This got...out of hand. 

But hey! More people! And it's mostly canon compliant this time!

also the song isn't mine, I just thought I'd put BATIM songs at the top of the chapters for you guys to listen to.

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  The Heavenly Toys department never failed to give you shivers. Maybe this is how you should work out, cause your heartbeat sure was up!

"I'm the cutest little angel, sent from above, and I know just how to swing,"

"I got a bright little halo and I'm filled with love,"

You didn't pay much attention, only vaguely humming along-though you were humming "pop goes the weasel" instead.

"I'm Alice Angel!"

Bud stood behind you as if to hide. Jack hid behind Boris, and you stayed behind Sammy.

"Seer, the twisted angel will not harm you. Why are you hiding away?"

You grumbled, embarrassed, but answered in the end. "It's so unsettling and I hate this."

"You're the one who decided to join me on this loop, Y/N," Henry chuckled.

"I'm the hit of the party, I'm the belle of the ball, I'm the toast of every town,"

"Just one little dance and I know you'll fall..."

"Can she like...not?" You sighed. "I get it, Alice Angel, YAY. I'm too tired for this."

By this point, your companions were used to your way of speaking and shrugged it off.

Twisted Alice either ignored you or didn't hear you.

"I'm Alice Angel!"

"I ain't no flapper, I'm a classy dish, and boy, can this girl sing."

"This gal can grant your every wish..."

"I'm Alice Angel!"

You tripped backward when she smashed into the glass in front of your group. Barely avoiding Jack in a collision, you winced as you landed on the wooden floor behind you. The lights flickered and as soon as she was in her booth, Twisted Alice was gone.

"Geez, I am going to have one hell of a bruise," you muttered, brushing yourself off.

Bud and Jack both looked like they were laughing at you.

"Oh c'mon! Quit laughing," you griped, but Sammy was kind enough to offer a hand up.

"I see you there. A new fly, in my endless web. And...you've got some company. Well, don't be shy. I know just how much a moth loves being in the light..."

Bud and Jack were already headed to the elevator.

"Don't be shy now...you've come all this way. Let's see if you're worthy to walk with angels."

With Sammy, Bud, Jack, Henry, and yourself now in the elevator, you began to descend. Just thinking about the things to come gave you shivers.

"You're so interesting, so...different. I have to say, I'm an instant fan. Looks like you've got a date with an angel! Come to me now. Level nine. Just follow the screams."

"This gonna go well..." you sighed. "I already hate this."

Sammy tilted his head, watching you sit on the floor to fiddle with the device you had identified as a "Nintendo DS."

"Seer, why do you say that? You know of the things to come, so what reason have you to fear?"

"Not too big of a fan of enclosed spaces," you brushed the question off, not wanting the Angel below you to hear.

Surprisingly, she remained silent. Until at last, your elevator ride ended.

"Come on then, step out of your cage. There's a whole twisted world out there..."

Bud ran off, presumably straight into one of the Boris clone's corpses, and Jack remained in a corner of the elevator, content with the gaming console. Henry followed Bud, and you were close behind with the prophet in tow.

"Say, Henry, Alice called this a date right?" You asked. When he nodded, you stifled a giggle. "Guess it's a double date."

The humor fell flat, but you didn't mind. The ramblings of your mind often were mindless, and you'd only voice them to fill a silence like this. But the ramblings ceased when you saw the first corpse of a Boris clone. Bile rose in your throat, and you swallowed hard to keep the bacon soup where it belonged.

"Look around. It took so many of them to make them beautiful. Anything less than perfect was left behind. I had to do it. She made me."

Sammy and Boris stayed behind now. The room was horrific, and you wanted to stay behind as well. But...you didn't want to leave Henry alone.

"So...meet us in the elevator after the date?" You asked. There wasn't a verbal answer, with Boris there never was, but they seemed to understand. So away they went, leaving only you and Henry to traverse the catwalk.

"So is she always like that?" You asked, doing your best to keep your balance. The planks weren't nailed down and some of the barrels were on their side. How did Henry get across so easily? You could barely make it across one plank without it wobbling.

"Yeah, more or less. You learn to tune it out after a while."

