You've Missed Mouthy

New Toys

(BEN_Drowned's POV)

    After Jeff forced his body to stumble after the proxies, I turned to look at Jack. His mask hiding all emotions, yet I could feel curiosity spiral around his form. I smirked before dragging him behind me as I chased the others.     Watching Jeff hobble down the basement steps and yell for Masky, Jack and I realized this wasn't going to end well and began stalking silently after the smiling killer.     "I hear you, Lip-less. How about you show me that white face so I can torture you to my heart's content." Jeff's shrill voice calls out into the black hallway before him, his back facing the shadows we're hiding in. 'Damn, what has him so worked up? All of them are acting more abnormal than usual.' I send Jack a look, shrugging when he meets my gaze. He pulls a gloved hand near his ear, signaling for me to listen. Obeying, I hear... footsteps. Not just any footfalls, fast and intimidating ones. Following the running feet is a series of heavy and excited breathes. 'What the hell?' Jack slides past me to get a better look, standing under the arch.    "That's right, come to papa." Jeff hiss a few feet away from me, sounding less sane than the norm. He steps one foot at a time slowly inching towards the dark hallway before him, handling his knife with heavy intent to kill. Jack stares at the proxies who're pressing themselves against the wall. Toby too having a serious look of, 'get-the-hell-out-of-the-way.' I see Jack hunch his shoulders, before pulling back into the shadows. I try to figure out what has everyone on edge, trying so hard to see the secret memo I'm apparently blind to. And then..."...Shit!"    Jeff curses, failing to charge and suddenly dropping flat on the floor. I stumble off the balls of my feet, jumping back from Jeff's collapsed form. He struggles and thrashes at a figure pinning him, a bundle of stained white hoodies wrestling for the top. The other lifts their fists, whaling down punches with both hands.     "Kate!"' Masky shouts at them, trying to separate the two. Blood sprays off Jeff's leathery face as they're knuckles connect consistently. I can't tear my eyes away from the scene, enjoying every punch dealt. Jeff recovers enough to throw his foot into the figures gut and sends them flying against the far wall. I watch Toby and Hoody run towards them, pinning their arms against the wall. The white figure thrashes, growling heavily.     "She ain't happy to see you Jeff." Toby snickers lightly, earning a weird look from my red eyes. 'She? She!' I remember Jeff moaning about a she earlier when he first burst into the kitchen. Could this be who he was taking about? I try to imagine what Jeff had done to anger the girl, watching her throw her head from side to side and pull at her restraints.     "I'll kill you both, Twitch!" Jeff hisses, spitting blood onto the floor. "Wheres the other one?" He turns to Masky, pointing his knife at the girl. Masky stands still, his shoulders lightly lifting and lowering with his breath.    "I want all three of you to leave." I've never heard his voice sound so deep and serious. Toby and Hoody follow his gaze to where Jack and myself sit in silence. "This is proxy business, none of you can nor need to be here any longer: Jeff, Jack, Ben." I stand up, walking in the light. 'I'm caught might as well ask my question then leave... Who am I kidding, I'm not going to leave. I want to see this secret proxy business. It'll be a hundred times more interesting than sitting around this old place.' I hold my hands on my hips, smirking at the pale psycho's bloody lip.     "Nice eye Jeff, you look good in black and blue."    "I'll end you later, Elf." Jeff threatens me, aiming his knife at my hat. "When I'm done dealing with this bitch." Jeff uses the force from holding the knife to me to throw the blade towards the girl. With a swift movement she jerks her head to the side, giving the blade a clear path right into the wall. She gives a roar, lifting her feet to push off the wall and breaks free of the other proxies. Her jump sends her flying towards Jeff, slamming into him with full force and knocks him to the floor...again. Except this time he falls into me, causing her to crush us both. She leans in close, panting and growling like a wild animal only inches away from our faces.     "Kate!" Masky shouts at her again, she still doesn't listen as she pins us down. I can't tear my gaze away from her angry eyes, their murky grey irises staring hungrily at me as she pulls her fists up again.Fizz, wub, wub, wub...    Her arm stops as she tunes into the humming noise that suddenly kicked up, jumping away from us as the wubs begin to get closer. She steps away, allowing everyone's eyes to draw toward the sound. The black hallway splits like thick fog as another figure appears from the darkness, wearing a grey hoodie and hiding their identity with a white mask. The endless drone slips from under the lipless face, silencing the room as they enter.     "Mouthy..." Jeff growls as the white hooded figure walks to the other's side, exchanging glances between each other and smiling killer beside me.     "Who?" The question slips from my lips, laced with confusion. "Can we know the general idea of what going on here?"    "I'm tired of explaining it, so no-" Masky starts to deny me, but suddenly stops to flick his head back to the hallway.    "He's here..." The girl who tackled us speaks in a wispy hiss, growing anxious.     