Gabe knew he had to put the heart sinking feeling aside if he wants to succeed in the next challenge. But seriously, out of all the other toys that could have been used, Bron, CatBee, BoogiBot, or even CandyCat, it had to be Huggy Wuggy. Wait, probably not the same Huggy that he met awhile earlier, the ones he's going to meet must be different from him.
Wait, ones, as in not only a singular one. Which means there isn't going to just be one Huggy to deal with, but multiple Huggies! How great!
But he is not going to accomplish anything from simply standing idly and wishing he was never born. He has to get going. Though he wonders, as he passes through the halls leading to the next game, if the vents this time are going to be big enough for him to run through.
He was honestly hoping that the way there would take a little longer, just like he did when he made his way to Musical Memory. But it seemed that this time it seemed providence had a different idea, for the way ahead is clear and leads directly to it. He wished that Mommy would have done something by now to make his way forward harder, but she must be too eager this time to allow her new playmate any chance to take a breather.
Upon entering the room he notices that all around him are many considerably sized holes about big enough for him to crawl through. There is also an aesthetic theme to this particular game, a construction site. The murals painted all around the large hexagonal room display paintings of many Huggies with hard hats on, hard at work on the many pipes depicted in the mural. To add to this, even the floor to which he is standing on is filled with course sand, though now it is cluttered with pieces of litter everywhere.
The shutter door behind him then closes, trapping him. Just like before there is no going back now. The TV monitor hanging on one of the nearby walls then comes to life, and like before, the instructor explains the rules of the game.
"Welcome to Whack-a-Wuggy!" The instructor stated. "This advanced test is designed to assess your reactionary abilities. A duel palmed Grabpack will be provided to you for this test. All around you are eighteen size-able holes, an adorable Huggy Wuggy doll could appear in any one of these holes. If you see one, simply fire one of your Grabpack hands and push it back."
So really it is just a giant version of the game of whack-a-mole. Just now with living killer dolls that want nothing more than to eat his eyeballs. Gabe felt like he can do it, shouldn't be too hard. Just then Mommy then appears, again in the game's control room.
"The toys of this game used to have strings attached to them." Mommy said in her usual whimsical tone. "So they can be pulled back if they got to close to the kids."
Oh, Gabe doesn't like where this is going.
"Hmm, have fun."
The brighter lights then turned off, leaving the dimmer fluorescents alight. All was quiet at first, an eerie silence reigning in the humans ears. Till then he hears something. From behind the walls a skittering noise is heard echoing within the dark depths of the pipes, like a dozen legs all simultaneously running along in all directions.
Fear gripped his chest, he frantically looks around for the source of the skittering. Each hole a possible entryway for whatever how many of these Huggy monsters can come through. Sure enough he then spots it, that oh so familiar face of Huggy Wuggy poking their head out, the dim pale light silhouetting against the darkness within. Gabe didn't hesitate to fire the Grabhand at the creature, it squealed painfully as the hand bashed against their face, sending it back into the pipe.
But this one wasn't alone. Yet more faces appeared. Each one popping in from random directions all around him. Gabe made short work slapping them away, but this was just the beginning. He kept his head on a swivel, periodically turning all around and glancing at each and every hole, the holes with a Huggy peeking their way through he slapped away, as for the ones that are empty, he didn't bother wasting a split second double checking.
And each time he slapped one away they made a rather pitiful shriek, like a whimpering animal being beaten to submission. It honestly hurt Gabriel to hear them. But he pushed it aside as he continued playing the game.
As the game carried on, the Mini-Huggies started to appear in faster frequency. First by twos, then by threes, by fours, and soon enough there are around six of them appearing in rapid succession in so many random directions. It got to the point where Gabe was starting to feel dizzy from all the spinning he has to endure. But he still carried on, he just kept slapping away.
