time to prepare as he once again found himself falling down a ventilation shaft.

*Crash*
*Clank*
*Ding*

Moxxie’s body was thrown and tossed around as began to fall through the ventilation system, only coming to an end once he found himself flying through the ventilation exit.

Once he exited his body rolled a bit further before crashing into a broken part of the conveyer which halted all his momentum.
His head was spinning, but he still wasn’t out of danger and needed to be ready. Once he able to stand up and adjust himself, he was able to get a clearer view of the new location he was in.

It was a massive room suspended above a dark abyss, with no bottom in sight. The only footholds were a few metal catwalks that ran through the room and some conveyer belts with metal railings to prevent things from falling, along with multiple pipes and wires that also ran through the room.

The conveyor belt Moxxie was on met its end here. It seemed like part of the belt had been destroyed and prevented Moxxie moving anywhere further.
The catwalks stretching across the room were also too far for Moxxie to reach.

So, he was trapped.

The only other area even near him was the conveyer belt running just above the one he was on, that for some reason had a massive box on it.

Moxxie didn’t think about it as his attention when back to the vent door he had just came out of, he knew that Huggy Wuggy would most likely burst through it to continue its pursed of him any second now.

Now free of the vents and no having to worry about damaging his hearing or himself, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his trusty pistol and aimed at the vent door in front of him.

Judging by the speed Huggy could move, Moxxie estimated it would take at least 2...no 1 and a half seconds for the creature to close the gap and reach him.

When he fought him in the other room, he at least had the option to dodge out of the way. On the positive side Huggy also wouldn’t be able to avoid now either. This meant it would come down to how good of a shot Moxxie was, and he was pretty good.

‘I’ve only got 4 bullets left’ Moxxie thought, as he tried to calculate the best possible use for each bullet.

The few seconds he spent observing the vent, felt like ages, as he prepared for the inevitable. Sweat began to pour down his face as he took one last deep intake of breath and aimed his weapon firmly at the door. His teeth clenched and his eyes focused intently at the door.

He was ready.

Not a second later, the vent door in front of him was blasted off as the blue creature charged at him full speed attempting to close the gap.

*BANG*
*BANG*

While the creature was fast, Moxxie’s trigger finger was faster as he shot two bullets directly at the creature landing another shot in the torso and one in its leg, its speed making it hard to accurately hit the target.

Moxxie watched as the creature appears to stumble from both the gunshots, as it started to lose its footing and begin to tumble and roll towards the imp.

Moxxie didn’t know what to do as Huggy continued to roll towards him, he couldn’t get a clear shot on its head with its currently position, he didn’t have much time to react as they both slammed right into each other, breaking through the end part of the conveyor and sending them both flying.

Both Moxxie and Huggy began to fall through the air. Moxxie immediately slammed onto the metal catwalk right below him and almost bouncing of it into the abyss, fortunately the imp was quickly able to wrap his tail around the railings to prevent the fall.

Huggy hadn't suffered much better, as due to having more momentum, he had travelled a little further then Moxxie and had landed on a few of the row pipes that ran through the room, directly across from the metal walkway Moxxie was on.
This left a gap separating the two from each other across the bottomless abyss.

Moxxie tried to pull himself back up but due to injuries he had accrued in the fight so far and the fatigue starting to set in, he was having bit of trouble. As he looked up, he was also quick to notice that he had dropped his gun on impact with the metal floor and it was currently on the catwalk right above him.

Quickly looking to his side, he noticed that Huggy was also trying to pull himself up on the pipes.

Moxxie knew he had to reach his gun quickly before Huggy got a chance to attack again. Using the last of his strength he pulled himself up using his tail and was able to get himself back onto the catwalk.

He turned quickly and noticed Huggy was slowly making his way across the pipes towards him as the blue monster tried to maintain his balance on the way over. He knew Huggy would attempt to jump over the gap to get him once again and he had to stop it.

Moxxie had to do it now, as he jumped and slide across the catwalk and picked up his gun before rolling over onto his back with his gun draw and pointed the gun in the direction of Huggy.

At the same time Huggy had reached the end of the pipes and jumped over to reach the catwalk where Moxxie currently was.

Everything seemed to go in slow motion for Moxxie as Huggy leaped through the air. But Moxxie didn't seem worried anymore, in fact a small smirk began to appear on the imp’s face.
‘You may be tough to shot while on the ground because you can move around, but while in the air you can’t change your momentum or direction.’ Moxxie thought as he lined up his shot and pulled the trigger.

*BANG*

With the 6th bullet shot from his pistol, Moxxie was finally able to land a clean hit right in between Huggies eyes. The creature went motionless as its body slammed right into the railing, a huge splash of its blood painting the catwalk in the process. It then proceeded to almost peel of the side of the walkway and fall as it hit multiple pipes on the way down before disappearing into the darkness below.

Moxxie arms fell to his side as he took a few deep breaths while laying on the sidewalk, it was over.
He was tired, but it was over.

A small smile appeared on the Imps face.

‘Ok, the target has been dealt with’ Moxxie reached into his pocket to pull out his phone ‘All I got to do is take a picture…. of the target…. that just fell…. into the bottomless pit… …shit.’
His smile quickly leaving his face upon the realisation.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7 – Case closed (& then opened)

“Moxxie, you’re an idiot” the imp said to himself, he'd been saying it to himself for what felt like the past 10 minutes, still laying down on the catwalk as he looked towards the ceiling above, currently contemplating his choices.

He was so close to getting the job done right, everything had gone swimmingly and he'd been able to successfully complete his first solo mission. However, at the last minute something had to happened to ruin the imps good time, the target had fallen into a bottomless pit and now he found himself unable to get a photo of his target, meaning…no proof for the kill.

This meant no way to proof that the target had been successfully killed and that meant no pay out for the job at hand.

‘A massive reward as well for doing the mission, just…. gone’ Moxxie thought sadly.

All his enthusiasm for doing the job had immediately been squashed by the revelation, all the joy gone and deflated like a punctured tire.

He finally decided to picked himself up off the ground so he could sit upright on the metal grate, his face filled with disappointment and frustration. All directed at himself.

As he looked around, he caught notice of the blood stains on the catwalk, the last remnants of his kill, not enough to proof to confirm and just a reminder of how much he had failed his task.

‘Blitz is going to hate you for this you know?’ Moxxie thought to himself angrily, ‘Loona is going to laugh, Stolas will be annoyed, and Millie will be-’

“NO” Moxxie shouted to himself as he tried to clear his head of the negative thoughts. “No Moxxie, Millie won’t do anything, and Blitz will understand, he said so himself, it was an honest mistake.” Moxxie said trying to reassure himself.

He remembered what Blitz had said to him before he went off on the mission, how he trusted him and how they all make mistakes.
He picked himself up off the ground and began to put his gun back into his jacket pocket, before reaching back into his other pocket to retrieve his phone, hoping to call Blitz and find at least some way to remedy this situation.

“Just give Blitz a call and see if we can fix this, we could always jus-.” Moxxie’s eyes lit up in horror as searched through his pockets but couldn’t feel his phone in his pocket.

His breathing became sharp again as he frantically rummaged through all his pockets in hopes; he’d just misplaced his phone in the wrong one. But while searching through all of them he was still unable to find it, which caused Moxxie to begin to panic.

“W-Where could it be? I had it a second ago while I was in…” Moxxie words started to trail off as he began to look up from the metal walkway, all the way up to the area he had previously entered from at the top of the room.
“…the vent” Moxxie said as he started to have the realisation.

Moxxie now only realises that he never got the chance to put his phone away when he was being chased through the ventilation system. He last remembered having it, just before he started to fall through the vents and got thrown into the room.

In his frantic avoidance of Huggy he must have dropped it and didn’t even realise due to the circumstances he was in. That meant it must still be up in the vent system. Moxxie began to search around the room, a desperate attempt to find anything that help him reach back up to the ventilation above.

But as his eyes scanned around the room, they stopped upon noticing a small object on the catwalk further away from him, right near where the imp had previously landed. A small rectangular object, with the words ‘I Don’t cry, I sing’ displayed on the back with a design that looked like a dressing room, displayed around the words.

It was his phone.

Moxxie brought his hand up and wiped the sweat of his face as he breathed a sigh of relief. Looks like his phone has slide down with him and against all odds had just landed on the catwalk with him. Moxxie didn’t really want to think about the odds that it just happened to fall down here and not into the abyss along with his dead mark.

Moxxie strolled his way over to pick up his Hell phone.

“Oh, that was close, for a second I thought I lost my Phon-.” Moxxie’s relief was once again cut short upon picking up his hell phone.

While there wasn’t any visual damage on the back of the phone, upon picking it up and turning it around he noticed that the screen had several cracks in it. Which Moxxie could only assume had happened as it smacked into the vent’s walls on the way down.

Moxxie was also quick to remember he had felt himself landing on something when he fell on the metal grate, which he didn’t pay much mind to at the time.

Moxxie pressed his thumb down on the screen to turn the phone on.

Nothing happened.

Moxxie almost felt his heart atop.

“No, no, no.” Moxxie repeatedly said in an almost whispering voice as his eyes began to franticly look over the phone and continued to press down on the screen, in vain hope that it would magically turn back on.

But it didn’t turn on, not even a single sound was produced from the device, as he kept looking over trying to see if there was any indication that it could still function.

He stopped pressing the button and just stood still in stunned silence, His pupils shrunk down while his hand dropped down to his side with his phone still firmly within it. As he came to a horrible realisation.

His phone was broken.

Meaning he couldn’t call Blitz.

So…. he couldn’t get back home.

He was trapped.

“Fuck……. FUCK!” Moxxie said now all his misery and sadness now replaced with boiling anger, his pupils returning to normal before shifting from black to red as he began to look around the area, he needed to find something, anything to release his anger into.
The only thing near him was the metal railing, which Moxxie immediately slammed his leg into it.

*CRASH*

The metal railing bended and almost tour off from the rest of the walkway by the shear amount of force that the wrathful Imp had inflicted upon it.

Having released a lot of the built-up tension Moxxie was able to calm down, or at the very least subside it. The red in his pupils shifted back to their normal black as he began to stroll back and forth on the walkway while both his hands grasped his head, with a look of panic and distress on his face. His situation now going from a relatively small size cockup to a full blow disaster in a matter of seconds.

Moxxie just couldn’t believe how quick the entire mission had gone wrong, and now on top of everything else that happened. he was now stranded AND needed a new phone; he almost felt like crying.

Moxxie rubbed to top of his head and took deep breaths and tried to remain calm as possible. He knew this was a problem, but he needed to stay calm, he couldn’t afford to have a panic attack here, with no one around to help him it could spell more trouble.

He knew Blitz would try to reach out to him at some point to check on him, but the only problem was when that was, it might take a while. He had told Moxxie to take his time on this job.

Even if Blitz did call him to try and check-up, there was no guarantee that he would show up. In their line of work there were times when their phones had to be put on silence when doing serious missions, something that happened on multiple occasions, so the idea of Moxxie not answering a call wouldn’t be something that Blitz would find odd.

This meant he could be in the human world for a week by himself, which posed a few problems for the imp.

At the current moment, the first thing the imp could focus on was making his way out of the factory.

Slowly he made his way across the catwalk, the only sound accompanying him being the clanking of his hooves on the metal walkway as it echoed through the room.

Also with the adrenaline starting to subside, he also was starting to feel the pain from fighting Huggy was beginning to set in, and the rail kicking.

The imp began to look around the area ahead, he still had no idea what the room was even for, tones of catwalks, a dark empty abyss below, the giant flower……. wait what?

Looking further ahead, passed the maze of wires, pipes and catwalks, Moxxie was able to notice a massive painting of a red flower on the wall on the other side of the huge room. The flower was made up of 4 red petals with black centre, which appeared to be painted right over a door.

Moxxie honestly didn’t know what to make of it. It stood out among everything else in the room.

‘Why is there a flower painted on the wall, and why does it look so…. familiar?’ Moxxie thoughts were then drawn to something in his pocket as he began to go through the items that he had inside before he pulled out the note he found in the client’s car outside.

He began to unfold it, and sure enough he brought the paper up to match it with the flower he saw ahead. Sure enough they were the same flower.

‘Wait, so is this where P was supposed to go?’ Moxxie thought as he tried to make sense of what was even going on.

While investigating the area, he almost completely forgot about the note and didn’t think it held any real meaning. But now as he stared at what was in front of him it started to raise a lot of questions.

Like whom even sent the letter? It was a question that Moxxie had when he first asked the client.

Was the guy in the Huggy costume the one who sent the letter?

If that was the case, then that could mean the room ahead is where he might have lived or worked, there was no way of knowing for sure unless he checked and at this point, he not reason not to, the room ahead was the only area he could access.

Making his way across the catwalks a bit quicker, he was able to get a better look at the poppy painting as he got closer. But he now noticed that it wasn’t the only ‘Decoration’ present, as several words were also painted across the poppy such as ‘Go Back’, ‘Turn Around’ and ‘Danger’ in red, yellow and blue paint, along with several arrows of the same three colours pointing away from the door to emphasize the point.

But that wasn’t the only thing that caught his attention, just before the door were several toys strung up by rope dangling on either side of the catwalk leading up to the door, including a small green robot, a few red dinosaur toys and even a few of the bee toy he made, all with varying degrees of damage. It was like some weird messed up art piece.

‘Ok, someone doesn’t want me going in there’ Moxxie thought to himself a little creeped out by the weird display in front of him.
But Moxxie didn’t have any other options now, no other paths he could go down and so against all the warnings laid out in front of him, he strived forward to the door.

Slowly he made his way up to the ‘poppy’ door and with no way as actually reaching the handle normally, he decided to use his long tail to reach out and wrap around the handle before pulling the door open. fortunately, the door was unlocked as he began to slowly open it as he braced himself for what could be on the other side.

Moxxie looked inside the room, and he just seemed… perplexed?

On the other side was a small hallway that only contained a single staircase that descended downwards. But what caught his attention was the fact that on other side of the door old lights and wallpaper?

‘Ok, I wasn’t expecting this.’ Moxxie exclaimed and confused at the entire scene in front of him, as he made his way forward and continued to observe the weird scenery. Slowly he started to descend the staircase, he was also quick to noticed that the stairs were made of wood in complete contrast to the rest of the factory. It honestly was weirding out Moxxie the more he tried to make sense of it.

As he got to the bottom of the staircase, he looked ahead and found that it led down a much longer hallway with the same lights and wallpaper plastered on the walls.

‘What is this doing in a factory?’ Moxxie thought, another question added on to his growing list of questions, as he continued to stroll down the corridor, glancing from side to side and taking in the weird scenery.

It was very creepy to him, not being helped by the dim lights, that just barley illuminating the path ahead as he made his way further down the confusing hallway, a soft melody also started to come into earshot as Moxxie traversed further, which wasn't helping the imp's options of the place.

Moxxie didn’t even know how to describe what he was feeling currently, it felt like he was lost, or rather the place itself was lost. It was like everything in the area was pulled out from somewhere completely different and just… ‘placed’ inside this old factory. Moxxie had never had a feeling like this before.

As he came to the end of the hallway it opened into a new area. Observing the surroundings Moxxie was quick to notice the room contained a weird assortment of items, such as a cabinet, several blue pillows and a large doll house in the corner.

It looked like a kid’s room.

Moxxie at this point didn’t know what to say and at this point he felt like he would just be repeating his questions. So, he just decided to move on forward and continue making his way through the room.

As he made continued through, he noticed there was a door just peeking out behind the cabinet. Moxxie went over and moved around the cabinet to try and use the door handle.

It was locked, because of fucking course it was, as Moxxie rolled his eyes.

Upon a closer inspection of the door, Moxxie was able to notice two things that stood out about it, the first thing he noticed was that the keyhole was designed to look like a poppy flower.
The other weirder oddity was the fact that both the locker and the door handle were remarkably lower to the floor compared to other doors, in fact he could reach the door just fine without any assistance, almost like the door was designed with a smaller person in mind.

‘This place just keeps getting more confusing, the sooner I leave the better.’

The imp did contemplate just using his pistol to blow the door lock off, but with only one bullet left in his gun, it would be a waste, and he would rather save it for something more important than a door. So continued to explore the rest of the area.

On the other side of the room was another hallway like the last one. With the same décor and wallpaper covering the walls. The only difference was at the end of the hallway the last pairs of lights had a dim pink glow instead of a yellowish one that all the others had, and the there was a massive set of double doors at the end.

Moxxie just had a bad feeling about this as he carefully made his way down the new corridor and started to get a strange feeling about the door at the end, a feeling he couldn’t shake.

It was a feeling that Moxxie started to get as he started to descend the staircase but had steadily increased over time as he went further.

It was a feeling like he shouldn’t be here, like he wasn’t supposed to see any of this.

The feeling was causing his body to shiver, not helped by the melody that had slowly been getting louder as he got closer to the wooden door. As he approached it all just felt off, as if the door’s very presence was threatening the imp.

The only evidence on what was on the other side was the pink lights from the other side that emanated from the bottom of the door and the melody that was coming from within. Every moment that passed, made the idea of just shooting the door feel a lot more enticing to the imp.

He closed his eyes and with one last deep intake of breath Moxxie braced both his hands on the doors wooden frame and pushed, to his luck (Or misfortune) the door seemed to be unlocked.

As the doors departed the deem pink glow radiated through the now open doorway blinding Moxxie for a split second, as he began to adjust and make sense of his new environment before him.

The room on the other side was similar in design to the others before, this one however was in worse condition. The same wallpaper decorated the walls, only in here it was damaged with several parts peeling off the walls at random points across the room, giving off the impression the room hadn't been used in ages.
The entire room was also illuminated in the same pink glow as the hallway, the ceiling light displaying different patterns as they danced across the room to the melody.

But the most notable thing in the room was a massive case placed in the centre of it, while Moxxie couldn’t make out clearly what was inside, due to a combination of both the dim lighting and the height of the case blocking his view. He was able to see what appeared to be some kind of small figure visible behind the glass of the container.

As Moxxie approached the case, he tried to get a closer look to what was inside but still had trouble getting a closer look. He figured he needed something to give him a bit more height.

The imp put his hand under his chin to think of a solution, before he noticed in the corner of the room was a small desk. Making his way over Moxxie grabbed onto the legs of the desk and pulled it across until it was right in front of the case. Once that was done, he pulled himself up on the wooden desk.

Now that Moxxie had a better view, he was able to get a closer look at what was behind the case. He was able to now see that the figure in question was a doll, only a bit shorter than he was.

Though it was a little tricky at first to see the colours completely in the dim pink light of the room, Moxxie was able to make out that the doll had pale white skin and curly red hair that was placed into two ponytails with blue bows. She also seemed to have red lipstick, red checks and freckles (Which Moxxie liked). She was also wearing a very nice detailed blue dress with a blue bowtie tied around her neck.

Now that he was able to get a better view of what inside the case, it only took a few seconds to realises what he was looking at.

It was a Poppy Playtime doll.

One of the most important toys in playtime co’s history, not only was it one of the first toys they had ever made but, it was also one of their most popular.

The combination of the lights, melody and the case made the whole thing look like a shrine. Moxxie could only assumed it was set up by the weird guy in the costume as some sort of place of worship.

Moxxie could also sort of understand the appeal of this toy, even though he wasn’t the target audience he could see the quality that went into making the toy, its design was Definity give a lot of work and was made with people with a love for the craft. However, his inspection of the toy led him to noticed something that caught his attention, grasped in the toys hand.

It was a key.

‘Maybe this is the key, that can open that door back there’ Moxxie thought as he started to examine the case. His eyes moved over to the handle on the side of the case, that presumably would be able to open it.

Moxxie rubbed his hands together before he grasped onto the handle of the case with both hands and pulled. It appeared to be more stuck then the imp had first thought as he tried to pull harder to get the case to open. With a bit more force Moxxie was able to open the case, exposing the doll to the outside world.

The case didn’t appear to be as secure as Moxxie had though as what appeared to be a weird dust flew out of the case and blew straight into Moxxie's face, causing him to slightly cough, forcing himself to shut is eyes as he brought up his arm to waft away the weird dust.

Once the coughing had ended and he could open his eyes, they fell back on the key still firmly grasped by the doll and so he reached his arm over to grab it.

But as he did, his eyes began to feel a little heavy and his arms started to feel weaker suddenly. Moxxie had no idea where this drowsiness came from as he tried to keep his head straight.

Suddenly the lights around the room began to flicker on and off, for a few seconds. Turning his attention back to the doll’s face, he could have sworn in between the flickers of light that her eyes were starting to move.

The flashing went on for another 2 seconds before the lights seemed to blow out, leaving Moxxie in utter darkness.

The imp’s mind began to feel heavier; he fought to try and keep himself awake in the darkness, but for some reason he had a really hard time doing it. Possibility a combination of both the fight from earlier and the melody that still filled his ears.

However, in the end it seemed that Moxxie lost the fight and began to drift off, but as he did, he heard a voice from the middle of the dark room.

“Y-you’ve opened my case.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deep below, in the depths of the factory. A giant room was laid; the place was almost completely covered in monitors and almost hide the walls themselves behind them.
The room was dimly lit, save for the light produced by the monitors themselves.

Most of the monitors were currently turned on, each one displaying a different area around the playtime co factory.

Siting in the middle of the room was a figure, his body shrouded almost completely by a dirty white lab coat, that was torn from constant years of use.

The only parts of the person that were visible were their mechanical hands and legs and peeking out from under the hood was the figure’s face, a Tv monitor with an eye displayed amidst a purple background.

The figure watched all the monitors, as he glanced from one side to another, observing them with boredom.

On most day this would be the norm; however, the last few days had proven to be quite different as something or rather someone had caught his interest in a select few of the monitors.

Playing on one of the screens was a video of a strange unknown individual and Huggy Wuggy. The person watched the entire Monitor with interest, not really saying or doing anything as he let the video play through. He glanced across from one monitor to the next, following along with the adventure this new individual had taken with Huggy Wuggy before the person had done something he didn’t think anyone would do. As he witnesses Huggy falling into the pit and out of the cameras view.

“Well” A robotic male voice said from the individual, cutting through the room like knife through flesh. “This is indeed an interesting development.” He said as the video displayed began to remind and play over again.

“Oh, 1170, I never thought I’d see the day you would be outwitted.” He said disappointed.

It was only the other day that another individual had entered the factory and was almost immediately eliminate by Huggy, now not a day later a new person enters and not only was he able to avoid Huggies wrath, but they were even able to best him, something which immediately caught the person attention.

Although he was having a hard time identifying what the individual even was, it had strange horns on its head and was definitely too small to be a normal human, it looked like one of toys that playtime would have made, although he doesn’t recall the company making something resembling that.

‘Am I misremembering an experiment I conducted, or is this another experiment made from a toy produced after my ‘Betrayal’, that I would have no knowledge of?’ The person questioned as he brought his metal arm up to the bottom of his screen face. He doubts he would misremember such a thing, especially for such a seemingly worthwhile experiment to just not catch his attention.

‘Although that does add the question of where this individual has been hiding this whole time, perhaps a resident of that ‘Safe Haven’ that’s only just decided to explore the factory?’

He moved his head over towards another set of monitors in the room, all of them displaying various areas near the front entrance of the factory. “Intriguingly, it appears he entered through the front entrance and not from inside the factory itself, Unfortunately, I’m unable to determine where from exactly, as I sadly don’t have access to the cameras occupying the exterior of the building.” The robot said in an annoyed tone, he really was intrigued where this new toy had come from. But being unable to figure out where from was bugging him.

‘I only know of the one passage from the Shelf to the surface and I know he didn’t go through there, which means there could potentially be another, which I’ll have to located immediately.’

As he spoke another creature emerged from shadows from the side of the room and made its way towards the cloaked figure. It was a lionlike creature moving on 4 legs, its mane and coat were comprised of multicoloured strands of yarn that formed a rainbow mane. It had a spherical head with a large pair of cartoonish eyes and a big grin with three triangular teeth sticking out, with big sharp claws on each of its three toed feet. The large frame almost dwarfed the cloaked figure, yet this large lion moved towards the man with caution, like a animal moving towards their master.

Once it got within an arm reached, the robot raised his hand up, causing the lion to stop on the spot, before lowering its front half and wagging its behind in the air, a sound of anticipation emitting from the large animal.

The TV display on the figure quickly flicked to a display of the eye looking upwards before changing back to normal, seemingly to indicate an eye roll and motioned for the creature to come closer.

Seeing the gesture the robot did, the Lion moved closer to the person and as they got closer, the cloaked figure reached out his hand and began to pet the large lion on the head, a gesture that the lion seemed to enjoy.

‘Usually, I wouldn’t indulge in these gestures of…. affection, but I’m feeling generous today.’ The robot thought to themselves as they continued to scratch the lion.

“What do you think Yarnaby?” The cloaked figure, asked as he turned to the lion creature, now known as Yarnaby.

Yarnaby didn’t respond, it just seemed to appreciate the head scratches, as it began to roll around on the floor making noises that seemed to indicate it was enjoying itself.

Suddenly the cloaked figure suddenly felt a weird feeling as all the monitors almost seemed to flicker for a split second simultaneously before they all went back to normal.

“Hm, it appears the little guest has unlocked something he shouldn’t have, and something tells me a certain someone isn’t going to like that development.” The robot said as he continued to talk the Yarnaby creature.

“At the very least it should prove to be a bit of entertainment, and now with 1170 out of the way, it should be much easier for 1349 & 1351 to finish their task.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 8 – The Nightmare(s) Begins

It was morning at the playtime co factory, an average workday for everyone.

It was currently 10.58am inside the playtime co factory.

Inside one of the many rooms was a massive table with 5 seats placed around it, with currently only one occupied.

The man was an older gentleman, indicate by the few wrinkles on his face and his brown hair showing a few stripes of grey. Wearing a formal business suit in a black colour. The man had an aura of arrogance radiating off him as he took another annoyed look down at his wristwatch to check the time.

He had small name tag was on his suit with ‘Leith Pierre’ was written on it. He was the head of innovation at the playtime co factory and currently the head man in charge.

Leith Pierre groaned as he sat down at his seat at the table and adjusted his glasses and rubbed his head in mild frustration. Today was the day he and the other higher ups had their meeting, well he’d already been in a meeting already today, but that was for the discussion on the toy and manufacturing side of things.

