Cuphead vs. Bendy

## Description

*It's time for a blast from the past as two combatants from two different indie titles from 2017 with designs heavily based on cartoons of the 1930s-1940s come together for an epic Fatal Fiction. Will good triumph over evil, or is ink too much for our hero?*

## Interlude

**MBStarscream: You know what times were the best, Hiro?**

Hiro: What?

**MBStarscream: The Golden Age of Animation. Ahhhhh, I wish they still made stuff like that.**

Hiro: Actually, they still do. Kind of.

**MBStarscream: Well, I'm in!**

Hiro: Cuphead, the Soul Taxman.

**MBStarscream: And Bendy, the Dancing Demon.**

Hiro: I'm Hiro Hamada.

**MBStarscream: I'm MBStarscream.**

Hiro: And it's our job to examine both warriors' strength, abilities, weapons, and weaknesses to see who would win in a fight.

## Cuphead

Hiro: Cuphead and his brother Mugman lived carefree lives on Inkwell Isle under the watchful eye of Elder Kettle. Against the elder's warnings, the brothers wandered into the Devil's Casino run by King Dice. When the brothers went on a winning streak, the casino's manager King Dice callsd upon the Devil who raises the staked. If Cuphead and Mugman won another time, they would own the entire casino. If not, the Devil would have their souls for himself.

**MBStarscream:** **Cuphead rolled snake eyes and he and Mugman had to give up their souls. The Devil made a deal with them: collect the contracts of the other inhabitants of Inkwell Isle who have lost their souls until midnight in the next day and he might let the brothers off the hook. They visited the Elder Kettle who gave them a potion that allowed them to fire blasts from their fingers to aid in their quest.**

Hiro: The brothers traveled around Inkwell Isle earning contracts from residents who had lost their souls to King Dice and the Devil. Eventually, Elder Kettle told the brothers that when facing the Devil again, they must "do the right thing". Once they made it back to the Casino where King Dice revealed that he too lost a bet, presumably about whether or not Cuphead and Mugman would be able to retrieve the contracts, he fought the two only to lose. The Devil then asked for the contracts and in return they would "join his team".

**MBStarscream: They obviously said "Fuck that shit!" and defeated the Devil in one last battle to the end before tossing the soul contracts in the furnace and racing home. They told the residents that they are no longer under control of the Devil and they all cheered the brothers for their heroic deed.**

Hiro: Cuphead can swiftly get out of harm's way by dashing, best used when Cuphead needs to get out of the way of an immediate attack. He also has the ability to slap pink objects using parry slaps. Each successful parry slap grants one card on Cuphead's super meter.

**MBStarscream: But Cuphead's arsenal hasn't finished yet, folks. Cuphead can fire various projectiles using his index finger, cuz using the middle one would have parents complaining.**

Hiro: Each projectile is different from one another. Cuphead's default weapon is the peashooter, but better projectiles can be purchased with gold coins at Porkrind's Emporium. The peashooter fires small light-blue long-ranged projectiles with average damage, and the spread fires high damage-dealing but low-ranged red projectiles that spread into three perpendicular directions.

**MBStarscream: The chaser fires small green homing projectiles, the roundabout acts as a boomerang and fires large blue projectiles that deal high damage, the lobber fires dark blue projections that travel upwards in an arc shape and then travel back downwards, and charge f**i**res chargeable yellow projectiles that, when charged, deal high damage. However, uncharged projectiles are considerably smaller and deal low damage.**

Hiro: Cuphead also has special tools called Charms, which boosts him and Mugman in some way. Heart increases the maximum amount of damage he can take in battle, Sugar allows him to automatically parry the first parryable object they come in contact with, and the Smoke Bomb makes Cuphead invisible during his dashes. Because of this, he seemingly disappears and reappears a bit in front of his enemies, almost like teleporting. He can't take damage during this dash, so he can go through enemy projectiles with no issue.

**MBStarscream: Coffee makes Cuphead's super meter fill up faster, Whetstone adds on an axe attack for his parry maneuver, and the Twin Hearts allow even more extra damage for Cuphead to take before he's down and out. When at his full power, Cuphead can make use of these awesome attacks called, what else, Supers.**

Hiro: He can fire a massive beam from his head, became invincible for a limited time, and summon a ghost version of himself that damages enemies through a powerful, multi-hitting attack, granting the user a boost in attack power. Occasionally, against larger or airborne opponents, Cuphead and Mugman will hop into planes for aerial combat.

