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toontails · 2 years ago

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Toon Quest

Chapter 12: It's All in Your Head

Y/n fiddled with the bow in her hands, she tightened and fixed the strings, sitting in the bed facing away from everyone. She felt Spunk hop onto the bed and lay down. Panchito was already asleep in her spot—for whatever reason, he would have been up by now, but crazily enough, he was asleep still. And she was certain it was because of the walk to and from their far off location.

Mugman, Felix and Donald left into town to do more work considering Y/n would be going to the town's training this time, she decided not to tag along because of the sick feeling in her stomach. Cuphead had left shortly after to chase the 3 down when he woke up late.

Y/n didn’t bother to wake up Panchito, if he was still asleep then clearly it was for a good reason. She wanted to go trail off to Ruck to talk about the nervous feeling in her chest but she was certain he would either just toss her in the training hall to face the troubles head on, or just simply tell her to suck it up. But she didn’t want to. She held the quiver between her legs as she placed the bow on the bed, and picked up an arrow before picking up the damp towel near her and wiped away the dirt from the arrow. At Least if she planned on using it for archery training today, she might as well have her stuff look presentable. The last time she’s seen her contestee’s they all witness her get beat to bloody mess.

She didn’t want to go back there, the sheer feeling of embarrassment was wavering around in her head like a flag. Even the constructor didn’t like her too much.

She was proud of herself with how many minor achievements she made yesterday, but they would amount to facing the staring eyes when she walks through those doors today. She tried to have that suck it up attitude like Ruck always seemed to give, but it would only last for mere seconds before she would deflate into nothing but anxiety. Her fingertips felt cold as she wiped away the dried mood from the arrow.

The sound of nails scratching against wood caused her to flinch and quickly look over to the floor, but it was only Spunk stretching. His nails accidentally brushed against the wooden floor, creating that familiar scratching sound. Oswald—who was seated on the couch near the door, noticed her sudden frightened movement and looked at her, her back facing him.

“Are you okay?” He asks. Y/n glanced over her shoulder over to Oswald and nodded silently before looking back at her arrow and continued to clean it, it seemed her silent reply wasn’t enough. Oswald slowly stood up from the couch and walked over to Y/n. Walking over to the side, his eyes traveled down and watched as she placed the first arrow back in the quiver and took out another one to clean it. He slowly lowered himself down onto the bed and sat beside her.

“What’s wrong?” He asks. Y/n flickers her gaze to him and deadpans. “Going back to training is going to be so embarrassing.” She responds.

Oswald slowly nods his head—he immediately knew what she was referring to.

“Plus..I’m exhausted. I was going to go help out in town. But—I’m sore, and I gotta go to the training there—not to mention. I don’t even want to go head on with Stinks again. Jeez, that guy has some issues.” She muttered, she placed the arrow back in her quiver and looked at Oswald who was staring at her.

“I dunno..if you ask me you seem paranoid.” Oswald states and Y/n was about to open her mouth to disagree, but she slowly closed it when she thought about it. With recent events, it was understandable that she would be on edge 24/7. Leaving town was already bad enough with the state she was in and her last unfortunate one sided brawl. Only to fall into another one here in the offlands. Which was Stinks.

Having so much responsibility and eyes on her just for being a Vendolez, to getting dragged through the mud by some guy, not once but twice on multiple occasions. Having to make sure things were okay back at home and adapting to this new world. And not only that, adapt to being a hero because the book assigned her to, it was a lot for her to handle.

“I guess I am.”

“Rest then?”

Y/n fell silent and looked at Oswald before smiling.

Panchito wakes up from his sleep and slowly opens his eyes, Spunk had found comfort sleeping near his head. Panchito didn’t mean to fall asleep for so long, but Atleast he felt energized. When his eyes trailed over, he spotted Oswald and Y/n on the couch, they were asleep. The human laid on her side, half off Oswald and half on the couch, her leg over his as she laid on his shoulder. Oswald was fast asleep as well, he had an arm wrapped around her, his fingers gently pressed against her back, his ears hanging off of the couch. A blanket that was tossed over them before was slipping off as Oswald’s other hand was hanging from the couch. The two seemed utterly exhausted.

Panchito sits up from his position and smiles at the two, Spunk waking up soon after, looking up at the rooster who had looked at the two asleep on the couch.

He didn’t wake up the two—as he was certain they certainly needed the rest.

Y/n walked next to Ruck who was silently listening to Y/n speak—who was mainly talking about what different foods she could make if they went shopping, despite her days she’s been through, she’s been starving for a meal, she ate, but she was really looking for some fries, for whatever reason.

Once they reached the training arena, Y/n stared at the entrance where the contestants were walking in, some laughing around and joking around with each other, ready to begin the morning. The small nap Y/n took with Oswald did give her some energy, but that seemed to be quickly drained away when she deadpands at the building and sighed through her nose.

“I was told today you’re going through two courses, archery and the obstacle.” Ruck starts and Y/n turns to look at him, her hands wringing the quiver trap in her hands.

“Right..” she muttered.

“You go below the percentage of 10, you’re kicked.” He adds and Y/n furrowed her eyebrows and glared at him. “You don’t have to be rude about it—“

“Not by me, dumbass. I’m talking about the finale. They cherry pick certain ones to fight in warrior falls.”

Y/n felt her heart sink to her stomach. “What..?”

She glanced back at the building and back at Ruck. “But I can’t—I just started training, if I mess up, I won’t even get a chance to step a toe to the finale stage. All of this would be for nothing if I get kicked out immediately.”

“You’re a fast learner, you adapted pretty well in my eyes.”

Y/n silenced herself for a moment. Her hands become clammy and cold at the thought of failing her only chance. “Ruck, I’m serious. If I go back to everyone and tell them I failed the only objective out for me, I’ll look like an idiot.”

“I think you worry too much about what others think.” Ruck grumbled. Y/n stared at him once more, her eyebrows lifting up ever so slightly.

“You. Go in there. And just do it. The outcome will be what you make it if you keep pondering over it. Now go, I heard they’re giving you your uniform for the contest.”

“What’s the point if some people might get kicked?”

“Don’t ask me that.”

Y/n slowly nods and her eyes flickered back over to the building. Ruck didn’t move from his spot he was standing it was evident that he was planning on staying outside until they actually started training.

Y/n took a step back and turned around and started towards the building, but her feet slowly came to a stop. She eyes the building before looking back at Ruck, who had seemed like he was about to turn to walk off but he stopped in motion when he saw her turn back around.

“Can you come in there with me?” She asks him. Ruck furrowed his eyebrows at her question, Y/n glanced back behind her towards the building and back to Ruck. “I don’t want to get my uniform by myself.”

Ruck sighs and brings a hand up to his eyes to massage them in a frustrated manner.

“Please.”

He heard her add. Ruck removes his hands from his eyes and walks over to Y/n and soon past her. “C’mon. Christ you’re gonna give me a headache..”

“Yes!”

The man at the vendor booth hands out a uniform to one of the contestee’s—with beads and jewels—made with rich fabrics, Y/n stood in line with Ruck, she was looking around at the other contestee’s, their uniforms all were so creative, with designs of tiger stripes and zebra patterns. Y/n couldn’t wait to receive hers, Ruck didn’t say much other than stand beside Y/n and wait in line with her. Once they reached the vendor, the man looked at Y/n and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, hi, haven’t seen you before.” His eyes slowly slid down to the yellow paper on the booth top, looking at the various names of the contestee’s that he knew by heart and not once had he seen Y/n before.

“I’m Y/n.” Y/n responds. Placing her hands on the bar top, rocking back and forth on her feet.

The man silently read over the paper of names, his eyes squinting as he tried to find the name. Y/n seemed to deflate at that, was she not on the list?

“Erica, Nora, Coü, hm…Zazu..”

The man mutters different names as he reads down the list, Y/n eyes kept flickering down to the paper and then at the man and back at the paper and then back at the man until he finally finds her name. “Ah! Here we go, Y/n.” He taps the name where it was placed all the way at the bottom of the paper.

Y/n pressed her lips together. “Great..”

The man turns around and scavenges through a wooden bucket of clothes, moving some stuff out of the way as he sorts through everything. Y/n glanced at Ruck who was busy looking somewhere else to pay attention.

“Here we go.”

Y/n immediately turns back to the man and smiles in excitement to see her costume, but what was placed in front of her, was first a brown shirt—that seemed similar to some sort of tube top—but around the neck to resemble the neck of the shirt was a short brown poncho that was made of a thick fabric, black fringes dangling from it. A hood was attached to the poncho, down the poncho was a black Aztec like pattern.

Unfortunately it was attached to the shoulderless shirt underneath, not that it mattered as the poncho ended right above her ribcage. The pants ended right above her knees and had no design other than the straw like fringed running down the sides of the pants.

Y/n blinks before looking at the man.

“This is it?”

“Yep.”

Y/n brings a hand up and takes the clothes in her arms and nods her head at the man. “Thank you.”

Y/n walks down the hall with Ruck and stares down at the clothes in her hands.

“This looks dumb, everyone else has some cool stuff. I look like some old Wild West character.”

“Everyone’s costume has a meaning because they customize it every year. You get a standard one because you never entered Warrior Falls before.” Ruck informs in an attempt to not hear anymore of Y/n’s ranting.

The two stopped at a door—which was the changing hall, Y/n stood in front of the cobblestone corridor and looked at him. “If I look dumb, I’m not wearing this.”

Ruck raises an eyebrow. “And I would care because..?”

Y/n blinks before walking into the changing room.

Thankfully there was no one in there. Most of the contestee’s had already changed in their uniforms as Y/n was the last one out of everyone in line, she didn’t mind though, she would get peace and quiet to herself until she could mentally get herself together. The changing room looked similar to some High School gym locker room. Minus the lockers.

The wooden benches were laid and separated by some rooms of even more benches, slowly placed her bow and quiver against the wall, And glanced at the mirror on the wall ahead of her. It was like a public bathroom mirror, the room was dim—the sun coming through the tainted blue windows above near the ceiling.

Placing the clothes on the bench, she stared down at them and placed her hands on her hips.

It was the time she had to think, would she spin out and lose this only opportunity? Or actually try out there. She felt confident she would do something right. But that thought in her head kept telling her it would be best to back away and just let the opportunity go. But she couldn’t.

Y/n picked up the poncho and shirt and gazed down at it, clutching the fabric in her hands tightly.

“What seems tiring and impossible right now, will feel like a walk in the park the next day..” she whispered to herself. The assuring words that played in her hands. Closing her eyes she took a big deep breath before exhaling.

“Ruck, look.” Y/n walks out of the dressing room excitedly, her quiver and bow in hand, but she immediately stopped once she saw him standing with the others.

Meek, Don, Felix, Donald, Panchito, Oswald, Cuphead, Mugman, even Bendy and Lucy.

Y/n froze in her motion at the sight of everyone standing there. Lucy looks away from Ruck, who was speaking and turns her gaze to Y/n and immediately smiles.

“Oh! You look wonderful!” She exclaims. In her palms she was holding two wooden boxes, she quickly placed them on the ground and rushed over to Y/n, her hands flying over to Y/n’s poncho and fixing up the neck of the collar and then the hood.

“I knew yours wouldn’t have a meaning to it, that’s why I bought paint!” She starts. Y/n had her mouth open as her eyes flickered to everyone.

“Great…what’s..uh. What’s everyone doing here?” She asks. A hint of nervousness swelling in her chest. The one chance she had to actually make an effort and everyone was there.

“Finale picking. ‘said it was a towns viewing for who’ll be in the finale runner ups for the contest.” Donald informed nonchalantly.

“So this is basically a contest for the ones losing—well—I dunno, a part one from what I’m guessing.” He adds on. Y/n’s heartbeat immediately started hammering in her chest. Her mouth slowly closing at that information.

“Great..” she whispered.

“Oh don’t worry! I’m sure you’ll do great out there, it doesn't matter what happens out there. We’ll be here.” Lucy smiled before she motioned towards the boxes on the ground. “I’ve bought paint so you can customize your uniform.”

Customizing her uniform was the last thing Y/n was thinking about, she was mostly now focused on actually having to try to get some good points up there to make it past this hurdle. She’ll be damned doing all this work just to be tossed out of the game.

“Yeah..” Y/n muttered in a distracted manner.

“I dunno, if you ask me. I think some of them will be disqualified after the first round..” Mugman points out. His gaze fixated on a girl in the training arena struggling to pull the arrow back on her bow, when she did it immediately shot from her weak fingers and the arrow was sent flying lord knows where from his view.

Mugman shakes his head and looks at Y/n. “I believe you’ll do fine.”

“Been trying to tell her that for the last hour.” Ruck pipes up and Don nudges the man. “Give er’ a break. She just got her ass kicked by that skunk fella.”

“Which won’t happen again.” Cuphead quickly says and Donald chuckled. “Where’s the guy by the way?” He asks and Y/n immediately shrugs.

“I dunno. Haven’t seen him, and don’t plan on wanting to.” She grunts, it was clear she was starting to become agitated. Shuffling on her feet before placing her hands on her hips. She felt Lucy’s hand cautiously place on her shoulder—like she didn’t know if she could touch Y/n or not. Y/n turned her gaze and looked at the girl.

“Let’s get you ready for the course, no?” Lucy gives her a smile. “Customizing your uniform is supposed to resemble what you’re fighting for. Many of the contestee’s have different things they’ve added to their name to showcase throughout the contest.”

So that’s why Y/n’s costume was blank. Not that it didn’t look perfectly fine as is.

“Oh that is cute, it is like your own little journal. But you can wear it..in a weird way.” Panchito drawls. Y/n’s eyes flickered down to the small boxes on the ground.

“What’s that?” She asks.

“Paint. I brought it since I have to be here with my father to spectate.” She answered, pulling away from Y/n and moving to pick up the boxes from the ground.

“And the kings here too? Great.” Y/n deadpans.

“Cheer up, like Ruck said. You’ll do great. If not? Oh well! You still went out there and did it.” Meek comforts. And Felix nods soon afterwards. “Yes, it might be uncomfortable now, but we’re here with you, Y/n.”

“Don’t take it personally if I laugh.” Donald pipes up and Oswald silently looks at Donald and furrows his eyebrows at the duck.

“Which he won’t be doing..” The rabbit spoke through his teeth and Donald rolled his eyes silently—clearly understanding Oswald.

Bendy was busy silently leaning on the wall, his hand holding him up as his other was placed on his hip. He watched as Lucy picked up the boxes and turned to Y/n.

“So! What were you looking to add to your uniform?”

Y/n grew silent, she couldn’t think of anything. Most of her mind was focused on what would stir up on the course than customizing some clothes in the moment.

Staring at the boxes In the princesses hand, Y/n’s eyes flickered back to the group. “You said it’s supposed to represent something?” She repeats and Lucy nods.

“I think I may have one thing in mind.“

“This looks magnificent!” Lucy skips around Y/n, they all congregate back in the dressing room, standing in front of the mirror. Y/n glanced down at her uniform. Various hand prints stamped on the pants, and poncho of all her friends. Minus Ruck who didn’t want to get his hands dirty. Black and red paint littering the clothes, and the sight of it made a small smile appear on Y/n’s face.

Panchito placed his hand in the red paint before walking over to Y/n and placing his hand to her shoulder, where he stamped his hand print.

“Stop—swattin’ your hand, you’re flingin’ paint.” Bendy hissed at Cuphead who flickered his hand to get some wet paint off—why he didn’t just wash his hands was beyond everyone.

“Sorry.” Cuphead immediately apologized.

Felix was busy fixing Y/n’s poncho—mainly her hood. She stood still and she felt Lucy place a handprint on her knee, Y/n felt like she was getting ready for prom of some sorts. Staring at herself in the mirror, she actually started to like the uniform a tad bit more, it didn’t have much of a design to it like everyone else. But it was still something.

Felix pulls away from her and moves to walk over to a sink to wash his hands off from the paint that stained his hands.

“Wonderful.” Lucy starts. Standing up from the ground, the palms of her hands were stained in red paint, but she didn’t move to wash her hands yet. Watching Y/n who was busy silently examining the uniform. Lucy couldn’t tell what Y/n was thinking, with how silent she was, not a single thought seemed to cross the mind of Y/n.

“Looks nice.” Ruck broke the silence that he could sense Y/n was giving. She blinks and slowly nods.

“I like it.”

The paint was drying up pretty quickly, thankfully as she needed to be out in the area soon.

Soon Don walks into the dressing room, Ruck turns his head to him and Don nods. “It’s starting, we gotta go get Bendy and Lucy up to the balcony area.” He informs. Lucy looks away from Don and looks back at Y/n who had moved away to saunter over to her bow that was leaning on the wall.

“Okay! This is nice!” Donald outstretched his arms and gave an optimistic smile, his eyes planted on Y/n who tossed the quiver’s strap around her shoulder. She felt her heart beating in her stomach—anxious for the upcoming events.

“You’ll go out there and do great, toots. We’re rooting for ya!” Donald clearly was trying to make shine for some light of motivation as she didn’t seem too good in the face. Y/n’s eyes flickered to Donald and she gave him a single nod. “Yeah..”