This next meeting was a more secret one that the true higher ups had, to discuss the more ‘discrete’ actions that the company participated in. He hated them, it was just another moment to deal with the stress of all the new issues that had occurred over the factory, not currently being helped by the lack of said higher ups not being here.

‘They should be here in a few minutes, I said at 11am and I expect them to be here.’ He said as he once again to a quick look down at his watch.

No sooner had he checked his watch again had the doors to the meeting room opened and two more men and a women walked in a began to take their seats around the table.

The first was a rather tall and intimidating gentlemen with brown hair, wearing a formal black suit. The man held a very professional demeanour, his eyes seemed to glare around the room as he took his seat. The name tag on his suit reading ‘Eddie M.N.R’. He was the head of Research.

The second male was a much smaller person in comparison with black hair, his eyes seemed to dart around the room as he quietly sat down. Leith could tell he didn’t really want to be here. He was wearing a more standard yellow shirt with grey trousers like most of the other employees of the Factory. His name tag read ‘Jamie B. Honay’. He was the current head of security.

The female had a more of a kind and nice presence about her. Much younger than the other people in the room with long flowing brown hair. Her attire was blue business suit with a white shirt underneath, with a name tag reading ‘Stella Greyber’. She was head of the Playcare.

Once everyone sat down Leith down at his wristwatch one more time.

“10.59am, good to know you just made it in time, so let’s get started on this meeting then we can get back to our duties.” Leith said to the individuals everyone around the room, hoping to just get this all out of the way. Though on another glance of the room, he could see they were missing someone else. But that particular individual was only needed for a particular thing so he could get on with the rest of the meeting before he arrives.

“Eddie, how is the construction on the Shelf coming along?” Leith said as he addressed the man.

The man known as Eddie began to clear his throat before speaking “The construction of the Shelf is on schedule and should be done by the end of next month, although we did run into a small problem the other day.” Eddie said in a British accent, his voice going quieter when saying the last part of his sentence.

Leith rolled his eyes before looking back at Eddie slightly annoyed, “And… what would the problem be?” He really didn’t have time for more issues today.

Eddie sighed before continuing “Well, it seems Mr Silva decided to start asking questions about why we even needed the Shelf?”

Leith expression didn’t seem to change “Well, it doesn’t really matter he’s under contract to complete what we want.”

“Which I was quick to remind him, but it does raise concerns though, we WERE asking him to make a holding area, of course he was going to ask questions, I think we may have to consider 1160, if it gets bad.”

Leith gave an annoyed sigh as he began to rub his head, he knew it was only a matter of time before something like this would happen. “This is becoming more of a problem the longer it goes on, for the most part we’ve only had to deal the employees, now we have to deal with the people in the Warrenbach construction company.”

Eddie was quick to raise his voice to Leith.
“And we’ve been able to keep it under wraps every single time Leith, even if they do end up going to the authorities, we have a deal with them to keep this all quiet. Even if we didn’t, then it’s not like they’ll believe anything they say, not to mention we have plenty of ways to both move or even dispose of the evidence, if the need arises.” Eddie said to ease the annoyed head of the company.

“Well, I prefer if we didn’t to get rid of years of work just to avoid trouble and it’s going to become harder to explain some of the disappearances.” Leith said as he removed his glasses from his face. “We’re still dealing with the fallout from the Theatre incident; we DON’T need another on top of this.”

“Once the Shelf is built, those problems will be dealt with. Anyone that’s come into ‘possession’ of any of our secret has been dealt with quickly and quietly.”

Leith looked at Eddie before for a few more seconds, Eddie could have sworn he saw a slight hint of fear on the man’s face before it disappeared behind the annoyed expression the company head was more known for.

“That’s…not the main thing I’m concerned about Eddie, most of the people that have come to express what they’ve found has either been too scared to tell anyone else or too innocent to see the real scope of the whole ordeal. But, what if we eventually get someone that catches on to the whole thing, and instead of going to any kind of authority to expose us, they instead try to take matters into their own hands.” Leith says in a very serious manner.

Everyone in the room, soon looked around at each other as they slowly digested what the head of innovation was implying.

Eddie was once again the first to speak. “Are you suggesting that they might try to target us directly.” Eddie’s voice carrying a slight hint of the worry.

Leith slowly gave a nodded, confirming the rest of the company head’s thoughts, “Honestly, I’m surprise it hasn’t crossed anyone else’s mind yet. Everyday were getting more of these ‘Experiments’ going crazy, someone was bound to notice, it was bad enough when it was just the little ones, but now the ‘bigger’ ones are starting to get riled up.”

“So, what do we suggest we do about all this then?” Eddie asked, hoping that Leith must have thought of something, giving he’d been thinking about this for some time.

Leith gave another sigh as started to address the other people in the room, he knew what he was going to say would not be the best bit of news he’d given.

“I’ve already discussed the issue with Sawyer, and he said he’ll have something to provide for us, once he gets here of course.”

Everyone in the room felt a chill go up their spin at the mention of Sawyer’s name, a name that was already bad in all their eyes but had tipped over following the most recent ‘incident’, involving the company. Even Eddie, who through the whole conversation had kept up his professional demeanour found himself slightly shivering at the mention of the man's name.

“A-Are you sure you want him to do anything else? I don’t understand why we’re even keeping him around. He’s the reason we’re even constructing the shelf in the first place.” Eddie said as his calmer and collected personality seemed to almost fad away and was replaced by angry and worry.

Still Leith kept his cool, he knew how bad this would go but he had no choice. “I know, but rest assured once the Shelf is built and Dr White has what he needs it won’t be a problem anymore.”

“C-Can I bring up something now?”

Everyone in the meeting room now turned towards Jamie, who had only now just now decided to join the conversation that

Leith and Eddie had been having. Leith knew that Jamie didn’t really want to be here, the guy mostly kept to himself, but when he had something important to say he would say it.

“Very, well what do you want to say Jamie” Leith replied calmly, knowing it was the only way to really talk to the boy.

“W-Well, while we’re on about the Shelf, I want to talk about how many people I’m supposed to have down their working.

Because from what I’m seeing it’s not going to be many, and we’re dealing with some of the worst experiments this company has manufactured, I fear it won’t be an efficient amount for the job.” Jamie said before sinking back into his seat.

“It’s going to be one of the most top-secret areas in our facility, we can’t exactly have tons of people down there, the employees down there have to be trustworthy and monitored at all times, so we have to keep it small.” Eddie replied.

“Well, I think I’ll require more people, or are you forgetting about the time 1170 escaped the facility and we ended up losing 11 security personnel, if something like that happens down below, we’re going to have a problem, and he’s considered one of our ‘tamer’ ones.” Jamie was quick to say.

Leith decided to speak up on the matter “That incident was down to lazy staff and complacency about procedure, if you do your job, it should go well. Besides you have more state-of-the-art stuff down there to deal with any problems.”

“Yeah, besides it wasn’t 11 staff killed, it was six, five more went missing.” Eddie chimed in.
“Don’t try and spin it, those other five weren’t found because there was nothing left to find.” Jamie argued with the others.

“Ahem, am I interrupting?”

A new voice had entered the room, his sudden appearance causing Leith to almost jump out of his chair.

At the same time, everyone in the room all turned their heads around to the new person in the room. The man had a very creepy appearance with a worn-out lab coat on that appeared to be slightly ripped at the bottom and black scruffy hair and unkempt facial hair along with a very annoyed and tired look on his face.
It was Doctor Harley Sawyer, Head of the special projects.

Leith quickly recovering from his show of unprofessionalism took a deep breath before addressing the new approval.

“Ah, Doctor Harley Sawyer, pleasure for you to final arrive, I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show up.”

“Well, I was preoccupied with solving one of the many problems that require my expertise. But I’m forced to attend this meeting instead.” The man known as Swayer said to the room.

All the people sitting down apart from Leith himself, seemed to feel uneasy around Harley, he had a bit of reputation for being unnerving to work with, the only reason he was still around was due to his knowledge, otherwise no one would tolerate him.

Despite the unease, Eddie thought enough was enough and decided to speak up following the doctors’ comments.
“Well, all the problems were currently having all relate to YOUR experiments, dear Sawyer." Eddie said hostilely to the man in the lab coat.

Harley Swayer rolled his eyes with the same bored look on his face ignoring the man’s outburst, “I’m given limited time to construct multiple experiments, I’m not responsible if the work isn’t up to the standards with the time and equipment I’ve been provided.”

“A poor craftsman blames his tools.” Jamie replied quietly.

This comment however didn’t seem to sit well with the Doctor as he made his way over to the Jamie.

“If you require a steak dinner, the food demands the right amount of time to cook and the correct amount of ingredients to be added. IF you insisted that the meal, be rushed you shouldn’t be complaining about it being undercooked, but please continue to quote someone else’s words to give yourself an air of intelligence, dear Warden.” Harley Sawyer said in a condescending voice, as he kept pushing his face closer to Jamie’s during the conversation, so by the end of his rant both of their faces were just a centimetre away from each other.

Jamie didn’t have any kind of rebuttal, he just stood in stunned silence, too afraid of what the doctor would do next. Fortunately, Leith appeared to come to his rescue.

“Alright, that enough Sawyer.” Leith said, causing Harley to back away from Jamie as he started to address him.

“You know why I called you in here Doctor Sawyer, you said you had a solution do our ‘issue’ so I take it you’re here to present it?”

Sawyer turned his head back over to Leith. “Yes, I’ve also been made aware of the fact that your ‘Shelf’ is also going to have issues involving staff and your worried it won't be up to the task of handling my old failures, but luckily for you I’ve been able to formulate a solution to fix both problems.”

Everyone around the table looked at him waiting for him to give his answer.

“I’m aware of the fact that the scope of this project has led to questions being asked, People have begun to poke their noses where they don’t belong and your now worried about what sort of ‘ramifications’ it will bring.”

Sawyer strolled around the room while continuing his speech as everyone kept their focus on him. The Doctor made his way around the tables before placing both his hands on the table. “That’s why I'm proposing the production of a few new types of experiments; these will be suited for personal protection, as well as able to monitor various highly packed areas of the factory.”

Just from the way Harley was talking they could tell he was already working out all the details of what would go into these new ‘toys.’

The others in the room looked at each other, before Eddie decided to speak up again. “Wait, your solution is to have experiments follow us around all the time as protection?”

Jamie was also quick to speak up after, “You want to use experiments…. to guard the experiments?”

Sawyer looked back at the people in the room, but his focus was mostly on Jamie, “Oh, don’t worry Mr Honay, since you seem incapable of handling the Prison by yourself, I’m offering my assistance, these new experiments will be much more advanced than my previous works.” He replied in a condescending voice.

Jamie felt cornered with the way the Doctor was talking to him, but while talking he was quick to realise another issue with what the eerie Doctor was suggesting.

“Wait, what’s going to stop these new experiments from also going rogue? Last thing we want is our own protection and security going haywire; we’d just be perpetuating the problem, do you not remember what happened with 1170?” Jamie Honay said, hoping to get a good answer from the doctor.

The Doctor just looked at Jamie, as he prepared another long lecture for the boy.

“Simple, Experiments like 1188, were designed with their job in mind, delicate care and time was put into making them function and finding the perfect candidate for the task, as a result no such serious instances have occurred. While others like experiment 1222 were given their role after testing showed where they would be best suited. So, if you wish for these experiments to work correctly, the former must be done and so I require time, the consequences produced by 1170 were down to failure to account for such outcomes.”

Leith sighed, he may not like Sawyer, but he was always correct in these sorts of subjects. “Very well, if it requires you to take more time to ensure these experiments are the best they can be, then taking a little longer to create them would be fine, if there’s anything you would require?”

“I’ve already taken into account how many candidates I will need to get this to work correctly, and I already have two particular candidates in mind” Sawyer turned his attention to Eddie. “I’ve also been made aware that one of our construction workers has been asking too many questions. I believe it was the one by the name of Mr Silva, I’m correct in that assumption?”

Eddie took a second to understand what the Doctor had just said, before his eye widened once he realised fully what he was implying. “Um, yeah, but what makes you think he’ll be useful?”

“In truth, I wasn’t sure at first but since my dear 1160 is being considered, I figured it would be such a waste of a value opportunity. The experiments have shown on countless occasions to keep various memories of their pasts and experiences.

While such outcomes can be mitigated, I believe that his knowledge of the facility will be ideal for the job at hand. Won’t really make a difference for your job with the worker’s sudden ‘Departure’.”

“Ok, that will be fine” Leith decided to jump in to prevent the conversation from becoming a bit dicey, as he was sure it was going to get to. “What about the fact he’s an adult, we’ve seen the outcome with people like Thomas Clark, so we might run the risk of losing an asset.”

The Doctor once again glanced over to Leith, “If you’re referring to the 1199 incident, I can assure you that the reason that occurred was most likely due to the individual in question being an employee of the company, so in this case him not being one would minimise that risk. Also, with the role I have planned for him, it’s unlikely that he would run into other experiments.”

Leith didn’t know what the Doctor had planned, but from what he was saying it was clear he already had worked out all the details for what had to be done. But he did still have questions regarding what he had already said.

“You mentioned you already had another few candidates in mind?” Leith asked curiously.

Sawyer face shifted slightly to a more serious expression, a stark contrast to his much more bored face that he always wore. “Yes, and I would like to make a special request involving a ‘certain’ individual located in the lower labs.

Leith face looked confused for a few seconds, before eyes went wide in realisation, shocked that the Doctor was even suggesting it. “Wait… You’re not talking about…. “

Sawyer nodded in response. “I’ve currently ran into a few small hurdles with 1006, I still know he’s hiding something, but I think it might be time to try a similar method with our other ‘Subject’.

“So, you want to use them in this new line of experiments? How do you even intend to use them in their current state?” Leith asked, already knowing that the Doctor properly had an answer planned out.

“I’ve been meaning to try something like this for a while with them, I’ve already thought of a new procedure, unique for this circumstance. With you permission we might be able to ‘extract’ the correct information from them and get what we want. If so, we’ll be able to speed up our progress in obtaining our goal.”

Leith’s calm demeanour seems to have dropped slightly as the conversation went on, he knew the risks involved with letting the Doctor handle this situation, but he also saw the potential that it could bring if it was successful.

Leith looked Sawyer dead in the eyes. “I’ll allow this to go through, BUT ONLY if you can guarantee it won’t fail, we can’t lose the subject!” Leith commanded.

All Leith and Sawyer did was stop and stare at each other, the other three in the room just looked at the two in anticipation, you could cut the tension with a knife.

The Doctor was the first to speak, “You have my word that the outcome will benefit us both.”

Sawyer then turned towards the table and looked at one individual currently sat at the table. “Miss. Greyber.”

The lady in question almost jumped upon hearing her name being mentioned, she’d been quiet for almost the entire meeting so far and had just let the other discuss before saying her piece.

She turned her gaze up and looked right at the Doctor, who she’d been avoid contact with the whole time do far. “Y-yes, Mr Sawyer?” She questioned the man still not sure what he wanted.

“I’ll require access to the Playcare, a few of the children inside have caught my attention and I think they’ll be very suited for this new experiment.”

This raised a few questions among the room, usually Sawyer would just get the documents provided and not want to interact with the children in any way outside of the experimentation itself.

“W-Why do you want to go inside the Playcare? I thought you said you never wanted to set foot in there.” Stella said questioning the Doctor.

“For this job, I’m going require a thorough look at the materials required, and a few individuals inside have already caught my attention, that I know will be ideal for this experiment.”

Everyone in the room, now seemed even more confused, it was very odd and out of character for the Doctor to take interest in anyone to this degree. For him to do so could mean he had something big planned.
Stella simply nodded in response. “Very well Sawyer, I’ll provide you what you need.”

“Thank you, Miss Greyber.” Sawyer said as he started to walk toward the door, “Well, since I’ve got my job to do, I feel that I should begin immediately.”

“Fine, you can leave Sawyer, but I expect constant updates from both you AND Doctor White.”
Doctor Sawyer, then proceed to exit the room, once it was clear he’d left the room the other three people let out a sigh of relief.

“Why must be even put up with him, he’s shown to be really dangerous, now were going to trust him with this job.” Eddie was the first to speak.

“Yeah, after the Theatre incident I don’t see how we can even trust him with these new experiments.” Jamie said chiming into the conversation.

“We have to keep him working so he doesn’t get catch on that we know he was involved in the incident.” Leith said. “Also don’t worry you two, Dr White and the rest of the lab staff have been informed of this and are going to take great measures to both monitor and assist Sawyer in the task to ensure nothing can go wrong.” Leith said trying to ease the tension in the room. “Once White has what he needs and the Shelf is constructed, Mr Sawyer will no longer be a problem, and White can pick up where he left off.”

“Well, that’s good, surprised it took this long” Eddie said in a satisfied tone.

"Well, is there anything else we must go over?” Leith said addressing the remaining people.

“Actually, I have one thing I need to go over.”

The three men in the room turned towards the Stella once again who had.

“Ah Mrs Greyber, good to see your finally contributing to the conversation.” Jamie said joking,

“Thank you, I would like to go over an incident that occurred involving ‘Mommy’.” Stella said.

Leith decided to speak up as he looked at Stella, “1222? What incident are you talking about?”

“Other members of staff have started to notice that she’s been acting off, it only seems to occur when she hasn’t had any interactions with the children for an extended period of time.”

This news seemed to spark a reaction from Leith “Is this a new occurrence?”

“It's relatively new and that’s mainly because we’ve been using the Game station less than usual due to the slowing down of experiments and the recent incidents have caused as to postpone its use to check over the other toys. I’m worried that her behaviour could become worse and could put the children she works with in danger, if not put in check.”

Leith seemed to take the situation a bit more seriously now he got a better understanding of what Stella was talking about. “Do you have a preferred solution to what he could do Miss Greyber?”

Stella gave a small node to Leith. “Yes, I believe it could be beneficial if we can’t get more children in the game station, we could at least bring a few children over to her to keep her company. This could help benefit her and it’ll benefit some of the children that want to see her more often.”

Lieth gave it a bit of thought, he thought the idea was good, while it was unorthodox to bring children to the toy’s rooms, in this case it could help. Like Stella had said, keeping Mommy happy would be in everyone’s best interests and this would save on some future problems before they developed. “Very well, that sounds like a smart idea, I’ll have to run it by some of the people in the holding area, but we should be able to work it out.

Stella smiled back a Leith knowing her idea was seen as good, “Thank you Mr Leith.”

Stella internally gave a sigh of relief, despite her place in the company, she was concerned for the experiment’s wellbeing. Compared to the other people in the room the mostly cared about the profits and damaged Mommy could cause if this wasn’t taken care off.

‘I’m just really worried about her, the longer she goes without someone to talk to, the angrier she seems to get, I could only imagine what would happen if she was left alone for even longer than she currently is.”

*******************************

Moxxie groaned as he walked around the weird children room again, he hadn’t been able to find a way out of the room at all. He couldn’t even tell how long he’d been down in the room for due to his only source to tell time was currently destroyed.

As Moxxie prepared for another check around the empty rooms for a way out, a massive glow began to envelope the middle of the room, causing Moxxie to shield his eyes.

Once he was able to get a clear look again, he found himself looking at a weird diamond shape floating in the middle of the room. Moxxie’s eyes lit up in happiness. It was an Asmodeus portal, Blitz must have finally decided to come, he knew he would.

Moxxie strolled up to the diamond shape and noticed something off about it. Normally these types of portals would have the location opened already, but for some this one didn’t seem to have any clear image through it.
As Moxxie got within a short distance of it, and arm shot out of the distorted portal and grabbed the imp tightly by the collar. Before the imp could even reply he found himself being pulled through the portal with extreme force.

“Oof!” Moxxie uttered, as he found himself landing face first on the floor.

He groaned in pain and try to see where he was. But as soon as he tried to get up someone grabbed him from behind and had lifted him up once again.

Moxxie was lifted off the ground and now found himself looking into the very angry eyes of his boss, Blitz.

“Moxxie, where the fuck have you been?!” His boss replies angrily to him, not letting of Moxxie as continued to dangle from his arms.

Moxxie could tell from both his boss’s expression and his voice that he was not happy. So, the imp tried his best to give an explanation.

“S-Sorry sir, it’s just my phone broke so I couldn’t call yo-”

“GOD DAMNIT MOX, I gave you one job, hoping that you would be able to do it right this time and you fuck up again!” Blitz said practically spitting the word as he dropped Moxxie to the ground and began to tower over the smaller imp. “Fuck, fine I’ll just go in and take the picture, maybe I can salvage this job.” Blitz said as he turned back around to the go through the still open portal.

Moxxie didn’t know what to say at this point as he laid still on the companies floor, he knew he had to tell Blitz the disappointing news and for some reason he just felt his felt his chest tightening at the fact.

“I-I’m so sorry Blitz, I-It’s just that the body kind of fell into a massive hole and I don’t know where is” Moxxie said his whole body shaking in fear at the thought of what Blitz will have to say next.

Blitz had immediately stopped in his tracks before slowly turning back around to look at his employee, his eyes shifting from their former yellow to full on red. “So…. you’re telling me that you not only wasted ANOTHER WEEK on a target, but you, heaven knows how managed to lose him, so that we CAN’T get paid. Am I hearing this all correctly?” While Blitz had said it in a relatively calm voice, it was clear by how he said it that he was on the verge of a meltdown, and he was the target.

Moxxie couldn’t stop his shaking as he gulped hard, dreading what had to be said next, he felt his throat getting dry.

“Y-Yes Blitz, that is correct, and I am so so sorry, its j-just during the fight, we were on this catwalk and I-I needed t-to-”

“Don’t give me another of your excuses you wimpy failed excuse for an assassin, You’re a fucking disgrace!”

“Yeah, I agree with Blitzy here.”

“My Dad is right, your terrible.”

Moxxie turned around, only now noticing that both Loona and Stolas were also in the room with them. Both were also just looking down at Moxxie in disappointment, even Stolas who usually didn’t pay much mind to the goings on in the office seemed to look very angry at him.

*SLAM*

The small imp was once again taken of guard by the sound the office door right behind him slamming open as he turned towards it, hoping to peel his eyes away from all 3 of his disappointed colleague's faces.

Standing in the doorway at the front of the office was his wife dressed in here normal attire, a very noticeable bulge in her abdomen from the baby. The appearance of his wife brought a bit of happiness back into onto the Imp’s face.

Slowly she stomped her way over to the other four in the centre of the room, her face obscured and expression unreadable.

“M-Millie, it’s so good to see you how was your-”

*SLAP*

Moxxie was once again unable to complete his sentence as he soon found himself on the office’s floor, clutching his cheek with his right arm.

Millie had just slapped him.

Moxxie looked back up at his wife’s face while still completely taken off guard by the events that just occurred. Her face was morphed into one of both anger and disappointment, matching the others in the room.

“M-Millie? W-Why did you-”

Whatever Moxxie was attempting to utter was silenced by his wife stomping her foot right next to the Imp, and stomp that had left a noticeable crack on the floor.

“So, you messed up anther mission? What was your ego hurting again?” Millie sputtered out in an almost mocking tone.

“N-No of course not I just had trouble-”

“NO more of your pathetic excuses, bitch boy.” Blitz said cutting off Moxxie’s again and jumping back into the conversation. “Because of you not only did we lose a payday, but our company looks bad, I think letting you join this company was a mistake.” Blitz replied in a very cold manner.

“We could have bought things for the baby, do you want our child to just think you’re a loser, maybe we should rethink this marriage.” Millie also replied coldly.

Moxxie didn’t know what to say, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. The worst part was he really didn’t have any excuses this time. All he could do was try to avoid the gazes of the four individuals that were constantly staring down at him, as if the very stares themselves were weighing him down.

“You’re a joke”

“Disgrace”

“Loser”

“When are you going to wake the FUCK UP!”

Moxxie just sat there he didn’t know what to say at all, the only thing he could sort of respond with was a whimper as he almost curled into a ball and shut his eyes. He expected Blitz to say some bad things, even Lonna, but not Millie. It all just felt off, as they all continued to berate him.

“Just wake up already.”

“Wake up.”

“Wake up.”

“Wake up.”

*******************************

“Wake up.”
Moxxie groaned and began to rapidly blink, in a split second all his co-workers had disappeared from his vison and now were replaced by a new individual that was currently standing over him.

“Are you alright?” The figure lowing over him said in a worried tone, which Moxxie recognised as a girl’s voice.

As Moxxie’s vision adjusted more until he got a clearer image of the girl who was speaking.

She was a small girl with pale skin and red cheeks, wearing a lovely blue dress. While she was looking at him, her face had a worried look.

“Hey, are you alright?” The young girl said addressing him as she leaned in closer to try and get a better look at the imp.

It was only then that Moxxie had realised that she was in fact talking to him and so decided to respond.

“Oh, I’m sorry yes I am fine.” Moxxie said trying to be as polite as possible.

Slowly Moxxie picked himself of the ground, for what felt like the 3rd time that day and tried to adjust himself to his surroundings. He now only realised that he wasn’t back at the company’s office and was still in the playtime co factory.

He had never left in the first place and it hadn't been a week since he left.

Moxxie turned to his left and watched the young girl walk over as she picked something off the ground, before walking back over.

“Hey, take this.” The girl said softly while handing something over to the imp.

Moxxie looked down and noticed that the item in question was a white handkerchief, which appeared quite big compared to the girl holding it.

Moxxie didn’t want to be rude and reached his hands out to take the gift from the girl. “Um, thank you.” Moxxie responded a bit confused.

The girl seemed to cheer at a little bit upon Moxxie taking the gift from her hand as a small smile began to appear on here face. “It’s for your tears, my dad says there’s nothing worse than not seeing someone smile.” She said pointing her hands up to her own face.

“T-Tears?” Moxxie asked confused as he brought his hand up to his eyes and noticed that it was indeed a bit wet.

‘It was just a dream, b-but it felt so real.’ Moxxie thought as he brought the new gift up to his eyes to dampen it.

“Thank you again.” Moxxie said, putting the handkerchief into his pocket.

“Yeah, the case I was in contained a small amount of the ‘Red Smoke’, when you opened it, it escaped into the open room, and you ended up inhaling it. Since it was such a small amount, I figured it would just cause you to pass out for a little bit. I was going to go ahead and check the place out but then I noticed you started mumbling to yourself and then you started to freak out, so I stayed behind to make sure nothing bad would happen.”

