Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He always realized too late.

He would be running through the faux concrete as it cracked open and shattered into massive chunks, sliding apart to reveal squelching mounds of flesh replacing the building's frame and unblinking eyes tracking him through the skyscraper. His head would hum with static as if it was looking to connect to him like he was the broadcaster.

The girl he depended on to survive the strange city would shoot ahead of him as he stumbled. Both of them worked hard to survive, and they seemed to be getting along well enough. They knew exactly what the other was thinking every time they needed to maneuver somewhere new or evade a threat. She would catch him.

But then he'd look up into her eyes.

Memories he thought weren't his own would flood into his head, all of the times he was dropped into the abyss and decades he would be alone, waiting for his younger self to open the tower's door and let him out. Decades would pass before he had a chance to break the cycle, just to fail again.

This was it.

One of the girl's bright red eyes peeked through her black hair. Her brow furrowed. What about this was so confusing to her? She already knew what she was going to do to him, didn't she? It was time for her to drop him and leave.

Her other hand gripped his trench coat and hauled him over the ledge.

There wasn't time to question her, not yet. He grabbed her hand and charged for a nearby screen.

--- 👁 ---

"Why did you pull me up?" The boy broke the silence.

His own little voice was foreign to him, no sensible child made any sound at all unless it suited them. He'd given extremely simple 'hey!' and 'wait!' commands to his companion on their way through the city, but that was the most he'd spoken in years and it was already starting to hurt.

The two sat in an empty apartment, mold crawled up the gray walls and dark smudges covered the tile floor. Some stray pieces of newspapers were scattered around the room, illuminated only by the blueish gleam of the machine behind them.

"...I don't know." The girl started, she didn't even try to deny she wanted to let go.

"I thought we were a team." He lamented.

"We were... I think that's why I pulled you up, but I don't know for sure."

"Why was it even a question?!" He kept quiet, it was idiotic not to, but he couldn't help the shakiness seeping into the words.

"... Ever since you dragged me out of that cabin; I've nearly been shot by a madman, eaten by a lady with a giant neck, pulled apart by child and adult dolls, and experimented on by a beast crawling on the ceiling.

Then you released that thing that just happens to look like you and ditched me with it." She glared.

"I-I didn't mean to!"

"Yeah, I know... You looked like your head was gonna explode whenever you walked past those boxes.

...I thought I wanted to get rid of the risk, but...

It felt like I'd been there before, a lot. It felt wrong...

...That, and having someone was nice while it lasted..."

Her face fell, the expression that had been indifferent even when they were running for their lives, almost melted. She quickly returned to normal, most kids had learned to, emotions would get them killed. All it took was a few tears to create a sob, and a sob to draw an adult's attention.

Even though they both really wanted to cry to sleep. Why did the world have to be like this? What had they done wrong?

The girl's stomach rumbled, she clutched her gut and doubled over, the boy could hear the scraping of her fingernails on the tiles. Her yellow raincoat trembled as she winced and groaned. Part of him genuinely wasn't sure she could feel pain, with all the falling and tumbling they'd both done.

He glanced around, finding nothing but the various papers. His companion sat still with her bony arms wrapped around herself, slowly recovering from the surge of hunger. One slip of paper caught his eye; telling of an all-you-can-eat buffet for rich adults, though it took more than a little time to make sense of each word.

The Maw, it seemed to be called.

"Come on, I think I know where we can find food." He waved over to her.

"Why would you want to stick with me?" She asked through the waves of aches.

"...I don't want to be alone."

He hesitantly stretched a hand to her. She took it in her own.

And dragged him down to her level.

"Neither do I... I just want a nap..."

Her head began to fall, she slouched against the cold screen behind them and adjusted her grip.

It was a long time since either of them slept, wasn't it? In the time between waking next to the TV in the forest and meeting his companion, he'd run around nets, triggered traps, broken into an adult's cabin, and snuck around the house. All of that was just the lead-up to killing the man with his own weapon. Then they wound up floating to the city on the lookout for food and clean water.

He was exhausted.

But first, he had one last thing he wanted to say, even though the last few minutes of talking hurt his throat.

"My name is Mono, by the way." He told his... Friend?

"Mine is Six." She replied.

Mono shut off the bright TV light.

--- 👁 ---

The ships had stopped coming.

All the guests Mono and Six relied on for food were no longer arriving.

The preserved plants in the pantries were running out. Both of the chefs fell easily to Six's rampage, toppling dead to the messy kitchen floors the moment Six entered. Unfortunately, they offered little to Mono, the twins were fat and had little meat of sustenance beyond their somewhat muscular arms. He couldn't get much other than the energy from their fat.

There was little to be salvaged from the rotting corpse of the Janitor, most of the meat had been in his arms, and that wasn't saying much. He was spindly and stout, by the time the pair found his body it was mostly inedible, and the kids he held captive either escaped or were already dead.

All of the guests were more promising, while they lasted, at least. Even with their powers, it was impossible for the duo to move all the bodies to the freezers before they began decomposing, not that there was enough room for them anyway. He and Six worked together to assemble the most appetizing of the guests and stuff them into the walk-in freezers. Every other day, Six had another 'slaughter stew' ready for them to share, rationed out like they wouldn't have any tomorrow because they truly might not.

At first he'd stopped herself from silently judging her, the way she relished the soup like it was the greatest thing in the world. Then he got used to it. It tasted good, it tasted great! While every kid always looked forward to the next time they'd get to eat, he became especially excited for the next time they'd cut up one of the adults for a good meal.

Mono craved them, they both did.

In that golden period, three boats followed the one he and his friend stowed away on. Each one brought more wealthy visitors, far too out of shape and weighty to ever escape Six's supernatural hunger. But those three boats had sunk a while ago, and it seemed wherever they came from had learned its lesson about the new managers of the Maw.

They were alone, a couple of monsters on a floating island, and they just lost their food source.

It was time to move on. Their food was running out faster than their clean water, and the remaining leeches and mechanical eyes were only loyal to the lady Six had eaten, the lady with abilities suspiciously similar to her own.

All their options were running out, so he held Six's hand and brought her to one of the old TVs the Maw hid in its depths.

With one of his hands in hers, the other on the screen, and no idea where they would go, he dragged them through.

--- 👁 ---

So many eyes.

Six had only seen them within the Signal Tower, she'd assumed their presence in the TV she and Mono escaped through was just part of it. A bunch of cryptic eyes in a last-ditch attempt to reach them and tie them to it like the adult incarnation of her friend.

That was not the case.

Holy Hell, that wasn't remotely the case.

It seemed it was just part of this place. The Signal Tower was just part of their world, its pulsing waves sending its power across every TV in the world. Why won't it leave them be?! They'd left it alone! This wasn't like the Hunter, Doctor, Thin Man, Janitor, Guests, or the Lady. They left it alone, they were supposed to be none of its concern, they were supposed to be free.

Why can't this world leave them be?

They were just another pair of monsters, trying to survive.

Why couldn't they just leave?

How badly the girl wanted to go back to the tower and give it a taste of what torture it put them through, to reduce it to rubble and pulverized flesh.

But the Tower was far too great for that, too great for her. Mono couldn't escape the attention of the Tower any more than she could stop depending on the Maw for life and youth to devour.

However, the eyes started to fade away. Collapsing into the void like the Tower's hold on them was finally slipping, they didn't have to be puppets anymore! Both of the nightmares threw caution to the wind and reached for the emptiness, anywhere the Tower and Maw couldn't get them was an improvement.

The Signal's grasp loosened, they were getting out of its range! This creature that infested them and tormented them for so long, it could only stretch itself so thin. There was somewhere out there it might not be able to reach them! Somewhere they could get this damned Tower and the Maw out of their hair for good.

Mono clasped Six's hand tighter and focused, he didn't know where he was taking them, but they were about to find out.

It didn't matter where they were going anymore, they just needed to be far away from the Tower and Maw.

--- 👁 ---

Six successfully faceplanted.

The was floor oddly soft, and in a panic she opened her eyes, fully expecting to witness herself being trapped by a mass of flesh and eyes. She instead found she was lying on top of a squishy... sponge? Whatever it was, she gratefully took Mono's hand. Being the one with experience traveling between sheets of glass, he landed expertly and pulled Six to her feet.

Random clothes and bits of shiny plastic were scattered about the weird flooring, the curved walls looked like they were made of wood at first, but were too shiny, like they were imitations of wooden planks.

And it was so loud.

It didn't sound like adults, they were usually pretty quiet, and their voices tended to be much lower. This had to be children, they'd probably be similar to the dolls they ran from in the school, best to be quiet and careful. Six pulled down the hood of her raincoat, her dark hair would be harder to notice than the bright yellow plastic.

She looked around a corner of the false-wood structure, finding a swarm of children. They all looked more like them than any of the Bullies. Most were wearing bright colors and screeching like adults that found a child. How were any of them alive? Surely, something was on its way to devour them all.

Mono poked his head out behind her, seeing the kids with similar confusion. They needed a way out of here. They were here looking for food, not feed something else. If push came to shove, Six could drain whatever came for them, maybe she could convince Mono to let her chop up some of these idiotic kids as well.

They looked into each other's eyes, having a dead silent conversation. Through some nods and gestures they agreed to step out, they'd be able to blend in with the rest of these morons until they found a way out.

--- 👁 ---

This place is a disaster.

Adults were everywhere, almost as abundant as the children, yet nobody ran?

Correction; loads of kids were running, but not from the adults, most of whom were tiredly following them, rather than hungrily chasing. The pair quickly figured out they were mostly ignored, almost all of these monsters appeared to be paired with one to three kids they were following. There were a few stray glances their way, however, enough for them to feel they didn't get lost in the crowds as well as they thought.

Then there was the issue of finding the exit.

Where are we?

Cold tile floors lead them everywhere and nowhere. It took nearly an hour for them to find a large glass door, people entering and leaving the strange building. Light gray clouds covered the sky beyond the windows, dripping with rain. Adults outside were using brightly colored umbrellas, nothing like the blacks and grays the pair were familiar with.

"Are we back in the city?" Six asked.

Mono froze, this couldn't be the city. The Signal Tower was nowhere in sight, right? But the clouds, the rain, the towering buildings in the distance. Sure, there were plenty more trees around, but they'd only been to one side of the city, this must be the other border. They were back, they must've been back, this massive building probably just faced the opposite direction of the Tower.

But he tried so hard to lead them far away from the tower. The screens even functioned differently than the ones they knew were controlled by the signals, what is this place? Was it a strange, broken spot in the Tower's range? How had he brought them here?

"I don't know." He replied.

--- 👁 ---

These goddamn I-pad screens were infuriating.

Vanessa swiped her staff card across the bottom of the wall-mounted device again, and again, and again. Too fast one attempt, too slow another. She narrowed her eyes and focused on the ID card insert, and swiped again.

'Success! Welcome, Officer Vanessa!'

Finally!

"Excuse me, Miss?" A woman walked up beside her, bringing her child and bags of tacky merch with her.

"Yes ma'am?" She begrudgingly answered, she really didn't want to deal with people right now.

"I've walked past those two kids a couple times now, they look like they might be lost? But they... They don't look like... I don't think they're being taken care of."

Just as the woman gestured behind the Guard, the lights began flickering. Some of the smaller children got frightened, and the iPad interfaces glitched eerie green and disturbing purple colors, but the episode ended fairly quickly.

Vanessa turned to see a pair of kids standing by the windows and doors leading outside. One of them was clutching their stomach and leaning against the glass like they were in great, terrible pain. She couldn't see the kid's face, but their limbs were concerningly telling.

They were horrifically thin; their bones seemed to be poking through their skin, which was covered in a terrible mix of mud and bruises and scrapes. Knotted and grimy hair sat on their pale heads. Hold on, were they both barefoot? The kid with a yellow raincoat looked to be a couple of seconds away from falling to their knees, and their hair shifted enough for Vanessa to guess it was a little girl, though her face was so sunken she couldn't be sure from where she stood.

A boy in a torn, tattered, filthy, dark brown trench coat helped her support herself. Yes, they were definitely barefoot, but their feet were covered in so much dirt it almost looked like they weren't. He helped the girl stand straight and brought her deeper into the Pizzaplex. He was in better shape than the girl, but that wasn't saying much; there was at least a little bit of muscle layered between his flesh and skeleton, his eyes were both hollow and bright blue as a husky's, a dead frown painted his face beside dark smudges.

Then he started looking around. Vanessa heard the woman behind her gasp as she held back her own shock.

The boy had a massive scar across the left side of his face. It was rough and uneven, stretching from the left side of his nose and falling down his jaw. The thin pink flesh broke through his lips, leaving a tiny gap where they could see the tips of yellowed teeth.

He spotted them and dragged the girl away.

They HAD to be homeless or something, kids from the streets would try to get into the Pizzaplex all the time; some wanted food and drinks, some stole clothes or toys, some just wanted shelter.

Nobody would notice if they went missing.

The two would be the perfect targets.

She needed to make sure they got out of here when the doors closed, for both their sakes.

'Stay the course, nobody will miss them'

No, there was still plenty of time, she could save them!

"Hey! You two!" She called out, the kids didn't hesitate to pick up the pace.

She followed, there was still time, she had to try.

--- 👁 ---

Mono brought them up a staircase, ducking behind and between random people. By now that blonde woman had lost them, she was scanning the area and trying to tiptoe to see over the crowd.

In the corner of his eye he spotted some other kids bringing metallic circles to tall rectangles. A glass plane let him see pieces of plastic inside, neatly lined up side by side. The children tore open the plastic that came out of the machines, revealing bars of what seemed like nuts or chocolate. He'd seen those devices before, but they were always shattered or tipped over, was this what they were meant for? Dispensing food? And why were these ones in such good condition, compared to all the other ones he'd come across? Why was this entire place in such great condition?

It didn't matter, now, Six needed something to eat before she attacked someone else. While he'd grown confident she could stop herself from trying to eat him (again), they didn't need her ripping apart a random kid.

Thankfully, the machines functioned with screens, he placed a hand on one. The device buzzed with white static, quite different from the blue waves that pulsed over the TVs controlled by the Tower. The machine stalled and stuttered, eventually dropping several bars of whatever Mono could shake loose.

He reached into the flap at the bottom and collected the bars and bags, stuffed them into his coat, and dragged Six to another set of stairs.

"Hey! Wait!" The woman called to them.

She started making her way through the crowd and following them up the stairs. The lights blinked again and Six almost fell to her knees. Twice now, she'd caused a surge and was hit with pain. According to all the other times this happened, one more and she'd go cannibalistic. He needed a way to break line-of-sight.

A tall glass tube caught his eye; long metal poles and rings held it in place and a platform sat in the center. From the floor below them, a group on one of the metal slabs rose, the doors parted and they stepped out. He and Six rushed past them and onto the steel circle, these had to be lifts!

It took a crucial second to read the buttons, reading was never any kid's strong suit, but he managed to find a close-door button just as the woman was gaining on them. In a turn of good luck, the building seemed to only have three floors they had to navigate. There were two extra floors labeled under 'staff-only'. He didn't have time to read them, they would probably be guarded by some grown-ups anyway.

The main buttons were simply numbered, 1 2 3, and the third floor button wasn't lit up. He pressed the lower floor button just as the blonde lady reached the clear barrier. She placed her hands on the glass and looked down on them as they descended, her green eyes almost looking worried or afraid. That was ridiculous, though. Why would any adult be concerned about them? What reason would she have to be scared? Before the doors even opened he was ripping open the foil and bags. Six desperately devoured them, practically inhaling the chocolates, chips, and crackers. The door to the bottom floor opened.

He broke into a sprint before the glass doors even finished opening. Lights flickered as Six finished her food. Some of the adjacent elevators even trembled in their containers, falling slightly a few times before they attempted to resume their trip. Various other attendants scattered and freaked at the malfunctioning devices and lights.

Pieces of nuts and crumbs fell from Six's hands as she followed Mono through the crowds, completely disappearing long before the woman chasing them could get to their floor.

Chapter Text

Mono followed a random gathering through the maze of rooms, his friend's hand tight in his own.

It lead them to a room filled with people, tables, and entrances to other rooms. A raised platform was a little further ahead of them, partially obscured by the swarms of adults and children. The two kept on high alert, while the monsters here seemed oddly tame, they just barely escaped from an especially strange one with their lives.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls!" A massive, booming voice shook the room.