**MBStarscream: Planes can shrink, making them faster and able to dodge attacks easier, at the expense of having less range and damage. They also come with another peashooter and can drop bombs on opponents, which deal more damage, but aren't rapid-fire and are dropped beneath the plane.**

Hiro: Throughout his adventure with Mugman, Cuphead had plenty of bosses to deal with and pulled off a variety of impressive feats, such as destroying a large gate that was made of an unidentified stone, so for the sake of debate, we will assume a lime and sandstone composite. To destroy the gate, which was roughly fifteen yards tall and ten yards wide, Cuphead would need to exert a force of roughly 142,000 psi, or 63 tons of force.

**MBStarscream: Cuphead can tank multiple fireballs and lasers from dragons and gorgons, which puts his durability at around large city block level, so roughly 53 tons of force or 120,000 PSI. So this is one tough cup-headed dude, but of course he has quite a few weaknesses. The first of which is Cuphead's durability, or rather lack of it. He can only take a total of around three or four hits before he dies, and he has absolutely no melee options, as all of his attacks are ranged.**

Hiro: Cuphead is also really greedy, even willing to gamble his soul away for a large sum of money. He is also very impulsive, and strategy is not really his strong suit. But despite these weaknesses, Cuphead still defeated the Devil and won his soul back, and despite being very young, Cuphead is very experienced and battle-hardened, so he and Mugman are *no* pushovers.

*Cuphead: C'mon Mug! We have to find Elder Kettle. He'll know what to do!*

## Bendy

Hiro: Founded in an unknown full date other than the year of 1929, Joey Drew Studios was known for being the place where Henry Stein spent his time animating long ago and used to work with his friend, Joey Drew, making cartoons, along with many other animators. On August 28 of an unknown year, the studio was closed down in accordance to legal regulation 11 U.S Code § 1125 as evident by the bankruptcy report found in Joey's apartment, as well as health and safety concerns, as evident by the mention of a health and safety board meeting schedule found in the appointment lobby.

**MBStarscream: 30 years later in 1963, Henry received a letter from Joey saying that he should come to "his" old workshop, because he has something to show him. Henry revisited Joey Drew Studios, only to find it abandoned and worn due to its yearly defunct. Not withstanding the fact about the studio's long closure, the entrance door strangely still remained unlocked for Henry to get inside. Upon discovering, Henry had to activate the Ink Machine as a task, and later ended up trapped within the studio as he began exploring deeper into lower underground levels, desperately finding the exit to escape the studio's corruption.**

Hiro: But the studio had a new nightmare to offer. Ruling the abandoned corporation with an iron fist was a failed attempt on creating the studio's popular mascot in real life in an attempt to bring cartoon characters to reality by Joey Drew, who turned out defective along with several other physical cartoon characters due to lacking a soul. This monster... was Bendy.

*Ink* *Bendy suddenly pops out behind the boards along with a bright flash.*

**MBStarscream: From the old workshop to the underground facility, Bendy dwelled inside every location and was a large threat to Henry, constantly pursuing him down and attempting to kill him whenever he was caught in his proximity. Henry wasn't the only victim to be hunted down by Bendy, though; there were also a few known others, including the ink incarnations of Sammy Lawrence and Norman Polk as Bendy attacked Sammy and murdered Norman.**

Hiro: Henry would eventually confront Bendy for the last time within the Ink Machine and listened to Joey Drew's final audio log, who told him that Bendy never saw the end of his own cartoons, which left him wandering throughout the studio underground non-stop for all those years, now finally prompting Henry to take a nearby film reel, labeled "The End". As soon the audio finished, Bendy commenced their final battle by transforming into his monstrous form, Beast Bendy.

**MBStarscream: Henry avoided him until he places the "The End" reel in a projector in the throne room, which weakened and angered him as all the screens turned into the "The End" sequences for all of the animations, causing Beast Bendy's body to seemingly dissolve into nothing, finally ending the tyrannical reign of the Ink Demon. But then there's the sequel coming out this Fall, so maybe the story's not over just yet.**

Hiro: Born from the infamous Ink Machine, Bendy has a wide array of powers that come from him being made of nothing but ink. He can paint entire rooms with ink just by being present, has short-range teleportation, and is completely immune to physical attacks, only being able to be hurt by liquid or energy based attacks.