Moxxie took a second to digest what the girl had just said. “Wait…? You’re the girl that was inside the case?” Moxxie said trying to question what a girl was even doing inside the place.

The imp then attempted to picked himself up off the ground. However, as he did, he started to feel a little woozy and as he clutched his head. Before he saw the girl walk up and grip on to his side to try and keep him steady.

“Yes, I was in the case, thank you for freeing me.” The girl said with a smile before it shifted back into concern. “Also, are you sure you’re ok? I’ve never seen such a small amount of the Red Smoke have such a nasty reaction on someone, we better be careful you don’t get in contact with anymore.”

After a few more seconds Moxxie was able to get a better balance of himself. “R-Red Smoke?” he questioned.

“Wait, you don’t know about the Red Smoke? It’s the smoke the ‘Staff’ here used to use to put things to sleep, but in a high enough amount or a lot of exposure can cause nightmares.” The girl explained.

‘Oh, well that explains…. that.’ Moxxie thought, that nightmare just felt so real to him. At least one of his questions was answered.

Now that Moxxie had been given more a second to readjust to everything, he now released that he forgot to ask A very important question. “So, who are you exactly and what are you doing in this factory?”

“My name is Poppy, Poppy Playtime, I’ve been here for a long time, waiting for someone to free me from my case.” The young girl now known as Poppy said.

“Poppy…Playtime?” Moxxie said really confused. So, she didn’t just look like the toy, she also had its name.

Was she a robot then? He recalls in his research that the Poppy doll was well known for being ahead of its time in terms of what interactions it could have with kids and could do full conversations with them. Was this just a copy that had been sealed up and so was still fully functional, was the ‘Red Smoke’ just a sort of security measure to ensure she didn’t get stolen. Moxxie had so many questions.

Poppy nodded in response to the imp’s question “Yes, I’m the Poppy Playtime, I can explain more later. But first I think we should try and get out of this place.” Poppy said as she began to walk out of the room and down the hall.

Moxxie didn’t really have much choice and decided to follow behind her. She said she knew a way out so whether she was a robot or not she might be his best bet for getting out of this facility at this point.

As they made their way back through the areas Moxxie started to notice that some of the lights down the hall were no longer functioning, and others flickering occasional. He recalled just before he passed out and opened the case the lights went off briefly. Did opening the case cause some kind of electronic multifunction across the facility or something?

They soon found their way back into the room with the dollhouse, nothing had really changed much as far as Moxxie could tell. He watched as Poppy made here way over to locked door that Moxxie had tried opening before, now only remembering the reason he even tried to open the case in the first place.

As she approached the door, she reached into a small compartment that seemed to be in her dress and pulled out the key that Moxxie tried to get early. ‘Oh, so that’s why the handle and lock is so low to the door.’ Moxxie thought in realisation.

Poppy walked up and using the key on the door, soon after the door slowly opened with an eerie creak, revealing the other side.

Another hallway was on the other side; the walls no longer bared the weird out of place wallpaper and were back to looking like the factory with the checkered tiles and mascots adorning the walls, he had seen previously. Honestly it felt like a breath of fresh air.

Moxxie soon attempted to go through the doorway when he eyes caught a brief glance down at Poppy. Her body appeared to be slightly shaking, and he could see that she almost took a small step back.

She appeared to be scared.

The imp felt a weird urge overtake him at the sight of the young girl trembling and made his way over to here crouching down ever so slightly to her level. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he said in a very soft voice, making sure not to invade her personal space.

Poppy stopped trembling slightly at the sound of his voice and turned to look at him, Moxxie could see in here face that she was unsure about something. “W-Well, it just I haven’t been out of this room in ages and I’m not sure what to expect up ahead.” Poppy said, her word laced with uncertainty.

Moxxie slowly raised his arm up and held it out to the girl in front of him. “Why don’t we hold hands then, we can both go down together.” Moxxie encourage.

Poppy looked down at his hand for a few seconds before a small smile crept on to her face and she reached out and grabbed on to his hand. “Ok, that sound like a good idea.”

Slowly they both made their way down the long hallway, passing by a few murals of Huggy Wuggy and a red dinosaur, the overhead lights while providing light were flickering occasionally with some of them almost falling off form the ceiling. Looking up at the ceiling Moxxie also noticed that several of the roof tiles were lose and had fallen out, the place really was falling apart, how the power was still working was anyone’s guess.

Poppy gave a small sigh as they both walked down the hallway. “The last person I walked down this hallway holding hands with was my dad, that was a long time ago.” Poppy said sadly. Moxxie immediately noticing this tried to lighten your mode. “You dad sounds like a great man, what was he like?” Moxxie asked curiously.

“My dad was very busy all the time, but he always wanted to make sure everyone could smile, it’s what he did his whole life and when he was running this place?”

“Wait, running this place?” Moxxie asked, trying to see if he heard that right.

Poppy nodded in response, “Yes he always wanted to make toys and help children that needed it the most, his office is right up ahead.” Poppy said pointing her arm out.

Moxxie then looked forward to where she was pointing, up ahead the hallway split up into 3 pathways, the two sideways seemed to lead down further into different areas. But the middle path seemed to be a small arch way with a door underneath, the door was red with a small golden plague just above it.

‘Elliot Ludwig’ was written on the plague.

Moxxie read the plague again, to make sure he was reading it right. As he did, he watch as Poppy let go of his hand and made here way up to the door. “This is my dad’s office; he made my room right near it so if I ever felt lonely, I could just walk down to him.” She said as he moved her hand around the doorway, seeming to look for something.

‘Her dad is Elliot Ludwig?’ Moxxie thought to himself. I guess that would make sense. If Elliot created the doll, then it would make sense that she would consider Elliot her father.

Moxxie made his way up as he watched Poppy seemed to still be moving her hand around the area by the door for something. “What are you looking for Poppy?”

He was given his answer when she pressed down on a small part of the wall by the door and a compartment slide out from the wall revealing a keylock with a poppy design that resembled the one seen in the other room. Poppy did the same thing and put her key into the lock, and as she did the door to Elliot’s office began to open.

“My dad gave me a key which his used to operate a few of the areas around the factory, not all of them are able to be found unless you know where to look.” Poppy told Moxxie as she made here way inside.

Moxxie followed the doll into the room and was rather impress by what he saw inside.

The entire office was mostly comprised of vintage wooden furniture; a small wooden desk was in the centre of the room with a lovely decorative carpet under it. Around the corners of the room were a couple of wooden bookshelves and two leather couches with a small table in between them. A big overhead light hung just above the desk, illuminating the room. The walls around the room were decoration with a similar wallpaper to the one Moxxie had seen in the room just before. The one thing that Moxxie was also quick to notice was the several drawings feature the factories toys that were decorated around the office walls, drawings clearly down by children.

The entire room, while identical in layout to the other, gave off a completely different vibe to the imp. The room before had this very uneasy feeling, with the combination of both lights and decorations used, while this room gave off a warm and almost innocent feeling.

The room felt like it hadn’t been stepped in in years, the entire area gave off this old fashion appearance, from the sights and decorations.

Even the very smell of the room, gave of this very nice vibe as the old wooden furniture giving off a nice aroma of earthly vanilla and…. coffee?

Moxxie took a quick pause as caught the weird scent in the air that seemed to not match the rest of the room. Taking another small inhale of the room, he was quick to notice a distinct scent of Coffee in the air, but he also was just able to catch a small hint of…bubble-gum? Why was he smelling these scents?

Moxxie gripped on to the shirt and brought it up to his face to smell it. Was the scent coming from him? He had drunk some coffee before at the office so the idea of his shirt smelling like it wasn’t a far-fetched concept. Even the smell of bubble-gum was something that could have been explained, as both he and Loona would frequently chew the stuff while in the office and had even brought and shared it on occasion, for both boredom and as a stress reliever.

However, he currently didn’t possess any and Loona had been out of the office for the last day. Had it been because the stress of the job had cause him to not notice the smell before? Was the Red Smoke still causing him to hallucinate the scent? Can you even hallucinate smells?

“Hey, I need your help over here.”

Moxxies thoughts were interrupted as he turned towards the young girl who he almost neglected in favour of admiring the room. She currently was by the side of the room, just above her was what looked like a vent of some kind which she was currently point up towards.

“The other ways are blocked but we should both be able to get through this ventilation system, to the game station.” Poppy said as she tried to reach up to the vent, a challenge that was proving to be much too difficult given her small size.

Moxxie went over to where she was standing. “What’s the game station?”

“It’s this big play area that used to be run by the company for the children; there’s a train we can take that can get us out of here?” Poppy replied to the Imp.

Moxxie just looked at here more confused. “A train? As in an actual train?” the imp asked trying to make sure he heard the girl correctly.

Poppy nodded “Yes, it was originally used to get the everyone around the factory quicker. We can use it to get out of this place, we need a code to get it to function, which I should be able to get, but I can’t seem to get into the vent….” Poppy stopped talking for a second when she realised something. “Oh, I’m sorry I never asked what your name is.” Poppy said sounding slightly embarrassed by the mistake.

Moxxie gave the girl a small smile “Hey, its alright, my name is Moxxie.”

The imp’s response seems to cheer up the girl as she smiled back at him “Pleasure to meet you Moxxie, is it alright if you can help me up here?” she said once again pointing to the vent above.

Moxxie looked confused as he looked up at the vent. “Are you sure this is the right way? Isn’t there another path we can take?” Moxxie said concerned. Surely there must have been a better passageway to reach this ‘game station’ area.

Poppy shook her head “Sadly, there isn’t, with the power in the factory being off in several locations we can’t access certain rooms, even with my key. We also don’t have the correct piece of equipment to turn the power back on. The good news is that we’re both small enough to fit in this vent so, it’s just a little stroll through to reach our destination.”

Moxxie sighed and with no other reasonable option he picked Poppy up by the waist and raised her up to the vent. Poppy grabbed the sides of the vent before it came off and she dropped it just below as it made a soft clunk sound on the wooden floor. Poppy then began to climb into the vent.

The imp quickly followed the doll into the vent by jumping up and gripping on the edge, pulling himself up. As he got inside, he noticed that the vent was a little bigger than he had anticipated. However, he was also quick to note that the way forward was quite dark, making navigation a bit more difficult.

Poppy seemed to understand this issue to as she began to pull something else out, which Moxxie couldn’t seem what it. That was until the area ahead started to brighten up, it was only then that the imp noticed that she had brought a flashlight.

“I knew this place was going to be dark, luckily my dad thought it would be good to have this in case I needed to see at night.” Poppy said as she started to make her way further through the tunnels, with Moxxie starting to follow closely behind here. He hoped they would find a way out soon.

*******************************

“Hey, are they gone yet?” A male voice said, his voice weird muffled by something.

“Shhh…., give me a second so I can hear.” A female voice said.

“Sorry, I just want to get out of here, also your butts in my face.”

“I said shh… also grow up.”

Silence once again fell on the two individuals in the vent system, currently trying to listen.

“Ok…. their making their way down the other way…yep, I don’t think they’re going to be coming back.”

“Does that mean I get to open this vent now?” the voice replied exited.

“Yes, Icky but be quiet.”

A second later the other vent inside Elliot Ludwig’s office began to be opened from the inside. Just as it was opened a long pink appendage began emerging from inside and wrapped itself around the vent hatch and lowered it down onto the floor below, before the pink appendage seemed to retrack back into the vent.

Immediately after an individual slowly crawled out from the vent and made his way down the wall. The figure’s hand and feet appeared to stick to the wall as they descended the wall, before detaching themselves from the wall with a small pop sound, as they landed on the office's floor.

Soon after the figure stood up and stretched out his limbs. “Oh, feels good to be out of that vent, finally.”

The creature was 10 feet tall, its fur/skin was a mix of black and yellow that that was spread across his body in a weird pattern. It had very long arms that ended with webbed hands and small balls on each of there long fingers. It also had large hindlegs that were much longer and ended with similar webbed feet and balls on their toes. Its face had a perpetual wide toothless grin that didn’t appear to move with a long pink tongue that seemed to just roam around the area. The creatures’ pupils were massive with small white glowing irises inside. Its entire appearance made it look like a poison dart frog.

Around the creature’s neck was a pendent that looked like a black biohazard sign encapsulated in a red outline. Across the creatures’ shoulders, hips and torso were what appeared to be stick marks.

A second after the creature had made his way down a second figure began to climb down, as the first figure grabbed onto her and pulled her down.

The creature had a similar body type to the first, only it was standing at about 9 feet tall, her torso fur was completely white, with slightly more around the collar area and a small fluffy tail. Her legs were pink ending with foot that were magenta. Her pink arms were much different from her partners as they replaced with wing membranes, with small hands at the end. Her face was mostly white with two massive ears and a few bits of fur sticking out at the top of her head and around her cheeks. She had the same wide permanent grin as her friend, along with the same black pupils and white irises, with an added set of two large fangs inside her mouth. Magenta colouring was placed around the creatures’ eyes, almost giving off the appearance of a mask. The creature looked like a massive bat, with similar stitching marks across the body and even more across her wings.

A similar pendant was worn across this creature’s neck, only it looked like a bit blood drop.

The bat turned to look at the frog

“Ok, Icky we can finally begin.”

“That’s great Rabie, let’s do it.” The creature said, its words slightly muffled by his tongue.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9 – The web begins to weave

The two creatures now known as Icky and Rabie began to glance around the office for a few seconds, taking in the room as they appeared to be searching something. Before Icky turned to address Rabie.

“Hey Rabie Baby, what are we looking for again?” The poison frog asked his companion confused.

Rabie Baby, rolled her eyes “Licky, did you even listen to what Soi-Soi was saying before he told us to come up here?”

Icky Licky just stood still for a few seconds. “Why would I have to? Isn’t that your whole job?”

“Just because I have good hearing doesn’t give you the excuse to not listen. Rabie groaned, annoyed that Icky once again had failed pay attention.

“Ok, fine I’m sorry ok, but seriously what are we looking for?” Icky moaned.

“We’re looking for a small book.” She says putting up both her wings to form a rectangle shape (Or as best she could with wings), “It’s about this big, Black with a red poppy flower on the cover, with some weird pattern around the edges.”

Icky turned and started looking at the few bookshelves placed around the room. “Well, this shouldn’t take too long.” He said happily, feeling it was going to be a quick job now.

Rabie put up one of her hands right in front of Frog’s face, “Actually, according to Soi-Soi, the book is quite valuable and would most likely not be placed in plain sight and is probably hidden, check under the shelves too.” Rabie said as her wing pointed to the bottom of the shelves.

Icky looked at it for a few seconds before turning back to the Bat, “A-Are there any insects under there?” Licky said in a slightly frighten voice.

Rabie sighed slightly, “Yes, there nothing else in this room, but you and me currently.” She still had no idea how a frog could have a fear of insects.

“Are you sure?” Icky replied taking quick glances between the bookshelves and his friend.

“Yes, my girls never lie” she said, pointing to her ears, as they wiggled on her head.

Icky Licky gave a small nod “Ok” Before he crouched down all four limbs like a frog. As his tongue began to slide under the bookshelves, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

Rabie meanwhile made her way over the office desk, opening it up, before her wings began to rummage through the nicely assorted items inside, hoping to find the item in question.

While Icky continued to look, he decided to have a conversation with his bat friend. “So, why does he need this book again?” the frog said as his appendage slide under another part of the bookshelf.

Rabie shrugged in response “I’m not entirely sure, you know he doesn’t like us asking questions like that Licks.”

“Also, why are we only checking up here now for it? Didn’t we have like 10 years to look for this stupid thing, why are we only looking in this office now?”

“The same reason we were stuck in that vent for the past 2 days, Huggy Wuggy.”

That caught Icky’s attention “why would he even attack us? Aren’t we on the same side?” The frog said confused.

“Don’t you remember what his job was? Hugs’s job was to patrol the top floor and to kill anything that came up to it, whether that be people entering the factory or people trying to get out. Anyone that enters up here, he was told to kill them.” Rabie responded as she shut the desk draw and strolled over to the walls with the drawings. “The only problem is that Hugs can only seem to pursue one target at a time, Soi-Soi has a weird thing down in his lab that senses any vehicles that pass over it. He detected someone was soon going to be entering the factory and thought it was the perfect time to send both of us up while Huggy was distracted.” Rabie replied as she started remove some of the drawings from the walls, hoping to find anything behind them. Afterward she started knocking on the with her ear next to it, hoping to hear something, before moving on to the next part of the wall.

Icky got up after looking under the first desk and moving over to the next one along. “Wait, why does he have a sensor to detect vehicles in his lab?”

Rabie brought both her hands “I have no idea and unfortunately our little ‘visitor’ ended up getting killed by Hugs almost immediate and then because SOMEONE accidently triggers one of the many sensors that I warned him about and we both had to hide in a dark and cramped vent for 2 days.” She says looking directly at her frog companion, clearly referencing him.

Icky continued searching, but rolled his eyes at the accusation, “It wasn’t my fault, it’s not fair that the sensors are all tiny and can’t be seen.” The frog moaned, annoyed at what she was insinuating.

“Well, they wouldn’t be very good if they weren’t made like that, you really need to stop with the excuses.”

Another day with this frog and he already was making a tone of excuses for himself.

“Well, so what if we were detected? Couldn’t we just go back to the shelf, you know ‘better luck next time’, right?” Icky replied trying to lighten the mood.

“The only problem is once Hugs sees someone, he’s tasked with not stopping until he kills them. I think he might have even chased us down to the lower labs if we got spotted. Also keep in mind that he was connected to all the sensors on this floor, so if any are tripped, he would immediately know where to look.” Rabie replied.

“S-So, if he spotted, us he wouldn’t have stopped until we were permanently gone?” Icky replied horrified, but with a better understanding of why they had to be so sneaky and the actual scope of what tripping the alarm meant for them.

“Yes, which is why you should pay attention to what is being told to you and where you’re going. But luckily for you, Hugs will no longer be a problem for us, or for anyone.” Rabie said, with a bit of relief in her voice.

“Are you sure that Huggy is dead?” Icky said, with a clear bit of optimism in his voice.

The bat nodded to him as she turned back around and started removing some more of the drawings from the wall. “I know what I heard, Huggy was chasing that new person around for a while, then all of a sudden I hear a few large bang sounds, then I don’t hear hugs anymore, just silent.”

While Rabie was trying to keep her cool, she was very aware of how close they both came to being killed, the fact that this ‘Moxxie’ person had even shown up at all was pure luck. If he hadn’t there was a good chance they wouldn’t have been able to make it out. Even more lucky that he had been able to kill him in the first place.

Icky who just finished checking under the second bookshelves suddenly got to his feet, before he started to look up at the ceiling. “I-I just can’t believe he’s dead, I mean he was the main reason none of us tried to escape for all these years. The way out is completely unguarded right now.”

Rabie immediately turned around once she heard what the frog was implying and started to make her way over to him, “Don’t even thing about Licks, you know what would happen to the others if we tried that!” she said angrily.

While they couldn’t move their mouths to expresses much emotion, they had become good at reading each other’s expression using only their eyes. Icky could really tell from her body language that Rabie was very pissed and so raised both his arms up in defence. “Wait a minute Rabe, I’m not saying we should try and run out the front door, there no way I would leave the others behind.” Icky replied, slightly upset that she would assume that.

Rabie looked at her friend’s face and could tell he was telling the truth and took a step away from him. “I’m sorry Icky, but you are right, it is tempting to want to run, but we would need to make sure we can all leave together.”

Icky just started to look around the room unsure of what say next. “I would never try to escape without them.” He said, very aware getting them all out would be difficult, especially Mags and Ali.

Even though she knew they couldn’t run it was extremely tempting. It was still kind of hard to believe that someone was even able to beat Huggy in the first place, and yet she witnessed it, or rather she heard it happen.

“Also, what do you know about this ‘Moxxie’ guy that killed Huggy?” Icky said, Icky didn’t have Rabies hearing and so she had to provide commentary for him on the whole fight.

Rabie raised her arms again. “As far as I can tell nothing, but he must be pretty scary, and tough if could take on Huggy by himself and win.” Rabie said.

“Wait don’t you know what he looks like?” Icky asked confused.

Rabie looked at Icky with an annoyed look. “Licks for the last time I can only hear good, that doesn’t mean I can magically see what people look like. Although I can’t deny from what I’ve heard he must be dangerous, after all he almost found us out.”

Icky Licky looked at his friend confused. “Wait, what do you mean he almost found us?”

“He smelt our scents, might have caught us if Poppy hadn’t called him. Whoever he is he must be incredibly tough and powerful.” Rabie said putting on of her hands under her chin as she attempted to visualise what ‘Moxxie’ even looked like.

Icky saw the look she had in her and decided to get back to looking under the other shelves. “Whoever he is, it would be bad idea to get involved since he’s currently with Poppy. Also keep in mind now that she’s free, stuff around here might get bad fast.”

Both continued to check around the room, looking through every shelf, under every floorboard and even double checking all the areas just to make sure.

Rabie continued tapping on the walls of the room, hoping to find something. “Have you found anything yet, I’m not finding anything.” The bat said pulling her body away from the wall, not having any luck in located this elusive book.

Icky at the same time seemed to be done checking under the shelves as he started to pull himself off the ground on back onto his hindlegs. “No, I’ve not found anything, not secrets underneath any of the furniture in here.” Icky replied in a worried tone. “What will the Doctor say if we don’t come back with what he wants.”

Rabie agreed with Icky, she was very aware of what Soi-Soi was like when stuff didn’t go his way. So, she tried to think about they could do next, they at this point had checked the room over and not found anything.

At that moment, Rabie thought of another idea. “What if we one of the other exclusives found the book and it’s hidden in their offices instead?”

Icky put his hands on his head in frustration. “AW, so we have to check all the other offices now too?” Icky complained, not wanting to check through the other areas. “How are we even supposed to get to the other offices, all the doors are locked.”

Rabie, ignoring his complaints, brought her wing up to her chest area and parted the small fluffy fur around her collar, revealing a small zipper. She gripped it and pulled down, revealing a small compartment in her chest area. After she placed her hand inside and pulled out a red and blue object.

Icky took a closer look and realised she was holding a pair of robotic hands “Are those grabpack hands? Where did you even get those?” He said intrigued.

The bat turned to him “You can thank Toots for these, while they aren’t attached to a grabpack they should still function like them, meaning we should be able to access the other offices at least.” Rabie said as she slower had strolled her way over, to the offices’ front door. “Let’s head out this way, we should be able to get to the other-” Rabie Baby immediately stopped talking and froze in place.

Icky was quick to notice this change in demeanour and went to go ask what was wrong, before he was then able to observe that Rabie’s ear were pricked up, a sign that she was listening intently for something, before she slowly turned around towards him.

“Um, Icks? You didn’t happen to get over your fear of insects in the last few minutes, did ya?” She asked half-joking.

Icky was confused by the question, but judging by the way she was acting it meant she had most likely heard something bad, a feeling that didn’t sit well with the frog “N-No w-why do you ask?” he tried to reply, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Because the big one is coming and she might be a problem.” Rabie says as calm as possible.

Icky looked confused for a second “She? who’s sh-” Icky’s irises shrunk as his body began to shake. “No, you don’t mean-”

*************************************

Moxxie followed Poppy through the vents in silence, the torch illuminating the way ahead with their footsteps moving across the metal floor being the only sound keeping them company. They had been walking through for just a few minutes at this point, luckily the vent was big enough that both could walk through it with having to duck down, so it was an uncomfortable walk.

“Hey Poppy, how much longer do we have to go?” Moxxie asked his companion.

“Not that much longer, it should just be right ahead.” Poppy said, as she kept moving ahead holding the torch. “We need to get out the vent up ahead then the slide should take us to the station.”

“Theres a slide here too?” Moxxie said not sure what to think now, a slide was just par for the course at this point.

They continued to make their way through the vents for another minute, they stopped as they made their way to a shut hatch, with small streams of light beaming through into the vents.

“Ok, right just need to go through here.” Poppy said as she attempted to pull the door off but seemed to struggle with.

Moxxie noticing that she was having trouble moved up and passed her. “Here, let me.” He said as he gripped onto the hatch and pulled it off, before dropping into the room. Taken a quick glance around he then turned around and held out his hands “Here, jump, I’ll catch you.”

Poppy jumps out of the vents and lands in the imps’ arms. “Thank you, Moxxie.” The girl replied happily.

“You’re welcome, Poppy” Moxxie said happily, as he placed here down on the ground. Before making her way over to the door and pushing it open.

Moxxie didn’t know why but he had a strange urge when around the girl, like this weird sense to protect her at all costs and make sure no harm could ever come to her. The imp didn’t know why he was having this protective drive while around her, but he would make sure that they both got out of here, as he followed her into the next room.

As he made his way in, the room bared the same look and style of the other rooms he’d seen in the factory, with five large archways around the room with plagues above each of them, like the ones he had seen early in the main lobby of the factory. One difference was that all of them appeared to be sealed off by big metal grates, meaning there was no way forward. The plagues above each of the rooms read Game Station, Innovation, Playplace, Research, and Production.

The biggest thing that took the imp’s attention however was the massive hole that was near the centre of the room, it almost took up the entirely of the floor in front of them both, on closer inspection the tiles appeared to be going inward implying that the floor itself had caved in, making the imp feel unsafe in the room.

He turned to his side to find Poppy, only to see her already ahead of him making her way up to the large hole.

Moxxie felt a weird wave of panic overtake him as he saw the young girl approaching the hole and immediately sprinted up to her and snatching her of the ground, before backing away from the hole. “Hey, what are you doing?” Poppy replied taken off guard by being suddenly being picked up.

“Oh, crumbs, that is a very large hole, how about we step away from that for now.” Moxxie said as he back away slowly, while checking to make sure that the rest of the floor wouldn’t collapse.

“Moxxie, that’s the way we have to go, down the hole leads to the game station.” Poppy replied in a slightly angry tone as she tried to escape the imp’s grasp.

“Well young lady, that doesn’t look safe, so how about we find a safer way down. One that doesn’t involve the possibility of both of us sustaining serious injuries.” Moxxie said keeping an iron grip on the girl as she continued to struggle out of his hands.

“Can you just let me go!?” Poppy relied in a slightly panicked state as still tried to escape.

“Not, until we get away from the hole and we think of another way ou-” Moxxie stopped for a second, once he heard that the girl seemed to be rapidly breathing, it was then that Moxxie realised that she was panicking from being held and immediately released her.