Mono and Six would've jumped out of their skin, had they not faced much more frightening beasts before they even met.

"Fazbear Entertainment would like you to put your hands together for..."

Hands together? Did it mean hold hands? Nobody else around them seemed to be doing that, but the pair tightened their grip just in case.

"The one, the only, Freddy Fazbear!"

Who?

A much smaller group of... What were those? They didn't seem like people. Maybe they were more closely related to the Bullies or Patients? They were glossy, bright, and reflecting the colorful lights.

One was bright white with pink highlights. Around the legs it had weird patterns in bright green and rich purple. Desaturated blocks of yellow made-up feet with three toes and a beak with purple lipstick. Was it meant to be a bird? It held a strange item that stretched strings across a plank connected to a plastic or metal-looking star.

The second was light gray with a large mane of hair and a fluffy tail flowing behind it, one strand was colored an annoyingly bright green. Its lower arms and legs were decorated with a similar purple to the bird. Its chest, shoulders, and hips had shiny red clothes with splotches of black. In its big claws it held a bright neon green device not unlike what the white avian was holding, only it was lined with black and white rectangles. Sounds played when it pressed the keys, was it a sideways piano?

The third looked much clunkier than the rest. It seemed to be wearing light purple socks and gloves, harshly contrasting the rest of the doll. A streak of bright red hair stood straight up on its head, just over a set of dark glasses. Those had to limit its vision, they could use that to their advantage if needed.

Then there was the bear. It was orange with maroon highlights and cyan patterns, almost like what they'd expect to see during a storm. It danced and jumped around the stage, doing little to contribute to the loud and obnoxious music the other three were playing yet receiving just as much praise from the younger members of the audience. In its clawed hands was a black pole with a large round stand on one side and what looked like a small baton with a round, silver topper on the other.

What were these things? They were much too loud to ever surprise the least alert child, they stood out against any environment like sore thumbs or Six's beloved raincoat. The stage seemed to shake beneath their feet. They even held large objects with no clear purpose other than making even more noise! Was this supposed to be this place's music? It was insufferable to the point it hurt their ears, but the others somehow seemed to enjoy it!

An incessant humming filled Mono's head like a haze as the orange bear looked at him through the crowd, a layer of dark purple seeped into him like a disease. This was it. Even after all the trouble they went through to get away from it, the Tower had found him. The hue was much darker than that of the Signal, but he didn't care, he wouldn't let it take him easily. Six turned to see Mono's pupils exploding, the black color mixing with his bright blue irises and blotting out the whites of his eyes. Subtle ripples of blue and black buzzed over his skin and clothes, sending gentle static up her hand. The tall, glossy bear began to twitch; its eyes misaligning and jaw clamping up and down, the hands opened and closed while its head shook.

The creature fell to its knees and toppled over, the other members of the deafening group continued to play a second before turning to keep an eye on their fallen cohort. Some of the children in the crowd yelled and began to cry. Utter weaklings, all of them. Why did they even care about these blaring noises and uncanny beings?

"Attention everyone, one of our entertainers seems to be having an issue. Please make way for our maintenance staff to do their thing!" The voice reappeared.

What's an 'enter-tane-er' supposed to be?

Six looked over to Mono, he stumbled back a little as the bear fell.

'Was that you?' She cocked her brow at him.

'Sorry.' He smiled shyly.

Several people in matching clothes gathered around the crowd, shooing them away from the stage. The remaining three 'entertainers' stepped off the stage with thuds, attempting to help, but the smallest children gathered around them. Their small but loud voices blended together, all asking questions and weeping. 'Anything but human' was the only thing Six could describe the three's voices, they were garbled like a broken TV and their lips never moved.

In the back of the room, they spotted the blonde woman, she was tending to the various groups of people and no doubt hunting them. But there was something about the bear still on the stage. Its gut had split open like a trapdoor, maybe it led somewhere? Inside they could barely see pieces of metal and wiring. They weren't even alive this whole time? They must've been built by someone. Wordlessly they approached, waiting for an opening to get up the stage unseen. The group had come up from the ground, right? There had to be a giant lift here! All the strange adults must want to get the crowd out of the room before lowering it to move the huge corpse.

If they moved the platform, it would probably bring them to a restricted area, and the blonde woman might not think to look for them there.

In unison they climbed the stage. The adults and walking machines were looking away as they slipped into the bear's torso, Six pulled a bottom panel closed and Mono shut the top.

--- 👁 ---

This wasn't exactly going as planned.

Nothing felt like it did when they used lifts in the Pale City, they were still on the stage when a pair of adults did something to drag the machine to a different part of the building. Cold hisses and mechanical whirrs started to shake them in the empty case.

"Showtime already?" A somewhat jumbled but warm voice pondered aloud.

"I am experiencing a malfunction, the recharge cycle is not complete."

The machine shook, the pair braced themselves against the metal bars and plastic walls.

"My balance seems to be off as well, my weight has shifted." it hummed.

Just when they thought it was done, the entertainer moved again. Mono's head bonked one of the cold bars, his foot slipped and sent him fumbling around his side of the container, followed by Six as she tried to steady him.

"Is someone there? I heard a noise." It asked, it knew something was wrong.

They exchanged glances, debating without words about what to do. Mono had hoped it might overlook the situation if they kept quiet, adults didn't usually hunt in one area too long, lest they waste time. But the bear grew suspicious, and a banging against the front panels shook the machine. Was it trying to break into itself? Inconspicuously as they could, they lifted themselves to a more comfortable position, cramped as they'd been. Out of nowhere, the panels opened, revealing the pair to the giant doll in a mirror. Seems like this thing wouldn't have as easily exploitable of a weakness as the Lady of the Maw.

"Hey! That place is reserved for oversized birthday cakes and piñatas! It is not a safe play area!"

"Why would we be playing in here?" Six snarled.

The machine stumbled back, not expecting such a response from such a small child. Did her parents raise her to be so rude? The little girl took the chance to slip out of his chest and whipped around to face him, the boy jumped out shortly after.

"There you are." It stated, closing the doors to its stomach.

Blue light stretched from the talking object's eyes, washing over the boy in a trench coat.

His feet were black with dirt and his well-scarred legs were disturbingly skinny. Ripped brown pants covered most of his shins, yellow and gray with bruises. His hands were hardly any better, bony and messy. Though his arms were covered by his coat, he imagined they were similar. His face, oh, this poor boy's face. A terrible scar ran from the left of the bridge of his nose to the bottom of his jaw. There was a spot between his lips where the flesh had been carved away, showing off plaque-ridden teeth despite his mouth being tightly closed. Piercing blue eyes winced away from the scanners, weighed down by the black bags under them.

The brightness hurt his eyes and he turned away. Thankfully it was over quickly, and the light moved on to Six.

She reacted much the same as her friend. But Freddy knew his sensors weren't that bad, maybe they just weren't used to bright lights? She wore a tattered yellow raincoat, smudged with mud. Her bare feet were covered in muck and shallow scars ran up her legs. Dirt was stuck under her finger and toenails, bruises and more scars ran up her arms, and her skin stretched tightly and painfully over her bones. Her face was covered in more thin scars, as well as a decently sized but faded burn mark over the right side of her face, and her sunken eyes leered at him from behind her oily, ratty black hair. Those eyes were a clear, striking red as well. Combined with her extremely pale skin, perhaps she was albino?

"How odd, I cannot find your guest profiles." he eventually stated.

The kids tilted their heads like kittens, both raising an eyebrow in the exact same way, they must've been together for a very long time, to pick up each other's mannerisms.

"Your guest profiles, they let us keep track of your purchases and favorite attractions? Your parents would know more about them."

They stared blankly and shrugged.

"Speaking of which, can you tell me where your parents are? They must be very worried."

Nothing, they didn't even speak.

"You do have parents, correct?" Maybe they were orphans? But how would they have gotten into the Pizzaplex?

They looked at each other. Silent conversations weren't quite rare to pairs that knew each other for extended periods, but it was becoming difficult to sort this situation out when he only had one side of the conversation.

If anyone could call this a conversation.

--- 👁 ---

'Any idea what it's talking about?' Mono looked to Six.

'No idea.' She shrugged.

'Check that way.' He nodded his head to the corner of the room.

Six couldn't see the door there without giving something away, but she would figure it out quickly.

'Deal with him.' She waved in the curious machine's direction.

'Got it.' He smirked.

--- 👁 ---

"What are parents?" The boy asked.

Well that's depressing. Freddy didn't notice the girl inching out of the way.

"Well... How do I explain this?

Parents take care of you. They are supposed to do their best to help you grow into your best self."

"So... Like the two of us?" He asked.

"No, parents are adults, they take care of children like you."

"Why?" He didn't even hesitate to ask.

Strange, this boy genuinely needed an explanation for parents taking care of their kids? Then again, they need to be told what parents were in an establishment filled with families.

"Because they love their kids."

"Why would an adult love a kid?!" Unbeknownst to the bear, Six stood behind him with an equally incredulous face.

How was he supposed to respond to that? How was anyone supposed to respond to that? There had to be someone who took care of these two at some point in their lives, right?

"Well..." And how was he supposed to explain love?

Alright, Google, you must not fail me now.

'Parents' love for their children is frequently deeply rooted in their own experiences and values. Many parents want to provide their children with the love, support, and opportunities they may not have had. Finally, a parent's love for their children may be driven by the desire to create a better world.

-Better Help.'

"Because parents want to give their kids the lives they didn't get to live, they want their children to get to live in a better world than the one they were born into."

"Why would they bother?"

"Because it is the right thing to do. You must have had adults care for you before, and they would've fed you or washed you, correct?"

The boy actually laughed at that. A cold, twisted laugh Freddy didn't expect from anyone but the most pessimistic and bitter of men, but a child?

"Nope, not once." He growled.

"Are you sure you can't think of anyone?" Freddy asked, more for his own sake than the boy's.

He only frowned, looking away as to think, but shook his head.

"What about-" He turned to ask the little girl, but finding her gone.

The boy shot up and reached a hand to him as if trying to stop him from talking to his friend. A bright yellow coat stood by the exit to his greenroom, then rushed to press the button to open it. However, as the button was glowing red, the door was locked. Behind him, Mono's fingers buzzed with blue static, waiting to strike the Entertainer down the second it jumped Six.

"Sorry, but that door is locked at the moment." Freddy stated.

Both of the kids froze. That was it? He was just going to tell them it was locked? Plus, what was the point of having a lock on the door when there was a giant window across from them? Did whoever built this thing think someone wouldn't just throw something at it? Nevertheless, they still had an easy way out if they needed it.

Mono retracted his hand, his skin returning to normal as the blue aura faded.

"If you don't mind me asking, didn't you have any adults to take care of you?" Freddy asked.

The girl laughed, a tad more twisted than the boy, sadistic, even. The boy looked plain depressed at some angles, and she looked to hide the same behind sadistic mania.

"We've been hunted down, shot at, chased, and abducted. All we've ever relied on is each other, and we've gotten this far. So stay out of our way."

She pulled up her hood and started looking around the room for something heavy, whatever might make it easier to break the glass, as the metal bear recovered.

These two had never been cared for?

There had to be someone.

A dim light shone against the glass wall. The two kids rushed behind the curtain. It was officer Vanessa! Surely, she would have a better idea what to do.

"Do not worr-"

"SHH!" The kids cut him off.

The nightguard passed by the greenrooms without a care. Why would anyone but the animatronics be there, anyway? The only reason these kids were here at all was because they snuck into his chest cavity. Though this didn't seem like a normal patrol of the Pizzaplex, she seemed to be looking for something.

"What is wrong with Officer Vanessa?" He asked.

"Stop being so loud!" The girl whisper-yelled.

"She's chasing us, has been since we got here." The boy replied, at least one of them was being helpful.

"Do you know why?"

"It doesn't matter why. She's after us, and that's never a good thing. So we're getting out of here before she kills us, end of story."

What could possibly have happened to make this girl so sure Vanessa wanted to harm them? Even still, with Fazbear Entertainment's history, and their own apparent experience, maybe handing them over to someone they were convinced would harm them wouldn't be such a good idea anymore.

"Then I will contact the other animatronics instead, we can make sure you get to the exit before closing. What are your names?"

"No! Don't you dare rat us out to those things!" The girl snapped.

He was already trying to contact the Main Systems, but something seemed to be wrong with his connection. Maybe it had something to do with the malfunction? But he had just finished a standard reset. The issue should've been sorted out if there was something wrong with him, and there didn't appear to be any hardware damage, according to some self-diagnostics. Perhaps there was an error in the Pizzaplex itself. But if that were the case, Vanessa should've already reported it, yet there was no such incident file currently in the database.

"That is alright, I cannot connect to the system, anyway."

Six glanced at Mono. Connection? Like the Signal Tower?

"But I would still like to know your names."

They looked at him, and to each other, again.

--- 👁 ---

'Lets break the glass.' Six nodded to the window.

'And run for it.' She tapped her foot.

'Where would we go?' Mono shrugged.

'Don't know, don't care.' She crossed her arms.

'He would know this place better than us.' Mono waved to the 'animatronic'.

'That's a terrible idea.' She shook her head.

'And your plan is so much better?' He gestured to her.

--- 👁 ---

"My name is Mono, and this is Six." The boy, 'Mono', eventually spoke.

"Your name is Six?" The giant bear clarified.

"Yes." 'Six' glared.

"What's your name?" Mono asked.

Strange, his face was plastered all over the building. How could anyone not know who he was?

"Oh, I'm Freddy Fazbear! Lead singer of-"

"How do we get out of here?" Six interrupted.

"One second, I can give you something that will help."

He reached for a shelf above his mirror, grabbing a small rack holding a set of nine branded watches of all the animatronics.

"These are novelty Freddy Fazwatches! They will allow me to communicate with you from afar and let you navigate the Pizzaplex easier."

"How do we know you won't try to control us with these?" Mono spoke, stepping back with Six.

"How would I control you?" It certainly wasn't a question he'd ever been asked before, but tonight brought a lot of firsts for him.

"Signals through screens, a bunch of wires. I don't know! But why would we take the chance?" Mono continued.

"Well, I can assure you, these are only able to tell time and interface with the Pizzaplex. They cannot connect to a living being in any way."

"Interface?" Six wondered aloud.

"It just means; 'to interact with something.' Pick the one you like the most, and I will send you both a secret message!"

There was an orange bear, blue rabbit, white bird, red fox, gray wolf, green lizard, gold sun, blue moon, and black...

What was that thing?

One of the wristbands was dark black with a white frame around the screen. Near the top it had a pair of round black eyes with yellow dots and a set of rosy cheeks. Big red lips held the top and bottom of the tiny device in the center of the mouth.

Six grabbed it, not caring what it was. The black matched the look of her powers and its pupils went well with her dear raincoat.

Mono was happy with the gray and neon green wolf. They powered on the 'Fazwatches' and they quickly made a pinging noise.

'Hello, Mono and Six! It is me, Freddy. I will escort you to the main entrance. That way you will be able to hide in my chest cavity. However, I am unable to leave this room, as I do not have the maintenance clearance to the main door, but you should have no problem. I will make the button Six tried to press accessible to you now, you will have to climb through the vents and let me out from the other side.'

The button had turned green in the minute it took them to read the message, leading them to a backroom with various boxes and a grate.

--- 👁 ---

Cramped as the vents were, they were nothing the pair weren't used to, they'd had to sleep in areas just as contorted before.

"Your performance was perfect tonight. Thank you."

Now what?

"Your hair is beautiful, your tail is beautiful. Everyone was watching you, everyone loves you, everyone wants to be you."

The towering wolf on Mono's watch sat before a mirror, talking to herself like she was the queen of the world. What wouldn't he give, to have that kind of confidence?

"You are the best. Thank you. I am the best, I am the best. I bet your fans are watching you right now."

He couldn't stop remembering their trip through the Maw when they'd find the inhabitants performing their daily duties before having to confront them. He kept crawling through the ducts, Six just behind him.

The big lizard animatronic was sitting on a couch in his room. The place was a complete disaster, covered in claw marks on every wall but the glass one, which had the curtains torn to shreds. From his seat, he threw a purple ball against the opposite wall, caught it when it bounced back, and repeated the process mindlessly.

Loud music shook through the vents. In the final room, the white bird plucked the strings of her weird device, it stung their ears as they passed the dancing machine, oblivious to the pain it was causing them.