Ruck’s first thought was to have a talk with Y/n before leaving out, but he watched as her toon friends slowly gathered closer to her to speak to her themselves, and he waited to see what would happen as Meek and Don left out of the dressing room, Ruck removes himself from the wall and exits the dressing room as well.

Felix placed a hand on Y/n’s shoulder and placed one on Panchito’s shoulder seeing he was standing beside them. The group made a small circle, minus Lucy who took a step back and watched them with a smile.

Mugman stood beside Y/n and she looked at everyone. “Whatever happens out there..” Felix starts, when he started talking she turned her gaze and looked at him.

“All that matters is that you tried. You’ve done wonderful so far. And that’s all that matters.” Felix's words seemed like he was telling her, even if she didn’t make it to the final stage for being in the official Warrior Falls contest, it was okay because she still learned new things in the process. Like archery, and climbing trees and swimming with her breath held for long periods of time.

“Whatever happens. We’re still a family.” Felix smiles at everyone and Panchito smiles widely. “Ooooh, that is very nice! Please, don’t make me cry.” Panchito said dramatically. Y/n cracked a smile before nodding in agreement. The small speech gave her comfort.

“Yeah…”

Y/n fiddled with her bow, tightening the strings on it. She furrowed her eyebrows in concentration, doing the best she could, the other contestee’s were getting ready, some seated under the shade away from the hot sun to speak with their peers. A few others speaking to their families were in the lower parts of the stand in the arena. There were people already pooling in for the first viewing of Warrior Falls. Not entirely a full house but it was far more than enough to have Y/n overwhelmed and thinking about what the actual day would look like.

Many people had their support, wishing them luck, giving them gifts to motivate them. Y/n’s eyes wandered over and landed on Stinks, who was looking up the stands where his family was started.

Stinks gazed up at his mother. She held a calculated expression as she looked down at her son. “That girl.” She starts. Stinks ears perked up and he raised his eyebrows, he immediately knew she was referring to Y/n.

“You know what to do.” She said, Stinks silently nodding his head. “Yes..” he muttered. The mother moved to place her attention on the toddler beside her who climbed to sit in the seat. The child smiled up at her mother before looking over to Stinks, in which she had to stand on the chair and peek over the railing to gaze down at him. “You got this Zazu!” She gives him a thumbs up. Stink’s gives a shirt and quickly smiles before looking back at her mother.

“Mother, I think that she’s not—“

“Hey, Stinks!”

Stinks turns around to see his friends calling out to him. They waved him down and Stinks removed himself from the wall and glanced back at his mother who nodded her head to dismiss him. Stinks sighed through his nose and turned to walk over to his friends, his eyes landed on Y/n, who was looking at him from over her shoulder. Stink furrowed his eyebrows and the two looked away from each other.

Y/n sighed and looked ahead and away from Stinks. She furrowed her eyebrows and shuffled on her feet. Placing the bow back around her.

“I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.” Y/n whispered to herself. She walked over to the benches and sat down. The heat from the wooden bench warmed up her legs as she furrowed her eyebrows. Her eyes looked over to see 5 judges standing over near the stands in a booth, they were speaking to Modi who stood in front of them listening to whatever they were saying.

They held papers in their hands, no doubt some Talley list. Y/n looks away and back to the ground, rubbing her hand to her forehead. She rested her elbows on her knees and sighed heavily. She had the urge to leave, to just walk away, the bubbling hot pot of anxiety was growing worse by the minute. But she didn’t move. She inhaled and rolled her shoulders before looking up.

The..pre contest had started, and Y/n sat on the benches along with the other contestants. Similar to some basketball players waiting to be called onto the court. There were 50 in all and the first round was archery. 10 targets, and all Y/n was thinking on was how badly she would screw up. For contestants who didn’t have a bow—they were given a temporary one for the meantime, it Atleast made Y/n feel good that she had one At Least. She sat lazily on the bench as her eyes watched 4 contestants walk up to the center of the arena. The number of people they picked to walk out to shoot the targets was random, but she couldn’t give a rats ass about the number, she was more so worried that her time was up as she saw the line of who went next get closer to her…and of course. She was at the end of the bench, meaning she went last.

The stands had so many people seated that Y/n got dizzy just gazing at them. Eyes everywhere watching and cheering for their loved ones on the ground to hit the target.

Y/n’s eyes flickered up to the balcony way across the area where she saw her friends.

Donald down at Y/n, his arms resting on the railing. “Geez. She does not look good out there.” Donald says.

“She has stage fright.” Bendy answered and Mugman grunted. “Oh yeah..I know how that feels.”

Panchito waves frantically at Y/n and smiles at her. From afar Y/n raised her hand and waved back at him.

Oswald was leaned back into his seat as his eyes were busy flickering between the contestee’s doing their rounds with archery. Some missing the bullseye and knocking off points. Some getting close to the target and some even missing entirely.

“YOU SUCK!” Cuphead shouts down at the contestant who fired their arrow but missed the entire target. The contestant looks up at the balcony where Cuphead shouted from. The contestee sighs and sulks before turning away and trudging back over to the benches. A whistle went off for them as well, signaling they were disqualified.

“What’s up with the whistle?” Meek asks. Lucy looks away from the game and glances at Meek. “It signals who’s disqualified from the contest, as stated this is the picking of the contestants.”

She points down to the judges in a booth examining the game. “They’re the ones watching and picking.”

“If she gets kicked out from this first game I think I might lose it.” Donald rubs his temple and Felix looks at him. “Donald..” Felix warns.

“What’s important is she’s trying.” Ruck states and Felix nods in agreement.

“Aww..my sweet querida looks like she needs a hug.” Panchito sulks as he frowns and looks down at Y/n.

“And when is she never stressing?” Donald chuckled.

“Is that the guy that was causin’ problems?” Cuphead squinted his eyes as he tried to get a better look at Stinks from afar. Stinks had got up from the benches as he was called out. He was 3 people down from Y/n. She was going to be up soon.

Stinks grabs his bow and walks out to the middle of the arena. The crowd chants and sings his name; ‘Zazu’

Stinks seemed to glance around the arena at everyone as he reached back and grabbed an arrow from his quiver.

Two other contestee’s joined as well. Those were the last two, but Y/n wasn’t called up.

“Why are they letting her go by herself?” Don grunts and Ruck squints his eyes. “Right..” he agreed.

Stinks had hit the target—clearly a bullseye. He did it with such an ease he didn’t even seem like he had to think about it. The other contestants had missed their target, and a whistle blew and the contestant sighed and walked back over to the bench. The other contestant shot the target—but inches away from the red bullseye, but still safe enough for them to stay in the contest.

The constructor motioned Stinks and the other contestee back to the benches, they both turned

and walked back and the constructor landed his eyes on Y/n and his hand motioned to the center of the arena. Some people were removing the last arrows for Y/n. The human blinks owlishly. “Shit..” her fingers felt cold as she felt every bit of knowledge on archery fly out the back door. Why the hell was she going by herself?

“A Vendolez!” One of the announcer's shouted and the crowd shouts and hollers in excitement.

“If you sit at the end of the bench, you’ll go last but you have the risk of finishing the round on your own.” Lucy sighs as she rested her elbow on her knee and placed her face in her hands. How the hell did she forget that one detail!

Felix’s ears flatten. “Okay..maybe on second thought she probably will panic..” he laughs nervously and Donald huffs.

“You think? Look at her!” Donald motioned to Y/n who was walking slowly to the center of the arena. Gripping onto her bow. She had one chance. Or else she was done…

Bendy sighs and closes his eyes in frustration and dissatisfaction before inhaling.

Y/n stared at the target in front of her with furrowed eyebrows.

“Shoot all 10 targets.” The man said before strolling back to give Y/n space. Her eyebrows raised before she looked ahead.

“Shit.” They both said in unison.

Y/n placed an arrow in the bow before aiming at the target. Her heart thumped in her chest. Her pointer finger sticking out to aim at the red dot. Everything became muffled in her ears. The cheering and clapping. The birds, the wind. She zoned in on the target and pulled the arrow back further.

Ruck and everyone in the booth watched Y/n in anticipation, this was either a win or lose moment. Y/n let’s out a shaky breath before releasing the arrow. It shot and hit the bullseye on the target!

“Yes!” Everyone in the booth shouts beside Ruck who lets out a sigh of relief through his nose. Y/n’s sweaty hands distracted her, but she didn’t let that interfere with her. Y/n slowly edged to the other target, reaching into her quicker and grabbing another bow. Loading it, pulling back and releasing, the arrow hits the bullseye yet again, the crowd was stunned—but exhilarated!

Y/n’s eyebrows twitched as she had them furrowed. She edged to the 3rd target. And reached into her quiver and repeated the action.

“¡ir! ¡ir! ¡eres un gran tirador de maravillas!” Panchito shouts proudly down to Y/n. His voice echoed.

Lucy claps, a bright smile on her face!

“Well ain’t that a bitch..” Ruck muttered in surprisement.

Y/n was reaching the last target after hitting the bullseye on the last 8. Some of the contestee’s stood up from their benches in shock. Some yelling in their tongue encouraging statements.

Y/n pulled back once more on the arrow, her breathing echoing in her head. Releasing it. The arrow shot to the target and embedded in the middle of it. A bullseye once more.

“YEAH!” Donald, Cuphead, Mugman and Panchito shouts in excitement—jumping from their seats. Bendy’s shoulders dropped from being tensed. A sigh escaped his mouth. Lucy stands up and claps her hands loudly. Felix smiled as well as Oswald.

Y/n lowered her arms and looked down the row of targets she hit, and glanced up at the balcony and looked at Ruck who was clapping his hands along with everyone. He was clapping for her. A smile appeared on his face as he raised a hand up. Two fingers pointing to his eyes and then at her. Y/n raised her hand, two fingers pointing to her eyes and then back at him.

The crowd chants Y/n’s name as and the conductor nodded at her to return to the benches. She walks back over to the bench, a small smile present in her face and not an ounce of fear in her body. Some of the contestee’s greeted her excitedly, frantically speaking to her she couldn’t even pay attention.

Stinks looks away from Y/n and back to the targets, he..was actually surprised to see what she did. 10 bullseye’s..his eyes landed on his father who was speaking to Modi over by the judges booth. When he met eyes with his son. His fathers eyes hardened, Stinks looks away and back over to the targets.

“Still time to kick the brat out.” Stinks looks over to the boy sitting beside him. He had his foot propped up on the bench with his bow hanging around his shoulder.

“Obstacle course. She failed it last time. She’ll fail again.” The boy chuckled. And the dog toon next to him laughs and nods.

“Right!” He laughs. Stinks leans back, his back against the wall as he sighs. “Don’t lose to her man.” Another contestee’s grumbled and Stinks sneers.

“Listen, shut up. Can I think for a fuckin’ second?” He grumbled. Clearly he wanted peace and quiet.

“I’ll get her..”

Y/n stared at the obstacle and..actually felt pretty good about it. With all the climbing she did yesterday, this obstacle was nothing but a playground in her eyes. This was the last round to see if she could make it into the contest, and she’d be damned if she lost. Only 7 other contestants made it..which was a large chunk chopped off, but. She was glad she was in the runner ups. The obstacle had targets they had to shoot with their arrow and that was the only thing she feared at the moment. As good as she might be shooting the bow stationed..she wasn’t so sure about doing it while running around everywhere.

Stinks walked past her and he didn’t even bid her a glance. Y/n blinks before she glanced over at the booth where the judges are, seated and waiting.

The constructor was at the end of the finish line. Where a flag was. The same exact flag she couldn’t get to before.

Standing at the line. Y/n blankly stared at the obstacle course. Don’t mess up..don’t mess up…don’t mess this up…

Was what she kept repeating in her head over and over again. The constructor raised a hand up in the air, he held a pistol, pulling the trigger, the pop of the bullet echoed, and the face started.

The contestee’s ran into the obstacle, going their own ways either, crawling, climbing or trudging through the mud.

Y/n ran over to the wall and her hands instantly found the dents in the wood for her to climb. She climbed the wall quicker than she did ever, it reminded her of like climbing the branches she had to do so many times. Her muscles were sore from all the training prior but that was the least of her concerns. The wooden plank was before her. She balanced herself across it as she took her bow and loaded her arrow, spotting a target a few feet away. She released the arrow and it hit the target. A bell rang in the air for her hit.

One of the judges added a point to her name. Which was right under Stink’s name. 6 points. Stinks already have 11.

Y/n crossed the plank and quickly placed her bow around her and hopped off the platform, holding on the nylon rope and swinging over to the other side of the platform, she jumped off the rope and landed onto her feet. She heard one of the contestee’s fall from behind her. A whistle shrieks in the air. They were disqualified.

The judge removes the name from the board. Leaving 6 people.

Y/n jumps down the ladder and vaults over a wooden barricade, removing her bow from her she quickly loads it and hits the next target that was a few inches from her.

Felix’s ears perked up when he spotted one of the contestee’s near the human. Y/n in which turns around to see the contestant and moves away from their swing. Y/n quickly rushes away and climbs up a ladder to get to the next platform, when she made it to its surface she saw she had to hop across the gaps—which reminded her of when she was hopping trees yesterday. She hops over the gaps and huffs.

“Ouch!” Two contestee’s ran into each other and fell off the platform and into the mud. The whistle blows twice disqualifying them.

“Come on!” Donald shouts down at Y/n. Mugman frantically shook Donald’s shoulders. “Stop! Don’t distract her!”

Y/n hops over another gap and lands to the other side. The sound of whistles blowing in her ears would have distracted her, but she didn’t take a moment to look back, her foot hops over to a thin pole like platform, big enough for only one foot to stand on. She hops to the other small pole, her arms slightly up as she balances herself to hopping from one pole to the other, if she fell into the mud, it was over with.

“Come on kid..” Ruck whispered to himself as he watched her. “Damn..” Cuphead gazed at her. Mugman rolled his eyes at his brother's dazed expression. Bendy had leaned forward to silently watch Y/n hop to each platform. Felix had his arms behind his back as she anxiously watched her.

Y/n hops onto the wooden platform and takes her bow out before shooting yet another target. They were exactly bullseyes but it was still her hitting the target. She smiled as she saw the end. She hops down from the platform and back onto the ground. Placing the bow back around her as she ran to the flag only a few meters away. This was it!

But she felt someone collide into her. Arms wrapping around her as they tackled her to the ground. Y/n lost her footing and the two went tumbling down to the ground. Y/n’s heart felt like it leapt into her throat. Fear spiked within her. The sounds of the outside world went blank to her. Her eyes clenched closed as she felt like everything had paused and went slow. She slowly fell onto the ground.

Y/n’s chest tightened. Like her body knew exactly what frightened her. She could feel her heart thumping in her ears, shaking her ribcage. Her hands started to sweat as her body went cold. Y/n rolled on the ground, the dirt under her had hardened into what felt like cold concrete. Y/n groans, from her lack of breathing and from the impact from the ground. The cheering echoed in her eyes like a far distance.

Y/n slowly opened her eyes and looked ahead, getting in her hands and knees. Stinks back was turned from her, he was picking himself up from the ground. But as her eyes zoned in on him, her heartbeat picked up. And she lets out a wheezing noise like she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t. Stinks heard the noise she made and turned around to look at her—his motion was slow, Y/n slowly blinked. And standing in front of her. Was what she didn’t know she feared the most until it stood right there. Pib.

Y/n let out an uncomfortable groan as she jumps back.

The sound of a cars honking echoed in her head. But there was none in sight. She knew she was still on the course but her body thought otherwise. Pib turned to look at Y/n.

Y/n’s chest heaved up and down frantically, a hand reaching up to grip at her chest, a loud wheezing sound escaped her mouth. Her eyes blurred as tears formed in her eyes.

The sound of her heavy breathing soon turned into her hyperventilating, unsteady frantic breathing. Her body felt frightened. How was she here?

Y/n struggled to stand herself up, her legs felt weak, like a baby deer learning to walk. A snivel escapes Y/n’s mouth as she takes a step back, away from the finish line.

A tear falls from her face. Pib’s head only moved to follow her movement. But didn’t move to walk towards her, it was almost uncanny. How still it was.

Y/n tried to breathe, but it didn’t matter how much she tried to inhale it seemed like something blocked her from breathing. Her hands clamped at her chest, she never felt her heartbeat so quick in her life, sure she had moments she was afraid, but she never felt her heart beat like that before.

Hands grasp onto her shoulders, and she quickly shouts and whips around. Stumbling, her frantically breathing was heavy.

“Hey! Hey! What’s wrong?” It was Felix. Y/n rapidly blinked when she saw him. The world becoming brighter as it seemed to shade down before. She quickly latched onto him.

“It—she was—i was—I—she—she was right there!” Her words were chopped from her heavy breathing, sniffing her throat felt right, her body tried to breathe, she sounded like a child who cried to themselves so much they would stammer to their parents as they cried trying to explain something. Breaking the rhythm of their breathing.

Lucy quickly rushes over and stands in front of the two. “What’s wrong?!” She asks. As the others had quickly walked over as well.

Stinks held the flag in his head as he stood at the finish line. He won the course, the good thing was Y/n wasn’t disqualified seeing she didn’t touch the mud at all.