**MBStarscream: Bendy's regeneration is insane! As long as there is a single drop of ink left of him, Bendy can reform to maximum potential. He can also create other monsters from his ink, like the Searchers. These things come in several different types - the main yet common normal variants, the miners, the swollen variants, minibosses, a boss type, and a variant with Sammy's mask.**

Hiro: When spawned, the Searchers start following Henry until they get the chance to attack. Upon hitting them with a weapon, they will collapse into ink and disappear, allowing Henry to continue. On occasions, they can come in packs. Sometimes, a Searcher can unexpectedly spawn to startle the player. However, the Searchers can be very dangerous if they crowd against Henry in a large pack. If Henry takes enough damage from attacks, he will be killed, sending him to a Bendy statue to respawn.

**MBStarscream: Bendy's also got wicked strength going for him. During his short fight with the Projectionist, he killed the monster who had been terrorizing Henry for a long period of time, ripping its head off of its body like you would a fly's wing.**

Hiro: Assuming the Projectionist's head was made of steel, aluminium and plastic, Bendy would have to exert a minimum of six hundred and eighty pounds of force. Bendy also dodged bullets from a Tommy gun. Automatic fire moves at somewhere around three thousand, six hundred and fifty-nine miles per hour. He even tanked bullets from that Tommy gun and a beating from a wrench.

**MBStarscream: Despite the presumed melted ink covering his face, Ink Bendy can still sense Henry around him. It's implied that the sense can be either through the ink around the Workshop or through Henry's silent breathing. It is also implied that Ink Bendy may also be able to sense the vibrations caused by Henry's footsteps. It is possible that Ink Bendy cannot really see, and believes that Henry may be Joey, which could be why he attempts to attack him. Although it is also likely that Ink Bendy can see just fine.**

Hiro: Beast Bendy multiplies his already impressive stats by roughly three times. He's even stronger than Boris in this form, who can send cracks throughout entire stone floors in a single punch. The floor was roughly sixteen yards wide, and assuming a concrete composition, the force needed to crack the floor as severely as it was cracked is 31,506 pounds of force, or fifteen and a half tons.

**MBStarscream: While Bendy is powerful and his regeneration is amazing, without the Ink Machine Bendy's ink becomes finite, or very limited. The Ink Machine provides Bendy with infinite ink, so without it, his power becomes very limited. Once he's all out of ink, game over.**

Hiro: He also has very little, if any combat experience, and has no actual weapons for a fight. Plus, his Searchers and cardboard cutouts can be destroyed easily, and his Beast form isn't unstoppable, as Henry was able to kill him by subjecting him to the "The End" tape.

**MBStarscream: But *stay out* of this powerhouse's way if you know what's good for you.**

*Bendy runs at Henry with his hand outstretched and kills him.*

## Fatal Fiction

*Mario flips a coin.*

Hiro: Well, evil outclasses good in terms of territory, but can that allow Bendy to keep up with the cup-headed hero of Inkwell Isle?

**MBStarscream: Can't say I remember rooting for a cup of all things to win a fight, but I'm going with the good guy on this one for obvious reasons.**

*Joey Drew Studios*

Two boys stood outside of the enormous Joey Drew Studio. They both had tea cups for heads, complete with striped straws and a mysterious transparent liquid in the cups. One wore red pants, while the other had blue pants. They both looked up at the large building. The blue wearing cup was quivering in fear and terror, while the red wearing cup had a look of determination.

"G-golly Cuphead! A-Are you sure th-this is where we have to go?" Mugman questioned timidly.

The red wearing cup, **Cuphead**, simply rolled his eyes, walked forward and kicked open the rusted shut gate.

The two looked around the area. Everything from the walls to the strange cardboard cutouts lying around had a black and sepia color scheme. The whole place looked like it hadn't been cleaned up in a long, long time. Cuphead and Mugman explored the area, finding nothing but old studio equipment. Eventually, the blue cup found something of interest. "H-hey, Cuphead! Look at this!"

Cuphead caught up to his brother and found what he was talking about. It was a giant, strange looking machine with what looked like a pump in the front of it. "Yowzers! What do you suppose it does?" He wondered.

"I-I'm not sure... B-but we probably shouldn't mess with it, Cuphead!" Mugman said cautiously.

Cuphead looked around the room and saw a lever. Not knowing what else to do, he went over and pulled it downward. The entire building began to rumble and shake as ink started to leak from the walls, pipes and ceiling. So much ink leaked out that it begins to flood the entire floor.

"Uhhh, Cuphead! I think we should go now!" Mugman started to panic. But before the two could get back together, a formless blob of black ink started rising from the pool. Then it began to take shape. Specifically in the form of a cartoon like demon with a large smile on its face. It was the one and only **Bendy**.