Once Moxxie let her go, she began to put one arm to her chest and continued to breath heavily with a panicked look on her face.

Moxxie took one look at her face and then realised that the girl being held in that case for ages, had most likely had a negative impact on her, and being held tightly by him had almost triggered something. At that moment, Moxxie’s face shifted into one of guilt as he took a simple step away from Poppy to give her some air. “Oh crumbs, I am so sorry, it’s just you were getting so close to the hole and I just-” Moxxie continued stumbling to explain his actions.

Until Poppy raised her hand up, her breathing returned to normal “I-It’s alright, you didn’t know.” Poppy said as she took a few more deep breaths.

The imp felt terrible about what he had just done, he was aware of how bad a panic attack could be, and he’d just gone and nearly done it to someone else. “Again, I am so so sorry” Moxxie said not knowing what else he could really do. He wasn’t even sure what came over him, its just once the possibility that she could have been in danger crossed his mind, he jumped forward without a second thought.

Once a few more seconds had passed Moxxie decide to try and reason with her, the look of guilt still present on his face. “Surely there has to be another way down into the game station that doesn’t involve something this dangerous.” He said addressing the massive hole.

Poppy looked back up at the imp “If there was, I would take that way, so you’re just going to have to trust me-”

While the two of them had started talking again something sprung out from the big hole in the ground a made its way over to them at an incredible speed. Just before it reached them Moxxie was able to catch it in the corner of his eye and was quick to noticed whatever it was, it was aiming for Poppy. “Poppy, watch out!” he said as he jumped in front of her to shield her.

The second later Moxxie felt something grip on to his waist, looking down he noticed it was extremely long pink arm and seemed to be coming from inside the hole in the centre of the room.

The imp didn’t waste another second to react as he attempted to use his arm and reach for his weapon. However, as he was about to pull it out, another pink arm shot out from the hole and made slithered its way over to them both. Before Moxxie could react to the new development, the arm holding him began to pull him towards the hole with such force that Moxxie felt his head being pulled back before slamming right into the factories floor once again.

Moxxie began to feel dizzy before his vison began to go black.

The last thing he heard was Poppy shouting his name.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10 – Into the Game Station

Moxxie’s felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. As his eyes began to adjust, he found himself in a new location. But looking around all he could see was utter darkness in every direction. 

‘Great, I got knocked out again!’ Moxxie said, annoyed at this reoccurring issue he had suffered today. At this point Moxxie was considering getting a Princess Peach costume, it felt like he was always getting tied up or captured some days.

Moxxie was still a little bit hazy for the blow to the head. At this point he was also worried he may have suffered some kind of mild concussion, as he tried to remember the last thing he could prior to losing consciousness.

“Wait-… I was right next to the hole then……POPPY!” Moxxie gasped as the memories started to return to him, and he tried to pull himself up.

However, as he tried to move, he found he was unable to move any of his limbs. Moxxie turned to his side to see the problem. He discovered that his body was currently bound in thin, silk-like rope, restricting his every movement.

The string itself appeared to form a pattern as it stretched outwards, creating a circular shape around the imp. Several strands of silk moved outward, giving it an appearance like a bicycle wheel. The shape kind of looks like a……. like a spider web.’ Moxxie thought his eyes widening at the revelation.

The realisation of what he could potential be trapped in caused Moxxie to intensify his efforts to escape. He struggled against the web that held him in place, attempting to move his body from side to side in hopes of breaking free. Despite his best efforts, the silk still held firm, keeping the imp trapped. His breathing became harsher as his struggle continued.

He struggled for a little while longer before stopping to take a quick break, clearly the current method wasn’t working. He took a few more breaths as he gazed into the pitch-black area around him again, hoping he could find something that could give him a clue to where he currently was.

He peered into the darkness, then closed his eyes, hoping he might hear anything that would reveal his whereabouts.

As he focused, he didn’t hear anything for the first few seconds, but then just faintly he was able to make out a sound. The sound of metal echoing through the surrounding area. Moxxie felt a chill run up his spin as the Metallic clanking got louder.

Something was coming.

Moxxie moved his head from side to side as best he could, as he attempted to find the source of the approaching noises. The task was more difficult due to his body being bound. The surrounding area also caused the noises to echo off the walls, making it harder to pinpoint the source.

Being stuck in place, unable to move and with no knowledge of where he was or even what the noises were, made the imp begin to panic slightly. The imp still tried to look around for something that could help, before looking down at his jacket. If he could just reach in and pry out his weapon, he would at least have a way to fend off the potential threat that was approaching.

With his arms and legs bound, however this would prove to not be an ideal plan. He paused for a second and casted his eyes over his shoulder.

As he looked behind him, he attempted to wiggle his tail, it was the most limber part of his body and with its long length there was a small possibility that he just might be able to get it free.

Moxxie held his breath as his tail started to slowly wiggle in its bindings. The metal clanking getting louder, making it harder for the imp to think clearly. Moxxie knew that there was a low chance of this working, especially knowing usually luck, but his desperation left him with no alternative.

Moxxie struggled for a bit longer. Suddenly he felt the smallest bit of movement from his tail. He started smile, it was working. The new surge of enthusiasm caused the imp to increase his efforts. His tail became looser. But his efforts paused once he realized something.

The noises had stopped.

Moxxie’s breathing became heavier as he frantically looked around the black void. The silence was deafening, only being interrupted by his own heartbeat.

‘W-Why did it suddenly stop?’ Moxxie though as he tried to remain calm.

“OH, looks like you’re finally awake!” A bubbly voice female said amid the darkness.

Moxxie felt his entire body jump as he heard the new voice.

“Oh, I’m very sorry, did Mommy scare you?” The voice said, Moxxie couldn't tell if it was either condescending or actual concern. But he unable to determine the direction of the voice.

“Who said that?!” Moxxie said attempting to sound brave but let out a small squeak.

“Wait, you don’t know who I am?” the voice said, this time in a shocked tone, seemingly taken aback by what the imp had said.

As Moxxie looked around the room once again, he was able to catch something in his peripheral vison just above him. Snapping his head up he found himself looking into the eyes of a weird pink creature. The creature’s head was bright pink, with a massive smile that dominated her face with big green eyes, with 3 long eyelashes on each. Her hair was a reddish-pink colour, curling into a circle on one side of her face. The other side was tied up with a blue hair tie that extended into a long, noddle-like ponytail.

The creature’s neck was insanely long, as seemed to stretch all the way around to the back of Moxxie. Currently making it impossible for the imp to see the rest of her clearly.

“It’s me, Mommy Long legs.” The head said. Her eyes and expression did not change as she continued to stare at the imp. Before long the creature, now know as Mommy Long Legs, began to move revealing the rest of her body to the imp.

Her entire body seemed to be very stretchy and elastic, as her arms, legs and neck all appeared to be very long. She had pink gloves and shoes with light blue wristbands and socks.

Her torso area appeared to be comprised of two separate parts. The top part was a heart shaped chest. The bottom part appeared to be a large abdomen, resembling something like a spider.  

Moxxie could recall that the name Daddy Long Legs, was also a type of spider that could be found in the mortal realm. That would explain what she was supposed to resemble.

As he got a closer look as the spider lady, he quickly noticed she had something in her hands. His eyes widening once he realized what it was.

“Poppy!” Moxxie said to the girl currently in the grip of Mommy, silk had been placed over her mouth and her body to prevent her from moving and talking.

Moxxie could see that Poppy was trying to get away, the fear in her eyes was unmistakable as she wrestled with her bindings. An effort that seemed to not effect the pink creature in front of him.

“And apparently you and Poppy were just going to go through the game station without giving me a visit, don’t you want to say hi to Mommy?” She said in a sad childish tone.

Moxxie…. didn’t know what to make of this. The creature in front of him he could only assume was another robot, similar to that of Poppy. Moxxie didn’t know what he could even do in this situation, with Poppy in this pink thing’s clutches, he had to be careful as one wrong word could put both him and Poppy in further danger.

The imp figured the best way out of his current predicament was to try and be as nice as possible and hope he could just talk his way out of this.

“Oh, I’m sorry it’s just that I thought that you would be too busy.” Moxxie said lying through his teeth. At this moment she seemed to be on at least good terms with him. All he had to do was find a way out with Poppy and get to the train.

“We just wanted to board the train, and I don’t know my way around very well. It’s my first time here, so I-”

“Wait! You’ve never been to the Game Station before?” ‘Mommy’ said with an almost appalled face. “But how can that be? You’re an experiment like us, so surely you must have……. oh wait.” Mommy paused, her eyes peered at Moxxie. “You must be one of those special cases, like that pesky purple pussycat.” 

‘Experiment?’ Moxxie thought to himself, what did she mean by that? Before thinking it was probably better to just try and get out of this situation.

“Yes, I’ve never been here and I kind of need to be somewhere else, I’m sorry for interrupting you. Is it alright if you just let me and Poppy go on our way?” Moxxie said trying to sound a nice as possible.

Mommy appeared to be giving it some thought as she didn’t say anything, while looking between both of her captives.

“No” She replied quickly. Dampening Moxxie’s mood that this would be an easy discussion.

“What, why not?”  Moxxie replied confused.

“Because I haven’t had any company in so long. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen anyone else come through here?” Her voice trailing off as she looked away from the imp, sad.

‘Well, this isn’t working out.’ Moxxie thought. There had to be some other way out of this. Moxxie considered the matter carefully, then an idea came to the imp.

“Ok, so what if I play some games with you in the game station? Would you let us go then?” Moxxie replied, grasping at whatever answer he could find.

Mommy seemed to like the idea, as her eyes seemed too sparkly with joy. “Oh, that’s a great idea, the place hasn't been used in years.”

Mommy brought her free hand up to her chin. Her eyes and mouth seemed to focus with extreme intent, before she snaped her fingers and her expression returned to normal “Oh, I’ve got it.” She moved the hand up to Moxxie and held up three fingers.

“Down in the game station are three super awesome fantastical games that I want you to play, beat all three and I’ll give you the train code and I’ll let you and Poppy go through without any problems.”

“Ok, that seems fair.” Moxxie said nodding along, but as he said it, he felt there was a catch coming.

“HOWEVER!” Mommy said, her face going angry for a few seconds as she stared at the imp with extreme intent once again. Only for her face to almost immediately switch back to a happy smile. “If you fail at even one of the games...” Mommy said as her face got closer to Moxxie’s, almost pressing into it “…then you and Poppy have to stay with me Foreverrrrrrr.”  Mommy said, her words filled with a condescending tone. Her smile never leaving her face throughout.

“Do we have a deal?” She said as she extended her arm out in front of the imp.

Moxxie just down at her hand for a second, did he really have a choice? He wasn’t sure what would happen if he refused. Currently he and Poppy were bound with no means of escape otherwise. Moxxie sighed as he made the only choice he had.

“Ok, deal, I’ll play your games, however I’m currently unable to shake your hand, due to your…webbing.” Moxxie said, motioning his head down to his bound body.

“YAY!” Mommy shouted in joy right into Moxxie’s ear. “Oh, this is going to be like old times, isn’t that right Poppy?” she said turning to her other captive in her arms.

“Now, can you please release me, so that we can get to the game station?” Moxxie said with a sheepish face.

The question seemed to cause Mommy to giggle loudly, “Silly, we’re already in the Game station.”

Once she finished talking, she withdrew and disappeared into the shadows, Poppy still held within her grasp, with only the sound of her laughter remaining, fading as she got further away.

A few seconds later a sudden bright light assaulted the imp’s eyes, causing him to shield them. A few moments later once the brightness had settled, he open his eyes once again and took in the new sights, his eyes widening in shock.

The room he was in was a massive play area, around the place was a series of different play structures, made up of colourful red, yellow and blue colours. Similar in design to what Moxxie had already seen in the factory above.

The structures themselves were made up of slides, climbing robes, monkey bard, roundabouts and a few riding horses (Blitz would like that), that were littered around the first half of the room.

The other half of the area consisted of a train station; it had an appearance like the train stations that could be found around Wrath. A massive colourful train could be seen at the very far end, underneath a Game Station logo, being held up by an image of Mommy Long Legs herself.

Just above the wonderments of the Game Station, he could see an overhead area, containing catwalks and a small area, that Moxxie could only assume was where the controls to the area were located.

The fact that such a thing was even in a factory was kind of mind blowing for the young imp.

“I know super cool, isn’t it?”

Moxxie once again jumped as he turned towards Mommy long legs who had managed to sneak up right beside him, while he was admiring the Game Station.

With a clearer view he also now able to see that Mommy was in fact using the many different structures to manoeuvrable about, as she currently was using the climbing equipment to reach up towards him.

He also started to notice that during her absent, she seemed to have left something behind.

“Wait, where is Poppy?” He asked very worried.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve placed her up there.” she said as she pointed to the overhead area above the Game Station. “Inside there is a super awesome room, that contains cameras that let her view AALLLLLL of the Game Station, so she’ll get to see all the fun I have in store for you.”

Moxxie felt a bit relieved, knowing where Poppy was now. But he still had one problem that needed to be addressed.

“Um Mommy, while I love to stay up here all day can you please let me down?”

“Oh right, I forgot you’re still in my web, silly me.” The pink spider replied while giggling at the end. Before bringing both her arms up and attempted to pull the silk apart. She appeared to be having difficulty with, based on the fact her face was contorted into a look of fierce concentration while she gritting her teeth.

“Hey, can you be careful so that it doesn’t tear my clothes?” Moxxie said, trying to sound as nice as possible to not offend the spider.

Mommy’s head turned towards him to address the question. “Oh, don’t worry, it doesn’t actually stick to anything, the only think my silk sticks too is itself, makes it so no clothes or equipment can get damaged.” The spider answered, her voice straining as she attempted to free the imp from his web prison.

Moxxie seemed a bit intrigued by the revelation “Oh, that’s quite clever, it seems hard to remove. You seem to be having trouble getting it loose.” The imp said, as he started to notice the spider’s current predicament.

"Yes, it can be quite a struggle to break. Those scientists working here were really smart, too much for their own good!” she spoke. Moxxie noticed her expression quickly changed once mentioning scientists. He also made a mental note about the functions of the silk. His experience in the mafia had taught him that engaging in polite conversation was an effective way to encourage someone to speak more openly.

A few seconds later he found his body start to shift in the webbing around him. He was coming lose. However, it also only just occurred to him that he was currently several feet in the air.

“Wait, how do I get-”

Before Moxxie could finish his sentence, The spider with one last pull had removed a sizeable chunk of the webbing around him and he began to fall to the floor.

Moxxie feel for a few seconds before falling straight onto a cardboard cutout of Mommy below.

“OOF”

Moxxie felt more pain as he fell onto his face once again, before picking himself up and clutching his face to check for any blood. Mommy slowly descended from above and landed right in front of the imp.  

“Ok, let the games begin. It’s been a while since someone’s come to see me and I’m sooo looking forward to us playing together.” She said with excitement as she clapped her hands together with a massive smile on her face.

“Follow me” she commanded before turning around and heading towards in the direction of the train station.

Moxxie obeyed and followed behind the pink spider, but as he did, he had a realization.

Her back was turned and she was currently distracted. It was the perfect opportunity to take a shot.

But he had to be careful, Moxxie knew that he only had the one bullet left. He also knew he wouldn’t likely get another opportunity like this. While the spider appeared to be nice, he could see from her shifting demeanour she was unstable. Also judging by how she was acting, the imp figured there was a strong possibility that she would rig the games.

The other problem was that Poppy was currently trapped and at the mercy of this thing. If she gets hurt, then their escape could be jeopardized.

After weighing the options in his head for a few seconds, he figured he should take the shot.

Not wasting another second, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his weapon and-

As he went to pull out his weapon, he couldn’t find it.

Moxxie’s eyes widened in panic as he searched through his pockets frantically, for the second time that day, hoping to find his lost pistol.

Where the fuck was his weapon?

*********************

“So, Mommy Long Legs got him?” Icky questioned.

“From what I heard yes, looks like Moxxie will be ‘enjoying’ himself in Game Station for a while.” Rabie replied.

Rabie Baby and Icky Licky both found themselves looking down at the massive hole that both Moxxie and Poppy had been dragged into. They’d been standing by it for a few moments at this point, just staring into the dark abyss below.

“It’s a real shame too, guess he really did get lucky with Huggy.” Icky said as he brought his hands up in a shrug.

“Yeah, it seems like it.” She said slightly sad, she kind of expected this ‘Moxxie’ to perform at least a bit better. Now he was just another plaything for the pink spider that ruled over the Game Station.

"Ok, now we know what happened, let's leave-” Icky said, but whilst speaking, he looked around the edges of the hole and appeared to notice something. The frog made his way over to the thing and picked it up.

“What’s this?” The frog questioned as he picked up the strange metal object.

Rabie noticing something had caught Icky’s attention had made her way over and was taken off guard by what the frog had.

“Dude, I think that’s a gun!” Rabie replied flabbergasted at what was currently in her friend’s grasp, before immediately going over and swiping it out of his Icky’s hand.

“Hey?! Rabie!” The frog said annoyed at the bat’s thievery.

“Icky this is a very dangerous item. Which I don’t trust you to use properly. So, I’m going to keep it, so you don’t get hurt.” The bay said before opening her chest compartment and placing it inside.

“Oh! No fair.” Icky replied crossing his arms and looking away in a sulk.

“I’m sorry Icks, I think it would best if I keep a hold of it for now.” Rabie said trying to reassure her friend, she didn’t like talking down to him, but in this case, it would be for the best.

The other big question was what it was even doing here, she could only assume it belonged to the ‘Moxxie’ guy. He must have dropped it when he was grabbed by Mommy, it would explain the loud noises she heard during his prior encounters.

It did leave a bad feeling in her mind that one of the toys was just carrying it around with them though. She was aware that the some of the people that used to run the factory carried weapons with them. The last thing she wanted to discover was a group of hungry toys wielding them. Her face almost paled at the thought (if her face could).

The bat shock her head to get back on topic and looked back at Icky. “Ok, we have to get to the other superiors offices to check for that book, so we have to go down here.” She said pointing down the big hole.

Icky shot her a look. “Excuse me? We have to g-go down here into the G-Game Station?” he questioned, hoping he misheard what she said.

"Actually, we won’t need to go into the Game Station. Instead, we just go down this hole, it leads to a room with slides that connect to all the other offices. We can simply go down and return without needing to enter the Game Station." Rabie explained.

“Um, I can’t” Icky said as he looked between his companion and the hole. “I’m um…. allergic to slides” Icky said, as he tried to make a coughing sound. 

Rabie just looked at her friend in stupidity, did he really think that would work?

“Ok, first off you can’t get allergies from slides, two we’ve been near several and you haven’t been affected. three you would have mentioned it before and four we can’t get allergies in general.” Rabid replied calmly to her friend.

As she spoke, she was also quick to notice that Icky was shaking as he started to stare down into the hole. After noticing how he was acting, she walked over and place a wing on his shoulder. “Look, Icky I know your scared of bugs, and Mommy scares you. But she’ll most likely be distracted with ‘Moxxie’ to even notice us.” Rabie said, reassuring her frog friend.

Icky still looked down at the hole. Giving up his fake coughing. “I-I’m still not sure.”

Rabie rolled her eyes “That’s ok, I just need to give you a little bit of a push.” Rabie said as she used both her wings and shoved her friend down the hole.

As Icky started to fall, Rabie gave a little giggle at her naughty deed. This however didn’t last long as she soon found Icky’s tongue wrapped around her.

Turns out while Icky was falling, he tried to use his tongue to slow his descent, however the only thing around he could grab happened to be Rabie herself.

“I deserve thisssssss!” Rabie shouted as she was soon pulled into the hole along with Icky, as they both into the abyss.

***********

‘Are you fucking kidding me, I lost my gun now too?’ Moxxie thought annoyed. He’d looked around the area to see if it dropped out while he was unconscious but he couldn’t find it anywhere.

It was bad enough when he broke his phone, but now this favourite firearm was unaccounted for. This meant he had no other way out of the current predicament he was in.

Groaning he looked back up at the pink spider who seemed to be just walking ahead and talking about the area, not really paying attention to him.

‘Did she go through my pockets while I was unconscious? If she did asking if she did take my weapon asking about it would mostly likely enrage her.’ Moxxie thought to himself, feeling a bit naked without a weapon on him.

Moxxie sighed, glancing toward the train station he was able to spot three large doors in the floor. The Imp assumed that’s where he was going.

Whether Moxxie liked it or not, he had to play these games.

How bad could they be?

Chapter Text

Chapter 11 – A lot to unpack

Moxxie followed closely behind Mommy long legs, as she made her way up to the front of the train station platform. Standing right before it laid panel with three levers on it.

Right before the console was a set of three doors leading into the floor, one to his right, one to his left and one just under the panel, all three doors appeared to be currently looked.

The door on his right had a sign showing the words ‘Musical Memory’. the picture itself was that of some yellow bunny creature wearing a green party hat with a pair of musical cymbals in each hand.

‘If it involves music, at least I might enjoy it.’ Moxxie thought to himself, hoping he’d get some enjoyment out of this experience.

The door right in front of him also had as sign, this one had the words ‘Statues’ written on it. The picture appeared to be of what Moxxie could only assume was a blue and purple dog.

‘What could that game even be?’ Moxxie pondered, the name didn’t remind of anything he played in his childhood, then again, he didn’t play many games in his childhood.

The third and final door on his left was one that seemed to catch his attention the most though. Mainly because the name on the sign read ‘Wack-a-Wuggy’ featuring a picture that contained two of the creatures he had previously fought, a blue one smashing another green one with a hammer.

Moxxie just had a sour expression on his face as he looked at the sign. It just felt like a reminder of his failure to complete his pervious assignment.

‘At the very least, I can blow off some steam.’ Moxxie thought. It was a whole lot easier to hurt something if you didn’t like it, something that didn’t come up much on assassination missions.

Taking his eyes off the sign, he turned back around to see his pink tour guide up by the lever panel, just above the ‘Statues’ door. The panels themselves appeared to have 3 small lights just above them, currently the two on his left were off and the third one was flashing red and beeping.

He watched as Mommy gripped onto the level above the red light and pressed pulled it down, as she did, he was quick to notice the light turning green. Moxxie could also tell she was excited due to her expression going wider and her body shaking, unable to contain herself.

A second later, a loud piece of weird music played across the Game Station, from what the imp assumed was an intercom system.

Immediate after, a voice began to come from the same intercom.

“Hi kids! Welcome to the Game Station! I'm Stella and we've got three super, duper fun games to play! These little tests show us just how crazy, strong and smart you are! Follow Mommy Long Legs down the stairs and we'll start by playing Musical Memory! See you in a bit!”

As the recording played Moxxie took another look at Mommy who seemed to become more exited as the voice continued. She even pointer towards herself dramatically once her name was mentioned by ‘Stella’.

‘Hah Stella, that…is a very funny confidence’ Moxxie thought to himself, being reminded of a certain Goetia swan who shared the same name.

“Ok, it’s been sooo long since I’ve heard that. Anyway, you heard what the voice said follow me.” Mommy said as she motioned her hand for him to follow and moved past him down towards the Musical Memory door.

As Moxxie followed her, he started to hear a clanking sound coming from the door to the room. Soon the loud clanking of moving metal was heard as it scrapped across the floor. The door appeared to have not been used in ages, as it struggled to open.

Moxxie covered his ears and gritted his teeth from the agonizing noise. Thanking himself once the sound rescinded and the door fully opened.

Mommy Long Legs in the meanwhile didn’t seem to be affected by the noise at all, she just gleefully smiled as the door opened, clapping her arms in excitement.

On the other side of the open door was a staircase that led down a little further to another area. Moxxie began to follow Mommy as she made her way down. As they started to approach the bottom of the staircase the first thing he was able to notice was how badly the place appeared.

The place hadn’t been up and running for a long time and it showed. A large part of the floor was stained with a weird black substance and several tiles on the ground were cracked. The biggest problem however was that one of the walls had almost collapsed and had a massive hole in it leading to another location entirely.

Looking around the room some more things he noticed was some old decorations depicting the yellow bunny thing he saw on the sign. This Included a poster that showed the bunny tapping his cymbals, with ‘Let’s Party’ written on it and the walls showed different pictures of the bunny in various poses.

Moxxie also noticed the way forward was blocked by a metal shutter door. It appeared to have gotten stuck halfway through opening, leaving a small gap in the middle.

‘Am I supposed to climb through there?’ Moxxie thought as he started to make his way forward. That was until he felt Mommy’s pink arm grip onto his shoulder, preventing him for advancing.

“Oh, that’s right, I almost forgot?” he heard Mommy say next to him, before turning to address him.

“I just remembered a special rule we must follow. Usually, we give a special piece of equipment to help during the second test, but it cases were the person doing the test is deemed too small we provide it early to help, to help with reaching. And with the way forward blocked we have the perfect opportunity to use it.”

Moxxie looked at the spider in confusion. ‘Special piece of equipment?’ He could only imagine what he was going to be given.

Before he could question what, she was talking about he watched her walk over to a small room, adjacent to the massive hole and turned the handle.

“I’m going to need you come in here, don’t worry this won’t take long.” She said addressing the small imp as she opened the door.

Soon after they both made their way inside, Moxxie began to scan around the new location.

It appeared to be something that almost resembled a classroom, with a few cupboards around the room. On the far side of the room was a massive screen with several chairs arranged in front of it and a yellow VCR placed into the corner next to the screen. On the other side of the room the wall a massive ruler was decorated onto the wall, along with a few decorations of the other toys.

The room appeared to be in a better condition than the outside, although it still wasn’t the best. While most of the overhead light appeared to work correctly, some of them would flicker. The room also had several toys and pieces of paper just littered around it, there were also more of the dark stains that Moxxie appeared to be seeing everywhere in the factory.

He watched as Mommy made her way other to one of the cupboards and began to rummage through them, before pulling out a few pieces of paper and siting down on one of the chairs, that faced the wall.

“Ok, Moxxie I need you to go stand by that big ruler picture on the wall and stand as close as possible. Usually, other people would handle this job, but since I’m the only one here your lucky enough to have me for this too.” She said, as she pointed towards where he needed to go.

Moxxie not wanting to make her upset or question her, he followed her command and went up to the wall. He placed himself in front of the wall, trying to make himself as straight as possible.