Bendy quickly placed a hand on Y/n’s back and looked at her. She closed her eyes and was panting frantically.

“Give her some space! Don’t crowd her.” Ruck quickly tells everyone.

“Is she okay?!” Mugman quickly asks. Felix gently rubbed Y/n’s back when Bendy had pulled away to look at the judges. Her name wasn’t removed from the chart..she was still in the game.

“Hey..it’s okay..no one’s here—“ Felix was caught off by Y/n pulling away from him. “No! I saw her!” She shouts, she accidentally bumped into Oswald who was behind her. He cautiously placed a hand on her arm. “It’s okay Y/n..”

“You need to breathe..” Oswald says. She turns and looks at him and her frustrated expression softened, her chest heaving up and down as she stared at him. Her heart was still beating quickly, but not nearly as fast. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. “Let’s just head back, she needs to sit down.” Oswald says and Felix nods.

Y/n laid in the bed, her eyes glued onto the wall. Not a single sound from her the entire time. Lucy sat on the couch next to Bendy—his eyes were glued on Y/n’s back.

“She seems upset..” Lucy frowns. Cuphead grunts. “I would be too if some bastard tackled me to the ground.” He said and Mugman furrowed his eyebrows.

“That's not the point you nut. She had a panic attack.” Mugman swats Cuphead’s arm and he rolls his eyes.

“Keep her in the bed for the rest of the day.” Donald says and Panchito sighs. “Fellas, please. Let us not talk about her..she does not seem too happy right now.” He says. And Felix nods.

“Panchito’s right..just..give her space.” Felix tells. Ruck, Meek and Don were seated on the couch as well, though they had yet to say anything.

“What happened to her?” Lucy asks slowly—in hopes the group had a thought on what triggered Y/n’s frantic mind.

“Clearly something she doesn't like.” Donald replied—he himself couldn’t latch onto what made Y/n so upset, it could have been something before she met them—or during their small journey.

The sound of the door opening caught the attention of everyone—besides Y/n. A guard walks into the room, his eyes landing on the group.

“Ms. Y/n is qualified for Warrior Falls.”

#toon quest #bendyxreader #cuphead x reader #bendy and the ink machine #oswald the lucky rabbit #felix the cat x reader #panchito pistoles #animaniacs x reader

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toontails · 2 years ago

Text

Toon Quest

Chapter 7: It Had Big Ears and a Long Tail!

The sound of wind blew into Y/n’s ears. The sound of water hitting each other, she felt herself breathing. A heavy warm feeling was across her body. She was regaining herself, her eyes fluttering open and she was met with a clear blue sky, she felt like her body was wobbling—as if..she were moving. Slowly sitting up, Y/n’s eyes immediately closed, her eyes felt sore from the amount of light that evaded it.

After a moment of her eyes being closed, she slowly opened them back up, her eyes landed on nothing by pure blue water. The ocean.

Y/n felt someone was leaning on her and she looked over to see Bendy had his arms wrapped around her—and was fast asleep, his leaned resting back on the wall of the boat, the brown blanket wrapped around the two.

Y/n looked ahead to see Panchito, Oswald, Donald, Cuphead and Mugman fast asleep as well. It seemed they were in the cockpit of the boat, there weren't any beds—but just floors with various blankets sprawled out. But that didn’t seem to bother everyone as they were tucked away in the blankets, getting the sleep they so utterly desired hours ago.

Spunk was fast asleep under a pile of blankets as well, what he needed to sleep for? Y/n had no clue..but nevertheless, the pup was fast asleep.

Y/n felt Bendy shuffle and soon sit up, looking over at the demon, Bendy gently rubbed at his eyes before looking at Y/n. “You’re up…” he starts and Y/n nods.

“You feelin’ okay?” He asks and Y/n nods once more. “Yeah..did I pass out or something?” She asks, the last thing she remembered was being in town, not getting in a boat. But either way she was At Least grateful they all got away from whatever fiasco last night was.

“Felix said you went into shock. They must have really shaken you up..you passed out when they left, and you’ve been sleepin’ this entire time.” Bendy recalls—Atleast she wasn’t out for too long. Y/n went silent as she slowly looked away from Bendy and onto the floor.

Bendy looks away from Y/n shortly after before he glances over at her wrist which had been wrapped in bandages prior to her being asleep. Looking away from the covered wound Y/n spotted Felix on the other side of the boat, seated—he was the only other person awake. Standing up Y/n walked over to Felix, which was did to do on a semi moving boat, but when she made it over to him, she dropped down next to him, he was sitting on the ledge of the boat staring down in the water, his ears standing on its ends.

“Glad you’re awake.” He greets Y/n as his eyes are still glued onto the water. “How long have we been sailing now?” Y/n asks. Felix looks away from the water finally and back to the human. “About a good 7 hours now. 3 of those hours were spent getting the boat in the right direction with the help of the book—but after a while the trail went away so we’ve just been trailing off into the same direction it led us too.” Felix informed her. Well Atleast they had a direction.

“Whoa..” Y/n says. She looks back out into the ocean nothing but water and sky—no land anywhere in sight. It was scary, yet fascinating to see so much water as far as the eye can see.

Y/n leans over the boat and down into the blue water.

“You venture off to places and stuff, right? Is it hard telling where to go on the sea?” Y/n asks Felix, placing a fingertip in the salty water. Felix shook his head.

“Oh no! Not at all, it’s actually quite simple in fact. When it’s dark out the stars usually are like a map to lead you to different areas around the world.” Y/n felt like Felix has tons of stories to share and Y/n most certainly would love to listen to them. Literally. This was the best big thing! Adventure!

Y/n felt someone tug at the back of her shirt gently to sit her up away from the water, sitting down correctly, Y/n saw it was Bendy who was the one to lead her away from the water and sat down next to her.

“So what’s so different to the other lands compared to the mainlands?” Y/n asks Felix.

“The environment is very different from the mainlands, because it's divided by different magical realms, something the mainland’s doesn't have.”

“We get to see dragons?!” Y/n flinched at Cuphead’s sudden voice. The cup had somehow managed to sneak behind her and was standing there like he wasn’t just asleep at all.

“Cuphead, lower your voice.” Mugman groaned as he stood up from the floor and trudged over. Oswald, Donald and Panchito were starting to wake up as well.

“Remember guys, entering the offlands is very dangerous. There’s creatures and different things there that are very dangerous.” Felix says sternly before he quickly smiles. “Which is why I think it’s awesome!”

“Oh leave it up to me. I’ll keep us all safe.” Cuphead boasted as he placed his hands on his hips and winked at Y/n. Y/n let out a small laugh and looked away.

“We’re voyaging with the greatest adventurer of the generation, are you gonna teach us how to make traps with shoelaces?” Y/n quickly asks.

“How to turn radioactive water into purified water?!” Mugman asks shortly after.

“Or cut open a camel and sit in its guts for warmth?” Cuphead smiled and Y/n grimaced and furrowed her eyebrows at Cuphead. “Ew..”

Felix chuckled and nodded. “I’ll teach you all everything I know throughout our journey out here.”

“This should be fun.” Panchito smiles and Oswald and Donald—Donald was busy looking off into the sea before looking at Panchito.

“So, how long until we reach the next location?” Oswald asks and Donald looks off into the sea. “Well, if we had a map of the location I could figure it out, but the stupid book only gave us a trail. Barely even that.” Donald answered—Y/n almost forgot that Donald sailed. She actually did start to wonder if he was a good swimmer considering he has webbed feet. And is literally a duck.

Cuphead pulled something from his pocket and handed it to Donald, it was a rolled up paper—the map that Puck had given them back in town—Donald looked down at the map and took it before unfolding it.

“Oh yeah, Puck gave us that.” Y/n answered and Donald’s tail feathers wagged for a moment as he placed the map on the floor and sat down to start pinpointing their location and work his magic.

Panchito sat down next to Donald and curiously watched him start drawing on the map with the pencil that Felix had handed him shortly after he sat down.

Y/n felt Cuphead nudge her slightly, she looked at the cup and he motioned to Bendy who was sitting down still staring off into the water. “What’s up with him?” He asks. Y/n slowly shrugs—as much as Y/n wanted to find out, she didn’t know much about Bendy, but still nevertheless seeing him look somehow dejected did raise a few questions as to what made him upset. Or maybe was he still sleepy? Was he hungry? Sick?

“Maybe he’s homesick. I know I was when we left Inkwell.” Mugman gently pipes up. Maybe that could also be a reason.

“If you ask me, I believe he may be upset about last night, specifically the Angel.” Oswald says the three look at Oswald to see him standing near them, which Y/n clearly wasn’t there for the interaction they had with the archangel and the other toon. She was too busy getting her ass handed too by some masked weirdo. So much for being harmless— as Cuphead promised Pib wouldn’t harm a fly.

“Oh yeah, must be an honor meeting an archangel, yeah, I was busy getting my ass kicked by the person Cuphead said wouldn’t do much harm.” Y/n grumbled and Cuphead let out a nervous chuckle.

“Sorry about that..really, I didn’t think she would do that.” He apologized and Mugman rocked back and forth on his feet.

“Well, the good thing is, you’re alive?” Mugman tried to weigh the bad with the good, but Y/n only shook her head at the two.

“I’m gonna go speak to Bendy.” She says as she turns around and walks over to Bendy. Cuphead quickly looks at Oswald. “She ain’t mad at me right?” He quickly asks almost as if that was his worst nightmare coming to bite his head off. Oswald gives him a confused expression.

“Uh…I don’t know.”

Bendy heard the boat creak slightly and looked over to see Y/n sitting back next to him. The human looks at him for a moment before looking out into the ocean. “You don’t look too happy.” Proclaimed Y/n.

Bendy hummed for a moment. “And, what makes you think that?” He asks. Y/n looks back at him and back out into the ocean.

After a moment of silence Bendy spoke. “I thought you were done for last night.” He confessed and Y/n chuckled and slowly nodded. “You? I thought I was done for, she damn near dropped be from a 80 foot bridge above water.”

“What?” Bendy says—now he didn’t know that but then again when the two vanished he didn’t know what the hell Y/n went through.

“But I’m alive though.” The human moves on as she looks back at the ocean, Bendy stares at Y/n for a moment before looking back at the water as well.

“Yeah…” he muttered.

There was a moment of silence, listening to the boat creak and the waves collapsing onto each other. Bendy didn’t seem to want to talk much, but after a few more moments he looked at Y/n’s wrist. “Is your wrists okay?”

Y/n glanced down at her bandaged arms and nodded. “Yeah, they don’t hurt or anything. I mean, I guess it kinda is bruised but, I’m okay..” she fiddled with the bandage.

“But no really, are you okay?” Y/n asks. Bendy chuckles and nods, lifting his head up to show he was alright—or in a way to portray it, but Y/n had a feeling that he wasn’t telling much, pulling off a facade of something that he wasn’t telling her, but it was nowhere in Y/n’s place to pester about it. Bendy could tell with Y/n’s suspicions of his attitude but he only chuckled.

“M’fine, really.”

Y/n was silent for a moment before she wrapped her arm around Bendy’s and leaned head onto his shoulder, watching the ocean travel miles away from home, Bendy glanced down at Y/n and placed a hand on hers, he looks back out into the ocean and silently took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His eyebrows furrowed together before leaning his head on top of Y/n’s.

The muffled noise of jazz playing from the radio reached the ears of the masked individual. Standing on the balcony, hands resting on the banner. Pib watched the city folk wander down the streets, her finger tapped the banner slowly and in a deep frustration.

Standing in the doorway was the winged creature, Abel. He had been watching Pib for the last 10 minutes stare off into nothing, not a single word ever since arriving back to the base.

“You know, it’s good to eat every once in a while, you haven't done that in the last few hours.” Abel brings up. Pib slowly glanced at Abel from over her shoulder before looking back out into the street.

“Pib’ll come around, probably pissed is all.” Slice appeared next to Abel, he glanced at the toon who reached up and removed the mask form her face, revealing the white hair and look of fierce determination.

Slicer placed the mask onto a nearby table and walked over to Pib, who was not bothering to pay the two any mind. “Well either way, it’s been a few hours since she ate anything. She needs to eat.” Abel pestered and Slicer waves her hand in a swatting motion.

“C’mon, leave ‘em be. She just needs a little heart to heart with space.” Slicer placed a hand on Pib’s arm. And Abel deadpans for a moment. Carley only chuckled before she motioned towards the door. “Fine then.” She says before turning and leaving. Abel looks away from the door before his eyes land on Pib. He walked over to them and stood beside the human.

“You let your anger get the best of you.” He starts. Pib looks at Abel before looking back at the city, Pib rolls her shoulders, a small pop from her bones emits into the air.

Abel stared at Pib for a moment before looking at the town as well. The quiet tapping of Pib’s finger hitting the railing reached his ears. “Come rest. You’ll stress yourself to death.” He turned around and his wing gently pushed Pib away from the railing and turned the human around to walk with him, which Pib did and the two entered the building.

Once they did Abel had released Pib and watched as Bettigan seemingly was searching around the room for something, Mango had been aimlessly floating around the room in hopes of an idea to spark in his head and Slicer had been standing near the front door with her arms behind her back, watching Bettigan search for whatever he was looking for.

“Dog gone it..where the hell did I leave it?” He muttered under his breath. Abel’s eyes watched as Bettigan lifted the couch pillow, his eyes trailed down to see the missing revolver from his holster.

“He’s looking for his gun, that’s his most prized possession.” Mango cackles and Bettigan rolled his eyes. “Yeah—real funny, I coulda sworn I just had it!”

“I mean, you could have dropped it, you two couldn’t tell those brothers were working under your noses this entire time.” Slicer pipes up and Bettigan grunts.

“Actually kinda glad they’re Atleast gone for now. Won’t have to listen to them argue every second.” He grumbled and Mango frowned slightly.

“I dunno, I sorta miss Mugman.” Mango sighs and portrays an expression of sadness before immediately smiling.

“I’m over it now!” He cackled, he was such a strange…person. Mango could never keep one emotion in line.

“Well. It’s late, and I believe they left town, we can think of something tomorrow, but as of now, Pib used too much energy today and need—“ When Abel looked over to take a glance at Pib who was supposed to have been by his side, but he was met with an empty spot. Abel furrowed his eyebrows and looked around the room to look for Pib, but alas, she was nowhere to be found.

“God dammit..”

Pib curiously followed behind an injured bird, it went on with its everyday life as it paddles around the towns sidewalk, Pib at their eyes glued on the bird, it’s wing was injured as it laid loosely to its side, it flapped its wings every once in awhile to hop forward, but it didn’t get anywhere far.

It wandered into the grass which Pib followed, only to quickly get distracted by a child who had stumbled and fell onto the ground a few inches away, Pib reaches down and gently sets the child up by the back of her shirt with ease, in which she smiled up at Pib before thanking her and scurrying off, Pib looks back forward to see the bird had rested itself in the grass, it must have gotten tired after the short walk. Pib slowly walked over and slowly sat down onto the grass, the bird looks up at Pib who had gently reached a hand out and took the bird in her hand, a chirp resonated from the small bird, lifting another hand, the familiar golden aura of light gently glowed from the palm of her hand, the golden veins articulating and slowly traveled to her index finger which Pib placed on the birds broken wing.

The bird stayed still as it nestled into the warm palm of Pib’s.

Pib gently brushed four fingers against the bird's wing as if wiping something off, and removed her hand, the bird springs up as if it were reminded of something. Chirping in a sweet melody, it hops up from Pib’s hand and opens its wings before flapping and raising itself from her hand, the bird gently pressing its head against the masked figure's face before flying off.

Pib watched the bird, watching as it slowly disappeared into the night sky. The sound of shuffling was the cause of her looking away, when her eyes landed on the new figure she spotted a kid who stared at her in shock, standing next to his mother who also was shocked, the mother blindly grabbed her sons hand before quickly backtracking wherever they walked from until they were away from view. Pib looks away before staring off into the trees.

M/n stood next to Henry as he glanced down at the clipboard in pure attentiveness. They had been so busy planning for the big celebration, Henry hardly noticed how Alice, Boris and the Butchers weren’t present in the studio for the last 3 days, not that he needed them for anything or needed to know where they were 24/7 as they had free will to go anywhere they so please, but when M/n took notice of it. She asked around the studio for Alice, or maybe Boris, but all she got back was. ‘I don’t know’

That was until Alice showed up a few hours ago with a box of chocolates for Wally as a gift for letting them use his car. And ever since Alice hadn’t stopped pestering them for some odd reason, not that M/n didn’t appreciate the angels' conversations, but she did have a tendency to ask many questions, Alice had always been curious, but god, never this curious.

“So..is this like a suit and tie celebration?” Alice asked the 1000th question for the night and M/n gave Alice a strained Y/n. “Alice..don’t you have..anything better to do?” M/n chuckles, Alice giggles and shakes her head. “Oh not at all! I hadn’t seen you guys in the last couple a’ days, I missed ya!” Alice smiles brightly, the halo on her head shines brightly that M/n squints her eyes close for a moment.

“I missed you too Alice.” M/n laughs softly.

Alice swats her hand as if saying; ‘oh stop it’

The Angel had continued the day really just observing M/n and Henry’s talks. All she could think about was how much she wanted everyone to come home safely.

