ZZ Skull My Beloved

If Leon thought randomly being transported to a goddamn Techocolor nightmare and becoming a weird fluffy whatever creature with a TV on his stomach was bad enough, absolutely nothing could've prepared him for... Well, for whatever this was supposed to be.

It had been a... Relatively normal day in "Teletubbyland" as it was apparently called; Chris and Claire had gone off trying to find a way to leave this accursed place, and the other four Tubbies simply meandered and played about like the children they were. And he kept an eye on them like their babysitter. And also moped.

There was always a lot of moping, really. But aside from an instance of Po deciding to kick Laa Laa's ball into the stratosphere for no discernable reason, and the Tubby Custard Machine deciding to break for no real reason, something that was very quick fixed, everything was fine until nightfall.

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He'd awoken to the sound of something crashing and breaking, eyes flying open just in time to see the purple Tinky-Winky creeping out of the Tubby Dome. The Tubby Custard Machine lay broken beyond repair just a few feet away from the door, so naturally it didn't take him long to put the pieces together on what exactly had happened.

But the why of the matter? Now that was a different story entirely.

Moving quietly and quickly so as to not wake the younger Tubbies, he woke up both Chris and Claire and explained the situation as much as he could. Which admittedly wasn't much at all.

"...Maybe he's sleepwalking? Crashed into it by mistake?" Claire murmured as she scoured the nearby work bench for some flashlights, passing them out to Chris and Leon after making sure they actually worked. "After all, it already broke down once today. Maybe it's just... Extra fragile right now."

"But why'd it even break down to begin with? It's been fine the whole time we've been here and then suddenly it stops working?" Chris chimed in, padded feet barely making a sound against the floor as he stepped over the wreckage of the machine. His nose scrunched up slightly at the sight of the pink, almost gooey liquid leaking from inside. Despite the younger Tubbies insistence on the Custard being some wonderful thing, he'd never really liked the look of the stuff so he dared not try it, not even once.

...And it smelt off too. Reminded him too much of some of the bioweapons he'd dealt with in the past.

"Whatever the case is, we should find Tinky before he hurts himself. He's too young to be out in the dark so late." Leon gestured for the other two to follow him as he stepped outside, flicking on his flashlight and quickly swiveling it about. When it was this dark out, the normally picturequse enviroment almost looked... Sickly. It was deeply disconcerting, and only further served to put him on edge.

...If Tinky truly was sleepwalking, what would happen if he wandered too close to the lake...? Would he wake up in time, could he even swim at all.

The three decided to split up in an effort to cover more ground, Leon making his way towards said lake as quickly as he could. The size of this place always managed to surprise him, simultaneously feeling small enough to bump into just about anybody, and large enough to get lost in if you weren't careful. It felt like a goddamn cage, almost.

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Upon arriving to the lake, Leon was both relieved and deeply worried to see that Tinky was, in fact, standing at the edge of the water. The purple Tubby had his back to him, simply staring off at nothing in complete silence. Leon swallowed as he took a small step closer, extending a mitten-looking hand towards the kid's shoulder.

"...Y'alrignt, Tinky....? You know how late it is, right?" He asked as calmly as he could, the lack of any kind of immediate response putting him on edge. Before he could speak again, however, Tinky suddenly whirled around to face him.

And by God what a face it was.

Leon jumped back several steps as Tinky let out a startlingly human sounding scream, normally adorable face twisted into an unnatural expression of both pain and malice. It felt like something out of one of those creepypasta stories Rose had made him listen to once during one of his visits to her, but any potential humor in that comparison swiftly fell flat as the purple Tubby lunged towards him with the clear intent to kill.

He backed away as fast as he could, wanting nothing more than to at least try and talk some sense into the kid. But he'd experienced far too much like this, knew that such a tactic would likely only result in his death. So he ran instead, sprinting back towards the Tubby Dome as fast as he could.

He had to make sure the other three younger Tubbies were okay. Claire and Chris, they could handle themselves, but Po? Dipsy? Laa Laa? They had never had to experience anything of what they'd experienced. They wouldn't know what to do at all. Hell, they'd probably die trying to reason with their friend, not understanding that he simply wasn't... Him anymore.

Unfortunately, by the time Leon had arrived it was apparently already far too late. He had little time to question how Tinky could've possibly made it back to the Dome before him, far too focused on Dipsy's head sitting at the end of the now bloody slide, his body a mere few feet from it and utterly drenched in blood. And Laa Laa and Po were no where in sight, although Leon wanted more than anything to belive that they'd avoided suffering a similar fate.

...It was naive, he knew that.

Almost immediately, he had to flee from Tinky once more, the Tubby moving with surprising speed for such a pudgy and otherwise not all that athletic creature. Hell, if Leon didn't know any better, he might've assumed that the kid was fucking teleporting, but he refused to entertain such an idea for too much longer.

Not that he really even had to, as he suddenly crashed into something as soft and as warm as he was. He let out a string of involuntarily censored swears, momentarily wishing that he could really say what he fucking felt, before his gaze focused on a Tubby he'd never seen before. One with pure white fur and a black and white top hat that he could've swore he had seen Dipsy wear once upon a time.

...Naturally, his first reaction was to grab the mystery Tubby by the throat.

"Who the heck are you...?! Are you the one who did that to Tinky...?!" He practically growled through gritted teeth, fur standing on end like a cat trying to make itself look bigger to intimidate a threat. The other Tubby kicked and struggled against Leon's hold, although their mitten hands were practically useless in doing any real damage whatsoever.