But that twinge of guilt just won't go away, every single time he hears them pathetically whimpered away it always reappears. A conviction rises in his gut, an itch that just won't be satisfied by wishful thinking alone. He then notices how they were behaving. At first they weren't too hesitant to peek out of their hideouts, but now they are just racing to get out and attack him. They seemed frantic, reckless, desperate.
What for, to just simply kill him? If they wanted to they could have just charged out all at once and pummel him to death, but they don't. They could just be cowardly, but if that were the case then why won't they bother to come out. Gabe deduces that there is something else to their reluctance to attack him head on. Like being put between a rock and a hard place.
Perhaps there is a way to satisfy this itch of conviction.
To much of Mommy's surprise, Gabe suddenly stops firing his Grabhands. He then focuses on the Huggy that is peeping out from one of the lowest pipes. He walks over towards them, the Huggy from the inside hissed at him and backs away a bit deeper in the pipe. Gabe gazes at the toy, making sure his composure and expression is soft towards them.
"Hey little guy." Gabe said, taking note of how skittish the creature is. Then mustering up the courage, he does something no one expects. "You look like you need this."
Gabe then hastily reaches inside the pipe and snatches up the Huggy within it. The toy screams violently as he is pulled close to the human's chest, with his arms wrapping around his whole form. The toy flailed his arms all over, sometimes even harshly hitting the human, leaving bruises all over him. But Gabe held on, not giving the toy the luxury to budge an inch. The miniature Huggy then realizes what the human is doing. He is giving him something that he was designed to do since creation but yet hasn't been able to do so for such an agonizingly long time.
A hug.
The Huggy soon stopped squirming, to which Gabe lessens his grip on the toy. And sure enough, the creature slowly but surely, wraps his arms back around the human. Completing their embrace. Gabe then starts to gently rock the toy around, like a kid being carried by a parent. He then turns himself around and discovers that Mommy wasn't the only spectator. All the other Huggies, about five in total, were standing nearby watching it all happen.
"Uh, hey there?" Gabe said sheepishly. One Huggy maybe one thing, but all six of them is a different story. They all stared at him, though their expressions are the same, he can tell they are curious yet weary of him. Suddenly, as if on cue, they all came rushing in and jumped on him. They aren't attacking however, they all jumped on and began to cling to the human in any way possible. Latching on to his arms, legs, torso, and one even leaped onto his head and wrapped her arms around his forehead.
Mommy couldn't believe what is happening. Then again neither did Gabe, he could only help but laugh as each of the Huggy toys tightened their grip on him forcing him to walk like he were on stilts. With all of the Huggies on him, Gabe can now take a closer look at them. There are six Mini-Huggies in total, and each of them a different color of the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
Then as one of the Huggies looked up at him he smiled at them. And then to his shock when they smiled back, he discovered that these Huggies have no teeth. There wasn't even one fang-like tooth to be found, just little indented stumps in the gums where the teeth should be.
"You-" Mommy said aloud as the sound system chimed, signaling the game's end. "-cheater, cheater, cheater! This was not how you play the game! You didn't win! Cheater, CHEATER!!"
"It's not cheating!" Gabe cried back. "This is just, just a, uh,..mutual agreement?" No, that is not a good answer. "A tie, yes YES! This is a tie! Nobody wins, nobody loses, but we all get to walk away!"
"But that's not,..you..!" Mommy tried her best to figure out an answer, a rebuttal to make the game forfeit. But the longer she tried the more scatterbrained her mind becomes. Exasperated, she sighs, accepting the tie.
"Fine, you did it." She said darkly before returning to her usual peppy tone. "Hooray! Mommy is soooo proud of you!" She said dragging out about how proud she is in him for making the tie. "But we are still held up in our agreement. You complete my games, and your prize is the train code. There is still one more game left to play. Mommy was hoping that we could stay playing like this forever! But it's never too late to change your mind."
She was just about to slip back out of sight, but Gabe called out to her. "Wait actually!"
"Hmm?"
"Actually, I could stay here longer." Gabe said while petting one of the Mini-Huggie's heads. "What I mean is that we could just, you know, talk."