"Charming..." you shuddered, trying not to pay attention to the corpses within the pool of ink or suspended around you. The catwalk was short, thankfully, and it was only after a couple of turns that the door to the so-called 'date' location was in front of you. Well, now or never. You crossed the threshold alongside Henry and caught your first, real glimpse at the angel in all her twisted, distorted glory.

"Hm. And now it comes to the question...Do I kill you?... Do I tear you apart to my heart's content-"

You interjected briefly. "Sorry to interrupt," you said. "But uh, I'd like to remain in one piece. If you take any feedback."

What you did not want was for the angel to look you in the eyes, beckoning you closer. Fun...but you did what she asked. Not dying today was on the agenda after all.

"Why...you're so little. No, little moth. Not yet. For I've yet to decide...the choices of the beautiful are unbearable. How's a girl to choose?"

'Nice redovery,' you thought, biting back the pun and the compliment.

"Take this little freak for instance!" Her voice went to that creepy, two-toned pitch you loved and feared in equal measure. "He crawled in here, trailing his tainted ink to my door! It could have touched me! It could have pulled me back!"

She...was terrifying. You almost felt bad for the butcher gang clone that she had in her grasp, but pity wouldn't save the inky thing.

"Do you know what it's like? Living in the dark puddles?"

No, and you didn't want to know. Too bad the Angel wasn't reading minds.

"It's a buzzing, screaming well of voices! Bits of your mind, swimming... like... like fish in a bowl! The first time I was born from its' inky womb, I was a wriggling, pussing, shapeless slug."

Henry was tuned out, you feigned interest. It just sounded like an overdramatic customer. Why was this whole thing so dramatic?

"The second time... well... It made me an angel! I will not let the demon touch me again. I'm so close now. So... almost perfect."

Why now when she was so close to being finished, did you start to speak up? "Alice...right? It's a little funny, but you remind me of someone. Let's just say...this character is known as the Angel of Music."

"You flatter me, little moth. Of course, it would be I who reminds you of this character. I am an angel...and I do excel in music. So I must be the Angel of which you speak!"

That wasn't what you had meant, but oh well. You gave Henry a look that said "I'll explain later" and let the twisted Angel finish.

"Yes. I will spare you. For now. Better yet... I'll even let you ascend and leave this place. If you will do a few eensy, weensy little favors for me first. Return to the lift, my little errand boy, with your little moth companion. We have work to do!"

The window panels slammed shut between you, and you winced as the butcher clone shrieked behind the glass.

"So...what was that about an Angel of Music? It might've only inflated her...you know..." Henry asked.

"Oh, I wasn't talking about her. It's a book by Gaston Leroux, called The Phantom of the Opera. He falls in love with a beautiful opera singer, although his face is horrifically deformed and she is in love with her childhood sweetheart."

Henry nodded, letting you continue.

"He decides to foster her talent, taking the title of Angel of Music, a being the girl's father once told her about. With that disguise, he taught her until she became the most wonderful singer of all time."

"That's...not a bad story."

"Wait, there's more!" You chuckled. "In the end, she chooses her sweetheart and in his grief and rage, the Phantom destroys the Opera House and almost kills her sweetheart. In the end, he lets them both go."

You stepped out of the entrance to Alice's lair, but the gate dropped in front of you and Angel's voice began to speak.

"I'll make this simple. Look for valve panels. Turn the little wheels. Then bring me their power cores. Please don't make me regret sparing you. I can always change my mind."

Henry handed you the GENT pipe and took the plunger for himself. "I think you with the pipe will make the people in the elevator feel much safer."

"Yeah...until I trip and hit my head on it." Once again, the sudden voice of the angel over the PA system made you jump.

"There are so few rules to our world now. So little truths. Beware the Ink Demon. I wouldn't get so comfortable, little moth. Stay in the open too long and he will find you...and I am sure you know just how fragile a moth can be. So if you see him, you'd better hide. If you don't...well, errand boy, I enjoyed our date. And meeting your little moth friend. Now then, let us begin our work."

Henry made sure you were okay, and after he was sure you were okay, you went off. Yet, you weren't sure what exactly to look for, so you were pretending to know what to look for while Henry got to work. At one point, you began approaching an ink puddle that looked like it was bubbling. Like an idiot, you got closer.

A searcher popped out of the puddle, holding the first panel you needed. Though the appearance was shocking, you didn't jump. Instead, you knelt and accepted the gift, patting it on the head in thanks.