Y/n’s eyes curiously watched as the fishes of different kinds swam past the boat—they seemed to be chasing each other as if they were playing tag. Mugman was curiously scrolling through the book now that he had time to settle down to assess everything, he took the time to read the book and maybe find some interesting things that could be useful, when Y/n asked about how long he planned on reading the book as it seemed Mugman had been reading for several hours now, but with how Mugman seemed to enjoy telling her about his findings in the book—that mostly was about various detailed information about various creatures outside of the mainland, like a centaur!

Y/n came to the agreement with herself that Mugman clearly had to be a book nerd. But atleast he had something to entertain himself with as time would pass by. Bendy was put to rest by Felix after the demon clearly wasn’t feeling too well and his dull demeanor hadn’t cleaned up so he had been asleep for some time now, Donald was busy marking things off on the map for later, like marking trails, and some directions and what time the sun sets and rises. While Y/n spent some time watching him do that, Oswald and Panchito also were busy watching him as well, but it consisted of Oswald going to sleep after a short while and Panchito silently watching Donald. Felix was busy making sure the boat was going in the right direction—after the trail disappeared the only best thing he could think of was keep going straight—he knew the ocean just as much as Donald did—even more because at times she would see him direct the boat somewhere else if he felt they were going off course, which Y/n really wanted to know how Felix was able to do these things, not only was Felix an archeologist, but an adventurer, adventuring in the deep depths of earth. Which did make Felix tell the human a few stories about his adventures.

And Cuphead, he would follow her around the boat, it seemed like he came a leech to her side, not that she was complaining for anything.

At first the two was playing a make up game of goldfish using scrap paper from Y/n’s bag, but that got boring after awhile, the two started to become restless, they wanted to move around, Cuphead was tempted to jump out of the water at first for a sim but Y/n scolded him not to.

Now Y/n had been watching some fishes swim by, she could see the ocean floor—the water had to only be Atleast 6 feet, she didn’t know that in some parts of the ocean, the ocean floor were like hills, some were steep leading you to the bottom of the ocean and some had the ocean floor still present, Y/n slowly reached her head down and stuck her face into the water curiously, her eyes closing on instant before opening her eyes to see the crystal blue water, seeing the coral and the various colored fishes, some fishes she hadn’t even seen before, Y/n eyes widen slightly as she glanced around the ocean floor, a fish swam over to her and gently pecked at her nose before swimming off. Y/n laughed, the air bubbles leaving her mouth as, school of fish swam by and some of their fins tickled Y/n’s face.

Y/n sits up, the water falling from her face and down to her shoulders and chest, she looks over to see Cuphead looking at her and Y/n smiles and points at the water. “Look at these fishes.” She says, Cuphead removes his back from the way before getting onto his knees glancing down at the water, the ripples of the water made it hard to see, but he watched as Y/n stuck her face into the water, Cuphead repeats her action and smiled when he spotted the fishes swimming around, the two pointed out various fishes and sea creatures like a sea urchin and a few plants, and Y/n never expected to see these things in her lifetime, but she was glad to see them now, they were so wondering and colorful in person.

Felix felt the boat shake slightly from the two moving around and curiously leaning over just to see the sea creatures. He smiled softly at the curiosity of the two.

Y/n hardly noticed Felix walking over until she felt a presence by her, removing her face from the water, she looked over to see Felix holding two snorkels in his hands—which 9 times out of 10 it probably came from the never ending life saving fanny pack of his.

“If you two can keep up with the boat and stay around the area, you guys can swim around.“ he says, Y/n smiles immediately and nods. “Yeah!” The two answered.

Considering there was nowhere to change, and as cool as the magic fanny pack was, Felix didn’t have any wetsuits, so Y/n kicked off her shoes and socks, removed the bandanna and work the plaid shirts underneath that she had more prior to the show because the costume we're making her legs itchy, and Cuphead only removed his shoes—the two were happy to do Atleast something to pass the time.

Y/n stood up on the edge of the boat and fixed the goggles on her face before looking over at Cuphead. Cuphead fumbled with the goggles for a moment before looking at Y/n, Y/n smiled and jumped into the water with a loud laugh, Cuphead following the same.

When the bubbles subsided, Y/n felt the water engulf her body—not like earliers unfortunate slight mishap with Pib damn near drowning here but Y/n felt warmth as she felt like she was floating in the water, floating over into her back she spread her arms out and her fingers grazed the coral, Cuphead swam next to her as he reached a hand out in an attempt to catch a fish, floating over to a rock, Y/n pressed her hand against it to stop her from moving, pushing herself from the rock she felt her legs slowly kick up and slowly she did a front flip, the fishes moved from her way as she swam down to the sand, feeling the fins of the fishes and the soft soothing thump of her heart.

Y/n slowly flipped to her back to look at Cuphead, who was following her, she smiled at Cuphead revealing whatever he had been hiding behind his back. It was a shell he had picked up from the floor, slowly down in her swim, Y/n stood up straight and waited until Cuphead floated over to her where he too soon stood in front of her as the two looked down at the shell.

The rigged sharp points of the shell were a tad bit dull—but the color was as similar and bright as a sunset. Little red particles dotted the shell and Y/n gently took it from Cuphead’s hands, before she swam back up to the surface of the water for fresh air, Cuphead following in tow as he came back up and Y/n held the shell above her head.

“I saw tons of stuff!” Cuphead points out and Y/n nods. “Me too! There was a stingray.” She answered as the two swam back over to the boat which hadn’t moved too far, it seemed Felix slowed the boat down so the two could explore the area for a little while longer.

Y/n placed her hand in the boat and placed the shell inside where her bag was seated which had Spunk sitting protectively next to the bag.

Cuphead tugged at Y/n’s shirt. “C’mon, I wanna get that starfish down there.”

Y/n nods and the two dove back underwater and swam back to the floor, the starfish that Cuphead spotted was laying on the ocean floor, the two gently landed onto the floor, Y/n felt the sand beneath her feet—between her toes and the little rocks and pebbles gently poked at the sole of her feet. Cuphead picked up the starfish, with a slight tug, when it was removed from the ground, the particles of sand floated up slightly from his tugging—but Y/n’s attention was torn away when she spotted the golden trail that she knew oh so well. It pulsated slightly and Y/n turned her head to see where it was leading, it went around a corner of a large rock, with coral and fishes and other deep water plants surrounding it. Y/n looked back at Cuphead who was still looking at the starfish and patted his shoulder, Cuphead looked at Y/n and the human pointed towards the area the trail was leading them.

Not waiting for a response, Y/n swam off in the direction, she felt the water behind her move, signaling that Cuphead was following close behind her. When they rounded the corner, there was a hole in the ground—it resembled more like a cave—but what was interesting was the glass water like wall in the corridor of the cave, almost like an air bubble. Y/n felt Cuphead brush shoulders with her and stared at their findings, he perked up slightly and started swimming towards the cave but Y/n took him by the forearm, causing him to look back at her and give her a perplexed expression as if saying; ‘what’s wrong?’

Y/n shook her head before she pointed up at the surface of the water and pointed to her chest, referring that she needed to breathe, Cuphead gently took her by the waist and gently pushed her up to the surface, and the two swam back up, once reaching the surface Y/n inhaled the air and looked at Cuphead.

“The trail is leading to the cave.” Y/n says and Cuphead nods—“Yeah, well let’s go check it out.” He ushered and was about to dive back in before Y/n grabbed him by the handle, Cuphead’s stops before coming back up and looking at Y/n.

“We can’t go in there, we don’t have any proper oxygen tanks to go in there and we don’t know how far it goes and we can’t just hold our breaths the entire t-“

“You’re startin’ to sound like Mugsy.” Cuphead dismissed Y/n deadpans and slowly shook her head.

“And what do ya’ mean you can’t hold your breath for long, I know tons of folks who can hold it for 20–me personally I can do 23, Mugs can go almost 30 minutes.” That actually did catch Y/n’s attention though. She tilts her head slightly and gives Cuphead a confused expression, usually she ignored the statement that didn’t have to do what they originally were talking about because Cuphead clearly had the tendency to get sidetracked at times either physically or verbally, but this did…catch her attention.

“What..?” She tilts her head slightly as if she didn’t hear him correctly.

“Let’s go to the cave?” He says as if trying to see if that was what she meant for him to repeat.

“You said something about being able to hold your breath for almost 30 minutes.” She repeats.

“23.” Cuphead corrects Y/n huffs and shakes her head slightly as if saying; ‘I don’t give a damn’

“But yeah, we all can do it.” Cuphead chuckled and Y/n shook her head and furrowed her eyebrows.

“I can’t. Actually no human can hold their breath underwater for 30 minutes straight, maybe for a world record where they practice specifically for it, but last I checked the only human that went the longest holding their breath underwater was 24 minutes, even then, they still couldn’t do half an hour.” Could toons hold their breath longer than humans?

Cuphead was silent for a moment as if he were thinking. “Huh..” he says as he takes in the information.

“Can ya..remove an arm?” He asks.

“Not unless there’s a medical reason to, and even then we can’t take our limbs off and just put them back on. Maybe surgically but, overall no.”

“Hit yerself in the the head and see stars, my stars are blue and Mugman’s are red, ain’t that cool? Ya’ know with our colors an everythin.” Cuphead laughed slightly and Y/n shook her head.

“Can you pull random stuff from behind you, like this.” Cuphead digs in his head and pulls out a fish that was flipping around before tossing it back in the water, Y/n laughs and shakes her head.

“No.”

“Really..? Man..” He says his eyes fell onto her hand and he perked up. “Geez, you don’t even have 4 fingers!” He grabbed her hand and examined Y/n’s 5 fingers, His thumbs pressed against the palm of her hand before releasing it.

“Yeah, humans got 5…you really never seen a human, have you?” Y/n says. She knew the brothers were from off the mainland, and he mentioned his lack of human contact, but wow, never this much.

“Yep, just me, Mugsy and our Elder Kettle.” Cuphead nods and Y/n slowly nods. “So..no humans on inkwell?”

“None. I never knew humans were so…” Cuphead paused for a moment Y/n looked at him and saw he seemed to watch what he said and hesitate for a moment. “Fragile.” He says but quickly pushed what he said prior away so Y/n couldn't react.

“I just can’t teach you to hold your breath?” He asked and Y/n shook her head. “Cuphead, if I were a child, you would probably succeed in doing that, but my body is used to only holding my breath for at least 3 minutes, maybe 4. Practicing me to hold my breath now will take ages and even then I more than likely won’t succeed in passing the 30 minute mark unless I just go unconscious.”

“Wow, talk about can’t teach an old dog new tricks..” Cuphead mutters under his breath and Y/n glared at the cup before splashing the water in his face, Cuphead sputters and swats his hand from the water.

“Okay, well. What can you do?” He asks and Y/n gives him a confused expression. “What do you mean?”

“Cuphead humans have a very different build than toons.” Cuphead and Y/n looked to see Felix standing on the boat and watching the two, Y/n swam over to the boat and Cuphead followed along and peered up at Felix.

“Really now.” Cuphead says and Felix nods.

“Human anatomy is different from toons by speed, durability, health and mentality. Reason why you don’t see humans running towards hungry tigers on a daily basis.” Felix seemed to know a thing or two about biology as well.

“So..they can just die? Just like that?” Cuphead asks and Felix nods his head.

“You guys can’t die?” Y/n asks Cuphead before looking at Felix.

“Well, yes, toons can die and get injured, but it’ll take some time, think of it like a shield in front of a toon, they can take a few attacks and what not, a few hits to the head, but overall it won’t kill them on impact, but overtime that shield can wear out and that can eventually kill them.” He explained it and Y/n actually learned something new, she never knew that about toons, no wonder every time they got chased the others hadn’t even remotely been injured to the point of being bed ridden, unlike her, if she messed up just once, she could just kiss this world goodbye.

“Wow. That’s unfair.” Y/n grumbled.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s not anything too drastically different, that doesn't mean that makes you any different from us, and us any different from you.” Felix comforts.

“So, anythin’ can literally kill a human is what you’re tellin’ me?” Cuphead reiterated and Felix’s eyes quickly glanced at Y/n and he motioned a: ‘sorta’ answer with his hand.

“I can hold my end just fine, I managed to get away from that Pib thing back in town.” Y/n justifies and holds onto the boat as if desperately wanting to prove her point.

“And I’m certain you did and you can protect yourself, Y/n.” Felix says—he seemed to portray the teacher calming down a short fuse between two classmates.

“Well uh..! There was this cave a few feet under that the trail led to, I think it went under water when you said it disappeared.” Cuphead quickly changes the subject, Felix’s ears perk up and he tilts his head. “Really now.”

“Yeah, it has this weird bubble pocket.” Adds Y/n and Felix nods. “Well if that’s the case then maybe that’s one of the locations.” He says—which Y/n agreed but what would be in there?

“Oh! We are going scuba diving?” Y/n looked over to Panchito looking down at the two, Oswald and Donald walked over as well and looked into the water and Y/n smiled up at Panchito.

“Does this mean we’re going cave exploring?” Cuphead asks Felix and Donald and Oswald looks at the two.

“Cave exploring?” Oswald asks before eyeing the ocean. “Where’s a cave?”

“It’s a few feet under, we’ll have to swim in order to get there.” Felix answered as he stood back up from him crouching down and grabbing the starfish that Cuphead randomly handed him.

Panchito leaned over and offered his hand to Y/n, which she took it and he helped her back onto the boat, heaving herself up, she removed herself from the water and stood next to the rooster, the air nipped at her skin and she shivered slightly as Cuphead crawled back onto the boat as well.

As the boys planned on what the overall plan was to enter the cave, Y/n spotted Mugman steal seated, reading the book in his palms, she walked over to him and drop down next to him, the toon flinches slightly before quickly looking at Y/n—the water dripping from her body and creating a small puddle beneath her.

“You were in the water?” Asks Mugman, the human nods and motions to Cuphead.

“Yeah, we found this cave and we’re gonna go explore it.” She replied and that seemed to get Mugman’s attention, he opened the book and showed it to Y/n.

“I was reading and saw this. Look.”

Y/n looked down at the book to see shadow drawn people on the page—and various words to the side that Y/n didn’t feel like reading. But the picture was captivating as there were alot of them drawn across both of the pages.

“It’s called the Shadow Realm. A Realm where this witch keeps closed because it’s too powerful—it says that’s where negativity and despair is held.” Mugman points at the middle of the page of what seemed to be a figure with their arms extended towards the shadow creatures, as if banishing them away.

“She banished them away because at one point someone freed them for that realm, and an attack was put through the world, and it did a lot of damage, but it left behind one omen, death.” He flipped the page to present what looked like an angel, holding some sort of staff in their hands.

“And there were these like, angels—they weren’t real angels, clearly. But they were called them because they fought the darkness, to put the shadows back to where they belonged, and these guys have, like, super inhumane strength!”

“Is that what that Abel guy is?” Y/n asks and Mugman thinks for a moment. “Wow..I never put that together..”

Y/n and Mugman looked at each other for a moment. “Well, if that’s the case, then why is he trying to kill us?”

“Well…he did mention about his sort of vendetta against Bendy.” Mugman lowered his voice as his eyes flickered to Bendy who was still asleep on the floor with the blanket tossed over his shoulder.

The two looked back at each other and Y/n slowly lifted her shoulders as if she were going to shrug. “Well. What’s the omen then? That means it’s like some imprint right?”

“Yeah but..I don’t know what it is. It didn’t specify it. Just death..unfortunately.” He seemed to shiver at that before slowly closing the book.

Y/n silently looked at the ground before glancing at Mugman. “Well Atleast we learned something new.”

“You bet, this might come in handy.” Mugman pats the book.

“Okay, we’re going to enter the cave, so that means anything can be down there.” Felix starts, Y/n placing her shoes in her bag along with the book and removing thighs she didn’t want to get water damaged like her phone, pencils and some papers—how would the book react under water? She had no clue, she just hoped that the damn thing didn’t get soaked to the point of it not working—which he doubted considering…it’s a magic book and all…

Bendy had woken up—but he still looked exhausted, but he seemed to sway away the various; ‘are you sure you’re okay?’ Which Y/n and the others asked him multiple times.

“Oh please, we’ll be fine.” Cuphead dismissed and Mugman nudged his brother and shook his head.

“This better be good if we have to swim and look through a cave with…gods knows what’s in it.” Donald grumbled as he stepped off the boat and into the water, which had been anchored and wouldn’t go anywhere, that would be the last thing they needed which was to be stranded in the middle of the ocean.

Oswald was already in the water and was examining a shell he had picked up when he got distracted.

“Well. We’ll make it quick. It’s not good to wander through caves anyway.” Felix responds and Panchito looks at him.

“Oh? But I thought it was a hobby for people to explore caves.” Panchito was confused, why would it be so bad.

“On the mainland it is, but out here, not so much.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mugman nervously asks and Cuphead laughs before slipping into the water. “Don’t worry so much Mugsy.”