"Talk?" Mommy was now confused. "About what?"
Good, she's actually being reasonable this time. Now if he just says the right words he could get to her and find his answers. "Well you see, I didn't come here just for sightseeing. You see, got this letter awhiles ago telling me that my friends that I worked with are still here." He explained politely. "But as I can see, there's nobody here but us. So I was thinking, maybe we can all just sit down, and you can tell me what happened here."
Mommy paused for a moment, processing what she has just heard. "What,..happened?"
Gabe was now starting to feel even more nervous. He worried that maybe he said something the wrong way. "You don't have to tell me yet!" He quickly sputtered out. "But maybe if…wait yeah! It can be part of the grand prize! Yes yes! I'll still play your games even then!"
"You don't,..know?" She said, slowly.
Gabe pauses for a second before continuing. Certainly laced within each word. "Yeah, I don't know. I was just an assembly worker, I used to have friends here. That's why I'm here. At first I wanted to know what happened to them, but now there are living toys running around and these tapes and notes that talked about, experiments and all sorts of crazy things."
At the mention of experiments Mommy tensed up. Just who does he think he is to ask her? Like he really doesn't know the tortures he's committed, the pain he'd caused!?
He then gently asked again. "So please, can you tell me what happened?"
"STOP LYING TO ME!!!"
She screamed as she smashed her fist against the glass with a resounding crack. Gabe fell to the sand floor shocked, and even the Mini-Huggies all jumped off of him and fled to the pipes screeching and wailing, trying to put distance between themselves and Mommy. Mommy then relaxed he composure, letting her fist slide down from the enormous crack she left on the glass surface.
"The last game to be played is Statues." She bluntly said. "Don't be late." She then slowly retreats back to the darkness, leaving the human alone in the room.
Gabe laid there flabbergasted, the way she so violently reacted to his proposal. It wasn't like he was rude to her. Was he? In fact what is with everyone here? Everyone he has met so far, besides Poppy, has tried to kill him at first sight and when he shows mercy to them they flee like their life depends on it.
But now's not the time to ponder on these things, maybe once he completes the games and frees Poppy he'll finally have his answers.
Picking himself back up and dusting himself off, he then sees that the door to the way out is still shut fast. And it seems that the Mini-Huggies have fled even farther away, he won't be getting any help from them. He's going have to find his way back to the Game Station a different way. Just then a shutter on the lower part of the chamber opens, that must be the only way forward.
Upon entering it, he comes across nothing special in particular, just random halls where the only thing interesting that might have happened is just routine maintenance inspections. That and yet more sightings of toys torn to bloody shreds. His heart sank as he laid eyes on a random Catbee toy, its head ripped from its socket, while the body was just lying against the wall covered in dried blood. Poppy said that there are many other toys like her, alive and breathing. Are all these toys are really actually corpses? He didn't want to even think on how these toys died, if they were alive to begin with.
Trudging on, Gabe then heard something, it was familiar. A loud crash was heard and it confirmed his suspicions. Mommy is yet again having a tantrum. He can't tell how far or close he is, but any direction away from the ruckus is good enough for him.
He can only wonder what is going through her mind...
<<<<<<<<<<~>>>>>>>>>>
Curse him, curse him, CURSE HIM!!" Mommy screamed inside her mind as she tore apart a once alive Candycat toy with her bare hands. "Who does he think he is!?"
In one particular room inside the factory is Mommy Long Legs living quarters. It was once a cell, complete with iron bars that were electrocuted to keep her inside. "Conditioning" is what Mommy recalls the term those disgusting men in white suits call this prison. But now that she is free, it is her living space, her lair, her spider's den.
The room is kept dark with her webs strung everywhere, in messy clusters or in sophisticated patterns. Creating webbing is one of the abilities the lab coats gave to her, though unnecessary in her former job as the children's guide around the Game Station, they gave her this power to merely emphasize her spider-like nature. How thoughtful of them.