He looked at the two brothers and smirked evilly (though it was hard to tell). Cuphead instinctively pointed his finger at the ink monster and started firing off energy shots, all of which hit their mark. Bendy groaned and snapped his fingers. Then two gloved hands rose from the ink pool and grabbed Cuphead's ankles before dragging him under. Bendy followed suit.

"Cuphead!" Mugman yelled.

In another part of the studio, Cuphead was violently throw out of a puddle of ink. He hit a wall and fell onto his backside. He quickly got back onto his feet and looked around, to see what looked like a projector room filled with chairs and cardboard cutouts of Bendy. "Sheesh, and they say the Devil's self centered." He muttered to himself.

Then Bendy rose from a puddle of ink and laughed maniacally before noticing the emergency fire axe. He grabbed it and took a fighting stance. Cuphead pulled up his shorts before taking a fighting stance himself.

**FIGHT!**

Cuphead began rapidly firing standard shots at the ink demon, who blocked them all with the axe. Bendy looked down at the floor and placed one hand on it. Ink spread across the floor before large black spikes shot up, splattering when they hit the ceiling, leaving tall ink pillars. Cuphead quickly jumped back to avoid one of the spikes. When he looked back to his opponent, Bendy was gone.

Suddenly, the Dancing Demon lunged out of one of the pillars and attacked Cuphead with the axe before the hero could react. Bendy slashed Cuphead with the sharp weapon a few times before grabbing him and throwing him across the room. This time the young hero landed on his feet before equipping the Lobber shot. He then jumped onto one of the chairs and started rapid firing purple orbs from his fingers, which bounced all over the room.

Bendy tried to avoid the lobbers, dodging some but still getting hit by others. He groaned with anger before throwing the axe at the cup headed hero. Cuphead stopped his assault and disappeared in a puff of smoke, narrowly avoiding the axe, which firmly planted itself into the wall. Bendy took this opportunity to sink back into the ink.

The hero reappeared and sighed with relief. When he looked around, Bendy was gone once again. He growled in frustration and equiped the Chaser shot. "Alright smarty, let's see you avoid this."

He then started rapid firing small green star shaped shots, which flew at a particular part of the ink in the room. "Gotcha!" he taunted.

However, something else appearsd from the ink: a strange looking ink creature with almost human like arms, head and torso. Cuphead winced at the sight before the monster started crawling toward the hero. Many other monsters started to form and do the same.

The hero equipped the spread shot and rapid fired numerous red triangular shots that didn't fly as far, but were far more rapid than the previous shots. Cuphead quickly mowed down the Searchers with little effort, reducing them to small puddles of ink. When they were all gone, Cuphead took a deep breath before noticing the puddles began to merge with a larger puddle. Suddenly, a hand stretched out of the ink and grabbed Cuphead's throat. Bendy rose from the puddle menacingly. However, his body was taller and more human like, his limbs were longer and ink covered his eyes. His smirk was wider and more psychotic than before. Cuphead's eyes widen with both shock and fear.

Bendy tightened his grip on Cuphead's throat, suffocating the cup hero. His legs started flailing in a futile attempt to escape the monster's grasp. The hero pointed a finger at Bendy's face before his fingertip glowed a bright orange. The demon laughed before getting blasted in the face by Cuphead's charge shot, causing the monstrous ink being to let go of his target. Upon landing on the floor feet first, Cuphead blasted Bendy back to the other side of the room.

Cuphead took out the Lobber again and began to fire massive bubbles at Bendy. Bendy exploded into a large puddle of ink and began to creep up the walls of the room. Cuphead fired the bubbles at the wall, managing to slow the ink's progress. But it was to no avail. The ink completely covered the room, and a gigantic Bendy face appeared on the wall behind Cuphead, before three large arms sprouted from the wall, ceiling and floor. Cuphead changed his shot back to the eight-way. Bendy growled and launched the first hand at Cupphead, the one on the wall. Cuphead leapt over the hand and fired the eight-way, managing to blow off Bendy's pinky finger. Bendy howled and the ink in the room began to dissipate, floating away, down the hall and into a room with a pentagram painted on the floor, and an open coffin propped open on the wall.

Cuphead ran after the ink into the room, noticing the words "DREAMS COME TRUE." scrawled on the walls in black ink. When Cuphead made to the middle of the room, the floor began to creak and crack. Bendy appeared on the other side of the room, and he then rushed Cuphead, who did not have time to react. Bendy grabbed Cuphead by the shirt and slammed him through the floor, sending him flying down a large pit. Cuphead hit the ground hard.