“Alright, stay together, don’t split off, if anyone gets lost, return to the front of the cave, don’t enter the water.” Felix laid out various rules in case anything happened, Y/n realized that Felix was used to adventuring on his own, so having a group with him would probably be nerve wracking and a handful.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go.” Donald calls out as he was already in the water, Panchito had placed his hat down and gotten into the water as well and Y/n followed after alongside with Bendy.

Y/n turns back to the boat to see Spunk peering down at the group in the water. “Spunky, stay here and watch the boat, okay?”

“Bark!” Spunk responds before sitting down and immediately keeping an eye out for anything. Not that anything would happen so far out in the ocean, but still, it was good to be sure.

“Ew! Seaweed!” Cuphead shouts from in the background.

“Here. I’ll show you guys where it’s at. Follow me.” Y/n dove into the water, her bookbag made it a tad bit more difficult to swim properly, but she could manage. Swimming back over to the open cave, she turned around to see the others had followed her, pointing to the cave Felix slowly swam over to it and examined it before sticking his hand in the cave where the air bubble was. He pulled his hand back and looked back at everyone and made a motion to follow him before he entered the cave, Y/n followed after, and stumbled through, it felt like she jumped off the porch—or very similar to like catching a fall as she lands on her feet and in the cave, it was pitch black dark—the only light coming from was from the blue water behind her, the sound of water dripping onto the cold rock echoed, Y/n felt the cold rock under her feet and immediately took her bookbag off to place her shoes on with the little light she had.

She unzipped the bag and removed her shoes and placed them on, as she did so, everyone else followed after—Cuphead damn near falling onto her, the last to arrive was Bendy, and he coughed up some water and shook his head before squinting his eyes.

“I can’t see anythin’ in here.” His voice echoed as Felix glanced around the area, Panchito shook the water from his feathers fiercely, similar to a dog, small droplets of water hit everyone as if it were raining.

Oswald squeezed his ears gently and water fell from them. “Yeah. We don’t have a flashlight either.” He points out.

“Good thing you can always make one.” Felix chuckled and walked over to a sharp drip stone hanging from the ceiling, he yanked it off and dug in his pocket and pulled out a towel, wrapping it around the sharp stone that was being used as a torch holder, and glanced at Mugman.

“Here, light this.”

Mugman placed the tip of his index finger on the towel wrapped around the stone and shot it—which went up in flames before lowering down and there..a torch.

“Whoa.” Y/n says as she stood up from the ground, her shoes were wet, but it was better than walking on gods know what in here barefooted. But now that there was light. Y/n could see the cave lit up, drip stone littered the walls, and the ceiling grew higher the further the cave went. A blue hue filled the cave and Y/n glanced around in awe, she’s never been in a cave before, the air felt stale and still, and any noise echoed.

“Mirarías esto, this place is crazy.” Panchito mumbled and looked around as well.

“Alright everyone. Careful where you step.” Felix calls out before turning and walking away, everyone follows behind him.

“You know I never expected Cave exploring to be anywhere near fun.” Oswald says and Y/n agrees. “Me either.”

“Oh wow!” Cuphead was about to scurry over to a glowing flower that came into view that was on the far side of the cave leading to another direction, until Felix without missing a beat grabbed Cuphead by his handle and guided him back over to him.

“Hey, hey, hey. What did I say about staying together?” Felix scolds gently and Cuphead grunts in pain before Felix lets go of his handle.

“Alright, alright, geez, don’t gotta pull so hard ya know..”

Walking deeper into the cave, Y/n was busy indulging herself in the new environment, she had never seen these things before? Of course not being in a cave and everything but she’s seen plenty of caves online but this? She’s never seen glowing flowers, bugs that crawled the walls that looked like they glowed in the dark. She’s never seen bioluminescence that littered the walls like stars and grass that sparkled with a blue soft glow when you walked through it. She felt a small beetle land on her forehead, gently reaching up to touch it, it spread its wings and flew away.

Y/n smiled as she placed her hand on the walls and dragged her fingertips along it, a blue gently glow trail being left in its wake, it seemed the more they traveled in the cave the more lively it grew.

The sound of the water dripping onto rock had dissipated the further they walked. And soon they didn’t need the torch really, but Felix kept it lit just in case.

“This place is cool..” Y/n muttered to herself which Bendy heard. “Yeah it is. Never knew glowing rocks existed until now.” He looked at a rock that glowed slightly. Y/n busy infatuated by what the cave had to present, she hardly noticed a shadow scurrying away. Oswald’s ears slowly perked up as he had picked up on the noise. “What’s that noise?” Oswald asks, slowly stopping in his tracks, Felix turned around and looked at Oswald before his ears perked up as well, hearing pebbles and rocks hitting the ground in the distance, not too far ahead.

Donald looks at Oswald and raises an eyebrow. “I don’t hear anything.”

“I can hear something moving.” Oswald explained, his ears lowered for a second before raising once more, as if trying to track down where the sound was coming from.

“I do too.” Felix says—but it seemed as if he were distracted as he glanced up at the ceiling of the cave.

“Could be some cave critters.” Felix guessed—but he still seemed cautious. Y/n looked away from behind her before she continued walking with the others, the colors of the bioluminescence had started to fade away, leaving a cold moist cave, the orange light from the torch flickered and lit of the glistening rocky walls, Y/n fixed the straps of her bookbag and felt like she was suffocating in the now dark area.

Felix had soon stopped walking when they reached a dead end, he turned back to look at the others.

“Well, it doesn't look like anything in here, are you two sure it led to this cave?” Felix asks Y/n and Cuphead and Cuphead nods.

“Pretty positive—“ just when Cuphead had replied, the flame on the torch went out, as if someone blew it out. Y/n flinched slightly at the darkness and neared Bendy which she knew he was the closest to her, wrapping an arm around his, Bendy placed a hand on hers as the two stood next to each other.

“Uh oh.” Donald says but stumbles slightly. “Ow, Panchito, that’s my foot you’re standing on!”

“Ah, sorry my friend.” Panchito quickly apologized.

Mugman heard Felix shuffling around slightly to get the light to engtite again with a blow to the heated cloth. While he almost had it, Mugman felt a drip on his head, causing him to flinch and furrow his eyebrows thinking his brother must have been pulling a light prank on him.

He blindly shoved his arm in Cuphead’s direction as last he checked his brother was beside him. “Stop flicking water at me.” Mugman complained and Cuphead gently grabbed Mugman’s hand. “That wasn’t me.”

“Stop shoving!” Mugman pushes Cuphead and Cuphead grunts and glares at the darkness.

“Then stop shovin’ me you dingus.”

“Is Felix done with the light yet?” Y/n mumbled.

“I thought Bendy had the light.” Mugman calls out to Y/n, which causes her great confusion as everyone watches Felix with the torch—and Mugman even helped light the torch up.

“No, Felix had it.” Y/n slowly says. Mugman was silent for a moment, he lifted a hand up, a light blue flame ignited from the top of his index finger like a lighter. Lighting up a small portion of the area, Y/n was a few inches away from Mugman and Cuphead.

Mugman looks between Cuphead and Y/n and the three glanced at each other in confusion, Y/n looks over to her side where her arm was still intertwined with Bendy’s, the light hadn’t shown his face—only from the neck down, she looks over to Cuphead and Mugman who were still dead silent.

“What…the fuck…” Y/n whispered. Mugman nervously shuffled on his feet and he seemed to cower for a moment.

“Guys..I don’t think they’re here..” whispered Mugman. Y/n felt Bendy remove his arm from Y/n, he steps into the light and looks at the three. “What’s going on?” He asks. Y/n moves over to Mugman and Cuphead and Mugman points a finger at Bendy.

“Stay back—whatever you are!” Mugman shouts and Bendy gives him a tired expression, the same expression he had when they were on the boat. “Mugman, that’s not funny.” He grumbled.

“Stop yelling, it’s already loud in here.” Oswald pipes up, the three look over to Oswald who was rubbing his head, and Panchito fixes the collar of his shirt.

“Can’t seem to get this thing to work.” Felix grumbles and tosses the torch off to the side.

“We can just use Mugman’s light.” Donald pipes up as he motions to the mug, Felix nods and motions for Mugman to continue the path back the way they came, considering that they were still at a dead end.

Mugman looks down the path before looking at Mugman. “But I thought you were suppose ta’ be leadin,” he grimaced and Felix looks back at Mugman.

“Well how else are you all supposed to learn the ways of being away from the mainlands? I think you guys can handle yourself walking on your own.” Felix encourages.

“We’re not doing that.” Y/n held onto both of the brothers arms and they gently backed away from the group. The light on Mugman’s finger flickered ever so slightly and soon it went and Mugman shook his hand viscously. “Oh come on!” Mugman grumbled, when the light flickered back on his finger, revealing the empty area, Cuphead and Y/n made shocked noises before looking at Mugman.

“Okay, I’m just going to let you know, in the next few minutes I’m going to piss my pants if we don’t get out of here.” Y/n panicked as she shook the two boys arms. Cuphead placed a hand on Y/n’s arm to calm her down.

“Don’t worry! It’s okay, alls we gotta do is just walk back the way we came.” Cuphead comforts and Mugman glances up at the ceiling when he hears rocks moving, his straw when limp as he feels the air get sucked from his body and he frantically taps Cuphead and Y/n’s arms.

Y/n looks at Mugman confusion to see his petrified yet shocked expression, but Cuphead looked up at the ceiling as well and his eyes widened with a gasp and soon Y/n looked up as well, her eyes landed in a. 8 black eyes, two sharp pointing fangs with a long string of saliva dripping from its maw, it hung upside down and the three were frozen in fear until the spider like let’s out a loud piercing screech. The three shrieks in fear before they turned around and dashed away, hopping over rocks and almost tumbling to the ground, the spider swung an arm down and it collided with the rock behind the three? Causing them to fly in the air upon impact.

Cuphead waved his hands frantically before he points his had towards the ground, the peashooter shoots from his finger and exploded on the ground creating a hole as the three fell into it,

The three landed into a pool of water, Y/n quickly swam up as did the brothers, finding a platform to crawl on, Y/n quickly crawled onto the ground and stumbled slightly, the water dripping from her as Cuphead and Mugman quickly stood up as well.

“What was that?!” Cuphead quickly asks.

“It’s a mind eating amoeba! It makes you hallucinate! Felix and the others were never in here!” Mugman shouts—recalling from reading it from the book. The wall across from them bursts open, a dark appendage bursts through and soon the head of the spider-like creature bursts through as well, staring at the three with a glowering look, Y/n takes a step back and glances around frantically for a way out.

“You enter my home, thinking you’ll take what’s mine?! I harness this power!” A voice echoes throughout the cave, the womanly voice was Eldridge—it can speak?!

“What..” Y/n Whispered before she saw Cuphead take a step back—a glowing bright ball of energy forming in his hands before he shoved his hands as if shoving someone and the ball of energy shoots towards the spiders face, the spider lets out a screeching sound in pain and backs away from the hole if burst through the caves wall.

The three heard a whistle from afar and looked up to see Felix, holding a rope in his hand. “Up here!” He calls out, the three quickly ran over to Felix and looked up at him as he was standing on top of a platform.

“Felix!” The three exclaims.

“You left us! And we thought we all came in here as a group but it really wasn't. It was actually the spider making it seem like you guys were with us!” Y/n explains frantically as she grabbed onto the rope and climbed up, Felix nods as he tugged at the rope to get the three up to where he was.

“Good job guys for not falling for it.” Felix praises and ruffles the top of Y/n’s head and pats Cuphead and Mugman’s shoulders.

“Well how do we know we’re speaking to the real Felix?!�� Mugman accuses and points a finger at the cat.

“You cried so hard last night snot shot from your nose.” Felix recalls and Mugman blinks slowly and shuffles on his feet. “Let’s not bring that back up again..” he muttered.

“Where’s Bendy and the others?” Y/n asks, as soon as she did the voice from above caught their attention.

“Up here!” Y/n looks up to see another ledge where Panchito, Oswald, Donald and Bendy were.

“I’m assuming we all got split up?” Donald asks and Felix nods. “Yeah, that’s how usually how it gets people alone, it creates scenarios in the host's head to lure them away for an easier attack.“

“Climb up.” Panchito threw down a rope for the four, Y/n grabbed onto the rope and climbed up and stood next to Oswald, she glanced down at her hands to see her previous wounds from before had started to heal, once Felix had made it up Bendy looked away from over the edge. “Okay, so how did we get out of here?” He asks.

“I would say back the way we came, but I don’t think that would be a smart idea..” Felix muttered under his breath.

“I dunno. If it led us down here, then maybe there’s something we need to be looking for?” Mugman suggested and Donald made a small noise. “You kiddin? Look at the size of that thing? That thing can kill us in one sitting.”

“Yeah, I agree.” Oswald agrees with Donald and Y/n slowly nods her head. “Well. When it was speaking, it said something about harnessing power, maybe it’s inside it.”

“Maybe it is one of the pieces perhaps?” Panchito brings up and it would make sense, it had to be.

“Alright, well. How do we kill it?” Bendy questioned and no one answered nor really had an idea how to without—well being severely injured.

“Well clearly all we gots to do is kill it.” Cuphead pointed out the obvious and Oswald deadpans.

“Oh really? I was thinking maybe take it out alive.” He complained sarcastically.

“Maybe just kill it with a rock?” Panchito suggests and points over to a stack of rocks above the cave. Felix looks over to it before thinking.

“Not a bad idea..”

“Ya’ know if that’s the case, then we needs a distraction..” Bendy’s eyes slowly slid over to Cuphead. Cuphead looks at Bendy and glanced over at everyone else who was already looking at him. Cuphead's eye twitched before he threw his head back in a loud groan.

“Oh come on!”

Watching Cuphead a few meters away, standing next to Mugman behind a rock, Oswald, Bendy, Panchito, Donald and Felix stood behind another rock next to theirs as Cuphead stood out in the open, the plan was to lure the spider out where Cuphead was, Mugman would shoot at the boulder above where the spider would stand—and it would land on top of it. Hopefully killing it in the process.

“Where is this stupid thing?” Cuphead complains and Y/n looks at Mugman. “You can aim, right?”

Mugman gives her a look as if she offended him. “Of course I can!”

Cuphead had still been pacing back and forth; he slowly stopped when he heard the sound of rubble moving and soon the creature dropped in front of him, right where he needed it.

The creature lets out an intimidating hissing sound, Cuphead backs away and Mugman hops from behind the rock—quicker than anything he shoots at the bolder above—but alas..it didn’t move.

“Why ain’t it working?!” Cuphead shouts over to Mugman who shuffles on his feet. “Don’t shout at me or I’ll panic!” Mugman whines, Oswald shoves Donald from behind the rock and Donald stumbles beside Cuphead. Donald glares over at Oswald and furrows his eyebrows. “What was that for?!”

The rock magically fell down and landed on the spider, Cuphead was shocked for a moment and Donald glanced at the spider before deflating. “Right..”

“See? Told you bad luck would come in hand after a while.” Oswald insist as he walks over to Donald and placed a hand on his shoulder, Panchito, Felix and Bendy walks over as well, Mugman and Y/n walks over and Y/n carefully examined the the creature as the others poke in the background about how to retrieve the stone—if it even had it as it was just a lucky guess. But Y/n was too curious about the creature as she examined the small hairs on its appendages, the oddly..scary eyes and the color—she had never seen anything like this before, but then again they weren’t in the mainlands any more. Y/n spotted a familiar green glow coming from the spiders maw, spotting the green stone piece that they needed, Y/n cautiously picks up the stone, and backs away from the spider, looking down at it she turns around, but only pauses when she spots a small child standing behind her. It was..her.

The child wore jean overalls, holding a teddy bear in her arms, pale gray sweater and busted tennis shoes. The girl stared up at Y/n and Y/n silently stared back.

“I would say you are naive, but you just lack knowledge of something so simple.” The voice of the creature appeared behind Y/n. Y/n clutched the stone and glanced over her shoulder to see the spider towering behind her—almost as if it never was hit by the boulder.

The sound of laughter reached Y/n’s ears and Y/n glanced over to see the child in the arms of her mother and father, the two held onto the child before smiling ahead of them as if they were posing for a photo.

“But I believe you may have forgotten who your real enemy is.” Y/n turned her head over to see Bendy, who was seated on the ground—he actually appeared to be a lot younger than before. Sitting in front of the child as he held onto a toy train. The child held some paper in her hands along with a pencil as she blindly colored on the page. Bendy places the toy train down before leaning over to see what the child was drawing, the toddler covers the paper and shakes her head to Bendy, refusing to show him the picture.

“What do you mean?” Y/n asks, but the creature didn’t respond, when Y/n turned back around to face it—she was only met with the corpse of the creature still crushed under the boulder, standing beside it was the small child. She curiously had her hands on the rock, the child looked up at Y/n and smiled. They jumped up and tapped Y/n’s forearm and laughed before backing away—almost as if she wanted to play tag, Y/n felt the small hand of the child but she didn’t move from her spot. The child backs away even more as if waiting for Y/n to chase her but Y/n slowly furrowed her eyebrows.

The child caught on that maybe Y/n didn’t want to play tag and she smiled before walking back over to Y/n and gently took her hand and didn’t move.

Y/n’s eyes never left the child and the child stared up Y/n and smiled.

“Y/n.”