Mono gladly located the exit and hopped to the carpeted floor. Pleasantly surprising, most of the lights were out. It was rare to find such a bright building, the near-black lighting was welcome. Adults were usually asleep by dark, the few that weren't couldn't see well, and the many bugs and rustling of animals helped mask their movements.

Kids always thrived in the dark.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for visiting and we hope you enjoyed the show! Freddy and the gang are pretty tired, but they'll be back again next week after a few days of scheduled maintenance."

That dreaded voice blared all over the structure. Seems like nobody would be coming to this eyesore of a building for some time, they might be able to come back and steal some extra food and water in that time.

"Please make your way to the front of the building where you will be given novelty glasses, a voucher for one free soda refill, and where you will sign a legal disclaimer releasing us of all liability for anything that might have happened during your visit. Have an awesome night, and we'll see you again soon!"

Whatever that meant, it wouldn't help them now. Mono located the correct door and tried to open it. There wasn't a green button he could press, but there also wasn't a handle to grab, it seemed to slide open when unlocked. He pressed a few buttons on the watch, figuring out how to talk to the big bear.

"Freddy, how do we open this thing?" Mono asked.

"You will need a photo pass to open the door." He replied quickly.

"My apologies, Mono, I assumed you already had one. But do not worry, it won't take long to get one from a convenience counter."

"Was that supposed to mean anything to us? We've never been here before." Six asked through her own watch.

"I am sorry, Six. I will try to be more clear in the future."

Freddy didn't seem to notice her silence. Another monster... Apologized to her?

Mono absolutely noticed the brush of pink across her face, he would never let her live this down.

"Uh... It's okay." She assured the animatronic.

--- 👁 ---

Freddy absolutely noticed Six going quiet. If she and Mono were so terrified of others, they couldn't be very socialized. Maybe he needed nicknames for them? Just a little something to make them feel special. He'd have it figured out by the time they got back.

--- 👁 ---

"Anyway. There should be a large shutter on one end of the hallway, it is covering a convenience store. If you can open it, you should be able to find a photo pass inside. Look for an orange and blue present box with a red crank on the side."

The pair shared a look before Six called Freddy again.

"What's a... Present?"

"...Oh... A present is a gift you give or receive from someone. Just look for an orange box with blue ribbons, you will know it when you see it."

--- 👁 ---

It was just that easy. The box was under a big cardboard picture of Freddy with a bubble over his head... for some reason. It was a card simply labeled 'photo pass' with a picture of the wolf next to a series of black lines. Upon returning to the greenroom, a plate on the side of the door reacted to the pass and unlocked the door.

--- 👁 ---

Wait, I still do not know what to call them! Um... Supeeerrr? Super what? Umm... Error! Error!

--- 👁 ---

"Way to go, superstars!" The bear exclaimed.

Six and Mono jumped back a little, not expecting him to be so loud all of a sudden, or right at the door.

"I knew you could do it!" Freddy said quieter.

They calmed down for a moment. Silence was ideal, but this wasn't bad at all. Freddy was certainly an enigma, existing almost solely to defy everything they thought they knew. He had yet to try to kill or eat them if he even ate. He'd apologized to Six, even though she'd been a fair bit snarky with the entertainer. Then he wanted to help them? Why?

He couldn't be trusted, of course, nobody could. But the way he spoke to and carried himself around them... Maybe he would be worth listening to, for a short time.

'Superstar' also felt nice.

Chapter Text

"Now that I am out of my greenroom, I can hide you from Officer Vanessa in my chest cavity and bring you to the exit of the Pizzaplex." Freddy offered.

The panels over his chest flipped open. Reluctantly, the pair stepped into the container. There was no reason 'Vanessa' would look for them there, but the risk of being turned into a meat pretzel wasn't great. Dark gray stairs brought them to an underground section of the building. The black was comforting, nobody could see them now, especially inside the mechanical bear. It was nice to be walking through something so familiar compared to the rest of the Pizzaplex until a figure scuttling across the walls startled the two. Freddy's chest was hardly meant to carry a person, let alone two; Mono lost his footing and scraped his left arm against one of the screws in the animatronic's skeleton. A sharp sting ran up his forearm, his hand shook and a gross, sticky wetness started expanding across his arm.

Six turned away from him but reached a hand for his.

"Do not worry, superstars, it was just an endoskeleton. It seems some pipes are close enough to the wall for it to magnetize to it."

Endoskeleton? Magnetize?

"Hello? Little boy? Little girl? Are either of you down here?" The woman's voice carried through the halls below.

"We told you she's after us!" Six spoke, though her voice was growing raspy and froggy.

"Do not worry, she will not expect us to be traveling together, you are safe with me. That being said, it is best if we are not spotted. If I am sent back to my room, then we will never get to the lobby before the doors lock."

Mono's arm twitched as he painfully braced himself against a metal rod.

"Is something wrong? I feel you are broken." Freddy asked.

"I'm fine, just hit my arm." Mono assured him.

"No, I am taking you to the first aid station." The machine shook as it turned off the path.

"No! I'm fine! We have to get out of here before she catches us!" Mono insisted, his voice getting coarse as well.

"There is one on the way to the exit, it will only take a moment."

Looks like we're finding out what 'first aid' is.

When they were forced out of the container, they were presented with a messy room with walls and floors made entirely of concrete. It was covered in stray papers, boxes, and equipment. Against one wall was a white box covered by a red curtain, above it hung a white square with a red cross centered by Freddy's face. Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. Mono and Six quickly squeezed into the stand, pushing aside boxes and bottles they barely recognized.

"Freddy? You're supposed to be on lockdown." Vanessa rubbed her baggy eyes as she addressed the bear.

"Officer Vanessa! I do not know how I got here." Freddy's voice got high.

She wasn't convinced at all, the kids could tell through the gap in the curtain, but she seemed too exhausted and in a hurry to concern herself with him. More footsteps shook the ground, somehow heavier than that of the Nightguard. The wolf, bird, and lizard rounded the corner.

"Hey dude! Ya really blew it tonight!" The green lizard yelled, right next to Vanessa's ear.

"Yeah, your system crashed out of nowhere, are you okay?" The chicken asked while Vanessa covered her ears.

"I am all better now, the reset cycle ended earlier than anticipated." Freddy waved to his friends.

"Parts and service has you on reduced power, I think they said something about a Safe Mode?" Vanessa soothed the side of her head and stepped away from the green machine.

"Yes, I have noticed, Safe Mode can be quite draining, but it is a necessary precaution when a malfunction takes place." He explained.

"Right... Just keep an eye out. There were some kids in pretty bad shape earlier and they never left the building."

"Not long 'till the place closes down, too. Vanny here's got us all on high alert." The wolf cut in, throwing an arm over the woman's shoulder, who awkwardly pat the walking doll's fluffy head.

"But I think we all already know who'll be the one to drag them in." The wolf ran her claw through her hair.

"Yeah, me!" The alligator exclaimed.

"You're so bitey you'd just gobble them up like all my fans think you will. Besides, all that stomping would probably scare them off, anyway" She spat.

"They're MY fans and your claws are gonna end up ripping 'em to shreds, what's your point?" The gator snarled.

"Guys, they're all our fans." The white chicken tried to intervene.

"Have you seen all the My Special Day drawings that come in? Half of them are all about me. I'm just the best." The wolf boasted.

"Half of them are about Freddy!" The bird threw her arms up.

"That's just because management keeps advertising him first! The ones in the storage are all mine!"

"Roxy, most of those are about Bonnie and Foxy." Freddy pointed out.

"Oh, stuff it, Fazbear. Everyone already loves you, why do you care?"

"Yeah, it should be my turn to be the lead! Cassie's gonna go wild!" Roxy shoved the gator out of her way.

An argument soon began, continuing as the woman shooed them away to look for Mono and Six. The chicken waved goodbye to Freddy as they dispersed around the cold, narrow halls. But Vanessa stayed back, eyeing him suspiciously and shining her flashlight in his painted face.

"If you see either of those two, even for a second, notify me. Don't chase them, don't let them know you found them, just tell me. It's extremely important they get out of here before midnight."

"O-of course! Officer Vanessa, I w-will tell you right away!" He stammered.

She didn't seem to buy it any more than him not knowing how he got to the basement, but it got the job done well enough. She didn't have time to care. Her hefty, irritated footsteps echoed beside that of the other three animatronics.

"It is alright, they are gone now."

Six stepped out of the curtain, followed by Mono with his stinging arm.

"Please don't tell me you actually thought they wanted to help." Six glared from beneath her hood.

"I admit Monty and Roxanne were slightly more... aggressive than usual. But I swear, they mean only the best."

"Yeah, right, you probably think the bird doesn't have it out for us, either." Six's worsening voice accused.

"Chica? Her primary purpose is managing the health of guests. Speaking of which, I am not as proficient in medicinal care as she is, but I can easily guide you through the major steps to tend to your injury."

Freddy gestured for Mono to sit.

"We don't have time for that, I'm okay! We've both been through worse."

Everything involving his future self came to mind... Though they wished it hadn't.

"Your safety and health are top priorities. I will not take you to the lobby until you are properly taken care of." Freddy pointed to the seat of the stand again.

Mono finally sat with Six by his side, better to not waste time right now. He rolled up his brown sleeve to reveal a tan bandage with a splotch of old, dried blood in the center, slowly turning red. Freddy winced as well as his mechanical face was able to, how long had that bandage been there? The raggedy thatch stuck to itself as Mono unfurled it, clinging to the layers of decayed blood and painfully peeling off a series of eight cuts on the boy's arm. Miraculously, there wasn't any visible green puss or otherwise afflicted skin. Though his body must've fought off most diseases already, there was no reason to test his luck. The deep, disgusting cuts trickled crimson down his elbow. Four of them slashed across the top of his forearm like a ladder, the two on the outside of the wound were longer and deeper than the rest, dripping with red and swollen. Both of the innermost cuts looked better, but only barely. On the other side of his forearm were four similar slices, though smaller than the opposite set. They seemed to just be shrunken versions of the same injuries. Did something bite him?

Mono stopped unwrapping the bandage near the top of his arm.

"What is wrong, superstar? Do you not want to get that bandage off?" Mono's face turned pink while Freddy turned to grab a package of simple wipes.

"We can just reuse it." He stated as if nothing was wrong.

Absolutely not.

"Mono, it is dirty, you will get sick."

"But we can save the clean ones for later." His voice was starting to sound raspy.

"No, I will apply clean bandages for you, your well-being is more important."

Such a simple sentence silenced him so quickly. They really didn't understand being cared for, did they? Before Freddy could tend to the thin boy, he took the cold wipes out of his hand and started cleaning the area on his own. Six fidgeted as he winced, equal parts concerned and unable to watch. Odd, she didn't seem like the squeamish type. Mono quickly finished cleaning his wounds. He was surprisingly thorough, like he'd done this a thousand times. He hesitated to get rid of the ruined bandage, but was adamant about being the one to replace it. Was he just afraid to let Freddy get too close? Perhaps the duo was only barely willing to ride in his stomach hatch out of necessity.

With his sleeve pulled back down over the wrapped animal bite, he hopped back into the animatronic and they continued their walk.

--- 👁 ---

Well this was already going sideways.

A red outline of Freddy's head appeared on Mono and Six's watches, centered by a black lightning bolt and split up by lines.

"I am terribly sorry. The recharge cycle had not yet completed when I found you."

Freddy helped them out of the container, pointing them to a set of red double doors.

"You must continue without me, I will guide you on your Fazwatches the best I can, but I do not have the power needed to maintain Safe Mode all the way to the exit. Fortunately, you should have a fairly clear shot at the front doors now."

With a nod, they made their way to the doors while Freddy stepped into a big red chamber. A round window let him keep an eye on the kids as they left.

A messy table blocked the way, covered in an assortment of cans and standing atop a mass of boxes. Better to just go around it, until the chicken blocked their way in the next room. She kneeled over a mass of garbage, devouring it like there was something edible inside. Mono nudged the cans and toppled some over.

"This area is off limits!" Chica shot up.

"It isn't safe for you-... here?"

There was nothing there. Two monsters were already sneaking behind her as she sifted around the pile of trash, looking for anything she missed. This place was a dumpster fire, shelves were stocked with scrap and small bags of worthless junk. A maze of pink halls nearly turned them completely around, but they found their way to a long hall, many metal pipes and advanced screens lined the concrete tunnel.

"There you are!"

From the other side of a wire gate, the green lizard, 'Monty', reached for them. The poles and coiled mesh of steel cords bent under his weight and snapped apart, but he was much too slow to be a threat in a chase. Passing the unusual screens, they entered an intersection. One side was barricaded by large plastic boxes before Chica charged through them. Grabbing her friend's hand, Six dragged him down the left hall and up a staircase.

"Hold on! Little ones! I have candy if you wait for us!" The bird yelled after them.

Nice try, the only candy they'd had was from a merchant that lured in kids to turn them into treats for the Viewers to enjoy. With a bang, a massive steel wall sealed them into a room with a gargantuan screen. All it would take was finding the right frequency to pass through, as a last resort.

"Well done! You found a security office! You should be quite safe here" Freddy spoke from the watches as one of the entertainers began hitting and scratching the barricade.

"The doors were designed to keep our highly-trained security staff safe in the event of an emergency. As long as the doors stay closed, which they will, as long as there is ample power-"

"The power's only at 15 percent!" Six read from a battery-shaped display, next to the metal sheet.

"They're pounding on the door, how do we get out of here?" Mono kept his gravelly voice low.

Freddy paused, were their throats already getting sore? They hadn't been talking for long at all.

"Do not panic." He resumed.

"You should see a scanning pad on the desk. Hold your Fazwatches over it as I make it accessible to you."

--- 👁 ---

What could possibly be making all this noise?

Gregory stumbled down the staff halls. Loud, clanking metal made it nearly impossible to sleep. The harsh sound carried through the vents and echoed around his sleeping bag in Kid's Cove. He'd hoped to get one decent night's sleep soon, as there didn't seem to be much happening at night in the last couple of days. It would've been well worth the lack of work, and tokens to buy food, if he could properly lie down for the first time in three weeks, but of course the robots were freaking out over something stupid right on the night he finally had nothing he needed to do but sleep.

"It's alright! Just leave the office and I can get you some delicious candies and pizza! We can even grab your favorite Fizzy-Faz on the way to Officer Vanessa!" Chica offered, followed by the loud slam of steel-on-steel.

...

This better stay someone else's problem...

--- 👁 ---

Once connected to the cameras, it didn't take long for the boy to start plotting an escape path. His unnatural affinity for the complexities of signals and frequencies at last started working in his favor, without the Thin Man and the Signal Tower looming over him. Though he didn't understand this tiny device and its workings at all, he could barely feel the many connections in the back of his mind, countless little shocks leading to cameras and transmitters and receivers centered around nodes he couldn't yet identify.

"Do not forget; when a camera detects movement, it will send you a red alert icon. You should be able to see the way to the main lobby and flee the Pizzaplex." Freddy advised.

Six had barely begun to get the hang of clicking boxes on the tiny screen, relying on Mono to pull her in the right direction. Through the messy service halls, they ran, finding a wide open space beyond another set of doors.

"Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex is now closed, initiating nighttime protocols."

Mono and Six immediately gunned it down the large space to the glass doors, rounding empty food stands, a golden statue of Freddy, and screens built around support pillars. But the metal shutters had already locked them in. Six punched the cold steel while Mono contacted their host.

"Freddy, we didn't make it." He stated simply, the burn in his throat making it hard to speak.

"How unfortunate. You may have missed this chance, but there is still hope. You could try to lay low until the doors reopen at 6 AM, but it would be much faster to upgrade your photo pass to something you could use to reach another exit.

There is a stand near the main entrance where you can obtain a Complimentary Pizzaplex Entry Pass. It will unlock the turnstiles and some doors so you can reach the upgrade machine in customer service.

You can get there using a backdoor in a shop called Faz-Pad."

Alright then, seems easy enough.

One by one, the lights went out. The once-bright building plunged into darkness, leaving them with nothing but the occasional neon pink or blue rays dimly illuminating the checkered floor.

Perfect! Just enough to see the edges of the walls, and easy to hide in the pitch-black middle of the room.

"Our friendly security staff can help!"

Great.

The voice of Chica echoed around the dark lobby, along with her light steps. The bright white animatronic passed by the lights of a moving wet floor sign, shining on her multicolored designs while walking down the stairs. They hid in an under-construction space between the two sets of stairs, watching the bird walk by as Six came across a Chica T-shirt.