Within these webs are many remains of the toy experiments, when their initial food supply ran out, they had to resort to eating one another. A food chain was formed, and there was no one higher in the chain than the Bigger Bodies, like herself, and that blue freak near the front lobby, and of course that feline slave that patrols Playcare.
These corpses, stripped of all flesh leaving only husks, now serve one purpose for Mommy. Stress relief.
She then snatches a toy Bron hanging above her and starts gnawing on the head, imagining the plastic crunching under her teeth as Gabriel's skull shattering to bloody pieces. "How dare he ask me what happened here!" She yells to herself. "Like he has no idea what he did. This torture, this hell that he and those wretched apes put us through!"
She then went for the toy husk's legs, biting down through the cotton and crushing past the bone. Seeing how Gabriel will bleed as she snaps his arms apart. "And all those things he did with the toys! How he just "befriends" them like he has something to offer them! What does he have to give them? A few nice words and a warm hug? Useless useless useless useless USELESS!! And they FALL for it!"
She then finishes the husk by crushing the plastic shell to a dozen fragments, letting the pieces fall between her fingers. "They sicken me, idiots Idiots, ALL OF THEM!"
There were so many dark thoughts spinning in her head it was dizzying to imagine, almost painfully as a headache begins to pulse in her brain. "Like that human thinks he can just win everyone over by just simply being nice! So what he was willing to let Bunzo beat him till he was left a dizzying mess?! Who should care if he'd let that Mini-hug pummel him…even, though he was still hugging him?"
Her voice then begins to trail off to a more calmer tone. "And why should I care if, if he just wanted to talk to me,..even though he knew I, I only wanted to hurt him. And yet. He's still nice to me."
She then sat there, motionless, the dark thoughts surrounding her head beginning to dissipate. A pause. But the aching feeling of that headache didn't go away yet. It reminded her of how the lab scientists administered electric shock therapy as a form of their disgusting conditioning. How the staff would beat her senseless just as a means of enjoyment. How they enjoyed watching her beg, bleed. Suffer.
"Lies." She hissed. "Yesss, lies, all of it lies. He doesn't really want to help us, he doesn't care about us. It is all a ruse, a filthy lie."
She then took what was the skull of a Catbee and grasped it between her hands, letting her fingers elongate and wrap all around it. "And he will pay for it. He will pay for all that he ever did to us. He will suffer for even daring to think he could convince us otherwise. There is still one last game he has to complete, and this time, I will make sure that he loses. And when he does…hmhmh HAHAHA!"
She then watches with glee as the skull is obliterated in her grasp. A wide grin plastering her face.
"I'm going to enjoy watching him die."
<<<<<<<<<<~>>>>>>>>>>
Gabe felt a bit lost, but thankfully all that ruckus from Mommy had long faded away. Good news considering she might have calmed down by now. Hopefully. But now to the present, he really has no idea where he's going. All the pathways and corridors have blended together into an amassed maze of mundane ruins.
He still doesn't understand why Mommy and the other toys would be out after him. Sure they must be hungry like Bunzo, but those Mini-Huggies must have been forced into it, and Mommy seems to genuinely hate him. Why? What did he do to her or any of them?
As he ponders these thoughts the scenery suddenly changes. From mundane pipes and maintenance shafts into a bright yellow hallway, there is also a system of track rails that run along the floor. Interesting, he wonders what this room was used for, but he believes that this could be a way to get him back to the Game Station.
He follows the rails till he reaches what seems to be the way out, but it is blocked by wooden planks. He doesn't have anything on him that can help break through, there must be something around here that can help. Gabe then notices that there is only one hallway open to him, but yet halfway in it is closed of by a grated steel door. Looking through the grating he finds a lever, which must be what opens this door. The problem is is that he can't reach it, and his Grabpack hands are too big to fit through the grating.
Gabe felt a little defeated, but there has to be a way to get through.