Y/n blinks at the call of her name and she furrowed her eyebrows to see Panchito standing in front of her with Bendy beside him, Panchito had a hand on her head and Y/n blinks a couple more times and glanced down at her hands to see she was still holding the stone but not the child’s hand. She grimaced as she was nauseous and grunted. “Damn.”

“Are you okay?” Bendy asks and she nods. “Yeah.”

She then slowly held up the stone. “It spat this out also.”

“Okay, good news and bad news.” Felix pipes up, Y/n turns around to face him to see he has climbed down from a ledge, he must have left to go somewhere.

“The entrance we came in from is blocked off—and the only way to get through it is if we blast through it—but that’ll risk a rock avalanche which..isn’t the best thing right now…” he was silent for a moment.

“But there is an alternate path back up to the surface. But it’s a 10 minute swim up.” Felix then glanced at Y/n. “But that’s also too risky too.”

“Oh..” Y/n slowly said before slowly nodding. “I can do it.”

Wading in the water, Y/n watched as Mugman cautiously looked at her. “Are you sure you’re ready?” He asks and Y/n nods. “Yeah, it’s just 10 minutes, it’s not like I’m going 20 minutes.”

“Just take a deep breath, and swim quickly.” Felix tells Y/n and Bendy lets out a sneeze, the water sputters from his mouth and hits Donald who quakes and fiercely wipes at his face. Bendy rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Oh please, you’ll survive.”

Felix went under the water to guide everyone to where they needed to go, Donald followed after, then Oswald, Panchito, Mugman and soon Cuphead. Bendy glanced at Y/n and nodded.

“Deep breath.” He says and Y/n nods before inhaling a large ball of air and soon sinking into the water.

Following everyone Y/n felt fine—but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t lose air in the next minute or so.

Bendy had stayed beside her to make sure she kept up at a decent pace—which she did. They swam through rocks and other small tunnels, up until they made it out into the open where the light from the sun had been beaming down on the water's surface. They were almost there but Y/n’s chest tightened and the only thing she was thinking was air. She couldn’t go back now—she was too close…and also because that would just waste more time just for her to go back and get some air.

With a few more seconds Y/n reached the surface and immediately opened her mouth for air and coughed, the water from her hair and head she leaned onto the boat and let out a heavy sigh.

“You did it!” Panchito praised Y/n. Y/n let out a weak laugh as she leaned her head on the boat and closed her eyes, heaving heavily from the lack of air for so long.

Spunk barked once he spotted the group come back up, his tail wagging as he watched as they all climbed and piled back into the boat, the boat might as well have become a boat with all the water falling into it from everyone.

“Never am I entering a cave with you guys again. Ever.” Oswald wrings the water from his ears and Panchito lets out a small laugh. “It was just a short stop, I’m sure we won’t have to enter another cave anytime soon, besides, we have the other piece, so that is a good thing!” Panchito brings up the piece that they managed to snag away from the spiders Y/n was placing the piece in the wet bag and placed the bag onto the corner of the boat and wringed the water from her shirt.

“What did I tell ya? You can hold your breath for more than 5 minutes.” Cuphead nudges Y/n and the human gently shoves him away from her. “Shut up.”

“So, are we just going to continue the same direction?” Mugman asks Felix who had been in the background moving around to sail the boat again.

“Yeah, it seems to be taking us in the right path.” He agrees.

“Maravilloso! 24 more hours to go!” Panchito smiled brightly and Donald deadpans. “Great..”

“I think..that one is the brightest.” Cuphead points to a random star in the sky, Y/n was trying her hardest to keep her eyes open—she didn’t know what time it was—as it was hard to really tell and she didn’t feel like rummaging through her bag to get her phone, but she was sure it was somewhere nearing midnight, and they still were in the middle of the ocean, traveling. For the most part, everyone was asleep, but Cuphead and Y/n were sure the guy didn’t even have a sleep schedule.

Y/n only took one nap—but she wasn’t used to sleeping..out in the middle of the ocean so she couldn’t complain too much, but then again, sleep was very much a nice thing to have though.

“Mmhmm..” Y/n agreed gently as she lazily pulled the blankets up to her chin, Cuphead sat up from beside her and looked down at her. “Geez, don’t tell me you’re gettin’ all doozy on me.”

“Cuphead, go to bed..we’ve been up all day.” Y/n slowly opened her eyes to look at him and Cuphead shrugs.

“Eh. I ain’t too tired.”

“When are you ever tired?”

“Uh..whenever I’m tired?”

Y/n was silent for a moment as she gave Cuphead a blank expression before slowly shaking her head. She heaved herself up to sit up and fixed the blankets so they were wrapped around her shoulders and the two silently stared off into the ocean, Cuphead being oddly silent as the two basked in the moment of silence.

“So…what happened back there in the cave?” He abruptly asks, Y/n’s tired expression turned into one of confusion as she moved her gaze to him.

“What?” She asks.

“When you were blacked out for a moment.” He recalls which Y/n then remembered the small—deja vu moment that she didn’t think to ponder too much about. Now thinking about it, what the hell did it mean? She could try to make an understanding of it all day but she was sure she wouldn't get any answers, and on top of that, the thing was probably telling her fibs—it didn’t try to potentially kill them after all.

Y/n pondered for a moment on the best way to explain it without making herself seem crazy—which she doubted Cuphead would care if she was losing her last brain cell.

“It was so weird..I was like, talking to myself.” She started.

“Like yourself? Physically?”

“Yeah, but she was a kid. And the thing was telling me—basically I was stupid or something like that, I don’t know why, but it was weird, you know?” Y/n slowly looked back at the water and she felt herself gently wringing her fingers—she felt nervous, as if it were something she should have paid more attention to, but..she didn’t.

“But I ain’t too worried about it.” Y/n mocks what Cuphead would usually say every once in a while, the cup perked up and smiled before wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“Ah man, you sure do know how to make a cup proud.” Cuphead sighs in content before speaking. “But whatever happens, I’m there, you can count on it.”

“I will.”

Y/n felt the frantic sniffs and the cold nose press against her forehead. Y/n furrowed her eyebrows before moving her head to see Spunk was waking her up and—the boat was still. She slowly sat up to see that they were at a dock, and what appeared to be a village ahead of them with people walking around—with horses and carriages, it actually reminded her of something you would see from a fantasy’s film, she excitedly shot up and stared at the town ahead of her. Felix walked over and grabbed Y/n from under her arms and stood her up on her feet.

“Alright, we’re here, the trail led us here, I don’t know what we’re exactly looking for but I’m sure we’ll get a clue.” Felix says as he fixed Y/n’s bandanna, the human seemed excited to run off and explore the town but if it weren’t for Felix having her by the bandana he was certain she would have scurried off.

“So are we sure this place doesn't have dragons?” Cuphead reiterated and Mugman rolled his eyes as he stepped off the boat and onto the dock. “I’m positive, I don’t think dragons exist in this world outside of Inkwell.” Mugman answered. Panchito was curiously picking up a few seashells a couple feet away from off the beach shore

Donald and Oswald stood beside Mugman waiting for everyone, Y/n grabbed her bag and tossed it over her shoulder—while it was still wet..

“Ew…my bag is still wet.” She muttered as she stepped onto the dock.

“Hey! Look at this one!” Panchito shouts over as he holds up a sea shell he found—a few of the town folk gazed over at his abrupt shouting.

“Yeah we most definitely look like we don’t belong here.” Donald grumbled.

“I think it would be best to get new clothes? Salt water does not dry up quickly.“ Oswald says and he shakes his leg while water drips from his pants and Felix nods. “Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea—I’m sure there’s a shop somewhere in town.”

“You kiddin? I felt like I was walking around in wet socks the entire time.” Bendy pipes up and Y/n nods in agreement. She had a hard time sleeping because her clothes were still damp from the swim they all had earlier.

Mugman takes a huge deep breath of air and exhales. “Ahh, the sweet smell of adventur—CUPHEAD!” Mugman shouts over to his brother who had found his way over to a booth and was busy taking whatever bread rolls the vendor was selling—without him looking. Cuphead paused in his action and immediately hid the stolen dessert behind his back and smiled at his brother innocently.

Walking through the town was far more interesting than Y/n anticipated, there weren’t any cars, but mostly carriages and horses, which was not entirely a shocker to see considering she knew about those, but seeing that was what this town only transportation is was actually cool to see.

They had stopped by a clothing shop to get more clothes—preferably some more comfortable ones, and had been inside the shop for a good 30 minutes now. Y/n had fixed the button up to her shirt and gazed at herself in the mirror. The man that had gifted the clothes to the group had gifted them for free, which was nice for him.

Y/n actually liked her bandanna and decided to keep it. Spunk sat near Y/n’s foot as he waited for her to finish examining herself in the mirror. The clothes were light weight, and she had many pockets on her cargo pants, she even had a new travel bag where it fit the book perfectly and some other essentials. Gazing down at the boots that protected her feet from anything that may try to nip, stick or poke at her feet. Her feet felt way more protected than the tennis shoes she was once wearing—which was ruined by the saltwater by the way..

“Feels nice.” Y/n says as she looks down at Spunk, who had looked up at her and lets out a bark in agreement.

“I feel a little weird without my hat.” Panchito pipes up as he walks over. He wore something similar to what Y/n had on. Except he had on a brown vest, Y/n spotted the gun holster by his side and she perked up slightly. Oh yeah, she forgot he had a gun.

“You can probably hold my toy gun.” She jokes as she takes off her book bag and digs through the bag and reaches for the pistol before pulling it out. Panchito tilts his head for a moment.

“When did you get that?” He asks.

“Charley gave it to me before we left town, it’s from the venue.” She replied and gently spun the gun around her finger with the trigger.

“Clearly he trusts me with i—“

The sound of the bullet being released from the gun echoed in the room—and thank goodness it didn’t hit anyone as it embedded itself in the floor. Y/n’s mouth opened in shock as Panchito’s feathers ruffled up in shock from the sudden noise, the two went silent as Panchito slowly looked at Y/n who had the gun clutched by the handle, her finger nowhere near the trigger now.

“….I..did not know that was a real gun..” she muttered and Panchito slowly took the revolver away from her and smiled.

“Ah…yes, I will be..keeping this, thank you..” he says as he placed it in the empty holster.

Soon after awhile they were back out into the town—mainly exploring rather than looking for a clue, Spunk was busy sneaking up on a chicken who had been pecking some food off of the ground, the pup barked and the chicken scurried away in fear.

“Out of all the places we visited, this would have to be one of the only places that hasn't tried to kill us.” Oswald picks up and Felix nods in agreement. “Yeah true.”

There were toons and humans amongst each other speaking, joking, trading and what—going on with their everyday lives, Y/n was stopped by a woman gasping upon seeing the group, which caused the human to slowly pause in her walk—oh great, did they do something wrong? The last thing she needed was a town full of people coming to kill them.

Bendy shook his head slightly from the fatigue that had started to take over him again, his lack of sleep was starting to get to him—not to mention he couldn’t properly sleep on the boat, Y/n had been walking next to him the entire time and noticed his lack of speaking and wrapped her arm around Bendy’s and looked at him.

“Are you okay?” She asks and he nods before giving her a soft smile. “Yeah I’m okay sweets..just a bit tired is all.” He answered and Y/n slowly nodded as she then released Bendy from her hold.

“Hey.” Y/n looked over to see Cuphead, he gently nudged her and motioned over to a game booth.

“C’mon, let’s go play.” He says before the two scurried off to the booth, Mugman noticed the two had wandered off and soon followed after them—of course once telling Felix he was touting explore the town with the two which Felix agreed and said they would remain in the center of the town for the day, all considering it would be best to maybe get some rest before venturing off into the unknown.

The game was very ordinary and simple, toss the beanbag into the hole to get a point—but the thing was, there weren’t any prizes to be won—which Y/n noticed as she gazed at the booth.

She heard footsteps behind her and looked back to see Mugman had jogged over. No one really seemed to be playing the game and at first he thought it was empty seeing there wasn’t a vendor.

“Huh..no one’s here.” Mugman points out and Cuphead leans on the booth and rolls his eyes. “Boring, I came over here for a stupid game.” Cuphead grumbled before pushing himself from the booth and stood beside the two.

“Maybe they left for a moment, I’m sure there’s other stuff in the market—“ Y/n was cut from her word, when a dark cloud of smoke poofed into the air inside the booth.

Poof!

Y/n, Cuphead and Mugman took a step back from the sudden smoke, and a man appeared inside the booth, Y/n’s eyes widened, she‘s never seen anyone do that before!

The man was clad in a dark cloak—golden pen days decorated the chests of the cloak—as if they were badges. He had a silver gray beard and cold eyes, his dark pupils were like slits, almost like a snake.

“I see you all came up to my stand.” He spoke his words smooth like honey. And Cuphead blankly stared at the man and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to play bag toss.” Cuphead shot to the point and the man chuckled. “Of course, of course.” He says as he lifts a hand from under his cloak. 4 bean bags clutched between his slender fingers.

“You toss these 4 bags in that hole—“ he points over to the hole before looking back at Cuphead. “You walk away free—“

“No prize? Nevahmind—this game sucks, what typa game is that? I win, I gets nothin?” Cuphead huffs before turning around to walk off and reaches to grab Y/n by the arm but is stopped when the man speaks up.

“Then we make a deal.”

That seemed to make Cuphead stop as he turned his head back to the man, Mugman slowly squinted his eyes and started to shake his head. “On second thought, I think we’ll pass on this..” Mugman's voice wavered as he glanced at Cuphead, Y/n looked at Cuphead before glancing at Mugman and then at the man.

“You win three rounds, 4 holes each, 12 in all, you walk away with the riches of this land, if you don’t, you’ll be running away with your tails between your legs.” The man looks at the three of them instead of just Cuphead and Y/n slowly raises her eyebrows. She wasn’t even playing, why did she have to be included in this?

“A small scare? Oh I can take that, and I can most definitely make 12 holes.” Cuphead placed his hand out, you could practically see the confidence radiating off of him.

Mugman grabs Cuphead’s arm and glares at him. “You dimwit! We don’t need another deal.” Mugman whispered to him and Cuphead shrugged.

“Relax Mugsy, it ain’t a real deal unless you sign something’ or shake on it, it’s just a game. Ya know I think the Devil got you shaken up.” Cuphead brushed it off and Mugman removed himself from Cuphead and deflated, what was the point, trying to talk to Cuphead was like speaking to a brick wall half the time, when he had his mind set on something, there most definitely weren’t no letting go.

Cuphead retrieved the throw bags and Y/n looked at Mugman. “Is it a bad thing?” She asks him when she noticed his sour expression, but it soon went away when he heard the human speaking to him, Y/n only knew Cuphead just a tad bit, she wasn’t aware of his issue of running into situations without thinking—mostly death defying issues, Mugman sweats for a moment before fixes the collar of his shirt.

“Ahaha…uh…no..no, don’t worry.” Mugman smiled at her nervously as she gave him a confused expression before looking over to Cuphead to see he actually was doing a pretty good job at tossing the bags in the target one by one, the man didn’t even have to move to get the bags and hand them back to Cuphead, they just appeared right on the counter for him to grab.

One bag after the other Mugman was watching Cuphead like a hawk, but it seemed Cuphead could handle himself just fine, tossing the bags with ease and even doing a few tricks.

Y/n smiled and clapped her hands at some of the tricks—she was impressed to say. “Good job Cuphead!” She praised, and Cuphead hesitated for a moment as he turned to look at Y/n before slowly smiling—he was in the midst of throwing the bag that he barely noticed it hit the side of the target until Y/n’s expression changed to one of surprisement and he turned to see the bag had landed on the ground.

“Shit..” Cuphead cursed and the man chuckled before looking at the three.

“Take your losses.” The voice echoed.

Y/n groaned as she shakily lifted herself up from the ground, the soil squishing between her thin pink fingers…pink?

Y/n eyes quickly opened back up as she scurried up from the ground, she looked at her hands to see four pink fingers, looking down she saw two pink feet, brown fur, she felt her heart start to quicken and her blood started to pump. She quickly touched her face to feel snout, and big ears. Looking over she spotted a glass shard, leaning on a huge wooden pallet. The glass shard acted as a mirror where she spotted a mouse, two big ears, brown fur with white spots littering the body, almost similar to a reverse Dalmatian, a long pink tail and a tuft of curly hair sprouting from the top of her head.

“AHHHHHHHH!” Y/n let out a terrifying horrifying scream, her hands reached to tug at her ears, she was a rat! A rat! A rat! A cute one…BUT SHE WAS A RAT!

She felt tears start to swell in her eyes, oh god, how could this happen! Was she going to spend the rest of her life like this?! She couldn’t! She had a life! A family! A dog! And cool little action figures back at home and a bunch of stuff!

“Ugh..wha..what’s going on?” The familiar voice of Mugman pipes up, Y/n quickly looks over to see Mugman stumbling up from behind a rock, he stands up and places a tired hand on his head. He was also a rat, blue nose, and a white mass of fur that seemed to turn gray near his feet.

Cuphead quickly shoots up from the ground which he was a few inches away from, he hits his head from a low stick hanging above, but he grunts and quickly rubs his head before looking at the two.

