New Inky World: Chapter Two
A/N: Did not expect to get this done so fast. Things start getting angsty in this chapter! Whoo! Not as bad as I have planned for the next one. All characters except game Henry are from @ask-joeydrewstudios
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Henry and Joey stared at each other, neither saying a word. The toons and Other Henry stood to the left of Joey’s desk, eyes flickering between the two men. No one dared to speak.
Henry had been surprised to walk into the office and see a relatively normal room. He’d never been inside his Joey’s office before (he had never been allowed) and he hadn’t been sure what to expect. Turns out it was just a plain old room with a bookcase, desk, a couple of chairs, and some papers. He hadn’t taken Joey as the reading type, but it seemed this version was a bit of a bookworm.
At this point, Henry had decided that this wasn’t the Joey he had known. Everything about this place was off. A younger version of himself, everyone else being alive and fine, Joey being older than he should have been in regards to Other Henry, the toons. Everything added up to him being in a different world. Didn’t surprise him one bit either. He learned to never question anything in the damn studio.
The silence stretched on, growing tenser as the seconds ticked on. Finally, Bendy couldn’t take it.
“Alright! What exactly’s goin’ on here?” he asked, jumping on the desk and pointing at Henry. “How come ya look like Henry, just old?”
“Bendy!” Joey scolded. “We do not call people old.”
Bendy turned and smiled sheepishly at the man. “Sorry Papa Drew.” He turned back to Henry. “Sorry Old Henry,” he said.
Joey said something else to the toon, but Henry didn’t hear a word that came out of his mouth. Papa Drew. Did this version of Joey steal the toons from him as well? Then why didn’t Other Henry leave? Henry had thought that maybe this version of Joey might be a better person and not the monster that he knew, but he wasn’t any different. Alright, he was probably a bit better seeing as he hadn’t sacrificed his employees to try and bring the cartoons to life (as far as he knew), but he was still a lying, cheating bastard.
“Er, uh, Hen-henry?” Alice asked, her sweet voice cutting through his thoughts. “Is something wrong?”
Henry snorted. “Yeah, there is,” he said. “I’m stuck in another world after probably being killed by Boris,” Alice and Bendy gasped and glanced at the cartoon wolf, who had a horrified expression on his face, “and being forced to meet another version of the scumbag Mr. Joey Drew.” Henry pretty much snarled he man’s name as he glared at him. Joey’s eyes were wide and he kept glancing between Henry and Boris, struggling to process Henry’s words.
“...What do you mean?” Other Henry finally asked. He seemed a bit confused, but other than that was the one person who didn’t seem affected by Henry’s outburst.
“About what?” Henry snapped.
Henry stared at his double for a minute, his anger deflating. He slumped forward in his chair and placed his hands on his face. He’d been through so much in such a short amount of time (and with so little sleep, food, and water) that his normally calm composure was slipping. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to calm down. After a moment he lifted his head and looked at his double.
“You seem so calm in all of this,” he said.
“I try not to let situations overwhelm me,” Other Henry replied.
“Unless it involves babies” Bendy muttered from his spot on the desk. Joey gave the toon a warning look before turning his attention back to Henry.
“Normally I’m like that too,” Henry told Other Henry, ignoring Bendy’s comment (for now). It was easier to resist the urge to punch Joey if he focused on the one person in the room that didn’t make remind him of the place he’d just left. “At this point though, everything’s just gone to hell and back.”
“What happened?” Joey asked him. Henry turned to him and gave him a dry smile.
“Did you create the toons?” he asked. “Even before you brought them to life?”
Joey seemed confused. “Of course I did,” he said. “This is Joey Drew Studios afterall. It would be strange for the main characters of the cartoons to not be mine. I mean, I did get some help designing Alice and Boris, but other than that, yes, I created them.”
Henry glanced at Other Henry. “Is that true?” he asked.
Other Henry’s brow furrowed but he nodded. Henry sighed at looked back to Joey.
“Well, Mr. Drew,” he said, “in my world I created Bendy, Boris, and Alice, and the Joey Drew I knew from over thirty years ago stole them from me.”