"That...is going to take some getting used to," Henry sighed. "I'm so used to being attacked by them."

"Perhaps it's Sammy, helping us in a weird, indirect way, except he's on the elevator and I can see him talking to Jack right now is he playing my DS?"

Henry patted your shoulder as you stood up. "It's alright if he is. C'mon, I'll show you where to put that."

By the time the task was completed, you wanted to flop yourself on some cozy spot and stay there forever. Yet you couldn't make yourself comfortable on a random chair before the Angel spoke again.

"Ah. That should be plenty. Return them to me. And try not to die on the way back."

"And now she sends us to different levels..." Henry shook his head. "I'll get them to her. You meet the others in the elevator."

That was good with you, so you did just that. Alice was much easier to ignore with the DS game and your gang within the elevator.

Henry came back, with the syringe. Ah, so that was the next task. With Henry now on the elevator, you went to a new level. The voice of the angel kept your group from being trapped in silence.

"Once upon a time, there was an angel. And she was beautiful. And loved by all. She was perfect. No matter what Joey says."

"So...does she just say things like that?" You asked. "It's a little unsettling."

"My current theory is that she likes to hear the sound of her voice."

"Oh, my. Silly me! I'd almost forgotten. You have a swollen one within my elevator! Abandon him like you did so long ago, Errand Boy. Or take his ink so that your angel can become perfect!"

The angel laughed manically, and the elevator slowly gained more and more speed. Bud shivered in the corner, terrified out of his mind. Jack clung to your leg, and Henry was keeping Sammy calm.

Why was this happening so early? You didn't know how far you were falling, but it was like an eternity before it stopped as suddenly as it began.

"You know...if you're dying to see your old friends again, then I'll take you to someone you might remember...After all, the three of you worked in the music department together!"

The elevator had stopped at level 11. Nowhere near the swollen ones. The odd syringe dripped back into ink. If you hadn't been silent, you might have lost your lunch.

"You ought to thank me for this, little moth. You love light, do you not? Well, then I hope you enjoy meeting the Projectionist!"

She continued to laugh, and this time when the doors opened, they were open just long enough for you, Sammy, and Jack to step off.

"Aw, it's so despicably cute watching how attached you are to the moth, errand boy. But we still have our task to complete! As for them...they can join you in hell!"

Somewhere in the inky abyss around you, the humming of a projector came closer to your group. And while it had always been a desire of yours to hug the projectionist, right now you decided the best course of action was to find a way to stay alive.

"Seer, what was that about?" Sammy asked, as your group remained on the staircase.

"She changed, Sammy," You replied, stress quickly getting to you. "I knew with me involved it would be a little different but now we're separated and Henry is alone with Bud, and the first rule to survival in a horror movie is to never split up."

"What does this place have to do with a horror movie? It is different from what you know, yes, but you never knew that you'd come here in the first place."

"I guess so..."

"That's the spirit. Now then, where do we go from here?"

Well, what else? Alice hadn't asked for the inky hearts just yet, so it's not like there was a task to complete or anything. Your presence within the studio had already started to create changes within the victims trapped inside. Why not cross something off of your bucket list while you were able to?

"...I want to hug the projectionist," you said, leaning over the stairwell to see if you could catch a glimpse of the creature.

"You...Seer, every time I believe I have you sorted out, you continue to surprise me."

"That's part of my charm," you laughed. "She kept calling me a moth, and moths like light, right? Only natural I go hug the projectionist."

"That monster is going to try and kill you!"

"And you tried to have me sacrificed when we first met but we're on a nickname basis now, Sam-Sam," you snickered. "Besides, I like to think that maybe he really could use a hug. So could almost everyone here, but you get the point."

Though you did not see the creature the two of you had been discussing had long since stumbled into the open room, still down in the ink. Its hearing was dim, but it could make out some of the words you'd been using.

"Maybe he could use a hug."

The gears of his body whirred as it tried to determine what that had meant. What was a hug? Security?

But the projectionist didn't need that. No, the butcher gang clones and lost ones who made their way to this part of the studio needed security.

So it continued on its journey, reflecting on the little he could remember of a hug.

Was the other person supposed to go limp? Were they supposed to be terrified and trying to back off?

....Maybe the strangers could help it not accidentally leave dead, inky bodies after an attempt at "hugging" them.