As he did, he watched as Mommy pulled a pair of glasses out of nowhere and placed them on her head. Moxxie could tell that judging by the fact they didn’t appear to fit her and the fact they were partially broken that the glasses didn’t originally belong to her.

Moxxie watched as she seemed to take a much more professional demeaner. “4 feet 4” He heard the spider mutter as she writes something down, before moving the paper away and placing the second one in front of her and began to look at Moxxie, with serious intent.

“Name?” She spoke, her cheery voice seemed to shift into a more professional tone, which Moxxie could only describe as like a teacher.

“Um, Moxxie” he replied really confused by her sudden shift and question, considering she already knew his name.

Between her pink colour, weird demeanour shift and the potential craziness, the spider was starting to remind him of that Pink Pie pony from that friendship show that Blitz would always watch.

Moxxie continued to stand by the wall as she wrote someone down on the sheet.

“Procter, that would be me” He heard her mumble again, before she looked back up at him.

“What toy are you again Moxxie?” She asked him confused, with her eyebrow raised, behind the broken specks.

Moxxie tilted his head at the question, not sure what he could say. She thought he was a toy. He did recall her mistaking him for some sort of ‘experiment’ earlier, whatever that meant. But Moxxie really didn’t know how he should answer the question.

“Um, I don’t know what you mean, Mommy” He replied as he rubbed the back of his head.

Mommy looked at him for a second before her head began to stretch out and make its way over to him, while her body remained seated. “You really don’t know?” Mommy replied, her expression shifted into a small frown for a moment, before she began to look him over, trying to find any clue to what he was. “I actually don’t recall ever seeing anything like you before, you’re not a Huggy or one of the dinosaurs, are you one of the critters perhaps?” She said as she continued to look him over. “What animal are you even supposed to be?”

“I’m a i-” Moxxie stopped himself before the word left his mouth, once he realised what he was about to blurt out.

‘I can’t tell her I’m an Imp, doesn’t matter who she was.’ Moxxie thought as he caught himself before he made such as huge mistake. Giving away that he was an imp would be a very bad idea.

‘I’ll have to tell her I’m something else to avoid her asking anymore questions.”

At this point he really did regret no putting on a human disguise, if he had hellhound shapeshifting powers or the Asmodeus crystal itself it wouldn’t be a problem, but he was kind of thrown into the mission without time to prepare a real disguise. Although it’s not like he thought the mission would require one, considering he was checking what he presumed was an abandoned factory.

He thought about for a few more seconds as he started to recall previous trips to the mortal world. On a few occasions when he had been discovered he was mistaken for a particular animal.

That seemed like the best answer to give her, seeing as others had already mistaken him for one, so it would be easy to believe (At least he assumed). He starts to remember that one mission on the beach, involving his Boss’s ex.

‘What did they think I was again?’ Moxxie thought, still having a little trouble remembering that day. Being stuck in a keg of alcohol and almost inhaling its entire contents, made it the details quite foggy.

He thought about for a few seconds when suddenly the memories flooded back to him, and he let out an annoyed sigh. He knew it was his best bet, he just hoped it wouldn’t cause any issues later down the line.

“I’m…. a possum” he tried to say with a straight face but ended up rolling his eyes, it was the only answer he had and so he was stuck with it.

He watched as she looked him in the eyes, Moxxie almost gulped thinking he had said something that upset her. Before she pulled her head back and shrugged her shoulders.

“Yep, that makes sense.” She said nonchalantly.

‘DOES IT?’ Moxxie thought, still surprised that it even worked. Did people really think he looked like that marsupial?”  He began to look over his body ‘I don’t get it, is it the hair, the tail, my clothes?’  The Possum thought, questioning why so many seem to think the same thing.

Mommy meanwhile picked up the pieces of paper and began to walk over to another one of the wardrobe’s closer to the screen. Moxxie watched as she pulled out what looked like a yellow tape.

“Now that this is the papers are filled out, I need you to watch the video I’m going to show you. Can you please go and take a seat please?” Mommy said pointing over in the direction of the screen and the chairs.

Moxxie obeyed her and make his way over to the area. Glancing around, he saw many of the chairs were already occupied by broken and dismembered toys, It was honestly a little creepy, seeing so many toys like this. The chairs also appeared to come in a multitude of colours and designs, that resembled the toys that playtime co made.

Moxxie could judge by Mommy’s earlier comments and the size of all the chairs, that they were mostly likely intended for children.

As he continued to scan around for a chair, his eyes were drawn to greenish unoccupied chair with multiple colours on the back resembling scales. Moving around to the front he found that the seat itself had a black and white pattern resembling piano keys with a pair of green eyes and a snout on it. Moxxie on a second glance was able to notice that the chair was supposed to resemble a face, with the piano keys forming the teeth of the creature. It would have been cute if not for the current circumstances.

Not wanting to waste anymore time and upset Mommy, he took his seat and faced the screen in front.

He watched as the pink spider made her way up to the front carefully, seemingly to avoid hitting or bumping any of the chairs. Once she made it up.

She proceeded to insert the tape into the VHS. A few seconds later the sounds of VHS turning on began to echo thought the room, before the big screen flashed to life.

Immediately after the imp saw Mommy began to make her way over to the corner of the room. He heard the flick of a switch and all the lights turned off. Now the sole source of illumination in the room was the large screen.

“Ok, I need to go and get something for you, until I get back, I want you to watch the video. If have any questions afterwards, don’t worry Mommy will be back to answer shortly.” She said before she made her way out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Moxxie just turned around and looked back at the screen as it continued to make a buzzing noise and show static.

‘Is it broken?’ Moxxie thought, about to get up and try and fix it.

But as he was about to climb out of his seat, the static on the screen began to shift and between the buzzing and the static Moxxie began to hear voices as the screen started to become clearer.

Soon the static began to almost completely dissipate before being replaced by a screen featuring a red, white and blue background.

“What’s the time?” A female voice said from the screen, as the word appeared on the screen.

Soon the playtime logo began to fly from the background before stopping in the middle of the screen.

“PLAYTIME.” A bunch of children’s voices said on the screen, before the screen faded to black a moment later.

Moxxie at this point had seen this little opening before from doing research on the company. It was something that had appeared before most of their old product’s advertisements.

‘So, is this going to be another commercial?’ Moxxie thought.

His answer was given a second later once the screen return to an image of a big field. The field was a lovely emerald green, with a few trees dotted around in the distance. The blue sky was lovely and almost completely cloud free apart from a few, with the mortal sun shinning brightly on the fields. The entire thing appeared to be some sort of cartoon from Moxxie could see.

In the middle of the field was cartoon dog standing up on 2 legs, sitting on the field right next to him was a weird piece of equipment. The video soon cut to a closer view the dog, he appeared to be an orange colour with some weird sun pendent on his neck.

“Hey, everyone its DogDay and I’m here to give you this very important video.” The dog said, a massive smile on his face that seemed to almost cover his entire head.

‘Oh, wait that’s one of the critter characters’ Moxxie thought to himself.

Moxxie recalls they were a product of playtime go, a collection of toys known as the ‘Smiling Critters’, they had some Tv show if he could recall correctly.

“Today we’re here to show you the dos and don’ts of this very special piece of equipment that you’ll be using very soon, it’s called the GrabPack.” DogDay said excited as he pointed towards the device on the ground.

The imp was now able to get a better look at the ‘GrabPack’. It looked like a backpack; with a set of nozzles attached to either side of the device, the thing kind of looked like a gun to Moxxie, with a trigger. The only difference was that the ‘Guns’ appeared to have a set of hands on the ends of them. The one on the right had a red hand and the one on the left was blue.

‘That device and the hands look familiar, where have a seen that before?’ Moxxie thought to himself, he must have seen it while back at I.M.P headquarters, but he didn’t remember where exactly.

As he continued to observe, Moxxie soon noticed a small yellow chicken character with an orange star pendent walk into frame. He had a similar design to the Dog. The chicken had his arms crossed with a very cocky smile on his face.

“Wow, DogDay that looks really cool, let me try it.” The chicken character said, as he suddenly moved over and attempted to pick up the GrabPack.

“Woah woah woah, Kickin Chicken.”  A panicked voice said, just as another new character ran into frame from the left side and got in between the chicken and the GrabPack. The creature was a blue elephant, with a lightbulb pendent around his neck. “While it does look fun to use, you have to make sure you know how it functions first, to avoid any accidents.” The blue elephant said as he turned towards the camera. Judging by the way he was speaking Moxxie assumed he was the smart one of the critters.

“That’s right Bubba.” Dogday said, as he walked over to the others. “If you wish to use the equipment correctly, you’re going to have remember all the safety rules and know to use it properly.”

The chicken look at DogDay before flashing him another of his cocky smiles and doing finger guns. “Oh, your right DogDay, there’s nothing cooler, then safety.”

‘At least someone’s smart’ Moxxie thought, relating to the fictional cartoon characters. So many times, at I.M.P he could recall trying to get everyone to be safer and they didn’t listen.

“So, what’s the first thing we have to learn Day?” Kickin Chicken said addressing his friend. As he starting to look at the GrabPack again.

“Well, the first thing you have to be aware of is putting it on correctly.” Dogday said as move over to help Chicken put it on.

“The first thing you have to be made aware of is that once its placed on your back, you must tighten the straps correctly.” Dogday demonstrated as he went behind his friend as the back was placed on him.

A few seconds later the device was attached to the yellow chicken’s back. “Wow, this thing is very light.” Kickin said in a very over-the-top exited manner as he jumped to get a feel for the device.

“Yeah, it’s not very heavy to avoid any potential injuries, but make sure that its attached properly, if you’re struggling to put it on yourself then make sure to get a grownup to help put it on.” The blue elephant, Bubba told while looking at the screen, Cleary addressing the audience once again.

“Ok, what cool things can we do with it?” Chicken said as both his hands began to shake in excitement.

“Well first we have to go over how the pack actually works.” Dogday said. Once he finished speaking, the scene transition, as the field began to disappear and was soon replaced with the interior of a house. The imp was able to make out a large assortment of boxes in varying sizes in the background.

Moxxie also started to notice that another character had made their way on into the frame, this one was green bunny rabbit, their pendent appeared to be a yellow lightning bolt.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?” The rabbit asked, who appeared to be female based of her voice. She was jumping around and didn’t look like she could stay still.

“Hi Hoppy, DogDay was just about to show us how to use the GrabPack.” Kickin said addressing the bunny, who was now discovered to be called Hoppy.

“Oh cool, can I learn to?” Hoppy replied just as excited as her friend.

“Of course you can Hoppy.” DogDay said, as he immediately snapped his fingers and a second GrabPack magically appeared on Hoppy’s back, in a sudden cloud of smoke.

“The first thing you’ll notice is that is that there are triggers on each side of the device to put your fingers into.” DogDay said as they both looked at the machines. “You’ll also noticed that the Packs have a hand attached to them, by pressing the trigger, that arm will launch off and attached to the whatever it grabs. Hoppy why don’t you give it a try and aim for that box.” DogDay then pointed at a box in the middle of the room.

The green bunny looked confused before moving the attached handle, which seemed to also move the attached hand. She aimed the hand at one of the smaller boxes in the room and as soon as she pressed the trigger the hand launched off with incredible speed with a wire attached to it, before latching onto the box.

“Woah, that’s cool” Hoppy said amazed at what she had witnessed.

“I know it’s cool, but you’ll know notice that the hand is still attached to the box, now you can do two things. To release the grip on the item simply tap the trigger again, Hoppy.” DogDay said to his rabbit friend.

Hoppy did as she was told, and it releases the grip and the hand pulled back towards the pack.

“Thats great work Hoppy, now Chicken I want you to do the same thing, only could you aim towards that box.” DogDay said as he pointed towards a much smaller box.

“Ok.” Kickin said as he fired off the GrabPack and it attached the same way to the box.

“Now I want you to hold down the trigger instead of just tapping it, like Hoppy did.”

Kickin did what he was told, and they watched at the GrabPack retracted like before, only this time the hand still had the Box attached and so brought it back to Kickin.

“Woah, that’s cool.” Kickin Chicken said, addressing his friends.

“Yes, by using the GrabPack you can bring smaller objects towards you.” Bubba said as he informed them on the functions of the GrabPack.

As they spoke another GrabPack hand launched from off screen, latching on to a small fruit bowl on one of the houses counters, before pulling it back. Everyone turned as the video turned towards a pink pig who was also wearing a GrabPack and was currently eating an apple from the bowl she had just grabbed. She appeared to be enjoying herself based on the loud crutches she took as she consumed her food. She was wearing a apple pendent around her neck.

“Piggy.” DogDay said in a happy tone with a mischievous grin and his hands on his hips.

The pig, now known as Piggy, swallowed her food before addressing the others. “Sorry, its just this item is soo handy in grabbing things.” She replied sheepishly (or piggishly?).

“Oh, it’s alright the device main purpose is grabbing small objects from far away and even can be used to carry objects.” Dogday said.

“Hey Hoppy lets try and move that very big Box.” Kickin said to his bunny friend as they both turned towards the massive box in the room.

Both sported a grin before aiming their packs at the big box. However, as they both aimed, they were interrupted, by Bubba.

“Whoa whoa guys, that is a very dangerous thing that you should never do.” He said holding up his hands to stop both. “Moving small objects is fine, but you must never try and move something this big, you could both get hurt if you’re not careful.”

“Oh, give me a break!” An arrogant voice erupted from out of frame.

All the critters in the room were caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the new voice, as another critter appeared on screen.

The character was a crimson red dragon, sporting a golden dollar sign pendent around his neck. He seemed to have a lot more going on with him design wise then the other critters. He had a pair of golden earrings, including one above his right eye, a pair of golden horns and massive sharp teeth. He also had a pair of wings and what the imp could see was as a little mascara on his eyes.

Moxxie was sort of confused about this new individual, he had seen the other critters while doing his research on the company, but he doesn’t recall seeing a dragon among them. The guy kind of reminded the imp of Satan, the lord of Wrath.

The dragon seemed to barge his way in to the room, which seemed to get a different reaction from most of the people in the room. DogDay seemed to be slightly nervous, with Bubba and Piggy looking frightened by his presence. But it seemed that both Hoppy and Chicken had annoyed looks on their faces.

Judging by their reactions, he wasn’t a liked individual or at least one with a bad reputation. Just by the way he entered Moxxie could almost feel the arrogance radiating off him, it made the dragon stick out compared to the others, happy go lucky critters.

“Oh, hey Simon Smoke, w-what are you doing here?” DogDay asked nervously, as he rubbed his arm.

The dragon now named Simon turned towards them. “Well, I came because I heard you were telling people how this cool this thing was. Only to see that you guys are talking about all the boring rules, instead of doing anything cool.” Simon replied annoyed at the group.

DogDay rubbed the back of his head. “Well, Simon we have to explain the rules, otherwise you might get hurt.” He said trying to be as nice to the rude reptilian.

Simon rolled his eyes before grabbing a new GrabPack out of nowhere offscreen “You critters are soo lame, let me show the kids how it’s done.” Simon said before aiming his GrabPack at the massive box, immediately after he pressed both triggers launching the hands towards the box and latching both on.

Simon turned to the others with a smile “This is how you do it.”

“Wait, Simon that’s dangerous.” Kickin said, his annoyance replaced with concern for the dragon, as he attempted to go over and help him.

“I know what I’m doing-”

As Simon spoke, he pressed down both triggers at once to pull the object towards them, however due to the weight of the box, it instead pulled Simon towards it, before the device launched him forward and he smashed headfirst into the boxes.

“OOF” Simon yelped before falling on his side, with both arms leaning behind him, including one of his legs. His face wasn’t visible, but you could hear him groaning in pain.

All the critters and even Moxxie himself recoiled at the injury. The imp was no stranger to getting hurt and had become guide adept at determining how painful something was and that dragon was going to feel it in the morning.

Moxxie watched the video as the other critters ran up to check if Simon was ok.

“You ok, Simon?” Dogday said in concern.

“I think he might be hurt, can someone go and get the first aid kit?” Bubba said to the rest of the critters.

“Don’t worry I’m here.” A new voice said.

The critters turned as a red bear walked into the room carrying a first aid kit and wearing a heart pendent. Before she walked over to Simon Smoke with a slight worry look on her face. She soon opened the kit and began to pull out a large roll of bandages.

“Thanks for coming Bobby.” DogDay said, relieved that his friend was here to help. As the others started to surround the dragon, Dogday walked towards the camera with a more serious look on his face, compared to his normal smile.

“Remember kids, always be careful when handling the GrabPack and NEVER grab anything too large. You don’t want to be an unsafe Simon.” Dogday said as the scene went back to show the others next to Simon. The dragon now appeared to be covered in multiple bandages cartoonishly covering most of his body, making it hard for him to move.

The screen turned back to DogDay. “But that’s not the only thing you should watch out for while using the GrabPack, grappling boxes is all fun and games.” Dogday said, as he reached behind his back and pulled out a plush of himself. “But you should also be careful to never aim it at another person. The pull from it can put the other person in danger.”

As DogDay finishes speaking another GrabPack hands launches from off screen and laches on to the top half of the plush in his grasp. Immediately the hand retracts ripping the plush the half leaving only the bottom half in the cartoon canines clutches.

DogDay seems to just look at the bottom of his plush still in his hands, his iris shrunk in horror.

“Oops, sorry DogDay” A new female voice says, apologizing to the dog, with a giggle at the end.

The video panes away from DogDay and towards a new figure which seemed to resemble a horse. The horse had a white fur along with a light blue mane and tail. Her hooves were also the same light blue colour. He also noticed that she was wearing a flower pendent around her neck, it had 5 petals with each one being a different colour, creating a rainbow. The one thing that stuck out about her (Literally) was the horn on the top of her head.

Moxxie believed that this was meant to be a unicorn rather than a horse.

“Oh, that’s fine, CraftCorn.” The dog replied seeming to have gotten over his shock quite quickly. “But remember to always to remember where you’re aiming or this might happen to you.” He said as he brought the bottom half of his plush still in his hands.

‘Ok, this took a dark turn.’ Moxxie thought as he continued to watch, I guess they had to be serious when it came to teaching how the equipment worked. Then again why would you even let children use it?

Moxxie didn’t have time to think as he watched that the scene transition once again. This time the scene was set in some sort of weird lab. An assortment of weird gadgets and items were strewn about in the background. The other critters all appeared to be waiting around in the background, just looking around the lab.

Moxxie was also quick to notice that Dogday now had a GrabPack equipped, while the rest didn’t.

“Ok, kids we got one more thing to show you before the end.” Dogday said.

Moxxie watched as the GrabPack on the dog’s back suddenly began to change as the red hand was suddenly replaced with a green hand.

“We get to show you guys a very new item added to the GrabPack, the green hand, using this hand you can touch electrical outlets which will hold and electrical charge for a few seconds.”

“Wait…what?” Moxxie said out loud to the tv screen, his face looked flabbergasted.

‘Did they seriously just give a bunch of CHILDREN an item that could conduct electricity?’ Moxxie thought, what the heaven were they thinking? That could cause an accident (if it didn’t already).

DogDay launched the green hand and used in on an octagon shaped device. Once it connected the hand began to brighten up with small sparks of electricity radiating off it.

‘That…. doesn’t look safe’ Moxxie thought, horrified that they were even using it.

“Using this while it’s charged will let you power up select power receivers that look like this.” DogDay pointed towards a triangle shaped device that looked like the octagon.

The triangle appeared to be attached to a large door, only just revealed as the video panned to it. Soon after DogDay fired the now charged green hand towards the triangle shape, causing hands green glow to transfer over to the triangle and the area around it began to light up.

The door it was connected to immediately began to raise, indicating the door was now power.

“As you can see by using the green hand I was able to power up this door and make it open.” DogDay said proud of himself.

At the same time all the other critters began to come over and observer the door opening.

“Wait, so we can transfer power using these, that’s really cool” The Chicken said, waiting for his chance to use the GrabPack again.

“Yeah, the number of amazing things we could create using this is astonishing.” Bubba said agreeing with the Chicken.

“We could design so many things.” The unicorn known as CraftyCorn said, also agreeing.

“Well guys you are all correct, however we have to go over a very important rule when using the green hand.” DogDay said once again going back to a serious tone, which caught the attention of all the other critters.

“Well, it’s rather two rules that are connected to eachother” DogDay said as he raised two fingers. “The first rule is that once a device is powered by the hand it won’t last long.”

No sooner had he finished talking the panel device by the door stopped glowing, causing the door to immediately fall with a massive slam, causing all the critters for be briefly bounce into the air.

“The second and most important of the rules is that while the green hand is charged you must never touch it. The electricity flowing through it can cause a nasty shock if touched.”  DogDay informed them as he looked over to make sure they were all paying attention.

All the critters looked at DogDay with varying degrees of shock (no pun intended) and awe, just knowing how dangerous and how careful they must be when operating the green hand.

“Isn’t that right, CatNap?” DogDay said as he looked up above at the roof of the lab, they were currently in. The video then moved upwards towards where DogDay was currently looking. It panned up towards Cat, sleeping on one of the overhead lights, with his long tail dangling over the edge and almost reaching the ground. The Cat was a purple colour, with is hands and feet being a dark shade of purple and wearing pendent of a yellow crescent moon.

At the mention of his name, the cat appeared to open his eyes halfway and smile as he looks down towards DogDay, this expression implying he was still not fully awake.

A few seconds later, the cat began to wrap his tail around the light he was perched on and slowly descend to the floor, using his tail like rope. Once he reached the ground, he unwrapped his tail from around the light souce.

He slowly walked up to DogDay, still not fully awake with his hand almost dragging by his side and his body slightly slouched and proceeded to give a soft nod to his friend. A reaction that caused the dog to smile slightly wider.

“Thanks, that what I want to see, in fact why don’t you help show them?” DogDay said proceeded to snap his fingers again and another GrabPack magically appeared in a puff of smoke on Catnap’s back.

CatNap looked down at the equipment, his smile and expression not changing as he began to aim the green hand at the power outlet, before releasing the hand and obtaining a charge.

Once the hand began to glow with electricity, he stood still while DogDay made his way up to him and pointed at the super charged green hand.

“As you can see the charge is once again in the hand, while in this state it is important that you never allow it to contact anything else. It’s also very important that you always make sure that the hand itself is in good condition before you even attempt to use it.” DogDay said as CatNap stood almost completely still, letting the dog demonstrate.

At that moment, the red bear Bobby raise her hand up, Simon Smoke was still wrapped up beside her.

“I have a question, what happens if it isn’t in good c-condition?”  Bobby asked nervously, she’ll already seen the damage it did to Simon and knew wanted to know if something worse could happen.

DogDay moved behind his back and pulled out another plush, this one was of CatNap. “I’m glad you asked, so we’ll give a brief demonstration.” DogDay said placing the toy plush down on the floor away from everyone else, before backing away.

“CatNap, would you demonstrate?” He said as a glanced back towards the toy laying in the middle room.

CatNap gave another small nod before launching the electrically charged green arm at the plush, once the arm had contact there was a moment where nothing happened. A second later the plush began to smoke before almost bursting into flames.

The critters just stood by as the fire engulfed the entire plush, while all the critters just looked at it, not even one of them seemed to say anything. DogDay then turned around back to the camera “And that is why you must make sure to never use the green hand improperly.” He said with a big smile, completely juxtaposed to burning plush behind him.

Moxxie…. had no words. This tutorial seemed to start out as a simple and fun way to show children how to use the equipment properly. But as it went on the imp began to see this dark undertone began to show itself, which only got progressively more unsubtle as the tape continued to play.

‘Kids were supposed to watch this, weren’t they?’ Moxxie thought to himself. I guess they really wanted to make sure that the children don’t mess and get hurt. But, as Moxxie had previously thought, why even bother giving it to them if they thought there was a potential for danger?

He made a mental note that the second he got home, he was going to investigate the apartment for any sort of danger that could befall his own child.

Moxxie was also starting to worry that something bade might have happened that caused the creation of this video. Did someone get hurt? He didn’t even know why he was trying to make sense of all this, his only concern now should be getting through the Game Station and getting on that train.

“Well, I hope you all enjoyed this video, sadly we must go now. But don’t worry some of us will still be waiting for you down in the Playcare once you’re done.”

“We can’t wait to see you.” CraftyCorn said.

CatNap nodded his head.

“You can tell us how much you enjoyed the Game Station when you’re done.” Hoppy said.

DogDay once again got in front of the screen. “Just remember, always be careful, quick the equipment and most importantly-”

DogDay moves out of the way so that the Simon Smoke was in the centre of the shot. All the critters soon turned and looked at the camera and pointing their fingers at the still wrapped up dragon.

“DON’T BE AN UNSAFE SIMON.” They all said simultaneous.

The dragon used looked around annoyed as he turned to each of them. “Hey, it’s not my-”

Before Simon could finish his sentences, CatNap had walked up to his side and opened his mouth up. In an instance a weird red smoke was produced from inside his mouth and blown into the dragon’s face.

Whatever the choice words Simon had for them was halted as he soon looked very drowsy, before his head slumped over to the side. His pupils seemed had vanished from his eyes as his expression stayed on his face as just went motionless.

‘What…. the…. Fuck?’

Moxxie was taking completely off guard by what had just witness the feline do, did he just spew some gas into the guy’s face. Did any adult with a functioning brain see the video before they had children watch it? Did he misinterpret who this show was made for? Was it not a kids show?

All the critters didn’t even seem to care about what just happened as they all just laughed and waved at the Camera, before the screen went dark once again, ending the video.

Before Moxxie could say anything else, he heard the door behind him begin to open as a pink hand entered the room, followed shortly by the flick of a switch and all the lights had turned back on in the room.

‘Seems like Mommy has returned.’ Moxxie thought, as he remained in his seat, not wanting to cause any problems as she made her way over.

On a quick glance he noticed that she was carrying something under her arm, before she placed it off on the ground, near the imp.

“Sorry about that, had a bit of trouble finding one in your size. But don’t worry Mommy found you one, it didn’t have a red hand attached so, I had to create a new green one in the machine.” Mommy replied happily, as she pointed down to the item she brought in.

It was a GrabPack.

It appeared to be just big enough for him to wear, that at least explained why she needed his measurements.

Moxxie continued to look at the item for a few seconds, the video he watched did have him kind of worried about what he would even require the device. But, following the instructions given to him in the video, his eyes scanned over the two blue and green hand it possessed, trying to see if they looked in good condition.

