Henry slowly opened his eyes, his vision still blurry and his hearing almost muted. A high pitched tone was ringing in his ears. The feminine man noticed his prisoner making slight movements, signalling that his captive was awake. As the animator's senses sharpened, he noticed he wasn't able to move as something was wrapped around his body; it was a rope.

"Had a nice dream?"

Henry flinched at the sudden sound of the voice. That voice, he had heard it before—but where? Even as he was tied up like a caterpillar, the animator succeeded in rolling on his left side so he was able to face his kidnapper. One glance was all Henry needed to remember where he had seen this man, the same man who had jabbed a knife into Bendy's chest, the same man who had tried to take his son away from him.

A whirlwind of hate, disgust, but also a hint a fear, went through Henry as he gritted his teeth and gave his captor a piercing raging stare. "YOU!"

The feminine man sighed. "I have a name, you know. It's Isaac."

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR GOD DAMN NAME IS, YOU CAN BE CALLED 'PIECE OF SHIT' FOR ALL I CARE!" Henry growled.

It was silent for a minute. Without saying a word, Isaac left his makeshift bed and slowly walked up to the animator. With no warning whatsoever, he kicked Henry in his stomach to a point where the man coughing up blood, a trickle running from the corner of his mouth down his chin, until a large drop fell to the wooden floor between the smaller splashes of blood from the cough.

Isaac crouched in front of his prisoner and grabbed Henry's chin, making him look into his eyes. "DON'T EVER INSULT THE LORD AGAIN!"

Henry spat the collected blood in his mouth into Isaac's face. Isaac jumped up, quickly wiping away the blood. "Right, it seems you need a minute to cool down. Allow me to assist you."

There was what appeared to be an old bathtub, neatly placed against the wall opposite of the door. Isaac had found it outside in the meadow—he guessed the former owner of the shed had used it as a drinking trough for his animals. Before he had gone to get his prisoner, he had dragged the tub all by himself into the shed, which was quite difficult since the tub was filled with fresh rainwater. But it seemed the water was coming to good use.

The feminine man dragged Henry across the hard wooden floor by the collar of his shirt, towards the tub. Then he lifted the animator and placed his chest on the edge of the bathtub, and pushed Henry's head underwater. The animator, who wasn't prepared for this action, quickly lost his breath but wasn't able to do anything about it since he was still tied up. A burning sensation came creeping into Henry's chest and he started to become lightheaded.

Two minutes had passed before Henry felt a yank on his shirt, bringing his head above water, and his body was thrown on the floor like a ragdoll. The animator took in huge gasps of air between coughing up the water that had managed to enter his windpipe. His chest and throat felt like they were on fire.

He was breathing heavy as Isaac asked, "And? Were you able to cool down?"

Out of fear of his captor's harsh punishments, Henry just nodded.

"Good. I want you to know one thing, mister Stein; I am not your enemy. You are just lost, a poor misguided traveler who didn't see the light and lost his way. No worries though, I'll help you back on the path and see the light."

The animator didn't say a word, but God, this man reminded him of Sammy Lawrence. What was it with these people and their cults? Did they get a trophy for creating one? It didn't matter at this point. All Henry knew was that he'd found himself in some deep shit.

***meanwhile at Henry's house***

The toons and Tina covered their ears as Rudy desperately tried to shut of the alarm; it had been going off for half an hour now and people were starting to get annoyed, but Rudy wasn't able to find the right code.

Having enough of the ruckus, Bendy suddenly ran to Rudy's side. "Here, allow me to shut it off for you."

Rudy looked at him with doubt written on his face. "Wait... You know the new codes that Henry has installed while we were gone?"

"Codes, shmodes! I don't need a stinking code." Rudy didn't understand what he meant, when all of a sudden Bendy reached his right hand behind his back. When the devil's hand appeared again, he was holding a giant wooden hammer.

The cop stood agape. "H-how…where...?"