An incredibly heavy atmosphere hits us all at once, a feeling given off by the one and only Slenderman. And to be honest, it catches me off guard. Jack steps up next to Jeff and I as we stand, staring at the faceless man who had manifested himself without warning. Slender has under his bony hand the shoulder of a young adult, a man with eyes glazed and empty of emotion. Slender stares around the room, examining each of us. He looks to the figure in grey, reviving a nod from them. The figure runs to the young man's side, looping their arm under his shoulder to keep him from falling.     "Hoody, follow Mouthy." Slender's deep and echoing voice sends the grey and yellow hooded figures down the black hall, each under an arm of the young man. "Jeffery, Ben, Jack; what am I going to do with you now?" The man walks towards us, lifting his hand to his chin to rub it in thought. A ringing burns into our skulls as he grows angry, causing Jeff to shout.    "You said you don't have any reasons to hide anything from us!" The pale boy's uproar brings silence to the room, earning him a growl from the hooded girl. "You're going to train another proxy, then you're going to send new-guy and Toby to guard one of your other areas, right?" Jeff begins to speak nonsense, confusing me to the core, but brings the opposite to the blue mask beside me. An intrigued Jack silently waits for his questions to be answered, but I can't keep my mouth shut.    "Another proxy? What do you need another one for?" I blurt out, earning annoyed glares from everyone. "Nevermind, if it's important I'll find out..." I mutter the words under my breath while hearing Jack adjust his mask as if it was a pair of glasses, thoughtfully analyzing the rest of us. Before giving a light chuckle.     "I'll take it that Jeff's been told the truth, but what I can't figure out is why you've located the female proxies away from the Mansion. Why have unused locations, guarded?" Jack intelligently connects the dots before him, asking a question I did not expect. 'Wait! The other figure is female too? How'd he figure that one out? And what do they mean by multiple locations?'  I give a confused sigh. 'Too bad I can't search for the answers on the internet.'     Slender nods lightly at Jack.    "...Call it strategy." The faceless man stands straight and dignified while saying the words, causing the masked cannibal to fold his arms in thought. Jack takes the answer as it is, relaxing into the wall.     "Yea, I was told most of it. But you left me hanging at the best part." Jeff answers to the room, almost as if he was muttering to himself. "Why not throw the kid into the fire and let him train with the whole mansion? That'd give him a... monstrous advantage, right Ben?" He casts me an evil glance, full of devious intentions that he wants me to join in on. My face lights up before darkening with a smirk, causing my to lower my chin and raise my brow.    "Yea Jeff, I think we could teach him a thing or two. Don't you think so too, Jack?" Jeff and I give psychotically curious grins that this doctor couldn't resist. Yet he only nods once after sighing lightly, keeping his professional demeanor.    "It doesn't work that way Jeff, we have-" Masky complains to us in an annoyed tone, before being cut off by a severe scream from behind him. A male scream full of confusion and terror with thrashing footsteps following the cry.     Not a second is wasted as the hooded girl, Toby, and Masky rush simultaneously towards the screaming. Slender disappears, leaving Jeff, Jack, and myself to loiter in the odd room.     "Oh no you don't." Jeff growls, ready to throw himself down the hall with the others. He turns to us, still growling with anticipation. "Are you to going to stick to your word or not?" He doesn't give any room to reply before rushing after the proxies. I look at Jack and shrug, smirking as I too find the atmosphere's tention to be exciting. 'Might as well, it's not everyday an adventure is rubbed in your face. It's not a videogame, but I've always wanted to try larping. Is this even considered larping? Whatever I'mma take it." Jack pushes off the wall as I chase after Jeff, hovering a few inches off the ground.    "Slender's going to kill us all slowly." Jack mutters beside me, his hood falling off as he runs. I laugh, whooping excitedly.    "Not an issue when you're already dead, dude." I hear him give a light chuckle to my answer as I smile like a child deprived from adventure.    One turn after the next, long hallways that twist and stretch on endlessly. Why Slendy has a labyrinth for a basement, I'll never understand. I know about a few secret doors that lead to secret rooms in the mansion, but none of them are to this extent. Except the one that hides an entire wing, but thats still very little compared to the halls down here.     "Get away from me!" Panic filled cries reverberate around us, pulling me back from my daydreaming. I can't see too far ahead through the incredible darkness, but I can hear the different patterns of footsteps.     "Shit!" Jeff's voice groans. "It forks here."    "Go right!" Jack shouts, but Jeff made up his mind before he could process Jack's command; he takes the left. "Jeff! Dammit." Jack stops to point down the right hall. "Theres heavy breathing that way. I'll get Jeff, you keep up with everyone else." My feet touch the floor only for a moment.    "On it." I bark before flying down the opposite hallway, hearing Jack's footsteps grow distant as the heavy breathes grow louder. I focus on moving faster, feeling a lack of presence around me. It's quiet... too quiet. I slow to a halt before dropping lightly to my feet, listening in on everything. Yet, a voice catches me unprepared, it's a small motherly voice.    "Vince, it's alright." The voice is close, causing me to jump into the air defensively and just stay there, listening.     "Who are you people? How do you know my name? Where's Jess?" A male voice, deep and nervous, replies shakily.    "Its going to be awhile 'til you know exactly who we are, but you are one of us." Now a third voice chirps in, sounding like a hick woman from southern America. The kind you'd expect to bake you pies.    "Why? Why am I one of you?" The man questions as my eyes finally hone in on the owners of the voices, but I can only see two figures, the emotionless man from earlier along with the girl in the grey hoodie. She steps closer to him, making no noise as her feet touch the ground. Instead the sound of a tuning radio slips from under her mask.    "Because you helped him. You passed the expectations. We passed them too." The girl twists the radio sound into a gentle whisper of a child, nodding to herself in the darkness.     "Is 'him'... the Slenderman?" The man asks, clenching his jaw at the boss's name.     "...Yes." The motherly sound returns to the girl's throat, bringing a sigh from the man's lips. "My name is Mouthy, will you let me take you to the others?" A twist of wavelength and the girl's voice mimics that of a normal young woman, like a college student asking for extra-credit from a teacher.    "M-Mouthy, is this a dream?" The man reluctantly repeats her name before squeezing the dreaded question through his teeth. I watch the girl slowly unglove her hand before reaching out to grab his, casually pulling to make him follow her. He tenses at the contact, dropping his shoulders at the realization. "It never was..." He mutters lightly following the light wubs that drip off her lips. She stops to look directly at me for a moment, not around me nor in my general direction, but those empty fabric covered eyes look right into my face.     "Hug the right..." A voice echos by my head, the same collage student tone gives me an ominous phrase. The girl in grey, or Mouthy as she introduced herself as, turns away from me to walk hand and hand with the other guy until they disappear though the darkness.    I find myself standing on my feet again, both entranced and confused. 'How does she fit into this? What exactly is 'this?' The thoughts swim in my head, muffling the shouts behind me.     "Ben?" It's Jack's voice.    "What the hell, Ben? You're suppose to be following them!" And that's Jeff.    "Guys... I just met Mouthy." I mutter to them holding my head. "She had a dozen different voices and..." I stop as Jack and Jeff exchange glances. "What the hell is she?"     "A ventrila... vantrilo... that thing when you throw your voice." Jeff groans at not being able to pronounce the word correctly.    "Ventriloquist?" Jack nugs him the correction.    "That." Jeff scowls at me. "We have to hurry if we want answers, which way'd they go, blondy?" I grab my head, not reacting to the little nickname.     "She said to hug the right." I drop my hands to my sides, curling my lip. "That's the classic way to solve every maze, everyone does that first. What idiot builds a maze solved by hug-the-right? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" I start to rant and rage, noticing that Jeff didn't question her hint. "Wait Jeff, you're actually going to do it?" He stops to look at me, his unblinking eyes telling me how serious he is.    "When I met her, she knew about my past. She jumped out a window and survived. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the she knows a lot more than we do, so I'd rather listen to the lipless freak than wander around aimlessly." With that he turns to run down the hallway, flicking right at the next turn. Jack grabs my arm firmly,growling as we follow the pale man.    "Next time, you chase him."~^~^~    Masky stops running as Kate makes a sharp right, turning on a dime. He follows her, finding it hard to keep up. She growls heavily, making it easy for Masky to find her even through the thick darkness. However she suddenly stops at another intersection to stare at the farthest wall. Masky pants lightly, stomping to a halt behind Kate who points angrily towards three figures.     "What idiot builds a maze solved by hug-the-right? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" The shortest of the three shouts angrily as one stomps away. "Wait Jeff, you're actually going to do it?" Ben's easily recognizable voice stops the other figure in their tracks, causing them to turn around swiftly.      "When I met her, she knew about my past. She jumped out a window and survived. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the she knows a lot more than we do, so I'd rather listen to the lipless freak than wander around aimlessly." Jeff's growl echos towards Masky and Kate, giving them a taste of how serious he is.     "...Mouthy." Kate's hiss is deep, yet her voice is laced with a perk of longing. She wants to see the other girl. Masky leans in to whisper to Kate, careful not to startle her.     "She's found some interest in the mansions freelancers. They too are curious about us." He steps back, earning a look from Kate's cold eyes. She waves him back deeper into the hallway they came from, still growling to herself. "If she was here to tell them where to go, then the new guy should either be with her or not too far away. I'm sure she already has information on him from Slender." Masky continues to organize his thoughts with the girl, earning a sidelong glance from her.     "...She is... smart." Kate looks at the floor before quietly closing her eyes. Both proxies cup a hand to their ear, hearing an almost inaudible hum. "Mouthy!" Kate takes off towards the sound, not waiting for the other white masked proxy.    "This assignment's going to be a nightmare..." Masky groans, racing to catch up.