On a closer inspection, it appeared that device looked alright, it was just showing a bit of age, although that was to be expected given it probably hadn’t been used in 10+ years. The green hand however looked brand new, with a fresh coat of pain, that only just recently dried, giving claim to the fact that Mommy hand just made it.

“Well…. why don’t you put it on?” Mommy said, while she did try to sound nice, Moxxie could clearly hear a slight bit of impatience in her tone.

Not wanting to waste too much time, Moxxie made his way over and tried to pick it up, it was surprising light just like the video had said. The imp then moved it around, placing each of the straps around his arms as he tried to put it on, hoping that it would fit correctly.

As he fitted in onto his back, he saw Mommy make her way behind him and seemed to grab onto it, he then felt the thing become more fastened to his back.

“There it should be put on correctly, I’d move around a bit and see that it works correctly.” Mommy said.

The imp obeyed and started to do a bit of walking around the area, as he held on to both handles. As he did he also made sure to keep his index finger off the triggers, he knew the first rules about gun safety and this was no different.

It really did surprise Moxxie at how light the GrabPack was, while he expected it to be considering children supposedly used it, he didn’t expect it to be this light. He couldn’t even feel the tug of the straps on his shoulders, if it wasn’t for the gun like devices on either side of him being visible he'd forget it was even on.

All jokes and the creepy video aside, it was remarkable that this device even existed. It also made him at least be a bit more comfortable that he had something close to a weapon to use now, he doubted he would have much trouble getting the hang of the Pack with a little practice.

“So, how does it feel?” Mommy said, with an exited look on her face.

“This is amazing, this feels so good, I can’t even feel it, this device is so cool!” Moxxie said, his love for weapon like devices and equipment made crystal clear as he continued to go on about how much he liked it. An enthusiasm that Mommy appeared to enjoy as she watched the possum's enthusiasm.

“I’m so glad you like it; you’ll be able to test it soon, in our first game. But I’m afraid we must go over one last thing before we do that.” Mommy said, trying to temper the imp’s enthusiasm, at least for the time.

Moxxie turned towards Mommy after hearing it. “Ok, what do we have to do?” Moxxie questioned.

Mommy responded by handing him a piece of paper and a pencil, the words at the top reading “GrabPack Awesome Quiz”, with a bunch of questions labelled out underneath it.

“I’m afraid we have to do this little quiz first, only once you’ve done all the question correctly can you leave.” Mommy said, but as she started to explain she watched as Moxxie had already undone the straps of his GrabPack and had sat down at the desk and was already writing down on the piece of paper, smoke almost billowing off the pencil as the imp continued to go through the questions.

“Should be done in a few minutes.” Moxxie said, not even looking up, his eyes remained glued to the sheet of paper in front of him, as he blitzed (Not his Boss) through the questions.

Mommy just watched him confused, most of the children she had worked with didn’t like doing the tests, but here this one was going thought them without so much as a whimper.

Mommy smiled.

“Good, the sooner you get them done, the sooner we can get to the games.” She spoke.

‘And the sooner you'll be stuck here with me FOREVERRRR.’  Mommy thought, her smile turning more sinister with a glint in her eyes.

This one didn’t know what he was in for.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12 – The Possum and the Bunny.

The silence in the hallway was broken with the opening of the tutorial room as imp emerged from inside. His new GrabPack device was firmly stabbed to his back, a look of determination on his face.

Upon glancing around he soon noticed that the shutter door that was previously closed were now opened fully, revealing the way to the Musical Memory area. Also, on the other side was another massive hole, along with a cardboard cutout of the bunny character that was appearing everywhere.

Another thing that the imp quickly noticed was that the massive hole had now been blocked off by a massive spider web. Looking over past where the shutter was, he also able to find that there was another hole had also been blocked off with web.

It didn’t take a genius to determine the culprit.

It was also quite concerning that several walls in this place had just fallen apart. Moxxie made a note to be more careful.

As he observed the wall,  Mommy made her way through the door following behind Moxxie.

“Alright, while you were watching the video, Mommy took the liberty of moving that stupid door out of the way. Now you should be able to get to Musical Memory. Are their anymore questions you have before I leave?”

Moxxie immediately raised his arm. “Is it alright if I get a chance to try out the GrabPack before I start the tests?” he said trying to be polite as possible.

While he did understand the fundamentals of the device, like any weapon that the imp used he’d need to give it a test drive before he even considered using it the field.

An important thing for any weapons expert was knowing how a piece of equipment functioned, its handling, its size and weight, all these factors were what Moxxie needed to know before he properly used any kind of weapon.

Granted he wasn’t going to be killing anything with these (he hoped) but nevertheless he still would prefer he got at least a little use to how it functioned.

It was something both he and Millie would bond over quite often. While their choice of weapons was day and night, being long-range and melee weapons. Both loved using a variety of them while on the job. They both found it fun to try new things and see how they worked, it was good way to keep all the jobs fresh.

Not that his wife really needed to test her weapon, she could pick up anything, and it would be considered a deadly weapon in that woman’s hands.

“I know, try testing you GrabPack on this.” Mommy’s voice said, cutting through his daydream.

Turning towards the pink spider, he saw that she had made her way through the open shutter doors and was currently next to the cardboard cutout of the bunny. On closer inspection of the cutout, there appeared to be a something that looked like a 'speech bubble' attached with a red button in the centre of it, the words ‘press me’ on it, just above the button.

“Try using the hand on this. It’s been ages since I’ve heard one of these be used.” Mommy said with a bit of enthusiasm, while pointing directly at the red button.

Moxxie took one last look at the cutout, he was honestly surprised, with the way everything else looked in the vicinity the cutout looked relatively fine by comparison. The imp didn’t give it much thought as he tried to aim the GrabPack at the cutout.

Grabbing on two both handles of the device; he quickly discovered that he could move both hands around and didn’t necessarily have to face directly at what he needed to. It wasn’t something that was made crystal clear in the video, so he was glad it wouldn’t be an issue.

He was honestly hoping he could take the GrabPack home with him when this was all done, though he would have to find a way for Blitz not to snatch it.

Attempting to the aim the Pack also seemed to be straight forward, the arms moved quickly and combined with the weight made it easy to use on the fly.

Focusing his aim, he targeted the red button on the cutout, lining it up to check the aim, before activating the trigger.

The hand launched quickly as it flew in an almost straight line, at a great speed, as it hit the button dead one. Mommy gave a quick little clap and yay. she seemed to be enjoying it.

Immediately after he heard a small buzzing being produced come from the cardboard cutout. Before a voice came from it.

“I know when your birthday is, September 10th.” The cutout bunny said before chuckling.

It took Moxxie a good few seconds before he realised what the bunny had just said. Before his eyes widened and locked onto the cutout.

“Wait, WHAT!?” Moxxie said taken off guard, still trying to grasp if what he heard was right.

‘Did that cutout just say my actual Birthday?’ Moxxie thought. Did he bump his head too hard or something. He really had no words to say. Somehow this thing had guessed his correct birthday. It must have just been a coincidence, right?

Mommy appeared to notice the distress radiating off the imp, as her face shifted from happy to concern as she made her way over, placing an arm on his shoulder.

“Are you alright, dear?” She said, for the first time her words didn’t seem to show any kind of condescending undertone and seemed to be genuine. Not that Moxxie could catch it as he was currently contemplating what to even say.

Moxxie just rose his hand and pointed at the bunny “H-How did that thing know my birthday?” He said, his eyes not peeling away from even a second, Mommy wasn’t even sure he had blinked, as he engaged in a staring contest with the cardboard cutout.

Mommy turned around and started to look at the cutout, seeming to be confused by the incident unfolding, before her vision shifted between the imp and cardboard bunny.

After a few more her concern shifted back into a smile “Oh, you mean this old thing, no need to be scared it just says random dates, here watch.” Mommy said as she stretches her arm over before pressing the button herself, causing the bunny to speak again.

“I know when your birthday is, May 5th.” The cutout bunny said, chuckling once again.

“See, that’s not even my birthday, we used to reprogram it for the kids to press. Now it just says random dates, try it again.” Mommy said trying to reassure her new playmate.

Wait…it really was a coincidence? Moxxie slightly shaken still used the GrabPack and aimed at the button again.

“I know when your birthday is, July 29th.”

Moxxie, felt a weird weight lift off him once her heard those words. It was an insane coincidence though; he really needed to stop overreacting to everything.

“Anyway, how do you feel about the GrabPack so far?” Mommy said trying to change the subject.

Though Moxxie was still a bit shaken he turned to answer Mommy’s question “Oh, the GrabPack works great, I’m looking forward to trying it out.” Moxxie replied, now that he was able to test the fire and aiming, he had a lot more confidence with using the device.

“Well, that’s good because you’ll be getting a chance to use it in this next room.” She said as she motioned both her hands to the door leading forward.

Moxxie followed her hands and investigated the next room. From what he could see it appeared to be shrouded the darkness, the only thing being illuminated was a walkway leading up to a circular platform in the middle of the room.

“Just remember once your inside, the door will look behind you and I’m going to leave to operate the device.” Mommy said, attempting to pre-emptively warn him, it seemed that he could be easily startled.

Once the possum entered the room, he was able to get a much better view. As he made his way up to the platform, he could see some weird disk like shapes surrounding the platform just below it. Slowly he made his way to the centre, as he stepped onto the it the walls of the room began to light up, revealing several little screens that covered 3 sides of the room, with them all currently just displaying a grey background.

Moxxie while looking around heard a clanking noise, turning around he found that just the spider had said, the door had shut and the walkway had lowered to the ground, leaving him stranded in the middle of the room.

A few seconds later all the screen changed to a purple background, followed by the Playtime Co symbol appearing the middle. It seemed that all the small screens were acting like 3 big screen that displayed on each wall. A weird eerie piece of musical also seemed to play, which Moxxie wasn’t a big fan of.

“Welcome to Musical Memory!”

Moxxie almost jumped as a loud male voice began to echo around the room, most likely a recorded message based on the static and robotic tone used.

The screen started to change again to an image of what presumably was meant to represent him on the circle platform, with the addition of 4 large circles in the colour of Red, Green, Blue and Yellow.

A few seconds later the screen faded away as an x-ray of a human’s face was then displayed on the screen.

“This advanced memory and cognitive recognition test is designed to stimulate several segments of the brain, allowing us to see how quickly and efficiently your brain works.”

‘Well, this might be interesting, although I thought this was meant to be a game for young children.’ Moxxie thought, were they trying to help kids learn? Seemed a bit technical for them. Then again after that training video he watched, he didn’t know who it was aimed for.

The screen changed once again, this time back to a similar view of the platform, only this time the actual disapply screen was also shown.

“A sequence of colours will be shown, and you must recreate the exact sequence using the buttons around you.” As the voice spoke, the screen above showed the person on screen inputting the colours, as they got displayed on monitor above.

‘Oh, so it’s a Memory game, then whys it called ‘Musical’ Memory then, wouldn’t ‘Colourful Memory’ be more accurate’ Moxxie thought to himself, a little disappointed. He was expecting the game to have little more music because of the name. The only thing that came close was that weird eerie tone that continued to play around the room.

The screen the changed once again, this time to a it showed the platform from the side. However, the big thing that caught the imp’s attention, was the inclusion of a certain rabbit that appeared to be floating right above the platform, the same one in the cutout just outside the room.

“Bunzo will slowly lower towards you. When you complete a colour pattern correctly, Bunzo will rise back up. When you input a pattern incorrectly, Bunzo will lower towards you faster. If Bunzo reaches you, your test is over.”

Moxxie hesitated for a second before eyes were drawn upwards. To his surprise, hanging just above area he was in was a large spherical tunnel that went up a few feet, a few lights inside revealing the shape. But at the very top of cylindrical path was a big figure.

The figure was a yellow bunny, wearing green dungarees and a party hat. It also had massive ears and a set of cymbals in each of its arms. Seemingly preparing to use them. (Was the only reason the game was called musical because he was holding cymbals?)

‘So, the Bunny’s name is Bunzo. Bunzo Bunny, that’s a quite a cute name.’ Moxxie thought to himself as he stared back at the toy above him. This was sort lived however as the imp returned to looking at the screen, as it continued to give more instructions and information’s.

“The test will become more difficult as it continues with longer patterns, and quicker succession.” The recording said, as the screen showed the words ‘Longer Patterns’ and ‘Quicker Succession’ to emphasize the point.

The screen once again changed this time just showing the word good luck. “That's all. Good luck!” The voice said, as the screen once again changed to show the Playtime co logo.

‘Ok, so just match the colours quickly and efficiently, that seems simple enough.’ Moxxie said, adjusting his GrabPack once again.

As he did all the screens around the room instantly shut off, leaving only the few overhead lights on.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun, I can’t remember the last time I saw this place up and running it must have been years ago!”

Moxxie looked around for the source of Mommy’s voice only to find that there was now a visible viewing platform just above where the entrance door was. The lights inside revealed Mommy almost pressed up against the viewing glass; he could tell she was excited.

A few seconds later, he watched as Mommy’s neck began to stretch upwards before disappearing.

“I bet Bunzo is also very happy to meet someone else, it’s been ages since he’s been able to play with someone. Go ahead say hi!” Mommy’s voice said this time seeming to echo around the imp.

Looking up to Bunzo, he was able to know see Mommy’s head right next to the bunny. Explaining why her voice was echoing.

Not wanting to be rude, the imp waved his hand up at the Rabbit with a sheepish smile.

“H-hey Bunzo, looking forward to playing with you.” Moxxie said not sure what he was really expected to say to the robot.

All Bunzo did was just stare back at him, not even moving an inch. the Possum and the Bunny almost appeared to be locked in a staring contest not sure what the other would do.

“Oh, come one Bunzo, you can at least say hi back to him, Moxxie here is being very nice to you.” She said to the bunny before turning her attention to Moxxie “Sorry about Bunzo, he is very shy.” Mommy said, in a motherly tone, appearing to want both to get along. “Still, he’s at least better than daisy.” Mommy said a slight tone of anger once she mentioned ‘daisy.’

Moxxie looked a bit confused at the mention of someone else. “Who’s daisy?” Moxxie asked curiously, not sure he was going to like the answer.

Mommy’s head began to slowly descend towards the imp, before reaching eye level with him “She’s the original person in charge of this game before our bunny friend up there took over, she kept scaring the children. Too much trouble, so she got put in the Shelf.”

Moxxie looked at Mommy. “I’m sorry but don’t you mean ON the shelf?”

Mommy giggled. “No, in the Shelf.”

Before Moxxie could question what, she meant he caught movement above him. Looking up he saw Bunzo suddenly started to descend making his way down the tunnel above and towards him. The imp was also able to see that he wasn’t floating, but a rope was attached to his back that helped his descend.

The imp wasn’t sure what to think as the Bunzo continued to lower to him, the bunny’s face unchanging as it got closer. Moxxie began to get a bit nervously look, not sure what was going to happen.

The descent lasted until he was just above the imp, still not saying a single thing to the possum. He was also able to notice that besides the buck teeth, he also appeared to have several sharp teeth around his lips. Moxxie just seemed partially confused and a little unedge, was the rabbit even able to talk? Or was Mommy just joking around again.

Mommy did mention he was shy, so maybe it would be better if he started the conversation instead.

“Hello Bunzo, my name is Moxxie, I’m really looking forward to working with-”

*CRASH* *CRASH* *CRASH*

Moxxie almost jumped as the loud sound of crashing cymbals echoed through the empty room, ending the silence. While Moxxie was talking it seemed the rabbit thought it funny to crash his instrument as hard as he could.

“HEY, Bunzo that was rude.” Mommy said angrily to the cymbal clashing carrot-consumer. Bunzo still didn’t say anything or even have a reaction to what Mommy said, just slowly started to ascend back up to the top of the room, where he originally was.

“I’m sorry Moxxie, like I said Bunzo is quite shy and doesn’t like to speak. It’s just been a while since he’s met anyone else, and he hasn’t eaten in a ages either.” Mommy said, seeming to be a bit embarrassed by the circumstances.

“Oh, its alright, I’m not stranger to rude animals that don’t know how do behave-, wait what do you mean eaten?” Moxxie questioned, only now realising what she had said at the end.

“Bunzo, hasn’t eaten in at least 10 years, so he might be a little hangry.” She replied jokingly.  

That little bit of information confused Moxxie, what does she mean by he hasn’t eaten in that long? He’s a robot, does she truly believe that he’s an actual rabbit? If so, this spider was crazier than he expected, the sooner he and Poppy got out of her the better. Though he would never say that out loud.

“Don’t worry though, it won’t be a problem, just remember to play the game and both you boys behave yourself.” Mommy said, before her head seemed to retract back to the viewing room. Once inside the light for the room turned off, leaving Moxxie in darkness again.

Moxxie just stood there for a few seconds, when does the game beg-

“RED.” A new robotic voice said.

In an instant the blank screen, surrounding the platform lit up to a shade of red, with the word also displayed on the screen. Moxxie also quickly noticed that 4 buttons, each displaying a different colour had appeared in front of the platform.

The games had begun.

Moxxie quickly snapped out of his stupor and aim his GrabPack at the red button. The Pack’s hand immediately shot off, aiming at the red button.

Once pressed, the buttons all lost their colour for a second, followed by a small jingle and some recorded children cheering.

Moxxie took a small breath as he focused himself. ‘Ok, Moxxie the games have began now. Just focus and don’t let anything distract you.’

“RED, GREEN.” The voice said, the screen displaying the colours quickly.

The imp once again began to press the colours, making sure to aim correctly. One benefit it seemed was that the last colour used was always displayed on screen.

This pattern continued with an additional colour being added each time. Moxxie kept his cool though and pressed the buttons in the right order each time, a cheer and jingle rewarded each time for his efforts.

The only thing that was kind of distracting was the constant smacking of Bunzo’s cymbals, which got louder as the rabbit descended towards him. Even though the colours were simple with only 4 being used, he could see how the constant approach of the bunny could cause some children to panic. He wondered if any children got scared while playing this.

He just had to keep his cool and get through the game. Just don’t pay the bunny any mind, he was just another distraction. The imp was used to annoying people at work and knew how to block it out (for the most part).

This round continued like normal as Moxxie made it up to the 5th sequence of buttons, hitting the last one to complete it. The cheer and jingle went off once again, only this one went on for a bit longer as he looked up and he saw that Bunzo was being lifted back up to the top of the room.

Moxxie breathed a sigh of relief. Judging by the sound, the job was done.

“ROUND 2.”

Moxxie knew it was too good to be true. ‘Crumbs should have seen this coming. It’ll most likely go on for a few more rounds, just need to keep my head on straight.’ Moxxie thought to himself as he braced himself for the next round.

“YELLOW.”

Moxxie pressed the button and continued with the same thing, it did seem to get a bit faster. But overall, it seemed to be going quite well, he had a relatively good memory and could perform well under pressure (When he’s not insulted). But in the back of his mind he couldn’t help but feel something was going to change.

“VIOLET.”

Moxxie almost stopped as the robotic voice gave out a new colour not present, with the screen displaying the new colour in question.

‘Wait violet, but there isn’t a violet. Oh, wait it must want me to combine the colours to produce a new one.’ Moxxie thought.

Moxxie went through the sequence before he reached up to where he had to input violet. The imp took both GrabPack arms, aiming them at the red and blue colour panels. He then fired at both simultaneously hoping to end the sequence.

Instead, the sound of a buzzer went off, followed by children groaning.

“Wait that wasn’t right then how do I-” As Moxxie spoke he turned around, only to discover that a new Violet button had indeed be added to the platform to use.

On the opposite side of the platform.

‘Ok, I was really overthinking that.’ Moxxie thought a little annoyed at himself. He did however find it a little unfair that they not only added a new colour in the middle of the game but also placed it right behind him out of his peripheral vision. That was a dirty trick, something he’d expect from someone like Mammon.

Moxxie couldn’t complain forever though as he started to hear the bunny’s cymbals drawing closer from above, pressing the wrong buttons had caused him to descend faster and the imp needed to course correct.

The imp quickly adjusted himself and began to do the sequence again, before turning around and firing the hand at the newly discovered violet button.

Once completed the long cheer played once again, along with Bunzo ascending back up, indicating the end of the round.

“ROUND 3”

‘Ok, so I’m certain they’re going to start adding more colours. This is no different than training you went through as a child, only no one will smack you for making a mistake.’ Moxxie thought bracing himself for what the believed to be an entire rainbow of new colours that would dash out at him.

As the round began it started out as normal, or as Moxxie saw it, the calm before the storm. Something he was quickly proven correct about as more colours buttons were added to the roster.

“YELLOW, GREEN, WHITE, ORANGE”

Moxxie despite the one slip had quickly recovered and wasn’t making any mistakes as the skittles assault continued.

The 3^rd round went much better then the second as it ended without much trouble. Thought Moxxie wasn’t letting his guard down and preparing for more colours.

“ROUND 4”

“BLUE”

Moxxie quickly noticed that the screen also no longer displayed the colour he needed to hit, a nice trick to confuse people but he wasn’t deterred. Hitting the button with ease.

“BLUE, J”

‘Wait a letter?’ Moxxie looked to find that a letter had joined the rainbow array of buttons displayed around him. Another tactic to throw people off the game.

While the inclusion of letters looked like a more difficult task, Moxxie was aware, a good way to remember patterns was to associate it with something, which was made easier by the letters added.

‘Bluejay’ Moxxie thought as he hit the buttons, remember a certain kind of bird found in the human world.

Moxxie didn’t pay attention to the increasing ridiculous symbols being thrown in and instead kept up with his pattern, with a new button added each time, but his strategy was going strong. The only thing he could do was keep cool.

“BLUE, J, HEART, RED, PI, QUESTION MARK”

‘Bluejay loves red pie?’ Moxxie thought as he pressed in the buttons on after the other, completing the sequence.

Moxxie took a big intake of breath once he heard the jingle go off, knowing the round was over. He almost felt like he could feel Bunzo that round, he got so close.

“ROUND 5”

‘Ok, lets get this one over with-’

Moxxie didn’t know what to feel once he saw a ton of new buttons rise from the floor and drop from the ceiling around him, filling out the remaining spaces. It was a large assortment of colours, symbols and even words thrown in (cause why the heaven not).

“OH, COME ON!” Moxxie shouted absolutely floored by what he was witnessing, of course the spider would pull something like this.

He had no words for what sort of nightmare he was about to endure.

“REDBLUEQUESTIONMARKVIOLETRAVENOUS-”

Moxxie had no time to even prepare as the machine just kept saying a new words in rapid succession, too fast for the imp to even press or even remember.

The screen continued to flash, throwing up colour, after symbol, after word. Moxxie didn’t know what to do, he could hear Bunzo getting closer with each word.

‘This…This is impossible, is it even supposed to do this?’ Moxxie looked around maybe something was wrong.

His thoughts were answered once he noticed a new button that appeared to be moving, rotating around the platform, making it stick out among the others. One of a caution triangle seen on many hazards around the mortal realm and hell.

Moxxie didn’t really have a choice or knew what else to do, as he aimed his GrabPack at the rotating button and hit it.

The instant it connected all the buttons in the room, began to malfunction as sparks began to fly from each, briefly lightning up the room. The room had descended into chaos as Moxxie just stood in the middle, almost admiring the mess he’d seemed to have made.

A few seconds later the entire room fell into darkness once more, as Moxxie just stood still not sure what he should do next.

“Oh, poop, it appears the machines have all broken, it has been a while since we used them.” Mommy said her voice once again echoing through the room, a disappointed tone in her voice.

“Well, never mind, we still got two more games to play. We mighttt need check to see if they aren’t suffering any kind problems like this one though.” Mommy said.

‘Oh, so I guess the machine was just broken and that wasn’t supposed to happen.’ Moxxie thought to himself, I guess that would make sense. There was no way that a child would be expected to do all that.

“Never mind good work Moxxie, and just to show you how proud I am I’m going to give you a little prize for how well you’ve done.” Mommy said seemingly proud, though Moxxie could have sworn she sounded a bit sad from the outcome.

“Look above you.” He heard the spider say. Moxxie obeyed and looked up seeing her hand had stretched down from the room and was holding something out for him to take.

Moxxie reached up and grabbed a hold of the item in the pink creature’s clutches, once grabbed, Mommy brought her hand down and patted the imp on the head and rubbed it messing up his straightened-up hair.

“Mommy is so proud of you my sweet Possum. I look forward to seeing you in the other games.” Mommy said as her hand began to ascend back up the tunnel, before disappearing.

The imp meanwhile was sort of taken of guard by the act of affection; it had been a while since he had received such a gesture from someone else (apart from his wife). He believed that the last time he received a head pat was from his Mu-

‘NO Moxxie, don’t think about her, she left you with that monster.’ Moxxie thought to himself as a negative memory began to resurface.

Moxxie took another breath trying to keep himself calm. Before looking down at the ‘Prize’ he’d received still in his hands. It was a ripped-up piece of note the top reading ‘Playtime Co Train Access Instructions’ just underneath it was an assortment of 4 head of some of the company’s toys, going in the order Bunzo, Huggy Wuggy (with lashes?), the bee cat toy and finally Mommy herself.

“Oh, it’s part of the train code.” Moxxie said to himself as he read it. It looked like they incorporated the toys into everything in the factory, from the machines to the instruction videos and now even to the very codes themselves. It honestly just felt like a massive fever dream to the imp, were all toy factory like this?

His thoughts were interrupted once he heard a sound and turned around. It appeared the sound was from the walkway rising back up, shortly followed by the exit door reopening.

‘Ok, I’m through the first game, just two more to go. We’re kids really supposed to play that game though. It felt like it would be too intense for them.’ Moxxie thought to himself as he made his way across the platform.  He could only imagine what the other games would be like-

*Creak*

Moxxie stopped walking as he started to hear a weird sound, it sounded like the sound of creaking metal.

‘Um, is that coming from the FFLLLLOOOORRRR!!?” Moxxie shouted, as the walkway fell apart from under him, causing the imp to fall with it.

The imp saw the floor fast approaching and braced himself for another round of pain and shut his eyes.

He waited for the pain to come, only for it to not come, he didn’t feel himself falling anymore. Opening his eyes in found that he was levitating few centre meters from the ground. No, he wasn’t floating. Casting his eyes upwards he saw Mommy standing by the open door, with her arm stretching towards him and gripping on to his tail, halting his fall. She had a concerned expression on her face.