"OW! Where... where am I?"

He looked up to see a sign that read "BENDY LAND" in big, shiny letters. Bendy stood on top of this sign, with an ink top hat propped up in-between his horns and a cane in hand. Cuphead then barely managed to jump on top of a roller coaster car that had flown in his direction at 97mph. Cuphead changed his weapon to the Chase and fired it at Bendy, who tried and failed to dodge the attacks. The small stars slammed into him and blasted him off the top of the sign. Bendy hit the floor with a splat, turning in a puddle of ink on the ground.

Bendy reformed, with ink running down his face, beginning to cover his eyes. His teeth grew into fangs, and he grew until he was three times his normal size. It was Beast Bendy. Bendy screamed and ran at Cuphead, who leaped off of the roller coaster car and landed on his feet as he realized that the costar car was running out of track. Cuphead switched to the charge shot and began to charge an orange fireball.

Cuphead and Beast Bendy were getting closer and closer until they were just a few feet from one another.

Thirty feet.

Twenty feet.

Ten feet.

Three feet.

Two feet.

One foot.

Cuphead used the Smoke Bomb and appeared behind Beast Bendy. He then turned around and fired the Charge Shot. Beast Bendy was blown over the tracks. With a monstrous scream, Beast Bendy fell out of sight. Cuphead sighed and turned into a plane, and flew out of Bendy Land. Cuphead landed back in the room he started in.

"Cuphead!" Mugman ran to his brother. "Are you alright?! Did you defeat that monster?!" A noise behind the two brothers made them turn around. Before either could react, Bendy punched Cuphead and Mugman at full force. The cup-headed duo went flying into the Ink Machine, completely wrecking it. Beast Bendy realized his blunder as Cuphead recovered and smirked at him. He leaped into the air and started spinning as the liquid in his head began to glow.

Beast Bendy created a large ink shield, along with a few Searchers and ordered them to attack Cuphead. Cuphead finished spinning, and he fired a massive beam of liquid. The liquid completely destroyed the Searchers, and it struck the shield. The shield began to melt away, but Bendy was not done yet. He poured more and more ink Into the shield until the beam stopped. And when the beam dissipated, so did Bendy's shield. The exhausted Ink Demon fell to his knees on the ink-stained wooden floor. Cuphead dashed over to Bendy, charging a Charge shot as he went. Cuphead stopped in front of Bendy before pointing his finger at Bendy's head.

"Gotcha, chump."

When Cuphead was finished, there was no traces of Bendy left. The terror of the Figure of Ink was over. Cuphead looked at where Bendy had once stood before turning to his brother. "Whaddya say we ditch this studio for good?"

There was no argument. The two brothers were more than happy to leave whatever that place was behind was and never look back, especially with the studio's evil ruler now dead at the hands of a hero.

**FATALITY!**

## Results

**MBStarscream: Now THAT is what you call a cartoon battle!**

Hiro: Bendy's regeneration may have gave him better durability than Cuphead, but he could only hold his own for so long before heroism triumphed over tyranny. For starters, Cuphead was way, way faster. Bendy may have reacted to bullets, but Cuphead reacted to electricity, and in his plane form Cuphead has also reacted to lasers.

**MBStarscream: In terms of strength, Bendy was sorely outclassed, even in his Beast form. His fifteen tons is child's play compared to Cuphead's seventy-one tons, and while his regeneration *was* quite powerful, the Ink Machine was his ultimate downfall.**

Hiro: Bendy isn't exactly that smart either, so Cuphead, who outsmarted the Devil himself could easily trick Bendy into destroying the Ink Machine, and while Cuphead isn't a strategist, he *is* an expert at exploiting the weaknesses of his foes, like Bendy's his general stupidity and reliance on the Ink Machine to stay alive.

**MBStarscream: Cuphead's specials were one of the deciding factors in this fight, and while parrying is the fastest way for Cuphead to charge his specials, his specials still charge every time he hits something. But the nail that sealed Bendy's coffin was the fact that Cuphead's attacks are made of alcohol, something Bendy can't stand up to. And with Bendy's soon to be limited Ink, when he is diluted, he will run out of ink, thus running out of regeneration. So in the end, Bendy was just too slow, too weak, and not versatile enough to win this. Looks like Bendy got blown out of the water.**

Hiro: Cuphead wins.

## Advantages

### Cuphead (Winner)

* Faster
* Stronger
* Smarter
* More versatile
* More experienced
* Cuphead's specials were of great help
* Attacks are made of alcohol, something Bendy has no resistance to