Ironic. It might make a good extra layer if the heater was turned off as well.

Now where was the Faz-Pad?

Though it took some time to read the signs, their excellent night vision brought them up the stairs to an orange establishment with a strange machine inside.

It was tall and lanky, walking on three white legs with exposed red wires. Its main body was incredibly small, just a box with a white plate and gray pads protecting it and the joints connecting the front two limbs. A bent rod held a cylindrical object in place that projected a ring of red laser pointers ahead of it.

As Chica got closer, they hid in a photo booth and listened to her fading steps before contacting Freddy.

"Hey, there's something in Faz-whatever it was called." Six put bluntly, her voice burning.

"That would be a security bot. They are not meant to be seen by guests, so their appearance is not exactly 'friendly'. Stay out of sight of their cameras, or they will raise an alarm."

"Got it."

--- 👁 ---

These robots were useless. The lights emitted red lines, marking the machine's cone of vision, and it was so tall it was easy to crouch under its sight. A staircase brought them to a locked room labeled 'Lost and Found' and a door bringing them to their destination.

In the corner of the room, an orange machine sat next to a sign saying to keep magnets away from it. Almost the second Mono inserted their photo pass, the screen flashed purple glitches and ate the card. They tried to shake and kick it quietly as they could, but there was no apparent way to get it back.

Frustrated like a cat, Six continued trying the same tricks while Mono asked for help.

"The machine ate the pass, any ideas?" He whispered to the watch.

"Try Glamrock Gifts, there may be something you can use to break the machine."

--- 👁 ---

Alright, some of these 'Security Drones' were more troublesome than they looked. All it took was for one of the red beams to graze Mono's foot and a blaring siren nearly burst their ears. Chica tried to chase them down, but Mono ducked behind a counter and hid in a stroller while Six doubled back on the animatronic, triggering another alarm before ducking back into the store as the white chicken left.

"Your family is looking for you!" She called to the vacant lobby.

Family? What?

"It's a... Purple... Animal? I don't know what it is, but it's wearing a hat like yours." She overheard Mono speaking.

"Oh, it sounds like one of our Mr. Hippo fridge magnets... I am truly sorry, superstar."

"Wait, magnet? Bring it back to the machine." She interrupted.

"Excellent idea, Six!

But before you do, I must ask, are your voices okay? You are starting to sound like they are hurting."

Again, this weird doll was checking in on them. Can't he see it's a waste of time?

"We're okay, we just aren't used to talking so much. We're going back to the machine now."

"Wait-"

Freddy was cut off by a mute button. Six would have to ask him how he did that, but for now, they weaved through the robots and held the apparent 'magnet' against the clunky yellow upgrade box. A bright blue card with a cartoony sun and moon on it fell out of the card reader.

"The magnet broke the box. Now we have something labeled 'daycare pass', does that mean anything to you?" Mono unmuted Freddy and asked, though his throat was quite raw.

"Hmm... We can work with this. I will meet you at the daycare so I can continue escorting you somewhere you can leave.

There are also some vending machines there. If you can find some spare change somewhere, you can get some of our branded candy! The blue ones help you sleep, while the gold ones can function as cough drops."

What is it with this bear? First he's obsessing over an old cut, now he wants to get them something for their throats?

"Why exactly are the Sun candies cough drops, anyway?" Another voice asked through the Fazwatch.

"Fazbear Entertainment wanted an excuse to drive up the price to make them comparable to Moon's candy...

Wait...

Who is this? How did you get on this channel?" The bear stammered.

--- 👁 ---

"My name is Gregory, I invited myself in."

He sat in the security office those kids had presumably run out of. His Fazwatch had a wire running to the big security screen, letting him see multiple cameras around the Pizzaplex. One was pasted on Freddy, another on Chica, and a few tracked the two kids on their way to the daycare. Although the door's power was out, the animatronics wouldn't have any reason to come here now.

Not that they'd ever attack him.

"Gregory, nobody is allowed in the Pizzaplex after hours, how did you get stuck here? I will help you escape, where are you?" Glamrock Freddy fussed.

"I'm not the one trapped here, I'm just that good." He smirked.

"You don't need to know where I am. Those two want to leave, I want to help, that's all we need to know about each other.

That creepy sock puppet won't let me into any of the major controls, but I can make guest profiles for the two of them and wire some tokens for the machines."

"Sock puppet? Profiles? Gregory, how are you able to do this? It takes at least two business days for a profile to be created, and Faz-tokens must be purchased by an adult!"

"Like I said, I'm just that good. Anyway, I have a few tokens in my account I can send them, it should be enough to get some Sun candy."

"...Thank you, Gregory, but you need to leave the Pizzaplex with-" The new boy but Freddy off.

"Not a chance." GGY wouldn't be pushed around by a talking robot.

"Is anyone gonna explain what just came up on our watches?" A raspy, pained voice interrupted them, the girl in yellow.

Gregory looked back to the office screen, they were already at the Daycare.

--- 👁 ---

Before them was the worst location possible. It was covered in obnoxiously bright lights and colors. This place would be impossible to sneak around unless they could snuff out the light. Thankfully the lights by the entrance were all off, offering a moment to rest beside a pair of gold statues. Scattered around the small room were tiny blue chairs and tables, taller red seats with higher tables, and a few comfy orange sofas.

Gregory's voice broke through their watches again.

"You need to set a four-character password, then you can hold your watches up to the pads on the vending machines to pay for your stuff with tokens." He explained.

"Tokens?" Mono questioned, Freddy cut in as well.

"Parents can pay a dollar for a Faz-token to be added to their child's guest profile, letting them get toys and treats from stores. Purchasing merchandise with Faz-tokens is around 50% cheaper than using money, that way management can lure parents into paying the monthly membership fee."

That probably made sense to someone.

Both of them typed away on the watches, deciding on their passwords.

'51x6' Mono decided, finding 2 Faz-tokens in his account.

'30n0' Six selected.

They shared their screens and smiled.

"I only have 3 tokens left now, so you better love that candy." Gregory huffed.

It took a minute to figure out how the candy box worked, but eventually they were sharing a bag of sugary gold orbs. The hard candy was outstanding! Mono couldn't put his finger on what the flavor was, but it tasted like a super sweet version of a sour yellow fruit he'd tried on the Maw. Six had giggled about the face he'd made until her face and chest hurt. They sat on one of the orange couches, enjoying their candy like common visitors, their throats already felt better.

"Those things aren't that great." Gregory judged from the office, those two were smiling large enough to see from these crappy cameras.

"Gregory, if they like them, you should not judge. It is not hurting you." Freddy reprimanded.

"These things are great!" Mono whisper-yelled into the watch.

"Eh, they're pretty mid." The other boy added again.

"Well we've never had anything like them, leave it alone." Six waved the boy off.

"You have never had candy, superstars?"

"No wonder you like those so much."

"Yeah, the only candies we've ever seen were from a guy luring kids to turn them into lollipops and sell."

--- 👁 ---

Gregory shot up in his chair, looking at but not seeing the security screen right in front of him.

What

The

FUCK?!

--- 👁 ---

"S-superstars... Are-"

"Yes, Freddy, we know what we saw, he dipped them in the syrupy stuff and everything." Six deadpanned.

Some footsteps echoed down the hall to the daycare, barely audible behind the door. Mono and Six covered their noisy watches, then leaped over the back of the couch. In the dark, the big daycare doors flew open. Like an animal, the mechanical wolf slouched with her sharp claws pointed forward and mouth agape. Her pointy teeth gnashed at the open air while her hair trailed behind her. It didn't seem like the robots could see them too easily in the dim lights of the locked-up building, but there was no reason to test their luck. This one walked too confidently to be sure she wouldn't find them. Though it was tough to say if Roxanne actually had better vision than the other three, or she was just cocky.

"I know you're here! You used the vending machine!" She spoke to the open room.

What?

"Psst! Guys!" Gregory whispered through the watch.

"Sometimes the animatronics can detect things around the Pizzaplex through the Main Systems. Roxy must've noticed the profiles being created and activating the vending machine.

Just don't get too many things back-to-back from now on, or they'll start figuring out where you are. Buy whatever you need all at once" He explained.

They shuffled around the sofa as Roxanne walked around it. Her steps were quieter than they expected from a towering hunk of metal and plastic, the Bullies and Patients made way more sound than this. It was almost like she was tip-toeing through, the most sound she made was her tail tipping over some of the tiny seats. Once the wolf was a fair distance away, Gregory spoke to them again.

"Freddy says the animatronics can't follow you into the daycare itself, their programming won't let them since it's supposed to be the attendant's spot. Go down the slide and he'll meet up with you at the bottom exit."

The slide that the wolf was now standing in front of, and led to a painfully bright room with nowhere decent to hide, lovely.

Six gestured and nodded to Mono, silently making a plan. He was much slower than her, Six constantly shot ahead of him when they ran, she needed to make a distraction to keep him safe. The girl wouldn't have considered putting her neck out for someone else for a second, that was how you got a knife in the back and a noose around your neck, but Mono was different, special in some way she couldn't describe. They'd made it through the Pale City, through the loop in the Tower, and he still stuck by her side in the Maw.

She couldn't leave him behind ever again, no matter how many times it might burn her; a light, fuzzy feeling and generosity she still couldn't bring herself to extend to anyone else. She pulled her lighter from her jumper under her coat. It made a sharp noise and sent tiny bursts of light into the room. Roxy's ear twitched and she whipped around. Six stood in front of the couch, flicking the lighter on and off. It snapped as the flame began and clicked closed as she flicked the lid shut.

"I knew I was the best!" The wolf snarled and charged.

Just as she wound up to pounce, Six crouched down, prepared to do the same. Mono crawled from behind the couch, hiding behind a large, cushioned chair right when Six dove out of the wolf's path.

Roxanne slammed into the couch, barely missing the girl. Her claws ripped into the pillows, pulling out its stuffing and completely tearing apart much of the fabric. Her jaws clamped shut on the wooden frame, snapping the sturdy planks clean in half and flinging more cotton into her hair. Mono ran for the slide as Roxy threw the shattered parts of the couch aside, almost hitting him to the floor despite not seeing him. He was already slipping down the colorful tube as Six prepared to do the same. Roxanne roared and reached into the slide as the girl slid, missing the hood of her raincoat by a mile and unable to follow.

Chapter Text

"Gregory, please, you must exit the Pizzaplex with Mono and Six. I do not know what is going on, but it is no longer safe here." Freddy insisted.

"No way." The stubborn boy put plainly.

"Roxanne just tried to rip Six apart! You cannot stay!" He pleaded.

"They won't attack me, Freddy, I made sure of it." Gregory said.

"How can you be sure?"

"...Will you leave me alone if I tell you?"

Probably not, but they needed more information on this boy. How did he get here? Why was he here? Weren't his parents looking for him?

"Very well." Freddy agreed.

"A few months ago, I hacked into the main doors and snuck into the place, but Vanessa caught me. She brought me to lost and found and turned the computers on, then she just kinda... ditched me there."

"Odd, that does not sound like Vanny... Oh, that is her nickname, the daycare attendant gave it to her and started using it everywhere."

"Yeah, I gathered. I used to have a friend named Cassandra, I called her Cassie and it caught on.

Anyway, some guy started talking over the speakers; told me he could get me supplies if I did him a favor. He got locked out of his email and couldn't recover it, so he wanted me to break into it for him.

Turns out I impressed him, so he promised to get all the security to ignore me so I could stay in the Pizzaplex. In exchange, I would help him out every once in a while."

"Why did you want to stay? Your family must be so worried!" Freddy panicked, but Gregory stayed quiet.

"...I don't have one, I used to live in a cardboard box in an alley a few streets down."

"Oh... I am so sorry, Gregory."

"It's fine, I'm used to it.

The guy wires me tokens for food and crap, but he says I should get new outfits or play games until he needs me again.

Sometimes he needs me to install something for him, download a file somewhere, give him a backdoor through a firewall, even had me upgrade you guys a few times."

"You upgraded us? That job is reserved for highly trained technicians! Even they get it wrong sometimes." Freddy pointed out.

"Your eggheads aren't as great as you think." He could sense Gregory smiling through the watch.

"But yeah; I'm a bit of a whizz. Found out I had a knack for this on the streets, then got better with online tutorials and trial and error in here."

As nice as it was to know the boy was thriving in his time, where could this be going? The man had to have paid off Officer Vanessa to keep him in here, but that wasn't the type of Vanessa he and the band knew.

"Has he told you what these tasks are for?" Freddy asked.

"No, he pays me extra not to ask questions."

"Gregory, this man is clearly just a stranger trying to bribe you. You cannot trust him!" The animatronic warned.

This was a massive red flag, but Gregory is just a kid, he must not have looked too deeply into it.

"Oh, I know."

Scratch that.

"I can't afford to care what he does with them as long as I get paid. My options were freeze to death, or get a sketchy job with free shelter and discounts on everything this tacky dump has to offer, so here I am."

"Gregory, you are helping someone you do not know break into the Pizzaplex! People could get very hurt!"

"Nothing I added to you guys could've made Roxy do any of that! I double-checked before I joined your channel. I haven't added anything that could let you guys kill people. Not like your bosses wouldn't pay people off if anything went wrong anyway. I would've been thrown in the snow if I didn't agree!"

"Yes, but now you are okay, you must escape this person as soon as the doors open." Freddy reiterated.

"Oh, so you want to toss me back in the rain."

"That is not-" Freddy tried to explain, but Gregory wouldn't listen.

"Save it! I'm just helping those two out because I know what it's like to be in their shoes. After that, I'm going back to sleep and getting-" The Fazwatch's ringtone interrupted him.

"...Hold on, check on Six and Mono."

Freddy was muted before he could respond.

--- 👁 ---

'Call me.'

Great.

The simple message sent a shiver up his spine. Obviously, he couldn't trust Mr. Burrows, if that was even his real name, but the alternative was sleeping in a box with blankets made of whatever newspapers he could scavenge. There wasn't even a guarantee he'd be allowed to grab his extra clothes and some snacks, so it was back to this freak of nature every time.

"Gregory! I'm sorry to wake you, but I have something I need to do and can't see anything. Could you help me control some lights? It'll be 20 tokens."

His voice was froggy and deep, clearly that of an old man. Everything about him sounded like a smoker in a wheelchair with ruined lungs and a withering body, as if he was both rapidly burning through his final days and would still be going strong for several years at the same time. He was paying more than well enough, especially with all that self-changing green code stopping them from getting anything done. This was important to him, there was no telling what for, but he was running out of funds and needed to take advantage of this.

"30 tokens." Gregory countered.

"25" He offered, stingy creep.

"29" If nothing else, he could get some candy or drinks with the spare 2.

"26" It was getting harder to make him budge, maybe he could sacrifice the candy to make an even 30, then he could at least get three cheap meals.

"28" Please just lower to 27 or take it.

"27" Yes!

"That'll do." Gregory relented.

"You can have 30 and half upfront if you keep quiet." Even better!

"Alright, I'm on it."

15 Faz-tokens appeared in his profile as he worked on distracting the Marionette. Gregory took a deep sigh as his tense muscles loosened, every second with that guy always felt like an hour.

--- 👁 ---

This place is way too bright.

While it sure beats trying to sneak around a hunting wolf in a mostly empty room, the rays stung Mono and Six's eyes as they sifted their feet through the mass of multicolored plastic balls, holding hands in case one of them slipped and needed help up. Though Six was able to pull up her yellow hood, Mono had abandoned his paper bag by the Signal Tower and bore the brunt of the white glow head-on. Light blue walls surrounded them, covered in cartoonish clouds and black outlines of stars. They followed a trail lined with tall orange walls and cutouts of rainbows, made of glued blocks of plastic and cardboard. Similar models of clouds and birds dangled from the ceiling as they did all they could to remain quiet when the pool of toys clattered and bounced against one another.

At first the plan was to just move as slowly and subtly as possible through the river of blues and pinks and greens and reds, but a figure loudly announced himself from the top of a fake tower painted on the right wall.

Atop a faux-brick platform it spun out from a set of rich, red, and probably completely fake curtains. It chuckled something between a greeting and a hearty robotic laugh. The sun-shaped animatronic crouched down with its hands meeting high above its head, then dove from the mock tower into the ball pit. Now was the time to run, that machine was hiding somewhere in the sea with them and they'd completely lost track of it the moment the splash of orbs scattered. If they knew anything from the Maw's collection of abandoned boots, then it would displace enough of the orbs for them to see it leaving a trail. Even so, figuring out where it was wouldn't be enough to let them avoid it.