“Guys?” He calls out. He looked similar to Mugman, expect for his cherry red nose and untamed hair unlike Mugman’s he seemed to be combed back.

“What—what’s going on?!” Panics Y/n. She pressed her hands against the glass shard and her ears quickly folds back.

“WE’RE RATS!”

“Hey, hey! Calm down toots.” Cuphead quickly scampered over and gently placed a hand on Y/n’s shoulders and gently turned her to face him. Her eyes glazed over with tears and he was silent for a moment as he opened his mouth to speak.

“I—jeez, don’t look at me like that will ya? You’re makin’ me feel bad..” Cuphead frowned, Mugman glares at Cuphead before stomping over.

“You should feel bad! This is your fault we’re in this mess! If you only just stopped playing the game we wouldn’t be in this mess!” Mugman scolds his brother and Cuphead only rolls his eyes at Mugman.

“Okay, okay, are we done playin’ the blaming game game?” Cuphead grunts through his teeth.

“No! Goodness knows how long we’ll be stuck like this!” Mugman places a hand on Y/n’s shoulder and she notices how much shorter she was compared to the two, regularly they really weren’t that much taller than her, only by a foot when they were..normal..

Y/n let’s out a soft hiccup. “Oh god we’re going to die like this.”

“Well—it if it weren’t for Y/n distractin’ me, we wouldn’t be like this!” Cuphead just said the first thing that came to his head to really just shoot back at Mugman but when he felt Y/n look at him, he quickly looked at her and his ears quickly flattened when he saw her hard cold glare.

“Not-not sayin’ that this is your fault or anythin—I was just—I—“

Cuphead stops himself from stammering as he watches Y/n for a moment.

“You..have big gorgeous ears..?” He gives her a nervous yet strained laugh. Y/n couldn’t contain it before she quickly pounced onto Cuphead, her hands immediately moving to grab ahold of his ears, the two rolled to the ground, somersaulting out into the open of the wooden area.

“Ow! Ow! I’m sorry!” Cuphead shouts out various apologies and tried to remove Y/n from him, who was busy tugging at his ears, her foot pressed against his snout, Mugman quickly ran over and grabbed ahold of Y/n, he tried to pick her up from Cuphead but she had a tight hold on his nose.

“Jeez! You really have a grip!” Mugman strains as he holds tightly onto Y/n as if he were hugging her as he holds her close and pulls away. The sound of flapping and a gust of wind reached the threes ears, they looked up to see an owl swooping down, it’s sharp talons reaching out, the three screamed as Y/n lets go of Cuphead, causing herself and Mugman to fall back, the owl missed them and lands on the ground where they once had been. Y/n and Mugman quickly stands up as did Cuphead and the three quickly then scurried off, the sound of the owl screeching echoed, Y/n hardly noticed how quickly they had fled if it weren’t for them running away on all fours—it was a miracle what different creatures could do to escape.

“Quick!” Cuphead stands up and skids to a stop and points up a tree, the three quickly without a thought scurried up the tree, it didn’t feel any different from running on the ground and it actually felt odd to see the world from such a bigger perspective. The bird screeches as the three scurry onto a branch, the bird swoops down, it’s talons claws onto the branch causing it to shake, Y/n felt her feet lift from the ground, but she kept a strong hold onto the branch, there was no way in hell she was dying by falling a hundred some odd feet in the air. Mugman falls into Y/n causing her to slide from the branch, her lower half hanging off which knocks Mugman off, he lets out a shout and ultimately grabs hold of Y/n tail, the stinging pain of her muscles felt like they were being pulled by the weight of Mugman.

Y/n’s nails digs into the wood as she slams her face into the branch and lets out a muffled shriek. Suddenly Cuphead shouts and falls off the branch, quickly grabbing onto Mugman’s leg which ultimately added more weight onto Mugman’s iron grip. The sensation was unbearable at this point and caused Y/n to lift her head up and let out a loud ear piercing scream.

“OW!!!!”

The bird shakes the branch causing it to deep slightly and it lets go of the branch, which shoots up, sending the three flying into the air, Mugman releases Y/n’s tail as the three screamed in fear, the bird flew up and was about to close its maw—but it only missed by a few inches as its wing got caught on a vine bringing it back down to the tree under it.

Which was good, if the three weren’t plummeting to the ground, hundreds of feet below. Hitting leaves which did slow down their fall, Y/n fell into a bushel of vines, she let out a few grunts as she ultimately passed through them.

Mugman lands in a body of water a few inches away, but Cuphead falls face first onto the ground, hard. A loud ‘oof!’ emits from it. His tail sticks up as Y/n lands on top of him, his tail being the main source in catching her, while she is held up, her body facing the sky in shock.

Her chest heaved up and down as she looked over her shoulder to see Cuphead hadn’t moved, his tail slowly lowered to the ground to place Y/n down. Her feet gently touching the grass as she cautiously stared at Cuphead, her body was shaking from the adrenaline rush.

“Cuphead…are you okay?” She asks. Her foot gently poked at the side of his head, he let out a long muffled groan before shakily pushing himself off the ground, Y/n heard a few cracks from his bones as he slowly—yet dizzily stood up. “Nothin..I can’t handle..” he garbles.

The sound of wet footsteps emits from behind Y/n, Y/n turns to see Mugman trudging over..with a not so happy expression ridden on his face.

The water dripping from his form was sorta comical up until he shook the water off and it got onto Y/n. She shielded her face from the water and Mugman huffs.

“Well what now? We aren’t even an hour in and we’re already going to die from some massive bird!” Mugman complains as he walks over to Y/n and removes a blade of grass from her hair. Cuphead placed his hands on his back as he stretched, more bones popping as he did so.

“Look—let’s just calm down, I’m sure we’ll find a way out of our rat s-“

“Your.” Mugman blatantly corrects.

“My…rat problem.” Cuphead sighs. Y/n had been looking around as the two spoke and she furrowed her eyebrows. The trees surrounded the tree. The sound of cicadas in the air echoed and the rustling of the leaves entered her ears. There were so many trees the sun rays peeked through the holes of the trees, touching the ground with light. It would be a relaxing sight, if everything wasn’t 10 times bigger.

“We aren’t even in the village anymore.” Y/n points out and Mugman’s ears perked up before he looked around and took in his surroundings.

“You have to be kidding me..” he sighs.

“Don’t worry, we can just..” Cuphead turned one direction and placed his hands on his hips.

“Go this way.” He turns to Mugman and Y/n, who both had the same readable expression on their faces.

“And what makes you think that would lead us anywhere?” Mugman asks. Cuphead was silent for a moment.

“I got a good sense of direction Mugsy, all it takes is a little bit of manpower!” Cuphead flexes his arm before he starts ahead.

“Let’s move my friends! We’s gots ourselves our own little adventure, mission is now in action!” Cuphead calls out as he walks, Y/n’s ears slowly flattened as her tail dropped to the ground, Mugman looks at her and gently frowns.

“Hey, it’ll be alright.” He starts before placing a hand on Y/n’s shoulder. “Cuphead may be a cup filled with nothing, but he usually knows how ta’ get outta these sorta situations.” Mugman comforts as the two start to follow after Cuphead. Mugman had to remind himself that Y/n—as a human. These situations don’t come as an everyday thing to them. Humans were so simple, they lived simple lives, it wasn’t everyday they get tossed into an adventure and had to go save the world and in the midst get turned into a rat.

Toons could say they can find themselves in that sort of situation, because that’s the sort of logic they had. Humans were so odd when it came to having to experience new things like this, Mugman had to remind himself that they were like babies sometimes, they needed time to learn, and Y/n was unfortunately one of them. So sad it had to be with Cuphead the absolute knucklehead.

“Thanks, I’ll be fine.” She nods as the two watched as Cuphead was saying something incoherent up ahead. Atleast he could make it Atleast enjoyable.

Felix watches as Panchito danced around with the children of town, Bendy was stuck on the bench—assigned by Felix so he could rest. It was nice to actually get a room from a local hotel owner, which could come in handy considering it was now getting late, but they were waiting for the three to return, that being the cup brothers and Y/n, and just as Felix worried, the moment Cuphead left, he had a feeling the knuckle head would cause trouble.

“Why did I let him walk off by himself..oh right. Because he isn’t a kid..” Felix spoke to himself before slowly shaking his head and sighing. They would have been back by now but considering the sun was about a good hour away from setting, they were either lost..or gods knows what could have happened to them.

“You don’t look too happy.” Oswald points out, he had been standing beside Felix for the majority of the time.

“The brothers haven’t been back ever since leaving 3 hours ago and they have Y/n with them.” Felix points out and Oswald was silent for a moment.

“Now that you mentioned it, they have been gone for some time.” When Oswald said that, it seemed to have set off some trigger in Bendy’s head, he perked up slightly and quickly looked at the two.

“What?” He immediately asks. Donald placed a hand between Bendy’s horns. “Ah, don’t get your tail in a twist, I’m sure they’re just exploring the town.”

“They can handle their own, I’m certain of it, we just got to give them time.” Felix says.

“Just give them time..”

Y/n stared up at the sky—the purple, orange hue was vibrant yet so dark, the sound of creatures she never even heard before howling and bellowing from the distance filled the air. It seemed no matter how far they walked the trees looked the same and the burning feeling in her feet was yelling for her to sit down.

“How far are we going to keep walking? I’m tired..” Y/n groans as she feels herself slow down, Mugman slowly stops before he gently grabs Y/n’s wrist to help guide her.

“Just a few more and we can take a break.” He reassured.

“Yeah, I see an opening patch of land, there might be somethin’ there.” Cuphead tells the two as he points ahead, Y/n looks up to see that there indeed was a cut off. And an open area—which seemed to look like dirt.

Y/n decided to just silence herself and follow along, as she did so she heard the slightest sound from in the tall grass, her ears perked up as she looked over to nothing but the vegetation.

Once they reached the open area, the three hid behind a decent sized rock and cautiously perked behind it to look around and make sure no predatory animals were scouting around nearby. Ahead of them looked to be a small cottage, which seemed well kept together and very welcoming aside from all the other locations that were a bit questionable.

“There might be someone in there that can help.” Y/n points out and Cuphead nods. “Yeah, sounds g—“

Y/n was dragged back by the tip of her tail, watching the world move upside down, Y/n let out a shout as she was suddenly picked up unannounced. Mugman and Cuphead quickly turn around to see her being held by her tail—following the furry hand it was..a stray cat. Standing on its hind legs it’s left eye seemed to be missing—giving off an intimidating expression. The orange fur turned gray near his chest.

“Hey! Put her down!” Mugman shouts, the cat looks away from Y/n who had slowly rotated around to look at the feline. Cuphead took a step back and ran forwards getting ready to pounce onto the cat until he was snatched up by the neck of his fur by two claws. He let out a shout as he was hoisted up with ease by another straw cat, squatting on a rock, all gray fur and a look of excitement in his eyes as he held Cuphead up.

“Look at this one, he gots a red nose.” The cat laughs, Mugman was picked up as well by another cat that was white— Hoisting Mugman up by his tail as well. Cuphead was gently tossed up and grabbed by his tail as well. The three left dangling in the air.

“Who are you three and why are you trespassing?” The orange cat asks, Y/n could only assume he was the head honcho of everything. Y/n kicked her feet frantically and flared up at him.

“We’re just passing by!” She quickly answered.

“We-we—we’re looking for someone to help us, it’s a long story, we got turned into rats and we’re just looking for someone to get us back to normal!” Mugman answered completely. The orange cat was silent for a moment as he stared down at the three, he lifted Y/n up to his head and Mugman and Cuphead gasped.

“Hey-hey-hey! Don’t eat the girl, okay? This is my fault!” Cuphead quickly spews as the cat sniffs at Y/n, Y/n felt the wind of the sniffing hit her back and she gently squirmed around and let out a grunt.

“I’m sorry, I really am, if this area is your guys territory we’ll leave.” Cuphead filled in the silence with his frantic talking. The cat pulled away from Y/n and his ears quickly perked up as he stared at her.

“Wait a second..” he says. Y/n slowly rotated around as she uncontrollably faced the cat, whom which curiously examined Y/n.

“Set them down.” The cat orders, in which the other two obeyed and sat Cuphead and Mugman back onto the ground, the boss sets Y/n down as well in which Cuphead slowly eased over to Y/n and grabbed her arm to pull her to him and Mugman.

“You.” The cat stares down at Y/n.

“What is your name?” He asks. His voice was rough and demanding.

“Uh..Y/n..” Y/n slowly answered.

“The grandchild of Hector Vendolez.” Well..she didn’t expect that. Y/n shuffled on her feet for a moment as she glanced at Cuphead and Mugman who had looked at her.

“Well..from what I’ve been told—“

“You crazy?! Hector was the most well known adventurers of all time!” The cat from behind the three loudly exclaims before he lets out a laugh.

“Pipe down you idiot.” The white cat grumbled.

“Who are you guys?” Mugman asks cautiously.

“I’m Ruck, that’s Don and Meek.” Ruck introduced himself—despite being intimidating a few moments ago, he portrayed himself as calm as possible to the point Y/n didn’t fear they would kill them at any given moment.

“How do you guys know Hector?” Y/n asks.

“We used to work with him a couple of years ago.” Don answered, he seemed pretty stoic and blank aside from Meek who had slid from off the rock and happily jumped from one foot to the other.

“Yeah! We tagged along with him when we set sail from the mainlands!” Meek smiles happily and Mugman furrows his eyebrows.

“How is that even possible?! He’s been dead for over 70 some odd years! You guys should be old by now.” Mugman asks suspiciously and Y/n slowly nodded in agreement. That would make sense considering Hector clearly wasn’t born anytime in recent years.

“We were cast by a curse from a witch back in 48.” Ruck answered and Cuphead hissed through his teeth.

“Talk about old.” He jokes and Mugman slowly turns his head and glares at his brother in which he had quickly stopped laughing.

“A curse you say?” Mugman asks as he turns his head to continue speaking with Ruck, who had nodded upon Mugman’s question.

“A witch was looking for Hector at the time and we didn’t give up where he ran off to.”

“So you guys risked your lives for the guy?” Cuphead asks bewildered.

“Oh trust, he was a good guy! Kinda wish he was still here.” Meek sat down on the ground to make himself appear small with a lighthearted smile on his face.

“So you guys been stuck on this island for 70 plus years?” Y/n asks and Don hums in agreement. “Unfortunately.”

“And I’m taking in account you three got yourselves into some mess?” Ruck asks and Y/n and Mugman both turn and look at Cuphead. He nervously smiled and gently rubbed the back of his nervously.

“It’s..a long story..” he says and Y/n looks back at Ruck.

“Some witch guy made us into rats after playing a bag toss game, we woke up here and we need to get back to our friends or else they’ll think we’re dead, which I’m sure someone noticed by now.” Y/n explains and Ruck slowly nods.

“Good thing for you guys, your spell is brand spanking new! You got time to get it off you and reverse it!” Meek explains and that caused Y/n to perk up quickly. “Really?”

“Yes, but it has to be before midnight.” Ruck answered and Mugman made a noise.

“Okay…but how do we get back to normal? Play the game again? Find him?”

“Make a deal with someone else to bring you back to normal. These curses and deals are locked tight, this ain’t a fairytale kid, you get yourself into a mess you’ll be scraping pennies to get out of it.” Ruck explained which did cause Y/n to deflate..well..

“We can’t just make a deal with someone else! That’ll contradict everything!” Mugman shouts in frustration.

“Then maybe you all should tread more lightly, you aren’t on the mainland anymore, you’re out in the unknown naked, anything can happen.” Ruck moves his sharp gaze down to Y/n whose ears flattened as she nervously looked away from somewhere else.

“Bendy.” Cuphead pipes up and Mugman looks at Cuphead.

“He’s a demon, he can make deals.”

Mugman sputtered before tugging on his ears. “We’re not doing this again! Besides, he’s not that sorta demon. I'm positive he can’t make a deal like the devil can, and on top of that he’ll kill us if he finds out what happened.” Mugman names off various things and Meek looks away from Mugman before looking at Y/n.

“Jeez, this guy always so pent up?”

“I’m not pent up!!” Mugman shouts and Y/n places a hand on Mugman’s shoulder to comfort him. “I agree with Cuphead, maybe we should head back to town and see if Bendy can do a deal.” Y/n says and Mugman visibly calms down, his tail drops to the ground.

“Can you guys help us back into town?” Cuphead asks the three and Ruck was silent for a moment.

“Of course. We must hurry, it’s already getting late.”

Y/n had been following aside Ruck for majority of the time, he had been telling stories about Hector and how odd he was as person, seemingly Hector was very curious about the outside world—or to put it simple, outside of the mainlands—and Y/n couldn’t agree more, everything she’s discovered so far was far more different from an everyday life back home. Ruck was very stoic and blatant, he clearly didn’t seem like the type of guy to joke around, he spoke in a set rough tone or authority, like some sergeant of some sort—but to Y/n it sort of reminded her of Gill of Finding Nemo, especially with his missing she.

“So. You were good friends with him?” Y/n asks as she tried to keep up with Ruck as best as she could—being 10 times smaller than him was the major difference but he seemed to slow his pace down when he noticed how persistent Y/n was in speaking to him and learning more about Hector.