Rudy did not get a chance to finish his question as a loud bang echoed through the room. It was silent. The alarm finally stopped and nobody dared to make a sound as they had no idea what the hell was going on.

"BENDY STEIN! WHAT DID YOU DO?" Alice suddenly yelled.

Bendy sighed as he gave Alice an annoyed look. "What? I got the alarm to stop, didn't I?"

Boris shook his head in disappointment and tapped his foot impatiently on the floor, pointing at the wall where the codepad for the alarm had been. Bendy turned around to see not only the codepad smashed to bits on the floor, but also a giant hole in the wall where the device used to be.

Realisation smacked the little devil in the face. He turned to face Alice and Boris with a sheepish grin. "You, um...you think Dad will notice?"

The angel and the wolf simultaneously facepalmed.

"Well duh, look at the wall Bendy! it looks just like swiss cheese with cracks in it. You have to be pretty much blind to miss that," Alice said as she exaggeratedly pointed at the wall.

Bendy flinched at the outburst, both face and body drooping. "I'll…I'll fix it."

The demon flinched a second time as he felt a hand on his shoulder; it was Rudy's.

"And I'll help you with that, but for now we need to find Henry first."

Without any warning, the group became tense as they heard someone coming into the house.

"Whoa, whoa, easy, it's just me," a familiar voice said; it was none other than the chief officer.

Rudy was perplexed. "Ch-chief? What are you doing here?"

"I should ask you the same thing, you know. Shouldn't you be investigating those store burglaries by now? I mean, I know I gave you permission to take Henry's toons to the hospital, but I'm pretty sure filling a bag of blood—sorry, ink—doesn't take THAT long. Besides, we got a few calls about a noise disturbance. Something about an alarm going off? So, I came to see what was going on myself."

"I-I know chief, but we have some big trouble—Henry seems to have disappeared on us. When we came back from the hospital, the front door was ajar, and it's not like Henry to be so careless as to leave his front door open, especially not now. When I went to go inside to investigate the alarm went off, but since Henry updated the alarm I didn't knew the code to deactivate it."

"Well, that answers why you're still here and the calls about the alarm then. Seems you were finally able to shut it off though. Nice job Rudy, I didn't see you as a hacker."

Rudy glanced at Bendy with a nervous chuckle; it seemed the chief officer hadn't noticed the cracked hole in the wall.

The chief continued. "Okay so… it's safe to assume something happened to that maniac friend of yours. I mean, this just can't be a coincidence—first that psychopath escapes prison and now their creator disappeared. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out."

"True, but there's still something bugging me."

"And what would that be?"

Rudy stared at Bendy to the point where it made the demon feel uncomfortable. He pointed at him as he said, "I thought that guy was out to destroy him. What in the hell does he need Henry for?"

"Hmm, you've got a point." The chief contemplated while rubbing his chin; "Now that you mention it, back when we were in the church it seemed that Henry put up quite the fight with the cult members—by the time we were there they were all out cold except for the leader. It's possible that he sees Henry as a threat. Maybe he wants to deal with Henry first before he takes care of the little devil?"

The toons stared at the police chief in shock.

"So…so…our dad is gone because of me?" Bendy asked with a somber tone, his lower lip trembling.

The chief officer realised that he should not have said his thoughts out loud where the toons could hear him. "Relax, this guy is a 'follower of God', right? Meaning he's definitely not going to kill him, since that would be considered a terrible sin."

Bendy was overflowing with guilt. He didn't dare to look at Alice and Boris. Why was it that every time something bad happened, it was because of him? Why was he always causing so much pain and trouble for his family? Maybe that man who had tried to kill him was right, maybe he did deserve to die. The cartoon demon didn't realise that he was clenching his hands into fists and that his entire body was shaking. Not because he was scared—this time it was out of frustration.

Alice and Boris looked each other in the eyes. They were sharing the same thought; they knew Bendy was blaming himself. It was true that Bendy got them in trouble once in a while, but it wasn't like the demon was evil or anything. Sure, Bendy broke stuff and sometimes even hurt them, but he always meant well—they were just accidents or little bit of mischief.