All the balls flowed out of their way like water as they reached one of the rainbow cutouts, expecting to push it down and find a hiding place somewhere in the rest of the huge room, but it was screwed to the floor. Mono tried to punch it down, but without the unnatural strength he had after devouring an adult, he couldn't get far. Now, he only left a short crack and tiny, pathetic dent where his fist connected. Maybe Six could've done better if she wasn't a walking skeleton, even compared to him. They still couldn't hear any of the balls shifting around behind them, it might not be moving. It wasn't worth taking the chance, of course. The thing likely lived here. If it was possible to move through the 'river' without making a sound, that oversized doll would know how. Six leaped up the model rainbow, wrapping her fingers around the edges of the clouds and throwing a leg over the other side.

The mechanical abomination burst from the pit just as she began pulling Mono up with her.

It was far slimmer than any of the animatronics they'd seen, like its creators painted directly over the frame instead of building it any proper casing. The tips of its yellow slippers curled upward like spirals. Huge, baggy pants with red and yellow stripes covered its spindly legs with a frill around the belt. A ruffled bowtie sat under its circular head, half of it appearing like a crescent moon and the other being shiny gold with a toothy smile etched across both pieces. Milky white eyes stared blankly at him, framed by nine pointy yellow triangles like the shine of a star. It was nearly tall enough to not need to crane its neck and look at him on top of the arc Six pulled him up.

"Helloooo! New-" Out of reflex he kicked it in its big round face.

Had he been as much of a cannibal as Six, he might've been able to snap the cream and yellow disc of the Sun's head clean in half, or knock it completely off to drown in the rainbow balls, but they'd have to settle for knocking the lanky thing back into the pit. Six practically threw Mono over the edge of the rainbow prop and tumbled to the luckily squishy ground on top of him. She stared at him with a silent apology as her elbow collided with one of his ribs, then pulled him to his feet beside her. Seizing the opportunity to run or hide, they dashed across the rubbery foam. Most of the structures around them were made of painted poles and bright tubes. Combine those with the far-too-bright lights, and they would have to get creative with their hiding spots, maybe climbing over more props if they had to.

"Waitwaitwait!" The thing shouted behind them, they'd been spotted.

"You can't play on those! You'll fall and get hurt!" It warned.

What?

Mono glanced behind them, the robot wasn't chasing them, just crawling out of the ball pit and waving frantically.

--- 👁 ---

That boy hits like Monty!

He could almost feel his internal circuitry jostling in his head as the kid's foot collided with his nose and sent him crashing into the ball pit. Was it even possible for a child to hit with so much force? It took him a few seconds to reset his system and maneuver out of the river of toys, but he caught sight of them as they ran across the play area. Sun called to them to be careful, the boy in the trench coat looked at him for a second, then whispered something to the other child. They both looked back at him and slowed. He happily twirled and danced over to them, but they stepped back, unwilling to get too close. It seemed like this was their first time in Daycare, a small handful of kids wanted to keep their distance when they first met him, but they'd always come around when he offered treats and games!

"Hey, new friends!" He greeted.

"You're sure up late! Are we having a slumber party? Where are all of your friends?" Kids usually had tons of buddies for sleepovers!

Except for that one little girl, but that was one exception and ol' reliable Roxy had it covered in an instant.

His bells jingled and ribbons swayed as he waved them through the air, but the two just continued eyeing him like he was insane. Sun stopped a good few feet in front of them, just in case they were startled easier than he thought.

"We can finger paint, tell stories, drink Fizzy-Faz until our heads ex-PLODE and stay up all night!"

They jumped as he yelled and pranced, so lowered his voice and leaned in closer.

"There is only one rule: keep the lights ON." Now that the boring stuff was all out of the way, they could all play to their hearts' content!

He crouched so low his knees almost hit the padded floor, angling his neck to their level, everything he'd learned to appear smaller and more approachable to the shyest visitors under his care while getting a better look at the kids.

He almost wished he hadn't. Sun kept up the usual bounciness he had when talking to children, but he was starting to overload, he might need to ask the Puppet if he could borrow some ram for this.

The boy was tall with only the absolute minimum muscle not to look like a toothpick. Torn brown pants covered his messy and scarred feet and legs. His trench coat was far from fashionable for most kids, but he seemed pleased with it! It suited him! Though with all the dirt and grime it was covered in, it was getting hard not to suspect he wore it out of necessity, rather than simple aesthetic. On his poor, pale face was a terrible scar stretching from the side of his button nose to the bottom of his jaw. The tip of the pink mark nearly touched his eye and a pair of his yellow-stained teeth were visible through a small hole torn in his lip. Despite their beautifully bright blue color, his eyes were incredibly dark, hollow even, beneath his knotted hair. His cheeks were almost as sunken as those eyes like they were being harshly pulled over his face.

Then there was the short girl. She was a walking corpse. The only way she could even be alive was through a miracle, but walking around? Running and climbing away from him? Dragging the boy around like he was even lighter than she must've been? This child was completely insane. Put simply, she defied the basics of all human biology and simple logic. Gosh, he could see her skeleton. Every joint looked like it was about to burst out of her flesh and the rest of each sickly bone was trying to tear free of her skin. Her bare toenails and fingernails were sharp like talons, hands and feet just as dirty and wounded as that of the boy's.

Over her heavy shoulders draped a yellow raincoat covered in smudges of mud and unidentified grime; also like the boy, it suited her, yet clearly wore it more out of necessity than her obvious love for it. But of course, she had to snarl at him when he got closer, a genuine snarl like she was a mangy, rabid hound. Between her thin and chapped lips a set of fangs snapped at him, greatly lengthened canines bordered an abnormal set of incisors, they'd been sharpened like knives for a grand total of eight brutal blades ready to rip someone's arm clean off. Her oily, messy hair and hood mostly covered her eyes, but not completely; they would've been a wonderfully unique and gorgeous scarlet, if not for them being slightly bloodshot and sinking into their sockets.

What had happened to these two?

Clearly the girl was somehow okay for the short term, but he'd need to keep a close eye on her wellbeing. It wouldn't be hard to get to the vending machines above them and grab her a snack until he could fetch something more substantial.

--- 👁 ---

Something was off about this place. That applied to the whole Pizzaplex, but this massive room was especially perplexing to Six. The name 'daycare' had to mean it was here for adults to care for something during the day, so why was it decorated as if it had kids in mind? If this place was somewhere adults cared for things, why was it painted as if there would be small children? What reason could there be, for a kid to be at a daycare at all?

What if it was designed to lure them?

She motioned to Mono to look around, there had to be something they were missing. This place was covered in strange structures and large decorations, it was hard to see many of them with how bright the lights were, but it wasn't impossible to hide here, especially if you already knew the layout well. Heck, that was their plan before this thing started waving and fussing over them like Freddy!

Besides, there were two statues by the entrance; didn't the existence of a daycare attendant imply there was a nightcare attendant skulking around, too?

That, or she'd completely misinterpreted what a daycare was, which wasn't likely with their luck.

Their Fazwatches sang a cute jingle, they'd gotten a message.

'Hello, Superstars! Since you are already in the main room of the Daycare, you should know there is a security station on one side of the room with a security pass. It will make traversing the Pizzaplex much easier.

You will find it in a box shaped like my head.

Also, please unmute me :'(

-Freddy'

Mono was the first to let Freddy speak to them again, though Six wasn't far behind, she just wanted to be called a superstar again! Honest!

"Oh you've got yourself some Fazwatches? You must feel pretty special! Let's see..."

The animatronic leaned closer, far too close. Close enough to hear the metallic whirring of his limbs and long neck. They backed into a small tower of star-patterned cushions. All three of them jumped as the pillar toppled and bounced around the foam ground, though the pair was more startled by the sun's reaction.

"No no no no!" He freaked.

"What a mess! Oh, which was the bottom? Where is the top? Clean up! Clean up!"

Well that was easy. This guy was incredibly lucky he was built as an adult, he wouldn't have lasted a second as a kid. If all it took was a few pillows being thrown around to send him into an obsessive frenzy, it should be easy to get him out of their hair when Freddy came to pick them up.

"Phew! All done!" He pretended to wipe sweat from his forehead as he put the last cushion in place.

"Now then! Let me see those lovely watches!"

--- 👁 ---

As he expected, both of the strange kids backed away from him. They were still too suspicious, he needed to make them feel safe enough to talk. Other than their companion, he couldn't tell much about what either of them might like, or even want to talk about. It's not like he can lead with 'how do your parents treat you?' without driving them off. Though he'd found people love to talk about themselves, especially animated little kids, he could probably get them to chat away about their interests. Their watches were of Roxanne and the Puppet.

He could work with this.

"Hey hey hey! There's no need to run away! We're here to have fun fun fun!"

Sun kept his voice as upbeat and welcoming as he could without getting too loud, no need to risk frightening them again. He tried to reach for the Pizzaplex's main systems, but unsurprisingly, Safe Mode had to protect him from that purple virus. It was worth a try! At least he could still send and receive things from the other animatronics.

"Hey, I can tell Roxy and the Prize Puppet all about you two! They'll love to hear about you!"

They started waving their hands and shaking their heads at him, but he'd already sent a message to the two animatronics.

'Cool.' The Puppet messaged him back. Frankly, she was about as helpful as he expected.

One of the tiny blue chairs from the upper floor came hurling through the air and crashed into the ball pit.

"STAY OUT OF MY TEXT CHATS, LOSER!" The wolf shouted.

Oh, it's that time of night. That explains a few things

"I'm sorry about her, Roxy gets cranky at night!" There was a way to recover from this, he just needed a couple seconds to think of it.

"She loves all her fans! I bet she'd love to have a race with you and get everyone's hair done and eat all your favorite pizza!"

--- 👁 ---

'You distract him, I'll get the pass.' Six motioned to Mono.

'I distracted Freddy, it's your turn.' He deadpanned to her.

'But this one's so annoying!' She quietly pleaded as the robotic sun rambled.

'I know, but it's your turn!' He smirked.

Six paused. Had she known this guy was coming up, she would've volunteered to deal with Freddy. This thing was hurting her head with its grating, incessant voice.

'I'll be the next two distractions! Please don't leave me with him!' She pleaded.

...No, wait!

He smiled wide.

Great, I'm stuck being bait now.

--- 👁 ---

"What's your name?" The boy asked.

Yes! We're getting somewhere! His voice was quiet and shy like he wasn't sure what else to say, but he was engaging! He was talking!

"I'm Sunrise, what's your name?"

"Mono." He put simply.

"It's great to meet you! Who's your fr-" Sun looked around for the little girl.

She's gone!

Never mind, she's walking over to the security desk.

She's walking over to the security desk!

"Wait wait! Uh, what's your name? What's your favorite color? Don't you wanna play a game?"

It caught her attention for sure, but she ducked behind one of the playsets and tried to sprint around him. She was far quicker than he thought possible for a kid so thin. She shouldn't have been able to move at all, let alone outrun him like he was as awkward and clunky as the DJ. All he wanted was to make her feel included! The rest of the Pizzaplex wasn't safe right now!

"Hey." Mono called.

He could imagine that the girl would be afraid of getting caught by a tall animatronic, so of course she would run, but was Mono talking to her all it took to calm her down? They must've been through a lot together if she was so ready to listen to him in the middle of a chase. It almost disturbed him, that they'd no doubt been forced to nurture such a bond at such a young age in order to survive, but he was mostly grateful they had someone they could rely on. He was already expecting never to have such trust with them. But maybe, if he played his cards right, they might trust him enough to talk about what's wrong. Sun picked up the girl as she stopped to look at the boy, holding her by the armpits far from his face.

She sneered and kicked at him, but she wasn't quite as strong as the boy in the trench coat. Still, she was shockingly tough and no doubt resilient. Did she just not care about the laws of physics? She shouldn't even be alive! Mono grabbed her hand as her feet met the padded floor. They comforted each other for a moment, both running their thumbs over the back of the other's hand, but never took their eyes off of him. Like a snake, the boy's scar slithered and wriggled across his face as he frowned at the over-enthusiastic machine. Where could he have gotten that thing?

He almost didn't want the answer.

"Shhh! Shhh. It's alright!

I'm sorry I scared you, but we can't play around that desk." He explained.

"You only said we had to keep the lights on." She growled.

"Well... Yes... Okay, I'm sorry about that too, b-but I'll let you know about any other rules when they come up! I promise!"

She stepped back and tilted her head. The way the pair moved was almost eerie, how completely still they stood and how they identically looked around the room. At least one of them would keep track of him at all times, like they always knew exactly what their partner was thinking; this had to be coordinated, all planned out without a single word.

"Can you tell me your name, sweetie?"

Again, she hesitated, staring calculative into his pale white eyes. Sun lowered himself to their level, sitting crisscross applesauce. It wouldn't be surprising if neither of them knew what that meant, but it got them to stop backing away, like they were more willing to listen when he couldn't obviously hurt or pounce on them. Hopefully, they were starting to get used to him.

"My name is Six." Her voice seemed strained, but confident.

Well that's not much of a name.

"That's a lovely little name for a lovely little ray of sunshine!" He gushed.

She wasn't buying it for a second.

Maybe he should try getting to the point?

"How about instead of playing around the big bad table, we can tell secrets over here!" Sun started.

"I know all sorts of secrets! But I'll never tell them, so you can talk to me whenever you need!"

It wasn't a lie, per se, he'd swiftly been by Vanessa's side plenty of times regarding her father, but anything and everything these two said would be filed straight to the security Puppet for evidence against their parents.

Neither even said a word; they just looked at each other and nodded.

"You can even tell me where those big owies came from, and I won't tell anyone! not even your mommy and daddy." He whispered, mostly for Mono.

--- 👁 ---

The sharp hook supported Six and Mono as they hung just out of reach. Swinging just beside their heads was the bloody metal point, ready to stab one of the kids the moment they moved around in just the wrong way. A glass bottle flew by Mono's head, then a ladle nearly hit Six. Just behind them, the Twin Chefs stood on their balcony-like platform, both preparing to throw another object at them as they dangled over a dark, bottomless pit of the Maw's inner workings like worms on a line. A wooden spoon missed the two of them by a mile, so far off it seemed more like a joke, but a white teacup found its mark. Hitting at just the right angle, it instantly shattered on the tip of the meat hook. Six's trusty raincoat just barely protected her. Its hood sagged and warped as the many pieces collided with her head, making them slip and roll off of her just before they could do any damage.

It was the most fortune she'd had in her entire life, but the roll of the dice wasn't quite in Mono's favor.

One single, huge piece of ceramic broke off in his face, so sharp it would've messily cut out his eye if he didn't brace himself just in time. It spun as it fell into the side of his nose, driving its jagged edge into his lips and dragging across his chin before it buried itself in his shoulder. Split shards of porcelain bounced across his cheeks and disgusting copper filled his mouth, covering the taste of a removed part of his lip. He almost lost his grip and plummeted to his death, but Six snatched his brown collar just before he began to fall. While fighting the instinct to cover his face, or risk it getting infected, he reached to her shoulder for support and silently begged her not to let him go again.

Just as she let go, and he thought she was going to push him off, she readjusted herself to carry even more of his weight, even if it might kill her as well. Mono put his arm over the dip in the hook they held onto for dear life, but Six never considered letting him go until they reached the other side.

Once they were on solid ground, she pulled her raincoat over her head and tore him off a sleeve of her gray jumper to press against the deep gash.

Chapter Text

Six's raincoat chafed her right shoulder as she held Mono's hand. The machine didn't seem to mean any harm, but they both preferred to forget the Maw and Signal Tower in their entirety, every kid had more than a few things they wanted to erase from their mind completely. A large part of her was worried he might cry, despite him never doing so as long as they'd known each other, even when a decent chunk of his face was torn apart.

He stared blankly at Sunrise, not angry or sad, just irritated. In their dreams they still saw those places; the ceramic shard plowing into his face and facing down his future self like it was just another adult to him, the cold grasp of the Lady tightening around her neck or watching herself drop the only friend strong enough to stay with her into an abyss of muscle and eyes. Clearly, this thing was getting desperate, asking something like that so out of the blue. It must be probing them, searching for any weakness he could exploit. Maybe he wanted to eat them, maybe he wanted to sell them to the Entertainers outside, maybe he was just after their blood; it was all the same to them, all grown-ups were like this.