"...N-No, not at all...! It... It's the Custard...!" The Tubby choked out as they continued to fight back, their words startling Leon for long enough that they managed to wriggle free from his grasp. They sucked in several shuddering breaths as they readjusted their hat, glaring at him before letting out a sigh.

"...I'm the Guardian. I've watched over these Tubbies for a while, monitoring them. Can't say I ever expected you and your buddies to show up..." The Tubby explained as they stood and dusted themself off, although their explanation was still rather lacking. At least in Leon's eyes, anyway. Their "name" sounded more like a title than anything, and if they'd been monitoring the Tubbies...

It just made it sound like some kind of fucked up experiment. And he had never been too keen on the concept to put it lightly.

"...The name's Leon. What makes you think it's the Custard, anyway...?"

"It's... It's hard to explain, but it's the only thing that makes any amount of sense to me. Look, I need to get some samples so I can test it to make sure. Can you help me...?"

The Guardian extended a mit towards him, and he scrunched up his nose in response. The white Tubby reminded him far too much of the many people he'd come across in his time fighting bioterrorism, the scientists who believed that they could play God and ignore the consequences all around them. Or maybe that was just his preconceived bias.

It hadn't exactly formed out of nowhere, though... Could be really he blamed?

"...Have you seen a red Tubby and a green Tubby around? Not Po and Dipsy, but... Two others?" He asked instead, ignoring the request for the time being. After all, he hadn't seen Chris or Claire since leaving the Dome to look for Tinky in the first place. And sure, they could handle themselves perfectly fine, but... But he just couldn't help but worry.

...It wasn't like they had any weapons. Just these stupid fucking mitten hands that made doing anything that required fine motor function nearby impossible.

"Ah, you mean your friends... No, I haven't seen them, at least not since they left the Dome with you." The Guardian gave their head a small shake, looking almost disappointed with themself for a reason Leon couldn't quite grasp. Maybe it was because they spent basically all their time watching Teletubbyland, they thought they should've been able to notice if something had happened to the two.

He supposed it was hard enough keeping track of four Tubbies, let alone seven.

"Okay. If you help me find them, I'll help you find some of that dang Custard. How's that sound?"

Now it was Leon's turn to extend a mit, his expression as calm and collected as ever. But admittedly, deep inside he was downright panicking over what had happened to his friends, both from his own world and this one. The Guardian merely stared at his hand for a moment before clasping it in their own and giving a firm shake.

"...It's a deal. We'll split up, makes it easier to cover the Mainland that way. You can search lake and the Dome."

Great. Yeah, make him have to see the decapitated corpse of what was effectively a kid again... Awesome.

"...Fine."

Still, it wasn't like he had much of a choice in the first place. He waited for a moment as the Guardian passed him a walkie before rushing off towards the Dome. He'd rather get that out of the way first, given, well...

The obvious, really.

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Finding the Custards hadn't been all that difficult given that they were just... Laying out in the open. For some reason. They all felt like traps, but this last one by the lake especially felt that way. And that feeling proved especially true now, as he stood face-to-face with Tinky once more. The only thing separating them was that goddamn bowl of Custard.

"C'mon, Tinky...! Wake up, kid, this isn't you! The Custard, something's wrong with it!" As futile as he knew it was, Leon tried anyway to reason with the Tubby as he took a step closer to the bowl. Tinky mirrored his movement, not a single sound escaping his twisted face besides haggard breathing as he stared at Leon with eyes that held nothing but murderous intent.

The two made a dive for the Custard at the same time, and unfortunately Leon was just a bit too slow to stop Tinky from grabbing it and immediately chugging the whole thing as though he were starving. To be honest, he probably was given all Leon knew about bioweapons and their metabolisms.

He hardly had the time to think of such things, however, as upon tossing the bowl to the side, Tinky's body immediately began to twitch and change. Muscle swelled grotesquely, and thick clumps of bright purple fur falling away in some spots to reveal the sickly grey flesh beneath. Soon enough, the Tubby resembled more a mutated ape than whatever it was he'd been before, expression somehow even more twisted as he screeched in a rage.

"...This feels familiar..." Leon thought in exasperation before rolling out of the way of a powerful swing that came far too fast for a beast of Tinky's size and build. He grit his teeth as he waited for an opening to run, unable to find anything even vaguely resembling a weakspot on the mutated Tubby. He hadn't realized that he'd ever miss the idea of grotesque exposed eyeballs all over a B.O.W's body until now.

Rolling out of the way of yet another swing, Leon broke into a sprint towards a path the Guardian had told him would lead to the nearby caves. This fluffy body wasn't nearly as nimble as his human one, but it worked well enough to avoid the attacks of the Tinky Tank as it charged after him like a raging bull.

...He hated how easy it was to already begin considering Tinky an "it" rather than a "he"... He'd been only a child just earlier that day, hadn't he...?

...It didn't matter. Leon managed to slip into the mouth of the cave just as Tinky slammed into the entrance. It let out another one of those awful screeches as it pounded at the too-small gap with oversized fists, although all that succeeded in doing was cause a cascade of rubble to block off said gap and further separate it from its prey.

Leon took a moment to breath as he listened to the beast eventually get bored and wander off. Despite his distrust, he hoped that the Guardian was faring better then he was, but more than anything he hoped that Chris and Claire were okay. Who knew, maybe he'd find at least one of them in this cave.