The devil had his good sides too; he was always helped them when they were in trouble, and he would help them with their problems; the angel and wolf didn't blame him one bit for what happened to Henry and they weren't angry, they just wished the little demon would stop blaming himself for everything.

Alice sighed. She slowly walked to the still shaking demon and placed her hand on his cheek, gently turning Bendy's face to look at her. "It's not your fault you know…"

"B-but that man was after me… and because of that he…"

"Look, Bendy, that man shouldn't be after you in the first place. You're a demon, yes we know, but you didn't do anything wrong—well, at least nothing too serious. Nobody is perfect, everybody has done at least one thing bad in their life, but that doesn't mean they are evil. A man who wants to destroy a living being just because he looks different, that is evil. Taking a man from his family against his will is evil. But you? A mosquito is more evil than you."

Bendy chuckled.

"No, I'm serious, they keep you awake at night, buzzing around your head, sucking your blood, and when you try to find them they disappear. It's like they're taunting you…PURE EVIL!"

Alice was surprised as Bendy suddenly grabbed her in a hug. "Thanks sis, I needed that."

The angel returned the hug as Bendy noticed Boris staring at them with a soft smile. Bendy had his typical grin back as he gestured to the wolf to come over. "Come on bro, you too. Let's hug it out." Boris smiled as he came over, and Alice and Bendy drew him into the hug.

When they broke the hug, the angel and wolf stared at the little devil with a grin. Bendy was confused. "What?"

"So… you're calling us sis and bro now, huh? I guess Dad was right, maybe we are starting to behave like siblings. I must admit, it has a nice ring to it."

The little demon blushed—he hadn't really been thinking when he'd called Alice 'sis' and Boris 'bro', but if they didn't mind being called like that, then Bendy didn't either.

Alice had noticed Tina staring at her for a while now. "Is something wrong, sweetie?"

"You have blood? I thought you guys were made out of ink."

The cartoon angel was dumbfounded by the remark of the little girl. "Y-yes, we are, we don't have blood, we have ink. You've seen Bendy donate some to Dr. Johnson, right?"

"Then how do you know about mosquitoes? If you're made out of ink, they shouldn't be bothering you."

The toons chuckled as Alice replied, "Oh, is that it? Don't worry about it, they don't bother us, but our dad keeps complaining about it. That's how we know about them. I was just using them as an example to cheer up Bendy over here."

Tina started to blush. "Oh, yeah, that makes more sense… Sorry."

The cartoon angel just winked at her.

The chief officer interrupted the conversation. "Sorry to interrupt your tea party, but I believe we still have a missing animator. So, here's what we're going to do: Rudy, you are going to investigate the store burglaries. Chances are they were done by the same guy who kidnapped your friend, so we might find clues over there."

"What about us?" Bendy asked.

The chief officer stared at the cartoon trio. "What about you guys? I'm not gonna let civilians help with the investigation. You'll only end up slowing us down—besides, you're also a target for the suspect, remember? If we let you help us with the investigation, that would be the same thing as offering you to the suspect on a silver platter. No, you three stay over here, under police protection. I already sent for someone to come over."

The three toons stared at the chief with piercing glares, their arms crossed in front of their chests. It made the chief officer feel uneasy.

"You can't do that to us! That's our dad you're talking about!" Bendy yelled. Boris and Alice nodded in agreement with the little devil.

"Yes I can, I'm the CHIEF officer. What I say goes, and if I say the three of you are gonna stay here under police protection, you are going to stay here under police protection, even if I need to lock the three of you inside the house."

The trio stared at each other with mischievous grins on their faces. The chief officer didn't like it. "What are you three smiling about?"

The toons looked at the officer as Bendy replied, "You can try locking us up, but you forget one thing."

"What?"