Except for Freddy, he's either far more conniving and patient than the rest or was half-genuinely trying to help. Both options were their own type of repulsive.

--- 👁 ---

"What are mommies and daddies?" Mono asked.

That was definitely too much too soon. He dodged the subject immediately and asked something so pitiful without batting an eye. They had to be orphans, it was the only way they might not know immediately what a mom or dad was. But then, how'd they get into the Pizzaplex without an adult? They had to have snuck in, but he couldn't just raise the alarm and throw them out! It was pouring freezing rain outside!

"A mom and dad are grown-ups who take care of a child-" Sun started.

"Parents?" Six questioned.

"That's right!" He exclaimed.

These two know what parents were, but not a mom and dad?

"How did you know that?"

"Freddy told us." She put plainly.

That's a good sign! They have someone looking out for them, after all!

"My scar is from a chef." Mono said.

Odd, now he doesn't seem bothered about the cut like it doesn't mean anything more than asking what parents were.

"He and his twin wanted to cook us and feed us to their boss's guests." Six elaborated.

...

They

What?!

--- 👁 ---

This guy really wouldn't have survived as a kid.

Any normal kid had at least a few scars, and what the Twin Chefs did was nothing compared to what the Tower and Lady could pull off on a daily basis. Even the Teacher and Guests were more threatening with her impossible neck and their insurmountable numbers. He was just answering the question the daycare attendant was not-so-subtly asking, but now static resonated in its head like a broken TV, and what he somewhat recognized as the sound of a small fan grew louder and louder in Sunrise's chest. They were supposed to get him to lower his guard and give them an opening, but this would do nicely. Six let go of his hand and threw herself into the side of another cushion tower, then picked one of the pillows to flip on its side and roll into the center of the room, all while Mono found another stack in a different part of the daycare to do the same. Sunrise kicked himself back into action and started picking up the mess of pillows strewn across the room.

By the time the sun realized what they'd done, Six had already run behind the security desk and was figuring out how to open the Freddy-shaped box.

--- 👁 ---

This stupid green Marionette needs to get herself a hobby because she was starting to get on Gregory's nerves. Every time he thought he'd broken into the light fixtures and was about to send the shady man he assumed to be Mr. Burrows the thumbs up, the Puppet's face would flash onto the office screen to send him tumbling out of his chair. The moment he collected himself and typed away again, he'd practically be starting from square one. Whatever was happening, his employer wouldn't be happy. He needed to get an upper hand on this thing, or he might wind up on the chopping block with the other failures. Right now, the best place to start would be the primary security center. While it was a fair distance away from this crappy office, the number of screens, memory, hard drives, and interconnected CPUs were the only way he'd ever overcome that thing when all its attention was on him.

That was the most confusing thing, though, why was she so hellbent on defending the lights? What exactly was Mr. Burrows gonna do, turn the brightness too high? Was his master plan to inflate Fazbear Entertainment's electric bill? This was far from the first time GGY and the Security Puppet butt heads, but the animatronic rarely put her full attention on stopping him from accessing any part of the building. She usually just guarded the majority of the Main Systems; from what, he wasn't sure, but she seemed to be debugging or improving something every time he tried to run a diagnostic on the Pizzaplex or attempted to hack himself some free tokens, which had never worked out.

It was easy enough to break through the Main Office since that creepy sock puppet was spending so much time on the lights instead of the doors. The wall of monitors was always an odd type of comforting to him. Being surrounded by technology felt great! He was in his element! Most other kids mocked or laughed at him for his skill. In what world would any of them be given the chance to excel in anything, when they'd never been given any opportunities from anyone, even before ditching the foster system? Why would Gregory be any special? Breaking into computers did little to get anyone food or clothes, after all.

That was actually one of the smaller parts of what drove him away from them; they were right, of course, but he didn't need to be reminded every time he stared at someone's laptop or through a tech store's window.

But just for a minute, he could pretend; typing away at a random UI like it was his totally ordinary job, like he was a normal guy living a normal life. He wouldn't get to go home to a family. He certainly wouldn't have a boyfriend or girlfriend waiting for him to walk through the door to a cramped but charming apartment. Why would anyone want him like that, when he'd already been overlooked and turned away so many times?

No, he'd settle for being alone long before he took another chance with a person.

Still, he knew of a pretty big kill shelter. Maybe one day he'd get to go find whatever old animal was closest to being put down and take them home with him; if not, there were plenty of stray dogs he'd wanted he could toss scraps to on the streets, there'd probably be one or two by his apartment complex he could adopt. He'd bring them to a nearby vet and stay by their side, holding their sweet little paws through every needle and bring them a little blanket to wrap them up in when their fur was shaved off to get rid of all the fleas and knots in their hair. Then he'd save up to get them tons of awesome toys and a warm bed unless they were the type to steal a spot in the center of his mattress, in which case he'd just have to share.

Gregory would never tell them, but he had his heart set on a golden retriever puppy.

It was a pipe dream he had every time he closed his eyes, or so much as blinked, but it kept him going. His own Atlantis.

For now, he was counting on maintaining the favor of a strange man with a probably fake name. His next meal hitched on gaining access to the lights.

--- 👁 ---

"New friend, t-this area is off limits! You're gonna get us in trouble!" Sunrise called to the two.

Vanessa was the only one who would actually punish them for anything, but assuming she was feeling 'herself' she'd just throw them in lost and found until someone arrived for them, she'd never been great with kids, or even people. Sun wasn't, however, willing to take that chance. Not to mention they could break something expensive and have management breathing down their necks.

The fact Six had already stolen the security pass from the desk didn't exactly ease those worries.

He couldn't see what happening behind the table, but whatever it was, it made the lights flicker. They got brighter one second and nearly shut off the next. Were they playing with the light switches? It was the only thing that made sense. Why else would the lights start tweaking all at once?

"Don't you want a puppet show? I have glitter glue! Do you like glitter glue? Googly eyes?"

--- 👁 ---

Well this was weird.

All Six did was grab the pass, he'd seen her, and now everything was off. In the back of his mind, he heard Sunrise trying to lure them out from behind the desk, too nervous to come get them himself. That was fine, though. Mono remembered well, the Patients they'd run from before meeting the mad Doctor that seemed to create them. They'd been told to keep the lights on the moment they got here, and the Patients reacted poorly to light, so Sunrise must be the opposite. He was sunlight-related, after all. He'd figured before that by turning the lights off, they could stun him, like his flashlight and those other creepy, shambling mannequins.

Admittedly, he wasn't expecting that to come into play so soon. It wasn't the first time they'd needed to wander this place in the dark, but it was more welcome after all the pain his eyes were in. On and off, on and off. Every light flickered individually, completely out-of-sync as if the building was panicking like the Sun. Over time he noticed them getting brighter and brighter, still dimming like they were trying to turn off, but slowly growing stronger. He and Six winced as all the bulbs shone at once, the Daycare's normal lighting was already far too much, but now it was burning their eyes.

Just after the two shut and covered their eyes, it stopped.

"N-no! NO! Why would you do that? Lights on! Lights on! I warned you! I WARNED YOU!" He screamed from atop the desk.

That one random rule was a warning?

Sunrise shrieked again, his eyes flashing purple, clutching his face like he was trying to rip it apart and collapsed, crashing to the ground behind the table behind them with a painful thud.

"Naughty children, such naughty children..." A garbled, raspy voice wheezed just out of sight.

Six grabbed Mono's hand and pulled him back, stuffing the security badge into one of her pockets as a pair of segmented blue and white hands reached over the top of the desk. A head peeked over at them, but it wasn't quite the sun. The golden half of his face turned a deep blue and the pointed sides of his head had disappeared. On his head sat a dark blue nightcap covered in yellow stars. His bright red eyes glowed in the pitch-black, covering a purple ring around the edges of the lens.

--- 👁 ---

funcSafeMode(boolSafeMode);

boolSafeMode = False;

funcSetSafeMode(True);

"ERR 5: 'Access Denied.'";

funcSetMode("Sunrise");

"ERR 5: 'Access Denied.'";

funcSetMode("Eclipse");

"ERR 5: 'Access Denied.'";

funcForceReset("Eclipse", "Safety Mode");

"ERR 5: 'Access Denied.'";

console.Log("You Can't");

--- 👁 ---

"It's past your bedtime. You must be PUNISHED!"

The Moon leapt onto the table, jumping and dancing much like Sun did, but his was twisted; fingers sharply bent like they were ready to burst out and grab them, star-covered legs launching him through the air like he could pounce at any second. In the dark, just before the pair's eyes readjusted, a set of wires descended from the ceiling. They clipped onto the nightcare attendant's back and hoisted him into the air.

"Nighty-nnnniiiight..."

He was gone.

Sunrise was gone.

He wasn't trying to manipulate them.

He was protecting them.

This isn't like the Hospital at all.

--- 👁 ---

Dammit! Damn it all! All she'd ever done to that boy was give him a Fazwatch and the most tokens she could give at once, and he was ruining everything!

There was no telling what he wanted with them, but she could work with this. Starting by locking GGY out of the Daycare cameras, those two didn't need him ratting them out to Moondrop.

They were a resilient pair, coated in Agony that didn't so much as phase them.

If she could keep Gregory away from them, they might still get out alive.

--- 👁 ---

"Six, Mono, I do not know what you did, but the Daycare lights blew a fuse!" Freddy called through the watches.

"The Main Systems have already rerouted power around the problem, you just need to find the emergency backup generators and turn them on. They are in the play structures."

Like clockwork, they fell into a rhythm; One glancing around the Daycare as their eyes readjusted while the other picked a direction.

"Hidey-hhhhhiiiiide." The Moon taunted from the black.

While concerning, it was no more horrifying than being chased through the kitchen or school. The moment the pair were found they ducked into one of the many 'play structures', expertly losing the Moon in the maze of turns and slides. If nothing else, they could break line of sight with a prop. Silently making a plan. Six glanced to Mono, letting him know she was breaking away to find other generators right as they found a heavy wire. She clapped loudly as she went down a slide, drawing the attendant's attention away from her friend as he followed the massive cord through the mess of colorful bars.

"Bad children must be punished!" He spoke as he pursued the yellow-coated girl.

The first generator sat in a purple cubby near the top of the tower of bars and tubes, easily reached by any child who found it. What was the purpose of having them in the towers, where anyone could tamper with them? Couldn't anyone sabotage the Sun like this? Or were these things inactive until the lights burst? Whatever case, he pulled the orange switch in the corner of the violet box, it buzzed with power and flashed a green light. In the corner of his eye he could see the flame of Six's lighter. She waved it through the air, the glow outlining the metal bars she stood behind, then snuffed it out. The light never came back on, replaced by the yellow reflection of her eyes.

One flash meant 'yes', she must've found another generator.

Mono took a baby blue curly slide back to the ground, fishing his light out of his pocket and turning it on, he waved it through the air until he was sure Six had seen it, then flicked the button again. He saw her raincoat billow behind her as she ran around him, giving a smile and thumbs up as she passed.

"Bad children must be found." The Moon cackled.

--- 👁 ---

Well, that's weird.

He couldn't access the Daycare cameras. The Puppet was blocking him, it had to be her, but why?

Gregory messed around with the cameras the best he could, looking for a way around the block or some kind of weakness in the firewall. That freaky Puppet wanted to stop him from seeing those two kids, he was sure of it! But what could she be planning? What was she trying to do? What couldn't she do?

"Freddy, something's wrong in the Daycare!" He shouted into his watch.

"I know, Gregory, I am trying to get there as fast as possible." The animatronic replied.

"Hurry!" he begged.

--- 👁 ---

A series of multicolored ramps and a yellow tunnel brought Six to the top of another structure hiding a generator. The huge wire coiled on the floor and plugged into the device, sitting in the corner of a small open space. She heard the Moon falling from the roof as she escaped through another slide. He tried to cut her off as she searched for another wire. In the back of her mind, she still thought of the nightcare attendant as his daycare counterpart, trying to catch her as if they were playing a game. She ducked behind the tiny building she came out of and doubled back, leaving the machine to search as she left him in the dust. In the distance she spotted a dim red dot, there was another generator out in the open.

The loud switch echoed around the massive room. Six fled before the Moon could find her, meeting up with Mono as he headed for another structure. He gestured to the top, there must be a purple box there, too. Just behind them, the clicking of the Moon followed them as they chased a wire, as did the zip of strings pulling him to the ceiling. The pair climbed through the obstacles and came to a bright bridge. On the other side, the Moon danced in the bridge's supports, right where the wire was leading them. Mono had distracted him after flicking one switch, and Six had just finished getting three, so there couldn't be many more. That thing knew they had to get past him, he was guarding the generator.

Mono's pupils burst, spreading over the whites of his eyes with his irises. He squeezed his companion's hand as he extended his fingers to the mechanical abomination.

--- 👁 ---

What is this place?

Mono stood in a hallway covered in a strange purple haze. His eyes told him he was standing on a checkered black and white floor, but in his feet he still felt the padded tiles of the playground. Bland gray walls trapped him in the claustrophobic hall, bearing streaks of mold down its side covered by drawings of characters both familiar and completely unseen. Sheets of paper pinned to the walls displayed small children's crayon drawings of a brown bear similar to Freddy, a purple rabbit, yellow bird, and red fox. One of them looked like it was just an older version of Chica, but what happened to the other two? He and Six had never seen a bunny or fox in their time here. What if Monty and Roxy replaced them?

But if that were the case, what would've happened to warrant replacing them?

He walking through the strange purple fog; he could feel it poking into his mind, sharply stinging his head like the Signal drawing him closer to the Thin Man. It grew into a dull ache across his skull. Get out of my head! The foamy sensations of the puffy daycare floor turned into cold ceramic tiles. He passed more drawings. Most only depicted the animatronics individually, scattered around the walls. Some of the pictures, however, suggested the old versions of Freddy and Chica were connected to the rabbit in some way, they'd stood on their own stage before a crowd of children at some point. But why would someone go through the trouble of making machines perform for children?

And what happened to the rabbit and fox?

Some of the walls had been replaced by purple curtains with stars sewn onto them, as well as paper stars hanging from the ceiling. He parted one of the cloths, finding a withered animatronic built like the wolf inside. It stood on a small wooden platform but didn't move. Was it sleeping? Or just dead? One of its hands was replaced by a hook and an oval of black fabric covered one eye, held in place by a simple black string. Dozens of gold and silver rings pierced through its lips and ears and decorated its fingers. Shining bracelets hung from its wrists and disappeared under a hefty brown coat much more formal and put together than his own.

When he looked to the stage on the other side of the hall he found a tall purple bunny. Similar to the fox and Roxanne, it was structured like Monty, but that was where the parallels ended. Cracks and smudges covered the blue-purple casing, but the painted face and buck teeth maintained its friendly and approachable demeanor. Not that he'd ever want to get closer to that thing if it was functional. The bright red eyes stared at him, unfocused but as welcoming as Six's. A pair of ears flopped over its forehead and he could barely see a white pom-pom sticking out behind it like a fluffy little tail. Tiny claws poked from the tips of its fingers and clutched a bright red guitar. Draped over its chest was a rich purple vest with many little gold stars sewn across it. Printed over its legs were more stars on a violet canvas, like a pair of sparkly pants.

He continued his walk.

More curtains appeared, containing outdated versions of Freddy and Chica and the rabbit and fox, all moving around. They were covered in fur, looking so soft to the touch that something in the back of Mono's mind wanted to reach out and pat them. The older four were much more his style; no bright colors stabbing his eyes, much more resigned in their movements, and significantly simpler in their decorations. Each of them waved to non-existent crowds, their mouths moving as if they were talking, yet making no sound but mechanical whirring and the clattering of their jaws, and interacted with whatever they were holding; Freddy pretended to sing into a handheld version of the black stick and silver ball their Freddy waved around on stage, the bunny strummed a dull red guitar, Chica held a pastry with eyes and gestured to the fake crowds, the broken down fox shouted grand stories next to an 'out of order' sign.

A white box covered in red ribbons was placed alone on a stage, not moving, never changing, but playing a soft melody he instantly recognized to be originating from a music box. It's gentle song brought him straight back to when he met Six in that cabin, the first time he met her, back when they weren't doing everything they could to pull each other out of the downward spiral the Tower left them in.