“My oh my, are you ok? This entire room is falling apart; we’ll have to make sure that the other rooms are still up and running correctly.” She spoke, before pulling the startled possum up to the door entrance.

Once he was back on solid ground, the pink spider looked him over, making sure that he hadn’t sustained any injuries.

“If it helps cheer you up, you scored a 5 of out 5 on your first test, good work, I look forward to seeing how you’ll do during the next one.” Mommy said pulling a piece of paper, which Moxxie assumes was the one she had earlier.

Moxxie’s face lit up with pride as a small smile appeared on his face, despite the circumstances he was in and the fear of being trapped, it was nice to get a compliment from someone.

“I would like use to get too the second test, buuuuttttttt I’m going to go check to see if everything is up and running correctly first. We don’t want another issue like this do we? So, until then could you be a dear and just stay around the Game Station?” Mommy said putting both her hands trying to beg him to stay.

Moxxie didn’t really have anything to say as he watched the spider’s pleading face, her eyeballs somehow looked even bigger than before and even appeared to be sparkling.

Moxxie sighed “Fine, I’ll wait here until you’re done.”

Mommy clapped her hands together. “Oh, thank you for being so patient.” She said before picking Moxxie up (A gesture that caught him off guard) and carried him back up the Game Station main room, all the way up to the levers. Before placing him back down.

Moxxie took a look and noticed that the light above the second lever was now flashing red. Mommy even gestured towards in. “I think you should have the honour of pulling it.” Mommy instructed the Possum.

Moxxie obeying the spider, aimed his GrabPack and pulled the second lever. Just like before the red light turned green and a small jingle before played out, soon intercom began to play again.

“Whoa! You did fantastic! Who gave you permission to be this smart?” Stella said in the intercom recording, followed by a giggle. “Mommy is super proud of you!”

“Yes, Yes I am.” Mommy said to herself, getting a small chuckle from Moxxie, he could see why (at least a little) the children might have liked her.

“But I'm sure she's already told you that herself. Our next game is Wack-a-Wuggy! Head downstairs and have fun!”

Moxxie looked over towards his next destination and almost immediately placed his hands over his ears, bracing himself for inevitable loud door noise that would be soon assaulting his ears. His instincts paid off as the second he covered them; a very loud scrapping noise echoed around the room.

A few seconds later thankfully the noise subsisted, making the way forward clear. However, as he started to move Mommy placed her pink hand in front of the imp, halting his advancement.

“Remember, I’m going to go forward and just check to make sure everything is functioning properly.”

Moxxie nodded “Oh, of course Mommy. Where exactly do you want me to wait, while I wait for your return?” The possum said politely.   

“Oh, don’t worry, you get to stay up here and have fun in our park, while you wait.” Mommy said as she spread her arms out, gesturing to all the fun amusements surrounding them. “I even got you a little play mate to hang out with.”

“Um, who did you get?” Moxxie said, not sure if he would like the answer.

“Oh, Bunzo of course.” She said as she started pointing upwards, which confused the imp greatly, before he followed her hand.

Up at the top of the room, among some of the climbing equipment and support beams was the mentioned bunny, tied up in a big spider web, still grasping his cymbals. Moxxie was a little shocked at seeing the predicament his adversary from Musical Memory was in.

In fact, on closer inspection, he was now only able to see that quite a few toys were also suspended in their own cobwebs around the area, how he didn’t see any before when he entered was a mystery to him. He was probably too busy keeping an eye on Mommy to notice at the time.

“Um, t-thank you Mommy. But why is he tied up in a cobweb?” Moxxie asked, once again worried about the answer he was going to receive.

Mommy almost seemed to scoff childishly. “Well, it appears a certain someone didn’t take losing the game really well, so he’s been placed up there until he calms down.” She replied nonchalantly to the question. “Don’t worry you can still talk to him, but he must stay in my ‘Time-out’ web for a little while.”

Moxxie didn’t say anything else, as he continued to look at the musical rabbit’s predicament,

‘I hope she didn’t do that to any children.’ Moxxie thought, just dreading the possibility.

“Anyway! I’ve got to head downstairs, just enjoy yourself and you two boys have a nice time.” Mommy said before bounding off down the newly opened staircase.

Moxxie turned and watched as she descended the staircase towards the second area, before turning back to the Game Station’s attractions. The imp looked around at all the different playthings, he’d never actually been to a playpark before, partly because Greed mostly didn’t have any that weren’t properly constructed or maintained (Mammon is a cheap bastard) and because his father refused to take him to any.

So, Moxxie just shrugged and approaching what he believed was called a ‘roundabout’ before looking over at the rabbit, still bound in web.

“Well, Bunzo, looks like we’re going to be together for a little while.” Before trying to go to try a roundabout for the first time.

*********************

Mommy made her way down the staircase, stomping as she reached the bottom, making her way through the hallway that was lined with posters and wall art of many Huggy Wuggy’s in colours ranging in Blue, Red, Yellow and Green. 

‘He made it through the first game, so I’ll have to make the next game really challenging.’ Mommy said as a smirk appeared on her face.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13 – Fastest hand in the factory

Moxxie felt like he’d been waiting for at least half an hour for Mommy to return. At least that was his estimate, with his phone broken, he didn’t have a way of checking the time. The only other clock available to him was the one just above the train station, which was also broken.

He really had no idea how long he had been down here. He’s been knocked out twice at this point, meaning hours could gave passed without him knowing. The only indication of the time was the windows around the Game Station that seemed to have a bright light coming in through them.

Meaning he most likely has spent at least the whole of last night here and a bit of the next morning, which did concern the imp.

‘How long until Blitz actual tries to check on me?’ Moxxie thought. Really this entire situation could blow over at any second, when Blitz teleports in. But at the same time, he couldn’t bank on that happening.

So, until Mommy came back and did the last two games he was stuck in this room.

Currently the imp was seated at the top of one of climbing areas around the Game Station, his hooves dangling over the edge, as he looked over the rest of the place. At this point he’d given all the ‘attractions’ at least a few times and he really didn’t know what to do next.

He didn’t find much fun out of them, then again, he was an adult, and the attractions were intended for children. Maybe if he had been to a playpark at least once as a kid, he would be able to reminisce about something, but no. It also didn’t help that some of the things were intended for more then one person, like the roundabout.

It did bring up an interesting point for the imp through. When he and Millie’s kid is born and they must take them somewhere to play, would he even be good at it? Sure Millie, Blitz and Stolas (heaven even Loona) would be able to do it, but could he?

It was small things like this that made him worry about his skills as a future parent, would he even be able to interact properly with the kid, considering his own childhood?

Moxxie tried to look around for something to distract him, he’d already checked the place over, so what else could he really do?

The imp suddenly remember that he currently wasn’t the only induvial technically in here right now, and at this point he could talk to just about anyone.

Getting up on his hooves, he walked over to the other side of the climbing area, before he leaned off the side and looked straight up, seeing his new companion still wrapped in web.

“Hey, Bunzo.” Moxxie said trying to get the rabbit’s attention.

The bunny in question just remained still, bound in web. Moxxie wasn’t even sure what he was going to get out of this, it seemed that he couldn’t talk like Mommy, so the idea of this doing anything was weird.

Moxxie decided to get up higher, climbing onto one of the tubes he was able to just lift himself up high enough to reach the ‘roof’ of the climbing equipment and found himself quite close to the rabbit.

“Hi again Bunzo, I just wanted to know if you wanted to talk?” Moxxie said.

If Bunzo really could communicate, it didn’t seem like he wanted to, as he just remained motionless. Then again, he was aware of how sticky Mommy’s webs were, so maybe he just couldn’t move.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not sure if you really understand what’s I’m saying.” Moxxie said.

Still no movement from the bunny.

Moxxie rubbed his head, this really seemed like a stupid idea. Here he was talking to a something that might not even be able to understand him. Especially when the imp considered that the bunny also might be angry and blaming him for being placed in the web.

So, Moxxie decided to try something else.

“Look, I’m sorry if your upset about what happened in the game. But tell you what, when Mommy comes back in how about I tell her to get you down, would you like that?”

Moxxie watched the Bunny closely, it appears that nothing was happening again.

That was until the imp noticed a bit of movement coming from the bunny. It seemed like Bunzo had started to tilt his head and twist it around, until he was facing the imp in question.

Moxxie…. did not expect this. As he just stood there for a second.

“Wait, so you can understand me?”

The Bunny moved his head up and down slightly.

A nod. He said yes.

Moxxie smiled “Oh great, once she gets back, I’ll try and talk to her for you.”

“Talk to me about what?”

“AARGH” Moxxie said, as he leaped into the air in shock, causing him to nearly tumble off the top of the structure he was on. Luckily Mommy was able catch him and then lowered him to the floor.

Seems like the Mommy Long Legs had snuck up behind him, while he was a talking and nearly scared him half to death.

“H-how long have you been standing there?” Moxxie questioned, turning around the face here, still slightly shaking from the shock.

“Oh, only for a few minutes. I was about to come up to you, but then I saw you both having a conversation and decided to not intervene. You were so focused that you didn’t even notice that I had sunk up behind you.” Mommy replied with a giggle.

‘She is a lot sneakier than I thought.’ Moxxie said in his head, she was usually so talkative and loud that he never expected her to be able to be quiet.

“I’m just glad my two boys are getting along.”

Moxxie rubbed the back of his head. “Oh, it was nothin- wait, what do you mean ‘your’ boys?” Moxxie questioned.

“Oh, because I’m Mommy, everyone calls me Mommy. All the children that used to play here called my Mommy because I was the closest thing they had to a parent.” Mommy replied.

“W-what, do you mean they never had parents?” Moxxie asked concerned about the implication.

“All the children that came to play here, came up from ‘Playcare’ the orphanage. Whilst up here they got to play games with me, before they left.”

‘An…. orphanage? Wait, didn’t that GrabPack tutorial video also mention the Playcare?’ Moxxie thought as he pondered the new information.

He could only assume that it was some kind of program that the company must have run, judging by the name it must have had come affiliation. They must have built this place for the orphans to play in.

“I’m honestly kind of surprised that you don’t know about it, most of the toys know it. Poor dear, you really have no idea, do you?” Mommy said in rare sad tone.

Moxxie was just really confused what she meant. What did she meant by ‘all the toys’ do? What’s this mention of an orphanage? Did this have something to do with what caused the factory to shut down all those years ago? It seems like Mommy might be able to provide the answers.

“But enough about that.” Mommy said, continuing to talk. “You’ll be happy to know that the second game is up and running. Mommy made sure to triple check so that everything works correctly.”

Moxxie tried to open his mouth, he wanted to know more about what went on here. However just he tried to speak Mommy Long Legs cut him off, by placing her hand over his mouth.

“Oh, don’t worry about any question for now, we’ll have enough time to go over them when you los- I mean, try the next game.” She said before walking back down the staircase to the second game, turning back to make sure he was following and gesturing for him to do so.

Moxxie sighed as she started to descend the stairs, his eyes grew a bit tired from the interaction. The imp knew not to argue with her; he figured he might be able to try the next game and then maybe get some answers out of her afterwards. So, he took the only path he could and followed her down the stairs, but as he did, he suddenly remembered what he was supposed something.

“Wait, Mommy before you leave. Can you untie Bunzo, please?” The possum shouted to her down the stairs.

Mommy immediately turned around and went back up with a sheepish look on her face. “Oh, that right. You were talking about that, and I forgot.” Mommy replied before making her way over to the webbed rabbit. Before moving over and trying to rip it apart.

A few seconds later the cymbal smashing rabbit found himself untied from the web and being place back on the ground. “Ok, behave yourself while we go to the second game.” Mommy said as she waved at Bunzo and started to make her way back over to the staircase, passing by Moxxie. “Come on Moxxie.”

Moxxie watched her go downstairs, before also following. But before he did, he turned back around towards the bunny, who appeared to have moved from his spot since he was let down. So, the imp deciding to be nice, waved towards the rabbit as he made his way down the stairs.

“Bye Bunzo.” Moxxie said before vanishing from the bunny’s sight.

Bunzo began to raise his arm in the air and move it side to side.

Bunzo waved back.

**********

Once at the bottom of the stairs and Moxxie proceed to walk down the hallway, as he did, he glanced around at the artwork featured on the walls, artwork of Huggy Wuggy’s (Or Wuggies?) peeking out of holes.

‘That’s right, the game’s called ‘Wack-a-Wuggy’, I wonder if it’s like those ‘Assassinate an Angel’ games they have around amusement areas in hell, the ones that require a hammer to hit them.’

He still remembers when he and Millie went to one, mainly because she didn’t get a chance to play at LooLoo land before it burned down. They both ended having to leave when she ended up destroying the entire machine by mistake. (They were not ‘Millie proof’)

As he walked, he found a new door that led into a big open area. Looking up he saw a single set of lights dangling above the new environment and another view area, like the one in last game. The floor seemed to be covered with either sand or dirt of some kind, along with random pieces of trash lying around.

‘Somone doesn’t believe in cleanliness’ Moxxie though, his face showing slight disgust at the state of the room.

At a further glance of the room, Moxxie was also able to see that there were crudely drawn buildings and Huggies on the walls. However, the more noticeable thing was that the walls were riddled with large holes. The imp was could only assume they were part of the game.

Either that or the factory was invested with Wrath brand grubworms. (par for the course giving this day)

He soon heard the door shut behind him, with a metal clunk, he was now trapped in the room.

Looking around for a few more seconds, he heard the familiar eerie jingle, from the last room playing again. Giving the room anther quick glance he was able to see a small tv monitor nestled away in the corner of the room, only being visible due to the recently turned tv screen’s light cutting through the darkness.

The tv was currently only displaying a purple background, before quickly displaying the playtime co logo. Moxxie could only assume that he was about to get instructions on how this game worked like the last one.

An assumption that was proved correct once it started to display a layout of the room, following the pattern of the last video.

“Welcome to Wack-a-Wuggy!” The recording said, greeting the imp.

“This advanced test is designed to assess the extent of your reactionary abilities.” The voice said as the screen changed again to display a person sitting down and getting tapped on the leg to check their knee-jerk reflex.

‘Hm, this will be quite interesting, I might actually enjoy this game more than the last.’ Moxxie thought to himself confidently, as a small smile appeared on his face.

“A dual palm GrabPack will be provided to you for this test. Around you are 18 sizable holes.” The voice said as the imaged changed to show one of the holes, a few seconds later a Huggy Wuggy head appeared inside the hole displayed on screen.

“An adorable Huggy Wuggy toy could appear out of any one of these holes. If one comes out, hit it with your GrabPack.” The tv showing a figure hitting the Huggy Wuggy with his GrabPack.

‘Ok, so it is like ‘Assassinate an Angel’ this seems straight forward.’ Moxxie thought, only instead of using a hammer, he’d have to use the GrabPack.

“That's all. Good luck!” The recording said, showing the word good luck, like the last one, before changing to show the playtime co logo and then quickly turning off.

“Oh, this is going to be super fun, we used to have these strings attached so the Huggies couldn’t get took close to the children.” Mommy said nonchalantly, as her voice echoed around the room.

Moxxie already knew where she was, and glanced up to the viewing area, where the pink spider currently was. Although he had to question what she meant by the Huggies ‘used to’ have strings.

“The poor things got too restless, so I had to remove the strings from them. Don’t worry though I’ve already provided a serious talk to them and they won’t do anything to hurt you.’  Mommy reassured.

‘We’re they going to if you didn’t?’ Moxxie thought to himself, slightly worried at the implication.

“Just remember, just relax and try your best.” Mommy said doing a giggle that seemed to come out a bit more deranged then Moxxie thought she wanted it too.

Immediately the overhead lights shut off, while another set of lights turned on in each corner of the room. The lights barely lit up the area, making the holes barely visible.

Moxxie stood still in the middle of the room waiting, he didn’t move from his spot, and his eyes were currently looking down at the ground.

As Mommy Long Legs watched, she just seemed to be a bit confused by what the possum was even doing. As she brought her hand up to face and her eyes locked onto the imp in question.

Does he not know the game has started? Is he scared of the dark? Or had he just given up already? It wasn’t an unusual thought to have, some of the younger children that used to play this game got freaked out and had to be taken out. She remembered having to comfort quite a few of them after the ordeal was over.

It didn’t help that she couldn’t see Moxxie’s face while he was looking down. The glass case and the room currently being dark not helping visibility either.

Moxxie meanwhile just remained still, his arms gripped onto the side of the GrabPack.

Until he heard it

To Moxxie’s right was one of the tunnels, just about eye level with imp.

Just faintly Moxxie could hear something moving inside. In an instant Moxxie aimed his GrabPack at the hole and fired. Smacking the Huggy before it even was seen.

Soon after Moxxie heard another sound from a different hole in the other corner of the room, not missing a beat Moxxie snaped onto the hole and fire the other hand at the hole.

Mommy just stood in shock at what she was seeing. Before she realised what had happened, looking into the imp’s glowing eyes she saw something she hadn’t seen before in him.

Complete and utter concentration and determination was written all over the imp’s face.

‘He wasn’t giving up; he was hearing them.’ Mommy thought generally impressed by what she was witnessing. Most of the children that played this game struggled a lot with hitting them, one of the main reasons being that they were only able to see the Huggies once they fully emerged from the holes.

But this toy was hitting them before they even emerged. No, it was once they started to move at all that Moxxie was ready.

Continuing to watch from above, Moxxie didn’t relent with firing the GrabPack, once one of the hands retracted back to the Pack, the imp was already locking on to another hole and firing again, not a single second ot shot was wasted.

He was taking full advantage of the GrabPack’s two hands and even able to fire in two completely different directions, just off hearing alone. Not a single Huggy was even able to get close to getting out of their hole, because the second they tried the imp would just fire and push them back.

It was like the entire area was a musical performance with the imp hitting every note perfectly as twisted around like a ballerina. Fully in control of the game and wielding the GrabPack like he’d been using one all his life. Manging to hole ALL 18 Huggies at bay at once.

Mommy didn’t have any words, she couldn’t see any of the Huggies even getting out of the holes. Her arms just kind of slide of the viewing glass and fell to her beside her.

All she did was pick up the pencil she had on the desk inside and began to write down something on the paper she had been carrying, not taking her eyes off the imp while doing it.

Trial 2: Whack-A-Wuggy

Performance [1-5]: 6?             

Once she had written it down the pencil snapped in her hand. As her teeth grinded in her mouth, another game beaten.

Moxxie kept up the performance until suddenly the lights flicked back on, followed by a cheering sound.

“Wait…is it over already?”  Moxxie said a little disappointed, before bringing up both GrabPack hands and blowing them in a dramatic fashion, like a cowboy. A gesture that earned him an eyeroll from the pink spider watching, thought Moxxie could see it.

“Oh…you passed again.” Mommy replied, trying to keep a positive voice, but an annoyed down seeped in.

“Yeah, I really enjoyed that one, how’d I do?” Moxxie said, confidence radiating off him, a huge smile on his face and with his arms by his side.

“Well…. you did better than anyone else ever has at this game.” Mommy said still a little shocked at how badly this went (for her). “I think you beat the personal best record; of the last guy, Michael Mcdavid, who held the record for 12 years.” Mommy said appearing to be more monotone then usual.

Moxxie felt a new wave of pride overtake him as he heard the news.

“Yes hurray, anyway I have another gift for you.” Mommy said, slightly annoyed.

A small metal clank noise could be heard. Turning his head, Moxxie saw that a small ventilation like door had opened by the side of the room. Sticking through was one of Mommy’s hand, holding a piece of paper.

The imp walked over and picked it up, as he did Mommy withdrew her hand.  Giving the paper a glance, Moxxie discovered that it was another piece of the train code.

‘Just one more to go. I guess.’ Moxxie thought. Although he could tell by Mommy’s reaction that she didn’t seem to be enjoying herself. He made a note to watch out when playing the last game.

“OK!” Mommy said clapping her hands together. “Well done on the second game, just one more to go sadly, I was really hoping that you could stay.” Mommy said her voice seemingly going back to her normal cheery tone, with a slight bit of unease.

“Ok, I’ll go ahead and check out to see if the final area is up and running correctly, you just get back to the Game Station room and wait.” She said as he vanished from sight.

“Ok, Mommy.” Moxxie said, a little uneasy and slightly worried.

The imp just had this weird feeling, that something bad was coming. He didn’t know what, but he just did. But he couldn’t really do anything right now expect return to the Game Station.

‘Maybe I can see how Bunzo doing?’ Moxxie thought as he turned around to leave. However, as he did, he noticed something bad.

The door wasn’t open, Mommy forgot to unlock it.

“Hey, Mommy you forgot to unlock the door!” Moxxie shouted as the cupped his hands together, hoping she would hear him.

But it seemed that she had already left, which meant he couldn’t get back to the main room.

Moxxie looked around the door, hoping to find something that could cause it to open. There might have been something up in the viewing area, but he wouldn’t be able to reach it from down here. he looked but there didn’t appear to be anyway for someone to unlock it from the inside.

‘That’s a pretty big safety hazard, how am I supposed to get out now?’ Moxxie thought to himself, he assumed that the only think he could do now was just sit and wait for Mommy to return.

That would be but the imp suddenly remembered that there was in fact another way out as he turned around.

Sure, enough the vent that Mommy had opened to give him the code was still open, and he could fit in it. Moxxie knew this might be a bad idea, but at this point he didn’t have any other options, there was no telling when Mommy would return. Also, with how she was acting, if he wasn’t found in the Game Station there was a possibility she might take it the wrong way.

So, in the end the imp shrugged his shoulders and made his way into the vent. As he slipped under, he noticed that it wasn’t a vent system at all, the area seemed to be a have a weird assortment of pipes and boxes laying around.

‘This must be some sort of maintenance area.’ Moxxie thought based on the items, it also appeared that the area didn’t seem to have any of the same colouring as the rest of the factory, this must have been where people fixed the games from.

“I guess I should just try and find a way out.” Moxxie said as he went started to explore this part of the factory.

**********

Mommy stomped here way down the pathway, on her way to the ‘Statues’ minigame. Her cheery expression completely gone, her teeth clenched and arms visible shaking by her side.

‘No, No, No, NO, this is all going wrong.’ Mommy thought as she smashed her arm into the wall, leaving a noticeable crack.

Mommy then cripped her head with both her hands, as she started to breath hardly, before taking deep breath to calm herself down, her expression return to slightly normal (well, normal for her).

She had to do something, but what could she do? The Possum has shown that he’s a lot more capable than he looks, he had escaped Huggy’s clutches. There was now a strong possibility that he would beat this next game too, no matter how hard she made it.

Her hands gripped her head for a few seconds, her eyes closed shut, as she tried to think of anything. Loud grumbles could be heard as she tried to think of a plan. Until her eyes opened suddenly and she began to rub her hands together as a sinister grin appeared on her face.

She came had an idea.

The pink spider bounded down the path, ready to put her plan into action. Mommy made her way through the metal workings of the Game Station, not many toys even knew about these areas, as only was one of the only toys with the capability.  

She continued with her navigation of the area, until she came across a ginormous metal container, with a metal door at the front, just adjacent to it was a catwalk with small control room on it with a glass pane on the front, like the one in the Game Station.

Mommy climbed up on to the catwalk and made her way into the small control area. Inside was a control panel with an assortment of levers and buttons displayed on it. On the side were also a few cameras displays, most of which appeared to be broken or inoperable.

Once inside Mommy began to press some of the buttons laid out in front of her as she smiled gleefully. As she did, she turned to look up at the metal cage in front of her, the buttons appeared to have cause the metal door to lower slightly from the top.

Making her way out of the control room, she climbed up and slipped through the small opening she made and slid into the container.

The inside was extremely dark, making if difficult for her to see anything. All she could do was stare down into the dark room below.

“Hey there Pug, did you miss Mommy?” She said in her cheery tone, into the container.

Something inside the container appeared to respond to Mommy as a serious of growls could be heard.

“Oh, I know you did, you see Mommy has a little job for you. A little Possum is going to be playing your game very soon and I think we can make it a bit harder for him. I need your brute force for the job; I want it so it’s impossible for him to win. If you do this and you beat him, I’ll make it, so you never have to stay in here ever again. What do you say?”

*Growling*

“No, I said you have to beat him, just catch him.” Mommy said crossing her arms unamused.

*Growling*

“Oh, thank you, that’s why you’re my favourite boy.” Mommy said as she clapped her hands, before letting out an almost evil cackle.

****************

Moxxie had been moving through the tunnels for a few minutes at this point and currently his theory about the place falling apart seemed to be correct. He had to climb up a staircase using the GrabPack, because it was broken.

Everywhere the imp went it just seemed to be an almost endless path filled with pipes and wires strewn about the place, a silver lining was the fact the power was still one. Although he had no idea how it even was, not that the imp was complaining. It was also handy that the path seemed to almost be a straight line, so getting lost wasn’t really a problem either.

The only sound present, was his own hoof steps on the ground and the occasional leaking pipe.

Following along the path more, he soon found himself in a much different looking area. In front of him was a serious of archways and branching paths all behind a big metal door. Moxxie was also able to notice that there were some rail tracks in the centre of the path. Judging by the size of corridors it couldn’t have been for the train in the Game Station; it had to be for either a smaller train or possible something like a minecart.

The walls were also a yellow colour compared to the greyer colours of the corridors before, meaning this might have been a much more used area in the factory, the tiles in the floor where also yellow, with a few white ones thrown in.

They didn’t appear to be any means of opening the metal door in front of him. But luckily there was another pathway to the right, that the tracks followed, which the imp decided to follow.

‘What was the purpose of this room exactly?’ Moxxie thought, he could only assume it was a way of transporting stuff through the factory.

Moxxie stopped after a few seconds when he noticed there was another split in the path. The rail tracks lead down a slope, looking down the incline, Moxxie noticed that the path was boarded up making it not an ideal way to go, the red lights illuminating the area didn’t show encouragement either.

That left the imp with no other option as he decided to take the other path instead. Sadly, this path led to another metal gate, causing the imp to roll his eyes, why was every single passage and gate locked?

The area just beyond the gate was almost completely shrouded in darkness, apart for a single light that barely brightening up area. But it was still hard to make out anything ahead. The only thing the imp could see was a massive lever on the wall that most likely opened the way forward, just taunting the imp with its presences.

