(1) Ink Distortion (BATIM/EPICMICKEY)

38- Kill The Demon (Part 1)

"Come on." Oswald's grip on Gus's forearm was a little too strong, as the rabbit pulled Gus through a puddle of ink. The Gremlin didn't have time to hold his breath, and inhaled the ink. The thick, acidic liquid filled Gus's lungs, and burned his throat. If he didn't know any better—which he truly didn't—he would've thought the ink was burning a hole through his lungs, and spilled into his chest and stomach. The worst part was the pain refused to subside. There was no passing out, no dying. Gus was just being pulled along as the pain engulfed him.

Then the weight of the thick blanket of ink was suddenly lifted. The gremlin could move his limbs, and immediately began thrashing, trying to rub the burning ink out of his eyes.

"What is this?!" Alice's shrill voice echoed. Gus's immediate instinct was to freeze, and listen.

"He's...On our side. The right side," Oswald replied, a certain, uncertainty lingering in his voice.

Alice didn't respond, yet Gus deducted that he wasn't a pleasant surprise. Light footsteps in his direction made his skin crawl, and her suddenly louder voice didn't help.

"Open your eyes, dear..." She cooed.

What else could he do? Yell? Scream and say no? No, he made a commitment, and walking in blind would only make things harder.

He pulled his squeezed eyelids apart, and the gremlin suddenly realized how dry they were. Gus blinked a few times, waiting for his surroundings to focus.

"Welcome...Gus, is it?" She got close to Gus's face, inspecting his facial expressions. The gremlin instinctively leaned away from her.

She immediately dropped the sweet act, and scowled at Oswald, turning around with a click of her heels.

"Grab a crowbar. We need an extra set of hands." The angel ordered as she walked off with a sense of utterly egotistical authority.

Gus slowly took one from the gigantic metal hands of Mecha-Boris, avoiding eye contact with Oswald. Maybe there was still a way to get through to him.

Walking towards a grand door, that toward above them, Gus gaped at the sight of...What looked like searchers being created. A display of windows on each side of the hall. Alice opened the door with a heave, and a draft blew on all for of them from the lit cavern coming from the other side.

Gus—and Oswald—were too busy gawking at their surroundings to notice where they were going, until the long, and unimaginably tall halls lined with huge pipes disappeared. They all approached a withered block of metal, that lit the whole room with a glow coming from the inside.

"There. That's the heart."

The heart of the Ink Machine! Gus thought, Why would she bring us here with crowbars?

"We need to destroy it."

"I—What?! Why?!" The gremlin blurted his question out, and all three of his accomplices turned to face him, causing him to shrink back.

"It will free us..."

"It will destroy everything else!"

"The machine thinks! It's alive! And it'll know who kills it, which is why you're doing it for me!" The Angel pointed her clawed finger to Oswald and Gus, who gripped their selective crowbars tighter.

'The machine will free the monsters, including Alice, and kill the rest of us...'

"Why should we..?" Gus growled, falling into a defensive stance. Before he could give a victorious speech, however, Oswald began hacking away at the glass that guarded the heart.