"I'm the ink demon." And with that, inky black veins started to come from underneath the cartoon devil's feet. The veins crawled over the floor, walls, and even the ceiling.

Bendy made his way towards the wall, Alice and Boris following him. The three humans stared in awe, unable to believe their eyes. As Bendy neared the wall, the inky veins started to form a circular shape, creating some sort of inky portal. The cartoon angel and wolf walked into the portal as the cartoon demon turned to the human trio. He grinned at the chief officer amd waved. "Bye-bye." Finally he walked through the portal as well, leaving the three humans flabbergasted.

The chief officer soon came to his senses. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! Did you know he could do that?"

Rudy held up his hands defensively. "Don't look at me chief, I didn't know he could do that. It's not the first time he's made my jaw drop today. It seems the little guy is full of surprises."

"Yeah, well, they behave just like that maniac friend of yours."

"Well yeah, Henry is their dad after all."

The three toons found themselves in the driveway.

"So, now what?" Alice asked.

"I don't know, I got us out of there, I don't need to do everything, do I?" The little devil said.

Boris suddenly tapped on their shoulders. The angel and demon looked at him; he was pointing at Henry's car parked in the driveway.

Alice was pessimistic. "I don't know Boris, I certainly can't drive."

"Well, I wouldn't mind driving, but my legs are too short, remember?" Bendy continued.

All of sudden the front door flew open, it was the chief officer; "THERE YOU ARE, GET BACK OVER HERE!"

The three toons ran to the vehicle as Bendy said, "Right, car it is!"

Boris was the one behind the wheel since his legs were long enough to reach the pedals, while Bendy sat in the passenger seat and Alice in the back seat. The little demon created a copy of the car key out of ink and plugged it into its slot. The motor roared to life.

The chief started running towards them as Bendy demanded, "What are you waiting for, a start signal? Drive dammit, GO, GO, GO!"

Boris put the pedal to the metal and the car rushed down the driveway. As they were speeding down the street, Alice looked through the back window and saw the chief giving up the chase, throwing his police cap on the ground out of frustration. Rudy and Tina were standing next to him, waving the toons goodbye.

The car disappeared around the corner of the street. Tina lowered her arm and whispered, "Good luck."

As the toons drove through the streets of the village, Bendy thought out loud, "Okay, NOW we've escaped, but the question is, where would Henry be?"

"What about that church where the cult held you captive?" Alice suggested.

"Hmm... I'm pretty sure the police would have checked that place by now—but what the heck, maybe we can find something the police couldn't. I mean, we need to start somewhere. Okay Boris, you heard the lady, let's go to the church."

Boris scratched the back of his head with a doubtful look on his face.

"What is it pally?"

The wolf shrugged his shoulders, making clear he didn't know where the church was.

"Bendy, maybe you should guide the way," Alice suggested. "We haven't been to that church before, we don't know where it is."

The little devil sighed. "In that case, we have a problem. I don't know where it is either."

"But…but you were there."

"Yes, but those creeps anaesthetized me when they brought me to the church, and by the time Henry had gotten me out I had already lost a lot of ink. I was barely conscious."

"Oh, okay then. So what are we going to do?"

"Not much we can do. I suggest that we keep driving until we find the church. I mean, this is just a village, so it shouldn't be that far."

The toons drove for almost an hour, until the Alice saw what appeared to be a church tower peeking over the housetops.

"THERE, THE CHURCH TOWER!" she yelled as she pointed at the building.

"Figures, the angel is the one who finds the house of God," the little devil teased.

Boris chuckled as he drove the car towards the church. As they were pulling onto the parking lot of the building, the car started to rattle until the vehicle came to a halt.

"Not to be a backseat driver Boris, but I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to park here," Bendy informed the wolf.

Boris pointed at the dashboard and the angel and demon looked at what he was pointing to.

Bendy let himself fall into his seat as he murmured, "Great, out of gas. Dang it Henry, you were suppose to refuel the car a few days ago. Now how are we suppose to find you?"