He decided he didn't want to see what was inside when he felt a pair of eyes digging into the back of his head. On the stage behind him, a yellow bear had crumpled to the rickety wood floor, like a golden incarnation of the now abandoned Freddy Fazbear. Ready to bite, its jaw dangled limply from its head but revealed no rusted metal or wires inside, like it was an empty suit waiting for someone brave and stupid enough to step inside. A strangely shiny pair of a violet hat and bowtie clung to its head and neck, almost like they'd been carefully cared for compared to the stray pieces of metal still stuck inside. Then he saw them; a set of extremely faint silver dots buried deep in the darkness where the machine's eyes should've been, looking down on him from its perch. All the others looked around, they never acknowledged him in any way, only occasionally meeting his gaze when their own eyes glossed over him. It wasn't like they saw him, though, they were just running through a movement pattern. But the Golden Freddy peered directly at him.

Mono picked up the pace.

Carnivalesque music happily bounced around the curtains and paper-covered walls as he approached a large steel door. Slimy green mold covered the metal, outlining bolts and crisscrossing beams. A massive lock covered the center, but the only place to hide a key was in the curtains he already checked. Off to the side was a tiny door, more like a window or peephole into the other side, but it was shut tight by a latch much taller than him. It was painted by the same violet filter the entire hall had been tainted by, but it didn't seem out of place here. Was this where the fog was coming from? He'd learned his lesson from the Signal Tower, he wouldn't be opening that thing.

Then it got closer.

Inch by inch the door screeched across the tile like nails on a chalkboard, the sound stabbed his ears almost as much as the suffocating presence of the cloudy purple humming in the air. The carnival music grew louder and louder, forcing its way into his skull and trying to pull him closer to the door. A mossy green spiral grew out of the comically huge lock and into his eyes, his vision distorted like static.

He flung his hand ahead of him.

The green spiral shattered in front of his eyes, breaking into green arcs and buzzing out of existence like flickering TVs clinging to life. Cracks spread across the many tiles and the door left scratches over the floor as it was forced back. The metal caved in, industrial squeaking and bending of steel filled his ears like music compared to the painful gloom. Tiny bolts popped out of the steel supports and clattered to the ground with many little clinks beside falling chips of concrete.

As if it were a screen, the lock buzzed and hummed as purple static grew over it, waiting for him to reach in.

He refused.

Chapter Text

Six jostled Mono as he shook his head, banishing the infectious signal from his thoughts. If this transmission was anything like that of the Tower, he couldn't take the chance of becoming a Viewer, or worse. Rather, Six raised her own palm in the Moon's direction. Like a disease, a black haze gathered around the dancing doll. As she clenched her fist the dark haze seeped into the machine's internal circuitry, sending it into overdrive and burning it from the inside as she ran forward. Losing its balance, the Moon fell to one side of the play structure while the yellow-coated girl dashed across the bridge, chuckling to herself as the loud thud of the Moon animatronic hitting the squishy ground met her ears. She pulled down the fifth generator's switch and the lights hummed back to life. A part of the pair wished they hadn't, painfully covering their eyes as they both clumsily walked over to their partner.

'Four.' Six held up her fingers as she tugged down her hood.

'One.' Mono held up a lone finger as he shielded his eyes.

'Slacker.' She smirked.

'I distracted him and you know it!' Mono stuck his tongue out at her.

Then the familiar consequences of using her powers came crashing down.

It always started in her core, rather than her stomach; the searing pain that turned her pupils to tiny dots and threw her off her feet, her knees buckling like they'd lost all their bone in a span of a second. Six gasped for air, filling her lungs but never feeling like it was enough to breathe. Around her heart a freezing cold iron maiden closed, filling it with so many nails she was convinced her chest would explode. Only then would it reach her gut, she wanted to throw up almost as much as she was desperate to eat, her rumbling stomach turning and churning with greed. Every stringy fiber of muscle would ignite all at once, pulling tight and trying to rip apart simultaneously. Each joint would completely lock up, making it difficult to move and impossible to do so without stumbling a few times.

Her shoulders collided with the foam tiles beneath her feet. Six shivered and curled into herself like a fetus, pulling her legs over her belly as if it would protect it or soothe the pain. The sets of canines poked out of her mouth, freeing space for a river of gluttonous drool to stream down her cheek. Her mouth just wouldn't stop watering. The wonderful taste of blood burst all over her tongue, only nobody was bleeding, not even her. In an instant, Mono was by her side. He'd been too far away to catch her as she fell, as he usually was, but he was always there for her when another sudden burst of starvation set in. He got on his knees and pulled her onto his lap, propping her up to keep the lights out of her eyes.

There was never much he could do, but that hadn't stopped him from trying every single time she had an attack. Mono pulled her closer to his chest, patting her shoulder and letting her rest her head under his chin as the first of three massive waves of pain subsided enough for her to think straight. Mono fished through his pockets, finding the bag of candy and ripping apart the paper wrappers two or three at a time, then handing them to Six. She shoveled them into her mouth like her life was on the line. Crushing the hard candies like they were made of chewy gum. This time, thankfully, the lights stayed strong. After some flickering and electrical hums, the daycare returned to normal, or as normal as this absurd place could be.

By the time her curse was satisfied, the bag of candy was empty.

At the bottom of the tower they stood on, they found no trace of the Sun, like it vanished into thin air the moment the room was illuminated. With their heads on a swivel, they made their way to the gigantic door on the other side of the room. While Mono made a fool of himself trying to push it open, Six found the Freddy-shaped button to unlock the pseudo-wood gate.

"Rule-breakers! Rule-breakers!" Sunrise shouted behind them.

"You are banned from the Daycare!" He glared down to them.

After that mess, they were happy to get on the other side of the door. Eagerly backing away from the Sun, Six snarled as she reached for the button. At the sound of a beep the click of the lock coming undone muffled through the fake door. Mono bashed his shoulder into it and waved Six over. Sunrise reached around the door and pulled it closed.

"Security alert! Security alert! Wooo! Wooo!" He shouted.

Massive footsteps echoed around the wide open room, they could feel the shaking of the tile floor through their feet. Barely two seconds out of that way-too-damn-bright room and they'd already been ratted out to the entire Pizzaplex. With the door shut, and the daycare attendant most likely prepared to throw them out if they tried to break in again, they were running out of options. The steps grew in volume, quickly becoming two sets, then three, then four. Every one of those things was barreling towards them, but an orange bear got there first.

"Superstars! Jump in, we need to get out of here!" Freddy called.

The rest of the animatronics rounded corners and prowled down halls just as they climbed into the hatch and shut the front panels.

"Sneak away, little cowards!" The wolf yelled.

The three of them looked around the empty rooms, wandering around and through vacant gift shops, searching for the source of the alarm. Roxanne continued to tread through the various doors and walls like a hungry predator, her hair and tail frizzled and unkempt like Mono and Six's. Chica wandered in next, shambling like a Viewer searching for the signal or a Guest desperate for a massive meal it didn't need. Her mouth hung limply, then snapped at the air without warning like a slobbering, rabid animal. Her bright purple eyes stared at Freddy, unfocused and glossy, like she was looking straight through him or disassociating the way Six often did in an attack. Pounding on the ground were the deafening legs of Monty the gator. He bared his mouth of bright white teeth and his black claws shone in the few neon lights remaining in the pitch black. Unlike the others, his sunglasses completely covered the shimmer of his eyes in the dark Pizzaplex. He growled metallically and snapped at the cold air.

Inside Freddy's stomach wasn't any brighter, to neither of their dismays. The only light bothering them now was the soft glow of Mono's Fazwatch, connected to Freddy's eyes. The bear's night vision was far worse than theirs, greatly limiting their sight compared to if they were just standing out in the open. They huddled together, barely able to see a streak of green hair, red mohawk, and yellow beak poking through the darkness.

"When I find those little brats, I'm gonna rip them to shreds!" The gator yelled.

"Not until I'm done with them." Roxy snarled.

"O-or we could just bring them to Officer Vanessa!" Freddy spoke.

"Not a chance, it's our turn." Chica sassed.

"For what? What has gotten into you three? We cannot harm visitors, certainly not children."

"Come on Freddy, it's not the first time." Chica revealed.

"Yeah, get over it before you start dragging the rest of us down!" Monty growled.

This has happened before? Shouldn't there be an incident report?

Freddy tried to access the reports in the Main Systems, but Safe Mode cut him off. Was something in the Pizzaplex altering the others? Did Gregory know something about this?

"What's your problem, anyway? You got at least a couple of 'em before." Roxy glared.

I what?

"I am sorry, I do not remember such an event." He explained.

"There were at least two therapists and a kid, ya gotta remember at least one." Chica said.

"I am afraid I do not."

"What's going on here?" The Night Guard asked.

Her shoes tapping down the hall, Vanessa pointed her flashlight around the group.

"Did any of you find the kids?" She asked.

"No, Officer Vanessa, they must have left before we got here." Freddy cut in.

"The alarm just went off, they couldn't have gone far. When you find them, tell me. I don't want you four scaring them away again.

I'm checking the Daycare for any damages while you do that. Don't chase them, don't talk to them, just call me.
" She sneered at the four.

The animatronics dispersed as she opened the door.

--- 👁 ---

Vanessa searched through the brightly lit room, a very welcome change from the pitch black of the closed-down pizzeria. How was anyone supposed to navigate or work in that place? Soon enough the attendant appeared from behind one of the structures. The Sun walked up and looked into her eyes.

They were green.

"Vanny!"

He threw his arms in the air and wrapped them around her, lifting her in the air like a ragdoll and swinging her around him. Vanessa pat the back of his head, this big goofball had always been her favorite! Once he set her down she started to wander around the play sets. Nothing seemed to be damaged, saving her plenty of paperwork, but some Sun candy wrappers had fallen from one of the structures and the level 1 security pass was missing from the front desk. Wonderful, those two had so many more hiding places available. At least they didn't have a level 10, like hers, she had to keep thinking positively about this mess.

"Hey Sunshine, they really were here, weren't they?" She asked.

"Yeah, they turned the lights off!" Sunrise pouted.

The lights? She did get an alert about a power surge, only a little while ago. At the time she'd assumed it was just that infuriating rabbit and the Puppet going at each other again. Had she really missed them by just a few seconds?

It was just barely past 12:40, this was going to be a long night.

"Sun, can you do me a favor?" Vanessa called.

"Sure thing!" He bounced.

"Make sure they don't come back in here." She stated, her lively, though tired, green eyes glinting in the Daycare lights.

"Don't worry, they're already banned. Per policy, they won't be allowed back until tomorrow." He explained, animatedly saluting.

"No, I mean really don't let them back. They're in a lot of trouble if the lights go out again. Stay in here and leave collecting the kids to the rest of us. I'm trusting you to keep Moondrop in check."

"But what about the power cycles?" He stressed.

"I've got a feeling those two aren't as alone as we thought they were." The most comforting smile she could muster stretched up to her dark purple eyes.

--- 👁 ---

"We are almost out of time." Freddy warned.

"What?" Mono questioned.

"We need to get to a recharge station immediately. Every hour, after Vanny is supposed to have finished her nighttime duties, the power is shut down. When that happens the last of the lights go out and the Daycare attendant is free to roam the building.

He will find us if we do not hurry, but I am cut off from the maps in the Main Systems."

"I think there was one outside the shudder we took to get here." Six mentioned.

"Excellent, Six! I believe I know which one you are talking about. Great memory, superstar!"

Something fluttered in her chest as he marched to the big red tube.

Mono began clutching his head; a dull ache grew in the back of his mind, but it just kept swelling and swelling in his skull, it buzzed like static or lightning crawling up his spine. His eyes stung and started to water against his will, his ears buzzed like he was trapped back in the purple hall or the Tower's blue lure. Distantly he noticed Six pulling him close to her chest, shuffling him into place in the cramped space of Freddy's torso.

"Are you two alright?" He heard the bear asking through the hum in his head.

He tried to answer for himself, but his voice came out strained and hurt.

"I-I'm o-o-okay. I'm o-okay." he choked.

Six layed him onto her lap, whispering to Freddy as she stroked his hair the way that always helped him fall asleep.

"Just stay in your big can, we won't figure anything out until you get the nightcare attendant off our tail."

"Nightcare attendant?" Freddy stepped into the station.

"Yeah, the Moon." She paused.

"Oh! Sorry, Six, but there is no such thing as a nightcare attendant. Sunrise and Moondrop are both the Daycare attendant." He explained.

"Oh, that's strange... wait." She paused.

Through the tears he could see her squinting down into her black Fazwatch, shifting to pat his head with her other hand. He brought his own watch to his face as his vision turned red and lines of black static filled his eyes. Was this what Six's attacks felt like? Through the bright red filter over his sight he saw the glitching of his watch, showing him the outside world through Freddy's eyes.

Nothing was there.

There had to be something, of course, this had never happened to him before. But what? His role was meant to be comforting Six in these situations, while he felt he could still function until this passed, unlike her, how had he become so useless so quickly? What was doing this to him? Was there a way to stop it? He blinked away the water in his eyes, trying to look closer at the lobby.

There was still nothing.

What is she looking at?

"What was that?" Six asked.

So there was something there! She saw something!

"That is a fountain: a decorative reservoir used for discharging water." Freddy answered.

"What? How?" She asked again.

"There are pipes connected to a waterfall design at-"

"Wait, I wasn't talking about the big river thing. Didn't you see the rabbit lady in front of us?" Six interrupted as the red glow faded from his vision.

Rabbit lady?

"No, I did not. There is no rabbit at the Mega Pizzaplex... Not anymore." He lamented, the static and sting in Mono's eyes started to fade.

What happened to the bunny and fox?

"Great, this whole place is bearing down on us." She mumbled.

"I am not." The animatronic mentioned.

"Why?" Mono asked, the headache disappearing.

"Because it is the right thing to do. I want to help you. The others are supposed to as well, but I do not know what has happened to them. They said I had participated in these acts as well, but I cannot find any such events in my memory."

"Looks like, for some reason, you're different." Gregory spoke through the watches.

"I'm pretty sure someone was there, I saw their silhouette wandering the Pizzaplex a few times the month I got in here. I'm pretty sure they upgraded their gear, though. They haven't appeared since."

Six looked down to Mono, still leaning against her. He gave her the best puppy eyes he could manage.

She nodded to him, he could stay there!

'You saw her, right?' She pointed outside.

'No, I couldn't, I don't know why you could.' He shook his head and shrugged.

It wasn't that far-fetched; they usually heard or only caught shadowy glimpses of the adults they were soon to kill or flee from, this seemed more like the next step up. Six had her curse, Mono got a headache and couldn't see the threat. If you asked him, they'd been through worse, mainly the Lady and the Tower. And the Thin Man... They'd never liked talking about him.

"We should get moving, you can access the main atrium with your new security badge. I am going to attempt to find Gregory. If you need me, you can call me to you with your Fazwatches, assuming I have sufficient power and can reach you."

They stepped out of the bear, finding a simple metal lift on one side of the room. No need to waste his power wandering around the completely black spaces they were familiar with when they might need him to escape the Entertainers somewhere that was far too bright.

"While I am doing that, I have identified two possible exit points you can investigate. The main loading dock is located under the food court on the first floor. There is also a fire escape in the third floor Prize Counter, it is fully stocked with all of our possible merchandise, there are plenty of clothes and toys available.

If you want to take a few, I am sure Vanessa would be willing to simply document them as stolen, it is not technically a lie.

I will mark both locations on your Faz Map once you receive it from the Map Bot outside the elevator."

They held hands as they ascended floors. 'Loading Docks' didn't sound like the rest of the buildings they'd passed, it probably wasn't as accessible to common guests, so it likely needed a much better security pass than the one they had. Also, the Prize Counter sounded nice. Since they'd been so focused on getting out they hadn't even considered looting some of the shops. Besides the Chica shirt Six kept for an emergency, why weigh themselves down with anything that wasn't absolutely necessary?

Freddy was clearly hinting them in that direction, anyway.

The large metal doors slid apart, bringing them to a massive open area. It was incredibly dark, with even fewer neon lights scattered around the place, much preferable to the nightmare that was the Daycare, and even the dark lobby. Nothing would find them there. A machine jumped out at them; wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of round glasses. It had big white eyes and pale yellow cheeks, the small torso was painted the same shade of yellow and had a black 'i' drawn onto it. The rest of the body was a mix of bright white and grays, driving around on a set of wheels and holding a small basket of pamphlets.