“I’m his brother.” Ruck corrects which Y/n fell silent for a moment as she stared up at Ruck. Her tail quickly swings side to side in excitement. “So that means you’re technically my great uncle!” Y/n quickly exclaims and Ruck chuckles gently.

“Smart kid.” He points out.

“You know this is actually great, my dads side of the family mother and father passed away a few years before I was born so I never knew them, and my mothers grandmother, I call her G-Ma, she lives up north and she rarely comes to visit because she doesn't like traveling much, she only does it during the holidays, and my mother was the only child growing up so she doesn't have any siblings, and my father was also the only child growing up as well.” Y/n quickly explains she felt Cuphead and Mugman scurry next to her and Mugman perks up.

“So, you three aren’t siblings?” Ruck asks as he eyed the three and Mugman shook his head.

“Oh no no no, we’re her friends. This is my brother.” Mugman placed a hand on Cuphead’s shoulder and Ruck nodded before looking ahead as the two continued down the dirt path.

“You know about your grandfather, you sailed here because of him?” Ruck asks and Y/n slowly shakes her head.

“No..not entirely..we’re here because of a book, and it told us to leave the mainlands to search for these pieces of a stone that goes to an island called Ruby Falls.” Y/n explains and Ruck looks at Y/n as she explained.

“And there’s these guys that are looking for the book, though I doubt they’re here now.” Mugman adds and Y/n nods in agreement.

“Hm..” Ruck starts.

“Just a regular kid.” Ruck looked back down at Y/n and she was silent for a moment as she stepped over a stick.

“Well..yeah, it’s not everyday some magical book comes to someone and forces them on a voyage around the world.” Y/n points out, who did she think she was? Spider-Man?

“So, these people that are after you guys, you take them out yet?” Ruck asks and Y/n glanced at Cuphead and Mugman who the three all shared the same expression of nervousness and anticipation.

“Uh..no..not exactly..” Mugman answered and Ruck raised an eyebrow.

“They’re really strong guys, we were lucky to even get away barely scratched..she almost took my head off.” Y/n aimed that last statement to Cuphead and Mugman, referring to Pib, who by far was one of the only guys she was aiming to disregard fighting and steer clear from whenever she runs into them again—hopefully never.

“The excuse to not fight back because of someone else’s strength, only makes you weaker.” Ruck says and the three were silent for a moment. Cuphead rolled his eyes but he didn’t say anything.

“You have a lot to learn.” Ruck looks back down at Y/n as she gives him a confused expression.

“Like what?” She asks.

“You won’t survive out here, that book keeps up the tradition with casting one human to it, Hector was one, and now you are. You can’t bounce back like your toon friends, you’re human. You have one life and if you mess that up, you’re out of here, kid.” Rick seemed..very blatant, Y/n was about to say something until Cuphead intervenes and points an accusing finger up at the feline.

“Now you listen here! She knows exactly what she’s doin’ she got this far and ain’t 6 feet unde-“ he was cut off by Ruck gently shoving Cuphead with his tail, Cuphead trips and falls into the ground face first and Y/n turns around to help Cuphead off the ground until Ruck placed a paw in front of Y/n.

“And the first rule is for you to understand defending you, by yourself.” Ruck emphasized and Y/n looks up at him as he lets her go, Cuphead huffs and pushes himself from the ground.

“So, what do you know kid?” Meek asks Y/n and she thinks for a moment; “What do you mean?” She asks.

“How are your survival skills? You know, you being the only human and all that jazz, you gotta have some sort of knowledge on how to keep yourself alive.” Meek adds on for better explanation and Y/n slowly shrugs.

“I..don’t have one?”

“Ah geez.” Don grumbled and Meek let out a soft laugh. “Ah, Ruck, you could be her mentor!” Meek brings to the table and Ruck is silent for a moment before Meek looks back down at Y/n.

“Hector always went on about having kids of his own so he could show off the world to, you know how estatic the guy would be today seeing you take his shoes?” It felt like Meek wasn’t entirely aiming that statement to Y/n but more so to Ruck who didn’t seem to care to speak but more so led the two through the forest.

Meek gently leaned down to speak to Y/n. “An adventurer is in your blood, kid.” He whispered before fixing his posture.

“It don’t matter if you grew up in front of a TV all day with no knowledge of the outside world and all the things it holds? I mean like you said, it ain’t everyday someone’s traveling the world runnin’ for their lives with an ancient book someone specifically used to own.” Meek edges before Ruck turns to the two and furrows his eyebrows.

“She’s a lost cause.” Ruck grumbled before looking away from Meek and to Y/n.

“We’ll lead you to town, and you get back to normal and head back home. This place isn’t for you.” Ruck finished before turning away and continuing on, Y/n’s tail slowly lowered to the ground as she furrowed her eyebrows.

“Hey! You can’t just tell us to return home! We’re here because we need to be!” Mugman declares.

“You’ll die out here. Especially you, Y/n.”

Y/n remained silent as she walked alongside Cuphead and Mugman, Mugman placed a hand on Y/n’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh come on Ruck, give the kid a chance, teach her what you know. She is Hector's blood, she’ll adapt quickly.” Don brings up.

“Shut it.” Ruck grumbled and Don slowly shook his head as they all continued walking.

Once making it into town, the sun had set and the lights of the town flared and danced around in the night with life.

“Alright, they should still be in the middle of town, hopefully.” Y/n announced as she ducks back behind the stall and looks at the five.

“Geez..Bendy’s not gonna be happy about this..” Mugman nervously said—he seemed to catch on that Bendy wasn’t too careless around Y/n, if he finds out that the two got her into some trouble for the second time Mugman feared the guy might actually behead the two.

“I ain’t too worried about it, the guy is all bark no bite.” Cuphead shrugs his shoulders before walking out. “Now come on, I gots a deal to make.”

Y/n followed after and Ruck, Don and Meek followed after, clearly it wasn’t uncommon to see stray cats walking around town, Y/n was glad some passersby didn’t see three walking rats, that surely be something she did not want to deal with at the time.

It took over 10 minutes to find the group—which Spunk was the first one they spotted. The pup curiously watched the small group of animals and bent down in a playful position as he hopped side to side as he stared at Ruck.

“Arf!” Barks Spunk and Ruck tilts his head. “That’s Spunk, Hector made him.” Y/n explained. Spunk’s ears perked up when he heard Y/n’s voice.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot the guy created stuff on the side.” Meek pipes up.

“Where’s Bendy and the others?” Mugman asks Spunk who looks down at Mugman and gently moves his head down to sniff at him. Spunk perks up before pointing his nose in the opposite direction and barks.

“He’s a smart dog too..” Ruck points out and Y/n nods. “He is. He can assess things very quickly.” Y/n answered.

“How long you’ve had him?” Ruck asks.

“About 2 days.”

“And how long you’ve been on the run with the book?” Ruck asks. And Y/n had to calculate that for a moment, it felt like forever but surely not much time had passed since the day Panchito arrived to her with the book.

“About a week, now two weeks.” She answered and Ruck slowly nodded and Meek looked at Ruck with an expression as if saying: ‘see? See? She’s a good kid!’

Spunk let out a small noise before he turned back, picked Y/n up by the neck of her fur with his maw and gently scurried over to Donald who came into view. Cuphead and Mugman quickly followed after and stood beside Spunk who lifted a paw and gently tapped Donald leg, who was busy fiddling with something in his hand. Donald looks away from his hand and down at Spunk, Donald quickly furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head.

“Hey! Put that down.” He immediately scolds the pup, Spunk sets Y/n down and Y/n raises her arms to Donald.

“Donald! It’s me Y/n!” She immediately says before he could try to step on her or something. Donald froze for a moment before looking over to see Cuphead and Mugman who both nervously smiled at Donald.

“What happened?!” Donald panics and Cuphead nervously smiled and slowly looked away. “Yeah..it’s uh..it’s a long story.”

“They led us back into town.” Y/n points over to Ruck, Don and Meek. Who had been standing a few feet away watching the interaction.

Donald placed a hand down on the ground and Y/n immediately crawled onto his hand and he moved to pick up Cuphead and Mugman.

“We have to make a deal with Bendy to uh..turn us back to normal..” Cuphead said and Donald looked over to where the others were and Bendy—who was standing beside Panchito and Felix.

“He can make deals?” Donald asks and Cuphead only shrugs. “I dunno, I just assumed.”

Donald walks over to the small group who seemed to be busy talking, Y/n couldn’t lie she was a tad bit nervous but hey—this had to be better than running around as a rat all her life.

“Guys, I found them.” Donald pipes, Bendy, Panchito and Felix turned around to face Donald once he mentioned finding the three and Felix’s eyes immediately flickers down to the three who stared at the three silently.

“Now, I suspected you three got into something, but not this.” Felix deadpans and Bendy squints eyes for a moment as he tries to comprehend exactly what happened.

“I was playin’ this game at a stall, it was a bag toss game and the guy made a deal for a scare if I lost but the thing is I didn’t think it was anythin’ too serious' and I lost one round and now..we��re rats. And we have to make a deal to get back to normal.” Cuphead then slowly looks at Bendy who didn’t at all look pleased with the story.

“Mind you..” Cuphead added as he raised a finger and smiled at Bendy who slowly furrowed his eyebrows at Cuphead.

“Since you are a demon..you can undo the deal and create a new one that way we can get back to normal.” Cuphead finishes and Bendy looks at the three before he extends his index finger to Cuphead. A golden hue slowly flickers in his hand—very similar to the glow that Y/n had seen on Pib.

“Alright, you three turn back to normal, and..I dunno. Stop runnin’ off..” Bendy starts—it was clear he never made a deal before, ever as he didn’t know exactly how to make a deal that would benefit both parties but Y/n was more so focused that Bendy could make a deal, he was an actual demon? That means that Alice had to be an actual Angel!

“Or I’ll kill you.” Bendy’s expression hardened and Cuphead had grown silent.

“He doesn't mean that.” Y/n’s voice pipes up from in the background and Cuphead sighs.

“Fine, but you also gotta undo their curse as well.” Cuphead points over to the three felines in the background and Bendy looks over to look at them before looking at Cuphead.

“Who are they?” He asked and Mugman slowly smiled. “One of them is Y/n’s uncle and they know about Hector.”

“I say that’s a good idea.” Felix agreed, who else would be nice to lead them around the island than someone who’s lived here?

“I stop jumpin’ into trouble, you bring us, and the three over there back to normal.” Cuphead offers and Bendy nods.

“Deal.”

Y/n hadn’t slept so heavenly in so long, the bed was warm and soft and the blankets felt like a pocket heater, after the deal was made—they didn’t immediately turn back to normal, turns out the deal wouldn’t take effect until a few hours later—however long they may be—since Bendy does not heavily makes deals, who knew depending on how many deals you make how long it takes for the deal to take action. Y/n certainly was learning something new everyday.

Y/n flexed her toes and wiggled her fingers, stretching nice and big. She slowly cracked her eyes open, to see the sun rays peeking from the blinds of the room. She felt Spunk gently move around at the bottom of the bed, he opened his mouth and let out a big yawn before slowly crawling over to Y/n and laying beside her shoulder.

Y/n raises her hands in front of her to see her normal hands, flexing her fingers Y/n slowly smiled before sitting up and removing the blanket to see her legs and feet, wearing some shorts and a tank top that she wore under the new clothing she had gotten from yesterday, Y/n let’s out a sigh of relief. For a second there she truly thought she was a goner.

Spunk gently nudged his head into Y/n’s back to signal her to get out of bed, which she did as she placed her feet onto the wooden floor and let out a soft sigh before standing up.

Walking over to her book bag Y/n unzipped it and took the clothes from yesterday out of it before quickly getting dressed. As she did so, Spunk gently slid off of the bed by the blanket and sniffed the floor and slowly tracked down something, his head gently hitting the wall as he wasn’t paying attention, the pup shakes his head gently before looking up to see it was actually a cabinet he had run into.

Y/n finished tying off the bandanna and turned around and was met with Spunk holding a granola bar in his mouth. Y/n leans down and takes the granola bar and Spunk lets out a short bark before scurrying over to the door to wait for Y/n.

Y/n placed the energy bar into her pocket and picks up the bookbag before walking over to her shoes that were placed near the bed and slipped them on as well.

Knock knock knock

The knocking emitted from the door and she looked over—which Spunk was sitting by the door looking up at it curiously. Y/n walks over to the door and opens it to reveal a man, who seemed to be somewhere in his 50s, he wore a beige button up, with brown cargo like pants with fitted boots, his skin was toned yet rough, he had a dark beard that was gray towards the middle and dark hair that glistened under the light. His left eye was a sickly gray as his right eye was brown and thick bushy eyebrows with a pencil like mustache. He had his hands on his hips and Y/n shuffled on her feet at his sudden and rather cold appearance.

“You’re finally up.” He says. That was when the familiar voice piped up and Y/n immediately recognized it.

“Ruck?” She questioned.

“Yeah, looks like your little friend stood true to his word.” Ruck refers to Bendy and Y/n slowly nods. “Of course he will, he’s a good guy.” Y/n states and Ruck motioned for Y/n to follow as he moved away and started down the hallway of the inn, Y/n followed after and Spunk removed himself from the floor and followed along as well.

“I took in account that you’ll…probably do fine out in this world.” Ruck starts as the two slowly walk down the hall to—well Y/n didn’t know she was blindly just following Ruck.

“And I’ll be there to help you understand how to use your resources.” When he mentioned that Y/n looked at Ruck and smiled but his expression stayed the same.

“Really? Oh man, that's great! So do I like—get badges or something? You know like scouts do? Like, a badge for when you make a fire or when you make monkey fist with the rope—I always wanted to do that, oh! What about being able to—“

“Hey, hey, hey. Christ.” Ruck immediately stopped Y/n from frantically talking which she immediately stopped as she grinned up at him in excitement.

“Listen kid, this ain’t Girl Scouts, you’re away from the mainlands, so you’ll be adapting to here, there are no EMT’s so you’ll be using your brain-“ he taps her head.

“Your sight—“ he flicked her eye and Y/n flinched and immediately placed a hand on her eye as he gently flicked.

“And your strength.” He gently pats her arm before straightening his posture and staring down at her with his hands on his hips.

“Your friend Felix seems very educated—I already spoke to him, so it ain’t just you getting this treatment..” his eyes flickered up behind Y/n and she turned her gaze behind her to see a room door opened, she spotted Cuphead and Mugman wrestling on the ground, Mugman didn’t seem to be in the mood to fight as Cuphead had his brother's head in a choke hold.

“Geez! You’re squeezin’ too hard!” Mugman cried out and Cuphead only laughed in response. Panchito was busy watching in interest with the two fighting and Mugman quickly squeezed his head from Cuphead’s hold and shuffled away. “That’s enough Cuphead!” Mugman dusts his clothes before heaving himself from the floor and Cuphead laughs as he also removes himself from the floor and looks at Panchito.

“How was that!” Cuphead calls out and Panchito smiles.

“I mean, he quit a lot earlier than last time.” He recalls and Mugman huffs and shakes his head.

“Be careful—the last time you two broke something.” Oswald scolds Cuphead and Mugman—mainly Cuphead. Bendy was busy sitting on the couch—which he seemed to be asleep, shockingly.

Donald had been packing something in his bag quietly.

“They have a lot to learn as well, but not nearly as much as you.” Ruck’s voice brought her attention back to him and Y/n slowly nodded.

“Is it because I’m human?”

“Glad you got common sense.” Ruck answered. While it was a bummer, with Y/n being human and not a toon, it was a lot easier for her to die from something simple out there unlike being a toon with a lot more durability.

“When do we start then? We have to find the next stone piece as well.” Y/n brings up, not trying to get off track that they needed the next stone piece and it could be just about anywhere.

“Then hop to it, go get ready.” Ruck gently guided Y/n into the room, in which she smiled once they spotted her walking in, Felix the first one to walk over to make sure she was alright after being a rat and all not even 24 hours ago.

“Oh boy, this should be fun, I hadn’t had a good adventure in a while.” A scrawny male dressed in similar clothing walked over to Ruck who was busy watching Y/n. The male had blonde unkempt hair—and he seemed to be in his 40s, another man was over as well. Dark hair and a stoic expression. It was Don and Meek.

“What made you change your mind?” Don asks and Ruck was silent for a moment.

“She’s a strong kid..I can tell.” Ruck answered as the three looked into the room.

“She just needs a push, and I’m sure it’ll be hard for her when it comes to it. She's been cradled, but she has people around her.”

He watched as Felix checked her ears and hair for any minor scars or anything out of the ordinary, she opened her mouth as he checked her teeth and he soon ruffled her hair and Y/n smiled at him as Spunk barked at Cuphead who wrapped an arm around Y/n’s neck and dragged her to the ground, Panchito laughs as Y/n struggled to get up from the ground and Bendy woke up and shouted at Cuphead to let her go. As Mugman shakes his head in disappointment.

“I said don’t break anything!” Oswald shouts from across the room.

“Like Hector says, a heavy bond makes a strong person.”

#toon quest #bendy and the dark revival #animaniacs x reader #cuphead x reader #oswald the lucky rabbit #bendyxreader

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