"Hey, don't worry, we'll find him," Alice tried. "I guess we'll need to go by foot, though."

"Yeah, we don't really have a choice, do we? At least the car made it to the church."

The trio got out of the vehicle and walked toward the building. Alice and Boris went through the big wooden double doors, but Bendy froze in front of it. The wolf and angel noticed and turned to face him. Bendy's eyes were wide, his body shaking slightly, and he was breathing too fast. Boris walked up to him and gently rubbed Bendy's back in an attempt to calm him down.

Bendy looked at the cartoon wolf, with a soft smile. "Th-thanks bro, I'm fine though. Let's go inside."

"You sure Bendy? You can wait outside if you don't want to go in there, we understand."

The little demon shook his head. "I'm gonna help find the old coot, no matter what. Besides, I have a reputation to uphold, don't want people to start thinking that demons are afraid of going inside churches."

Alice rolled her eyes and made her way inside. Bendy gulped as he followed her while Boris stayed by his side.

The angel looked around, calling, "Hello? Anyone there?" There was no reply.

Just like before, the room was filled with the smell of incense. Organ music was playing in the background as sunlight brightened the stained glass windows with biblical images. It sent shivers down Bendy's spine, his tail was in between his legs just like a cowering dog, but things were even worse when the little devil laid eyes upon the altar. The same altar he'd been chained to and stabbed on.

It seemed someone had cleaned the ink that had stained it six months ago. There was no trace of the stabbing or the fight between the cult and Henry, but just seeing that altar again was more than the little devil could handle as the events from that day played in front of his eyes once more. Bendy stumbled back, letting himself fall to his knees. He put his hands to his head and started to rock back and forth, tears running down his face.

Alice saw this happen and ran to him. She placed her hands on the demon's shoulders as she tried to comfort him. "Shhh, it's okay Bendy. We're here, you're safe. Everything is just fine, see? There's no one here, just the three of us."

Bendy seemed to calm down. He didn't say a word, but stopped rocking and let his arms hang at his sides. He blinked a few times before he looked up into Alice's eyes.

Before anyone could react, they were startled by a voice. "What's all this ruckus about?"

It was the priest from the church—the toons recognised him from when he had apologised to Bendy, back when the little demon gotten home from the hospital. He was young for a priest, looking like he was around twenty five. He had short brown hair, green eyes with glasses, and was wearing a black suit with the typical white collar.

"Oh, it's you three, what a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting visitors but hey, everyone is welcome in the house of God." The priest smiled at the toons, but his expression turned to worry when he noticed Bendy sitting on the floor. "Is he okay? He looks like he saw a ghost or something."

Alice looked up at the priest as she explained, "We're sorry, we didn't mean to make so much noise, we didn't know someone was here. Our brother started panicking when he saw the altar."

The priest kept staring at Bendy. "He's the one who got stabbed here, isn't he?"

The angel and wolf nodded while Bendy remained unmoving. The priest sighed and slowly shook his head. "Poor thing, I'm so embarrassed for what they did to him—and in a church of all places."

Alice and Boris gave him a sympathetic smile. "It is not your fault, Mr. Priest."

"I know, but still, I wish I was here to help him. But what happened in the past is in the past. Now, however, I can offer him a helping hand." The priest slowly made his way toward the little devil and sat down in front of him. Bendy still didn't move. "Hello there my friend, it seems your mind is clouded by darkness, you're scared… There's nothing wrong with that, but I want you to know, there will always be a light to guide you."

Bendy was confused. What was this guy yapping on about?

The priest took Alice's hand and guided her towards Bendy's left side, then he did the same with Boris but to Bendy's right side, then he had the angel and wolf hug Bendy. At first Bendy didn't react, but the hugs felt nice. It made him feel warm inside, it made him feel loved. Again tears ran down his face, but something changed; they weren't tears of fear or sadness, they were tears of joy. The little demon smiled.

"See? You have two lights by your side. No need to be scared, they will be there the entire way. They will be your light, and you will be theirs."