Moxxie threw his hands up into the air and began to turn around with an annoyed look on his face. “Well, it seems I can’t go this way either, guess I’m taking my chances with the boarded-up way, just have to find a way to remove the-”

The possum found his words caught in his mouth as he started to hear movement and an alarm go off behind him. He quickly snapped back to the gateway, only to see just at the end of the hallway beyond the gate that a door was beginning to open. As the door slowly moved up, it revealed the silhouette of a person casted by the light shining through the door.

The person silhouette revealed them to be very tall, with lanky arms, legs and a……Triangle head.

“No…….” Moxxie said, almost in a whisper. “It can’t be, I-I killed him.” As he spoke, he almost instinctively started to back up.

Once the door had fully opened, the silhouette slowly started to make his way up to the gate, causing Moxxie to panic.

“Shit, I don’t have my gun anymore, what do I do?” Moxxie said to himself, he knew retreating wasn’t an option, the way back was also blocked with the only other option being the boarded-up passageway. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to make the distance, and it would leave him vulnerable.

With no other option the imp firmly gripped onto the sides of GrabPack before aiming them at the gate. He tempered the fear and locked eyes with the shadow as it approached the gate.

He wouldn’t go down without a fight, and he sure as heaven wasn’t going down.

Huggy Wuggy got closer to the gate, each footstep felt like it shook the very floor as he closed the gap, filling the young imp with slightly more dread each time. Approaching the gate, the small beams of light finally revealed the dreaded creature in all its glory, its tall presence, its painful wide smile, its pink colour….?

Moxxie felt all the tension drop once he got a clearer view of the creature in front of him. It wasn’t the Huggy he fought before, standing before him was a pink Huggy Wuggy with big eye lashes.

‘That’s right, didn’t Huggy Wuggy have a girl counterpart? I don’t remember her name, but I do recall seeing her image around the factory while traveling through it.’ Moxxie thought to himself, still not taking his eyes off the pink Huggy.

Both seemed to just stare at each other for a few seconds, her head sightly swerving from side to side, before the pink Huggy’s eyes glanced over at the lever on the door, briefly shifting between it and the imp.

The pink Huggy then lifted her hand up to seemingly grab the lever, Moxxie observed that she missed the handle on the first grab before quickly grabbing it again and pulling it down. Soon after the gate started to move before raising slowly.

‘Oh, crumbs, here she comes.’ Moxxie thought, remembering that this was still a Huggy and they’d been nothing but trouble. He took a stance once again and locked the GrabPack’s arms on the Huggy, ready to fight it.

What he didn’t expect however was for the pink Huggy to then turn around and start to make her way back through the door she had just came out from.

‘Wait, did she just want to help me? Where is she going then?’ Moxxie didn’t know what to make of this, here he was expecting a fight, not some assistance from the pink toy.

She slowly made her way through the door, before turning around the corner and then out of sight.

“Hey, wait a second, pink Huggy wait…. sorry, what’s your name!?” Moxxie shouted through the bars, unable to get through due to the door still raising too slowly for him to get through.

‘Whose idea was it to have every single gate in this place rise so slowly?’ Moxxie complained, as he just looked at the metal door, annoyed. Once the gap was big enough to slip through, he crouched and slipped under, before running down the corridor to catch up to the Huggy.

As the imp turned the corner, he found a weird assortment of passageways, with no possible way out. But the pink Huggy was nowhere to be found.

Moxxie just stopped and scratched his head, confused. There was no open entrance they could have taken, yet she was nowhere in sight.

‘Where did she go?’

Chapter Text

Chapter 14 – Rabie’s Joy

It was another normal day in the playtime co offices, the offices were comprised of a vast sea of cubicles with over 50 employees currently working. The sun’s light was seeping into the dull office space. The sound of chatter and taping of computer keyboards filled the area, as different employees went about their daily activities.

The Playtime co’s factory had a few offices for different purposes, while some focused on the toys side of things. This office meanwhile was focused on handling the more ‘Secret’ dealings in the factory.

This also meant it was one of the more secure areas in the facility, with added security measures, including a special code needed to even access the room in general and several cameras were place around the room, covering the entire workspace and monitoring every action that the employees took.

The day just like every other as the door to the office opened, causing several of the people nearby and walking around to stop and look.

Stepping through the door was none other than Stella Greyber herself, one of the more ‘nicer’ higher up at the company. Following closely behind her, was someone that everyone in the offices was familiar with at this point, a creature that towered over Stella and followed her wherever she went in the factory. While familiar, none of the other employees dared to get too close.

Then again, would you approach a giant pink Bat creature. The creature in question was Rabie Baby, who stayed near Stella as they both made their way through the office complex. Their stroll drawing the attention of more employees as they continued to pass the many cubicles.

Not that the bat was even looking up, as her eyes were almost glued to the ground as she followed behind Ms Greyber. Her ears were perked up as she motioned around the room, listening around, as she eavesdropped on every conversation being held in her vicinity.

Rabie didn’t care to lookup, what was there even to admire? It was the same boring and dull place she’d been in like a billion times at this point. Every wall and cubical was painted in this dull greyish colour that just felt sick to look at. The only thing she even liked was the nice plants that some of the employees had with them in their cubicle offices, also the morning sun shining through the windows, she wished she could feel its warmth again.

The bat always wondered why she couldn’t be placed in some of the more fun areas around the factory and not this awful place.

Well, she did know. It was because of her super hearing. All her friends had something ‘special’ like her. The ‘people in coats’ said that it was help them with their jobs. Many people would say super hearing was an awesome to have, but as someone who have it, she could say it wasn’t a good thing.

She didn’t get to choose what she heard, no matter where she was, she always heard everything, it was constant noise in her ears. There was no peace and quiet, her ears always picked up every sound and whisper she heard, she couldn’t control it.

It was horrible.

Everyday she had the urge to grab anything she could find and stuff it in her ears, anything to block the sounds.

Why didn’t she? Because it was her job, if she did, she would get in trouble. She was told where ‘Bad toys’ went, one of her poor friends had already been taken. All of them needed to perform their jobs correctly, if they didn’t then they’d be taken away as well. So, she just listened.

Her job was to keep an ear out to make sure that none of the other employees were discussing the companies ‘Secrets’. If she did, she was told to tell Ms Greyber. The few times she’d done it, the people had always been taken away and never seen again, she didn’t know where they went.

It was a standard routine, everyday she was to follow Ms Stella around, keeping any eye and ear out for any trouble. Once Stella entered her office Rabie was told to wait outside and just start listening around the office.

She hated all of them.

One of the only reliefs she had was when the sun vanished and all the people left, she was then moved into her ‘room’, until Stella returned for her in the morning. It was where she could talk to her friends, all 3 of them (well 2 now). In there she didn’t have to listen to hundreds of voices, the constantly talking, giving her a headache, and instead she could just hang out with her friends.

Everyday it was almost the constant cycle of pain and loneliness, today however it seemed to be slightly different, as Ms Stella wasn’t going straight to her office like usual. Instead, they appeared to be making their way over to another one of the cubicles.

She followed Stella until she stopped in front of the cubical in question and started having a conversation with the person inside.

“I was told by Eddie that something weird is happening this morning and I was told you would inform me of the details.” She heard Stella say in her professional voice, addressing the young man in the cubical, as he turned to address her.

“Um, yes well it appears that several of the toys have been acting unusual this morning.” The young man, his name tag read Tom.

“What do you mean unusual?” Stella asked confused.

“Well, they’ve been just standing around just watching some of the staff intently and some of them have been refusing commands and acting slower than usual, we don’t know why.” The man said, who appeared worried, judging by this tone.

Rabie also quickly took noticed that Stella seemed to show great concern over this news. Something was wrong.

But Rabie already knew what was going on.

“Ok, we need to sit down and figure out what the problem is. Get me in contact with the Shelf and Playcare, I need to see if everyone’s ok down there.” Stella said, before she turned around to Rabie.

“Rabie would you be a dear and go make me some tea; two sugars, and a bit of milk, please?” Stella said, in her a more childish tone, before turning back around to continue the discussion with the man.

Of course. Stella always needed her morning tea to help her work. Usually, she would stop by the break room and make some, before heading into her own office. But sometimes she was too busy, that’s where she came in.

It was another one of her ‘important’ duties that she found herself doing a least a few times a day. One of the only times Stella would even talk to her was when she poked her head through her office door and asked her to make tea, the bat was a glorified secretary.

But Rabie followed her command and started to walk over to the break room at the other end of the office.

As she walked her ears continued to gleam around the area, listening to more conversations.

“Why does Mrs Greyber even have that thing?”

“Yeah, is having one of ‘them’ in here with us even a good idea?”

“All it does is stare at us all day.”

“Can it even speak anymore?”

‘Why don’t you just ask me?’ Rabie thought to herself. Its not like they didn’t know what ‘she’ was. They all knew, they just didn’t care. She was just another one of ‘them’ to the lot of them.  Another number.

They all thought they knew her, but they didn’t, in fact quite the opposite. She heard everything around the room, and she knew all their dirty little secrets, every single one.

Nichole in the corner stole supplies from the office.

Sally was cheating on her husband.

Fred didn’t like washing his hands when he left the toilet.

Ben had a crush on the janitor Oliva.

Harper was lazy and dozed off.  

And that didn’t even come close to the awfulness that was Stella herself, just because she kept her door closed, didn’t mean her words couldn’t be heard by her.

They dared to judge for doing her job, a job she had no choice in. Where was her decision in the matter? None of them cared and she had to sit back and listening to it all. Every day would end with her head thumbing from the constant noise she dealt with.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she found herself just outside the break room door. Slowly she opened the door and peaked inside. Currently there was no one else in there. Making her way over to the cabinet she pulled out a Mug with the words ‘I do it for the children’ on it, Stella’s favourite mug.

Staring down at the mug her hands (wings) began to tremble, she hated all of this, and she wanted it all to stop. She wished to see her friends; she wanted to be free.

Just a little longer

Her eyes glanced up at the clock.

10:58 AM

Her eyes then drifted back to the mug before placing it on the counter and then she grabbed a tea bag from the small pot on the side and placed in inside the mug. The bat then proceeded to grab the kettle and filled it up under the tap, before turning it on, letting the water boil.

For all the complaints she had of doing this job, one nice benefit of making the tea was the door cancelled a tiny bit of the noises around her. It was the only time during the day she got any kind of reprieve, at least for a few minutes. So, she always made sure to at least take her time.

However, noises could still be heard through the ventilation system above the room. As Rabie waited for the water to boil, her ears perked up as she began to hear more conversations that passed through.

“They’ve been acting weird all morning.”

“We’ll have curry for dinner; I’ll pick some up.”

THE HOUR IS NEAR.

Rabie froze for a second before turning back towards the clock.

10:59 AM

She then immediately heard the whistling of the kettle as the water finally boiled; picking it she began pouring the hot liquid into the mug and watched it mix with the tea bag.

Letting it settle for a few moments; she then picked grabbed a spoon from the draw and added two spoons of sugar to the beverage. Rabie then walked over to the break room’s fridge and grabbed milk from inside and added a bit to the tea.

It was done, as she began to stir the tea before she took one last look at the clock.

11:00 AM

All Rabie did then was stand still for a few seconds and listen, through the vents.

At first it was nothing.

A second after she began to hear feint noises coming through the vents.

It was Screaming, lots of screams.

But then, they started to be silenced.

The noises were slowly vanishing around her, one by one. This made her happy, it was happening.

Picking up the now finished drink, she began to stroll through the cubical area towards Stella. As she listened to the conversations once more, it appeared that the mood in the room had taken a drastic change. Just glancing around at the expression on people’s faces, she saw a mix of shock, confusion and even terror.  People were even starting to run around the office in a bit of a panic.

“What’s going on?”

“Why is this happening?”

“What are they doing?”

The bat didn’t care as she continued to stroll through the office, she briefly halted as she passed by one cubical, inside the person had a similar reaction like everyone else, but what caught her attention was box of tissues placed by their side.

Using her free hand, she grabbed a hand full of tissues, while the person was distracted. Before shoving them into her ear, then repeating the process with her other ear.

‘No one will tell me what to do now.’ She thought gleefully, making her way over to Stella. The tissues did their work. But, with her amazing hearing she was still able to still hear the people close to her, but she could no longer hear everything.

She resumed her walk before finally making her way back to the cubicle where Stella was located. She noticed for the women’s body language that she wasn’t having a good time.

Not like she could blame her.

“What’s going on, is it all of them?” She heard Stella say in a panic.

“Yes, it everywhere, the entrance, Game Station, Playcare, but we don’t know why?” the man said, frantically typing away on his keyboard as several camera feeds started to display on his computer.

Still the bat had a job to do and made her way up to the Woman.

“Here, I brought you tea, Ms Stella.” Rabie said politely.

“Rabie, not now!” Stella said, in a mix of anger and panic, not even turning around to look at her, how rude.

Rabie just started at the back of Stella for a second before her eyes turned to the tea she was holding, as a thought crossed her mind.

‘Hm, I’ve never tasted tea before.’ She thought before shrugging and bringing the mug up to her mouth, as began to gulp down the hot brew, a few seconds later she found herself looking down at the now empty mug.

It tasted…. awful.

‘Guess I should expect a vile brew would only suit a vile lady.’ The bat thought.

She then brought the mug up and smashed it on the side of the cubicle’s counter, smashing it in half, leaving only a jagged piece of in the Bat’s hand.

This action drew the attention of not only Stella and the person she was talking too, but the many other people in the area. They all just stopped and stared at the bat, who still wielded the jagged mug, as she locked eyes with Stella Greyber.

Rabie and Stella just started into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, Stella’s expression said it all, she looked panicked before, but as she stared at Rabie, she seemed to show genuine terror as lady’s body began to shake.

“R-Rabie d-dear, w-what are you doing?” She said, but it was clear she already knew the answer, as she looked ready to run as fast as she could.

Rabie giggled in response. “Giving you your tea of course.”

The bat then brought up the mug and brought it down on-

***********

“Rabie!”

Rabies eyes shot open.

In front of the bat was Icky, the frog seemed worried based on his posture.

Snapping out of her daydream, she started to look around the old cubical offices that Playtime used to use. Most of the cubicles were knocked over, the entire area was a complete mess, with desks and chairs knocked to the ground and even a few smashed windows.

“Oh, yeah I’m fine sorry Icky.” Rabie said quickly, slightly embarrassed by her zoning out.

Rabie continued to look around, before her eyes drifted to one of the windows that wasn’t broken, slowly she turned and moved towards it, carefully avoiding the assortment of discarded items that littered the environment. As she made her way over, she took in the view in front of her.

It was outside of the factory, the dark night sky, illuminate by the big crescent moon high above. It was a perfect view for her, it may have been dark like below, but it was the little differences that made it count. She knew why Icky wanted to leave earlier.

Her actions caused her frog friend to make his way over to her side. His eyes showing more concern for the bat.

“Um, Rabie you sure you’re, ok?” Icky, said as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

Rabie looked away from the view in front of her and towards her friend.

Rabie let out a long sigh. “No, it’s been so long since I’ve been able to see the outside again. Look it’s just…. there.” her wings pointed forward out of the window.

Icky followed her gaze and looked up out the window into the night sky. “Yeah, I know what you mean, just being back up here again is wild.” Icky said.

“I think the last time I was up here and in this room was on that day.” Rabie said in a tone angry.

Icky looked away, he remembers, every single toy remembers that day, the day they all broke free. “The day we all were able to reunite with each other.” Icky said positively.

Rabid Baby nodded, it was a joyful day for everyone. But they weren’t up here to reminisce, they were up here for a mission. Rabie immediately shook her head to focus herself, no more distractions.

“Alright lets at least try to find the book first, we just need to find Stella’s office.” Rabie said as her eyes began to shift around for the office.

Icky tilted his head, before pointing backwards with his thumb. “You…walked right through it Rabie.”

Rabie appeared to look a little flabbergasted by the news, before looking in the direction Icky was pointing. Right where the frog was pointing was the door she used to stand outside of for many hours, all those years ago.

“You must have really zoned out, we literally started in that room when we came up the slide, you didn’t say a word and just walked right past it into the open office space.” Icky said slightly chuckling at the situation.

“Oh, sorry.” Rabie said rubbing the back of her head, she must have really been daydreaming hard. “I’ve never actually seen the inside of her office, so I wouldn’t have recognised it.” Rabid said, clearly embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Although what she said seemed to spark a memory in Icky.

“Oh wait, that’s right, you said you had to stay outside during the day.” Icky remembered her talking about it several times, it was one of the bad subjects she would bring up when they were all together at night, just to get it off her chest.

Rabie nodded sadly, before moving passed the frog and towards the room.

Making her way over she wondered what the room would even look like, her entire time with Stella just filled her mind with awful thoughts of the room’s appearance.

Her face moved across to take in the room, and she…. had no words.

The room was a simple office like all the others she’d seen. Except every piece of furniture and décor was decorated to look like one of the toys the company made, a far contrast to the cubicles just outside.

The table was designed to look like a red dinosaur with a scale pattern on top and table legs looked like dinosaur feet, the work desk was made with blue fur with a smiling Huggy face at the front. Cute decorations were hung from the ceiling, fake plants were placed around the room, and the walls were decorated like a children’s bedroom’s with drawings of trees and a cartoonish smiling sun. The other thing in the room was the massive slide in the corner, that they had just climbed up.

It always felt weird that all the executives had slides in their offices.

The room also appeared to look relatively untouched compared to everywhere else in the area.

“I’m surprised you didn’t destroy the place the last time you were here Rabie.” Icky said as he entered the office behind her.

“Don’t you remember the story I told you guys, during the hour?” Rabie questioned.

“Oh, right, you said you never entered the office because Stella never ran inside. I recall you saying you chased Stella through the factory after dealing with the people in the office.” Icky pointed back into the cubical room.

“Yeah, I tried to go for her, but she seemed to have already know what was going on and quickly tried escape my presence. So, I just started with all the other people instead, at least ones I could before they fled. Then I decided to chase Stella down.” Rabie said chuckling. “She didn’t even try to go into her office, I think she knew what was waiting for her below, so she tried to take the other way out. I still remember chasing her through a bit of the factory before I finally cornered her.”

Rabie remembers the entire situation almost crystal clear, it was satisfying to go after the people that had stood by and watched them suffer for so long. She unleashed all her anger at the employees before she turned her attention to Stella.

“I remember we both got in trouble for that.” Icky said, also as a good memory of that day.

“Soi-Soi should have told us sooner he wanted them alive. Although I doubt, I wouldn’t have pushed her into that grinder even if he did. There was nothing left of her to find when I was done.” Rabie said nonchalantly.

“I know what you mean, the Eddie guy hated even being near me. I was always told to hide in the vents or ceiling around him but never get close. There was so many nasty bugs up there.” Icky said shivering. “It isn’t even my fault he died.” Icky said crossing his hands.

Rabie nodded again, the doctor wanted them to bring both Stella and Eddie down to him so he could deal with them himself. However, in their anger they had gone too far.

Rabie sighed again, at this point she just wanted to get this over with. “Ok, lets just check this office and go home, we’ve already checked all the other executive’s offices so it must be in here.”

Both Icky and Rabie began to search the room, with Rabie checking the walls for anything hidden, like she’d done before. Meanwhile Icky began to check under all the furniture in the room.

The bat was started to get annoyed at the lack of progress as she made her way over to Stella’s Huggy themed desk. Rabie started to open up the draws and look inside, hoping she could find this elusive book and be done with it.

However, as she started to check inside the draw, her eyes caught sight of a photo frame on top of the desk. It was covered in dust, making the photo hard to make out. Rabie reached over and picked the photo up before wiping away the dust with her wing, revealing the picture.

Looking at the clear photo revealed the picture of Stella Greyber, smiling with a bunch of kids around her. The background showing a schoolhouse, which Rabie instantly recognised as the Playcare.

Just looking at the photo in her wings made her feel angry, her hands visible shaking as she took in every detail. It’s like the photo was mocking her and her friends, just knowing what most likely happened to the children displayed. ‘Look at her, all smiles and rainbows, while not giving a darn about us.’

In an instant, the rage the bat had repressed burst out, as she immediate tossed the photo into the wall. The photo practically exploded on impact with the wall, due to the sheer force behind Rabie’s throw. Glass and wood chunks fell and littered the floor, the only remaining evidence of the pictures frame.

Followed up by Rabie bringing her hand down onto the desk with a big slam, before she just sat down on the desk chair.

Icky jumped at the sound of the glass smashing, before turning around and seeing Rabie slam the desk. Getting over his shock quickly, he ran up to his friend and tried to comfort her. “Hey Rabie? You, ok? I know how much this place gets too you, so we’ll get this done quickly then be down with it.” Icky said, trying to encourage his friend as she just kept her head staring down at the desk.

Rabie kept looking down at the desk in front of here, making it difficult for Icky to determine her expression. “I heard something.” The bat said quickly.

“Wait, what?” Icky said confused by what she meant.

“The desk is hallowed.” Rabie said, as she repeatedly tapped the desk where she slammed her hand.

“Ok, but are you ok Rabie?” Icky asked concerned.

Rabie stopped tapping and looked up at her friends “Yeah, I’m a little better now, just had to let off a little steam, now help me find what’s under here.” Rabie said to reassure he friend as she started to move to the front of the desk and began to tap the front, hoping to find a hidden compartment.

Icky got up and started to look around the other side of the desk for anything that could help, before ducking under the desk and noticing a small button nestled in the corner, it was blended in with the rest of desk well, making it difficult to spot.

‘Whatever is in here Stella, did not want us to find.’ The frog thought as used his tongue to press the button. As soon as he did a hidden compartment opened right at the front to the desk where Rabid was standing.

It revealed that the bottom of the desk was the fact almost completely hallow and contained a medium sized metal container with a dial on the front.

It was a safe.

“Jackpot!” Rabie said, her lips moving to the best of their ability. Her wings reaching out and grabbing onto the safe. Soon after she pressed her head against the front of it and started to turn the dial, attempting to get it open.

“Did we find anything?” Icky asked on the other side of the desk.

“Yes, just shhh, give me a second.” Rabie said, currently focused on the safe.

A second later, she heard a click followed by the safe door opening. “Yes, Icky I got the safe open!” she said happily.

“Wait, you found a safe?” Icky said as he attempted to get out from under the desk and see what she found. As he got over all he could see was his bat friend’s face just standing almost awestruck at what she found.

“No way.” she said, almost like a whisper.

“What’d you find?” Icky said, his curiosity peaked.

Icky didn’t get a chance to speak as he found a stack of paper thrown in his face.

“Its just photos!!” Rabie said, her voice clearly angry.

Icky took a second to get his bearings “Wait, so it doesn’t have the book?”

“Yep, no bloody book, just dumb photos. This was a massive waste of time; Sawyer is going to be pissed when we get back.” Rabie said, as she pulled all the papers out of the safe.

Icky curiosity got the better of him, as he picked up some of the photos that Rabid had tossed. On closer examination he noticed that all appeared to be photos of Stella herself, along with various children. All taken around the Playcare and Game Station areas. Not exactly a worthwhile find, quite grim.

Glancing back up from the photo he was currently holding, he noticed quickly that Rabie appeared to be grabbing a few and placing them in her compartment, which made Icky confused.

“Wait, why are you taking some of them with you?”

“Because I want to destroy them.” Rabie replied fast.

“Wait, really?”

“She doesn’t deserve to have these memories; I don’t care how much she loved us or tried to help. SHE is the reason we are all like this. She is just as responsible as all the others.” Rabie said as slammed her wing into the table again, this time breathing heavily. “I-I just want to leave this place, b-but you and the other seven are all I have.” Rabie said, her angry quickly shifting into sadness.

Icky looked at his friend, slowly he walked over before placing his hands around her and embracing here. “Its ok, we’re going to get through.” He said as an idea popped into his head. “I know how about we trash this entire room, just like I did to Eddie’s, it’ll be a good way to get your anger out.” Icky said as he locked down at his friend.

Rabie lifted her head slightly looking at the frog “Y-you know, your right; I could blow of some steam right now.” She said, her mood going back to normal as she moved away from the embrace. “Thanks for cheering me up, Licks.”

“Hey, no problem, Rabes, the others would have done the same. Anyway, let’s get to trashing.” The frog said, smacking his webbed hands together.

For the next few minutes Icky and Rabie smashed up every piece of furniture and item in Stella’s old room. By the end, nothing was left untouched. The two stood at the entrance of the office admiring their own destructive work.

“Looks good just need to do one more thing.” Icky said rubbing his webbed hands together.

Rabie looked at her friend confused. “What do you mean?”

Icky walked out of the room, a gesture that confused Rabie, before he walked back into the room a few seconds later carrying two items. A small rectangular metal box and a paper one.

A lighter and match box.

Rabie started to freak out when she saw the items in his hand “Where did you get those?!”

Icky turned to his bat friend. “Found them on the floor by one of the cubicles, must have fallen out of someone’s pockets.”

Rabie had a concerned look on her face as she continued to eye the two items in frogs’ possession. “Are you sure this is a good idea? You know how Sparky gets if he sees fire.” Rabie.

“Don’t worry Rabie, our leader isn’t here and I’m not planning on taking the lighter or matches back with me. I’d never do anything to him.” Icky Licky said trying to reassure her friend.

Rabie felt a bit better, knowing his friend at least considered what he was doing. “Alright just be careful, I just don’t want any of us getting hurt.”

Icky nodded before lighting the match, before he immediately tossed in on to the pile of destroyed paper and furniture. The small flame began to engulf the stack, turning the small spark into an inferno. The room lighting up, with the sound of crackling and popping.

“Ok, lets get out of here, Mr Sawyer isn’t going to like that we couldn’t find the book though.”  Icky said as he started to turn around.

“At this point Icky, it doesn’t matter, the book wasn’t here, and we couldn’t find it. Also, with Mommy running around downstairs with that ‘Moxxie’ guy we’re going to have to take the maintenance tunnel, considering we can’t take the slide, to the Game Station.”

Icky’s head looked up to the ceiling as he groaned, “Oh, but that’s such a long walk home.” He complained, he really hated long walks.

Rabie giggled, “Well it’s better than getting stuck in a web and we both know you hate bugs.” Rabie said, as she went and patted her friend on the shoulder, before they both started to leave the room.

As the bat and frog made their way out of the office, Rabie turned back around to the now burning office.

‘I hated you Stella, but now at least you’ve given me something that could help save us.’ Rabie thought as she gripped her chest, a gleeful look in her eyes.