Just then a door at the very other end of the hall opens, and a dark, familiar silhouette reveals itself as the door is rolled open. Then once it's full figure is revealed, Gabe's heart dropped like a rock in the sea. His breath stifled in his throat as the monster began lumbering towards him. He knows it well by now, the lanky arms and legs with that big triangular head. It's Huggy Wuggy, and he's back for him.
Though there is a grated door in the way he doubts it will hold against Huggy's raw strength. Gabe prepares to run at a second's notice, and this time he isn't going to waste a single breath trying to reason with him.
The shadowy figure of Huggy walked closer, and closer, and closer until...It's not Huggy.
Huggy isn't pink.
In fact this one looks like,..wait, is this Huggy's other half?
"Kissy Missy?" He said astonished as the pink creature made herself known in the light.
She held many of the same features as her counterpart, Huggy. But her different coloration and girly eyelashes give her a subtle contrast to the more boyish Huggy.
The two seemed to be locked in a staring contest between each side of the grating. But while Gabe's was obviously one of terror, Kissy is just looking down at him curiously. Her mouth ain't even open to reveal her sharp fangs, there was not a glimmer or hint of hostility behind those big, dark eyes. Kissy tilts her head looking at him, and then notices the lever beside her. She glances at Gabriel and then back to the lever. The dots between them clicked inside Kissy's head, she knew what to do.
Kissy then raises a paw onto the lever, at first the paw would land on it but then limply fall off, but once she got a grip of it she then was able to pull it down. The door then slowly start to raise, much to Gabe's terror. He knew that once the door is raised that she will go after him. But just as he was about to begin the run of his life he was utterly shocked by what happened next, Kissy started to turn around and walk away.
"What?" Gabe muttered under his breath, astonished. Kissy then took one glance back to Gabe before then turning fully away walking further away into the halls. Gabe was flabbergasted, and yet he didn't want her to go just yet. But the grated door was opening too slow. "Wait hold on. Stop right there! Just wait for me!"
But Kissy didn't listen, she kept walking away until she disappears around the corner. "Wait wait wait! Hold on just one second!" He then crouches down and tries to squeeze himself through the gap that is already open, but he can't just yet, the Grabpack was getting in the way. Then finally with one hard push he manages to squeeze through. He never thought there would come a moment when he would be the one chasing a monster instead of running from one.
"Hold on! I just want to know!" Gabe calls out to her, but when he turns around the corner, Kissy is no where in sight. Gabe felt utterly beaten, why is it so hard just to have someone talk to him? "I just, just,..I just want to know what happened to my friends."
With Kissy gone, he is back to being alone again. He just doesn't understand it, why can't anybody just tell him? He came here for answers, yet the entire time he's been here there have nothing but questions upon questions upon questions. It all just angers him to the point he just wants to scream, it's just so simple! He finds out, he leaves! That's it! So why the hell can't anybody just for once, just once, say something to him!?!
Realizing how his fury is fiercely rising, he takes steady, deep breaths. "Ok I'm cool, I'm cool. Patience is a virtue, it's a spirit fruit. Just be patient and it all comes eventually. If I don't die that is."
With that out of the way, at least he can now continue forward and find a way out. Though he wished Kissy would have at least stayed long enough so he can thank her. But he eventually finds a cart that is just sitting on the rails, then after a sequence of powering up a few switches thanks to his green Grabhand, he manages to pull the rail cart all the way to where he needed it to be. He let the cart roll down hill and smashed its way through the wooden barrier. Then after passing through yet more hallways and paths, he eventually makes it back to the Game Station.
There is now only one game left. Steeling himself he then pulls the final lever of control panel. The voice of Stella once again playing in the intercom.
"Wow! Have you played these games before? Because you sure are one special kid! There is only one game left to play, Statues! Follow Mommy Long Legs one last time where the final game awaits you. Thank you so much for visiting the Game Station!"
And with that, Gabe ventures under the station, and then down the stairs. To his final challenge.