Boris and Alice were surprised as Bendy lifted his arms and placed them around them, hugging them back. The three toons all smiled.

The priest smiled back at them. "Family is a wondrous thing. Take good care of each other."

The little devil looked at the priest. "Thanks, we will."

The priest nodded. It was silent for a moment before Bendy suddenly fell into a laughing fit. Boris, Alice, and the priest didn't understand.

The demon explained himself. "I'm sorry, I just didn't expect to get advice from a priest in a church."

The priest chuckled. "You can call me Charley, Charley Henderson. What else did you expect me to do?"

Bendy grinned. "Well, most of them would go like, THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!"

Now Charley was the one who started laughing. "Fair enough. The things is, I know you're a demon and all, but from the first time I laid eyes upon you, I could tell you were a good guy."

The little devil stared at him. "How come?"

"Let's be honest, you have special powers don't you? Being a demon and all."

"Yeah, so?"

"I'm pretty sure you would have been able to take those men from the cult out, but you didn't. Why?"

Bendy looked at the floor. Alice and Boris stared at him. "I-I don't know, it didn't feel right. I don't like hurting people."

"I rest my case." Charley smiled at him. He got to his feet and offered the demon his hand.

Bendy looked at him, smiled, and gratefully accepted the man's hand. Alice and Boris followed their example.

"So, tell me, what brings you to the house of God?" Charley asked. The question had been on his mind for a while now. He had said to the cartoons back when they had first met that they were always welcome in the church, but in the past six months he hadn't seen them once. Imagine his surprise seeing all three of them suddenly sitting on the church floor.

Bendy and Alice explained everything, from the escaped cult leader to the disappearance of Henry.

The priest was silent and listened attentively to what they had to say. When they finished, Charley sighed. "Jeesh, that certainly is a lot to take in. You're right though, the police have been here already. I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told them; I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. After the accident with our little friend over here, I decided to spend more time inside the church to make sure nothing like that would happen again. I've been here the entire time and I haven't seen that man once."

The toons were about to give up hope, before Charley added, "However, there's one thing I forgot to tell the police."

The toons where curious, Bendy's tail was swaying in anticipation. The priest walked into the sakrestine while the cartoons waited patiently for his return. Charlie came back with an object—but not just any object, oh no, the little devil recognised it instantly; it was a dagger, the same one the feminine man had used that day—it even still had the ink stains on it.

Charley showed the dagger to the toons. "I hope this will help. I found it when I was cleaning up the church six months ago—I don't know exactly what happened here, other than you being stabbed, but it certainly was a lot of work to clean it up. The chairs were scattered all over the floor, the carpet was stained with blood, and I'm not even gonna start on the condition of the altar."

The priest held the dagger out to the demon, but Bendy was hesitant. Charley realised Bendy may not be the best person to give the dagger to. There was an awkward silence, until Boris took the dagger instead of the little devil.

The priest cleared his throat. "Sorry about that, wasn't thinking things through."

Alice and Boris stared at the dagger; they knew the black substance on it was Bendy's ink, and they were afraid of how the demon would react, but to their surprise, Bendy just slowly shook his head as he replied, "Don't be. It will lead us to our old man. I'm the one who needs to apologize—our dad and I gave you all that cleaning work to do."

Charley grinned. "It's okay, don't worry about it. Like I said, what's in the past is in the past. But I am curious though, how's that dagger going to lead you to your father?"

The toons grinned, Alice and Bendy simultaneously looking at Boris while the little devil said, "We got it covered."

"I'm not sure I follow," the priest confessed.

"Boris here has the best nose in the world. He could track anything with it, doesn't matter how far. Unfortunately, he prefers to waste his amazing ability on tracking food."

"Amazing!"

Boris started to blush, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

The little demon looked at him with a non-existent eyebrow raised. "How about it Boris, you think you can handle it?"

The cartoon wolf nodded with a grin, confidence radiating from his body.