Both of their fists connected with its face, shattering the glasses and caving in the plastic egg-shaped head. It fell to the ground before its wheels could readjust.

"Please, take a map!" It waved a piece of paper in the air.

Six was the first to step forward, dragging Mono behind her as she snatched the pamphlet from the machine. In one corner was a square series of black shapes over a white background. After a minute to read the text next to it, they followed the instructions to scan the map onto their watches. It was a mess, how was anyone meant to read this? Nothing was labeled, Freddy's markers were worthless, and it barely defined which floor was which.

"Great news! It seems El Chips was left unlocked tonight. You should get something to eat, while you have a quiet moment." Freddy informed.

Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, they were always hungry. Freddy would've already tried to kill them when they were thrown out of the daycare, if he wanted too, so it must be alright. The store wasn't too hard to find. They climbed up a platform covered in screens and keyboards to get a vantage point and ducked through a small squad of security bots to get there, but it didn't seem they were being hunted yet.

The large metal gate rose. Inside was a mainly orange court filled with models of the main four animatronics made of paper scraps dangling from the ceiling. A set of all the Entertainers hung above a display filled with brightly colored bags of what had to be food, next to a station with boxes labeled 'Faz's Fizzy Station' and many small buttons.

Mono had to bite his tongue when Six pressed one of the buttons, she jumped so high when a spray of a brightly colored liquid came pouring out.

"I must warn you; when you enter an area where you do not yet have a map signal, I will be unable to reach your location. Be safe."

"Are you hungry?" The wolf blurted.

Mono snatched one of the bags of food as quietly as he could, though it crinkled in his hand. Roxanne didn't seem to know where they were, but he could feel her steps against the ground outside the restaurant shudder through his feet, and he knew Six could feel it too. Better to not alert her the moment they triggered the noisy door to raise again, they'd been cut off for the time being. They explored the rear of the shop, wandering into the small kitchen. Someone had left out a green can with Monty printed over it on one of the counters. It was unopened! He figured out how to crack open the top and drank.

He almost spat it out.

A strange, bubbly sensation flowed across his tongue. It was Six's turn to hold back a laugh as he seized up and tried to push the fruity drink down his throat. It wasn't bad, but the bubbles took some getting used to. He felt around for the half-full point of the can and passed it to Six. She started with a small sip, recoiling much like he did before taking a moment to adjust. Then she downed the rest in one gulp. As they shared the bag of 'chips' they practiced reading through the words on the can and bag. It seemed the Monty can was an 'energy drink', they were feeling more awake, at least. They'd been given a free, accidental break! Though they'd have to keep an eye out for something more filling to eat. No telling when Six's next attack would be, it'd been a long time since she had human meat to satisfy her powers and there was no way the candy would hold out for nearly as long. Another shudder opened as they approached the back of the store. It brought them down a short hall and out the back of the small establishment, though they could already hear Roxy arriving to investigate the loud clattering of the metal door.

"Well done, superstars! You are in the East Arcade. You should be able to get to the Prize Counter through the security office. Look for the door with a security badge on it." Freddy said.

--- 👁 ---

There's so many security robots here.

It would be tough for anyone other than them to see a few feet into the black, limited only to the long red laser lines to figure out their cone of vision. Mono and Six weren't so vulnerable.

"Are you lost? I can help." Roxanne chased.

The large wolf pounced and ran through the maze of halls and scattered attractions. She searched high and low for the pair, hungry to pull apart their limbs and bite into their hearts. They moved behind a row of tall boxes with brightly painted designs advertising the games on the screens. Sharp teeth snapped as she thundered past the rows and rows of games. They snuck to the door but found it was higher clearance than what they had.

"Freddy, it won't unlock." Mono whispered.

"How unfortunate. There is another roll-up door near the back of the arcade, try that one."

Tracing the black and dimly glowing white wires, they found the shudder was no better, but Six found and dragged her companion through an open vent. As they treaded through the echoing ducts, a second set of footsteps joined them. Craning their necks in the tight pipes they saw a small, dirty toy drop from the vents above them. It was clearly supposed to be bright white, but smudges of dirt completely covered it. Six thin legs began crawling towards them like a spider, clanging a set of shiny discs in its hands and chomping with small, broken teeth under a set of black eyes. Six easily outpaced the wind-up terror, pulling the boy out of the vent and preparing to stomp out the toy until it doubled back into the vents.

Chapter Text

Gregory cracked open a can of sweet tea, having returned to the main security office from the vending machine down the hall. Freddy was stomping around the Pizzaplex much like the other animatronics, wandering between the many cameras as if looking for something.

"Freddy, if you try to get me to leave with Six and Mono again, I'm gonna lock you in a security office." He half-heartedly warned through his watch.

"There is no need for that, Gregory, but I must make sure you are safe! I only want to protect you."

"Hooray, a giant robot is trying to throw me in the rain, I'm saved." He snarked.

"Gregory, that is not what I meant, it is dangerous for you to be here, at least until open hours."

"Riiiiight..." He droned.

--- 👁 ---

Well this is already going wrong.

Why is Gregory so confident the others won't attack him like Mono, Six, and whoever else wound up in their situation? Roxy had said this happened before, and Gregory has apparently been here for months. He must've seen or heard something that he could use to get to the bottom of this.

"Gregory, do you know anything about what happened to the others that visited the Pizzaplex after hours?"

...

"...Gregory? Are you alright?"
What had he seen?

"...Yeah... I'm fine..." The boy croaked pathetically.

"Please, Gregory, I need your help to get the others out safely." Freddy begged.

"...Just stop trying to throw me away..." Gregory's voice shook.

"I would never, Gregory, I promise I just want to help."

--- 👁 ---

He recognized her; the entitled daughter of some rich family that visited the Pizzaplex for her little brother's birthday, but she couldn't handle not being the center of attention and caused a pretty big scene. Looks like she hid somewhere, probably thought she'd have the place to herself after hours, if only she knew.

If only.

She writhed in its grasp, the short claws digging into her arm, leaving three slashes in an artery and a bruise where the thumb snapped her wrist. Gregory peeked through a hole in the fake wood ship, unable to watch, unable to look away. A pair of massive lights stared down on her as she screamed for her life, incoherently begging and pleading between sobs. The other hand wrapped around her torso, pinning her free arm to her side as the thumb poked a hole in her ribcage. Its remaining claws hooked between her spine behind her back, dislodging bone and staining her pink t-shirt a shiny crimson. She kicked its chest, its chin, its neck, its face; every ounce of strength she had did nothing to stop her ginger hair from being stuffed in its mouth. Pearly white teeth closed down on her temples, sending a sickly crack across Kid's Cove. Dark red dripped down on the playmats, followed by white shards and pink chunks. The screams stopped, replaced by quiet whimpers and desperate gasps.

The bear dragged the young girl away as several Staff-bots with glowing red eyes rolled into the area, all carrying various assortments of hydrogen peroxide, sponges, mops, and brushes.

--- 👁 ---

...

What would Freddy think?

How might he react?

Was it worth the risk?

"I never saw anything, but I heard some of the screams.

They're all gone now."

All of them.

"Oh... I am sorry you had to witness that, Gregory."

"It's fine... I'm fine..."

"Would you like to talk about something else, Gregory?"

...

Nothing.

"I am sorry, Gregory. I understand that this may be a sore subject, but Mono and Six are depending on us to get out of the Pizzaplex. We need your help, please."

...

"...Can you call me a superstar?" The boy shakily asked.

"Of course, superstar!" Freddy exclaimed.

"...Thank you..."

"Do you know anything about the bunny Six was talking about? She sounded so confident about it, but I could not see anything."

"...A little bit... She must be using a pretty powerful signal jammer to keep you from seeing her. I 'dunno why Mono didn't say anything about it, though, he should've been able to see just fine." He explained.

"Would you happen to know anything about the jammer, superstar?"

...

"Gregory, I will not be upset if you had something to do with this. You are just a child, it is alright to make mistakes when you are afraid, superstar, and I will do my best to help you get out of this mess." Freddy offered.

...

"... I built it.

My 'employer' wanted me to take a crappy jammer he bought, and upgrade it. It took some Google searches to figure out how it worked, and so many prototypes he started threatening to get rid of me, but I got it eventually."
Get rid of him?

"...Superstar, I do not think he meant to throw you out of the Pizzaplex."

"Neither did I. B-but I'm useful to him! H-h-he needs me."

He doesn't sound very confident, all of a sudden.

"...I-I don't think he'd let me leave that e-easily, b-b-but I have a backup plan!

I-I'm okay... I'm okay..."

"Is there anything else about the jammer?" Freddy asked.

...

"Superstar, I know you want to help Mono and Six. If there is anything else you can tell us about this device, please tell us."

"...Nothing that important, he just had a special request. The jammer had to have two separate water-cooling systems." He admitted.

"That does not sound too bad, all of us have specialized coolant-"

"Nonono, you don't get it. Jammers don't get that hot, at least not compared to you guys.

I figured the thing I cobbled together might want to have some fans or something, but they specifically wanted a bunch of water-coolant pipes. Those things are usually for higher-end computers, but they went through the effort to dig up parts of a spare Glamrock suit so I could use the hydraulic tubes in it.

No decent jammer wouldn't need one of those things, especially not two."

"Hm... That does sound strange, now that you mention it. I will keep that in mind. Thank you, superstar!"
He could almost hear the boy smile.

--- 👁 ---

On the other side of the vents, Mono found another security badge. It was labeled two, it should give them better access to this maze of halls and nonsensical doors.

"Emergency lockdown activated. This area is off limits to guests." The robotic voice echoed, blaring an alarm.

"Uh, Freddy! I don't know what happened! All I did was take a badge!" He whisper-yelled into the watch.

"Do not panic. That office is now on lockdown. I can deactivate the alarm, but it will take some time without access to the Main Systems. Give me three minutes, superstars, and conserve your power."

"Hey kids, come on out. We're only trying to help." The gator yelled down the halls.

The doors were loud and clunky, closing with loud thuds as the animatronics approached. Against one of the metal guards, the gator scraped his claws. From the window, Mono could see him trying to break down the massive steel barrier, leaving only shallow scratches.

"I bet you don't even have friends... Nobody will miss you!" The wolf shouted.

Both doors flicked on, shutting tight and refilling with power.

"All done! See? That was not so bad. If the path looks clear, head to the prize counter." Freddy called.

--- 👁 ---

This place is huge!

Gigantic plushies and figurines covered the walls, toys filled dozens of shelves to the brim, and soft clothes hung from displays. They'd both be lying, if they said they didn't want a big stuffed animal to cuddle, but kids didn't have that luxury. Maybe they could justify taking them as pillows, but they weren't required to sleep and they would be much too awkward to carry around. Though from the look in Mono's eyes, he had his heart set on something special. On one wall was a tall shelving area covered in various masks, all in the shapes of the main four, the Daycare attendants, and one they hadn't seen yet; it was a fairly bland white mold of a face with big black eyes and yellow rings around the eye-holes, a large black smile with red lips and cheeks painted over the rest of the plate, and black party hat with white stripes on top. Mono reached for a mask of Roxanne; it was mostly gray, so it wouldn't stand out too much, and covered his scar nicely.

'Now we match!' Six gestured to the colored strand of hair and her raincoat as he put the mask on.

The bright green streak of hair.

'No we don't?' Mono shrugged.

Six pointed to her coat again.

"That's yellow." He whispered.

'So is that!' She pointed to his forehead.

'No.' Mono shook his head.

"Green!" He whispered again.

"Green is just darker yellow!" Six countered.

What?

"Hey Freddy, weird thing to ask, but does green look like dark yellow to you?" He spoke to the watch.

"No, Mono, why?" The bear answered.

"Six thinks this Roxy mask is yellow."

"It is!" She stamped her foot.

"Hold on, Six, there is no reason to get upset. I would like to try something, can you tell me what my main color is?"

"Yellow." She stated confidently.

"And my hat?"

"Darker yellow." She answered as if it were obvious.

"What about my lightning patterns?"

"...White?" Where is this going?

"Superstar, my primary color is orange, my accessories are black, and my lightning bolts are light blue."

"Blue is way darker than that! And what the hell is orange?" She protested.

"Please watch your language, superstar, there is no need for that. Six, have you ever heard of someone being colorblind?" Freddy asked.

"No? Is it bad?" She answered while Mono started to wander the Prize Corner.

"No, there is nothing to worry about. Being colorblind just means you cannot see as many colors as your friend. If I am correct, you are unable to see the colors red or green."

"Like a puppy! I love puppies!" Gregory cut in, his voice bright, but cracking.

"Keep it down!" Mono reprimanded.

"There's a music box in here and I can't find it, I don't want to know what it might bring to us." He elaborated.

Her apparent colorblindness aside, along with it explaining many small disagreements she and Mono had in the past, there was a small melody playing from somewhere. It was light on the ears, much better than whatever Freddy and his band were playing on that big stage. The lovely little song was unfamiliar to her, but it still reminded her of her own precious box. Both the one that soothed her in the Hunter's cabin, and the one that turned her into a monster.

The one that drove her to attack Mono... That hurt her every time he attacked it, trying to free her from the Tower she didn't even know she'd been brought to...

Freddy's voice broke her from her trance.

"That would be the Security Puppet's music box, it means he is sleeping. You should keep quiet while you gather some clean clothes and head to the fire escape, I am unable to tell if he might be having the same issues as the rest of my friends."

"Do you mean she?" Gregory asked.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory spun around in a swivel chair as he stared at Freddy through the cameras of his watch. In what world was that creepy puppet a boy? She was clearly voiced by a freaky little girl.

"Superstar, the Puppet is listed as a male in our records, perhaps you have confused him with Chica or Roxanne?" The bear asked.

"No, I definitely mean that dumb sock puppet."

"Gregory, the man that recorded the Puppet's voice lines was the same one that pretends to be me in the elevator recordings, he does not have a dynamic voice like the rest of us."

"I've heard her talk! A little girl recorded those and she glares at me every time I pass the prize corner!" He insisted.

"Are you sure it has been every time?" Freddy asked.

"Positive, she's always looking around."

"Superstar, the Puppet is usually hidden in his box during the day."

"So it just happened to be staring at me whenever I'm there?"

"No, the Puppet is part of an activity where children may take turns pulling the crank by his box. There is an incredibly small chance he will open up and give them a gift, he is not outside of his box at any other time before closing.

He would have to exit every time you appear, as well for what you say to be true."

"So you don't believe me?" Gregory asked.

"I do, Gregory, but I think you may be frightened by a coincidence." Freddy admitted.

"Fine..."

Gregory typed away at a keyboard, plugging in his Fazwatch and accessing the pictures saved on it. There weren't many, he wanted as little evidence of him being there as possible, but there was one he wanted to make sure Freddy saw.

--- 👁 ---

A notification popped up in Freddy's systems, Gregory had sent him something.

It was a picture of the Prize Corner, the Security Puppet out of his box. Several bright green glitches corrupted the image, but he could still make out some of the big details hidden within. Based on the handful of children blurrily running through the frame, it must've been taken during opening hours.

He was clearly looking directly at Gregory, but that wasn't the Puppet he knew.

Out of the box, the top half of his body rose. It was far more slender than it was supposed to be and lacked the series of white stripes under the white button at its collar. In fact, it had two extra buttons running down the oval-shaped torso. There was supposed to be a quite noticeable ball joint at each shoulder and elbow, but this animatronic's limbs melded into the next portion of the limb and shoulders perfectly, like it had snakes for arms. She was missing many of the stripes, as well, instead having completely black upper arms.

Then there was its face.

The Puppet was meant to have a mask made of two pieces magnetically attached directly to the endoskeleton, it made removing them for maintenance easier, but a solid ceramic plate was glaring daggers at the Fazwatch camera. It was slightly longer than the normal mask and had been stretched at the sides, making a pair of bulbs the bright red cheeks sat on. Red lips surrounded the wider-than-normal smile, framed by purple tears that weren't meant to be on the ordinary design. A set of black eyes peered into the lens, though they lacked the dotted yellow eyes Freddy had come to know and were much narrower than the ones on the actual Security Puppet. The black hood lacked the long, striped, jester-like hat and brass bell on the end.

This is not The Puppet.

--- 👁 ---

Six pulled a black t-shirt over her head. Her torn jumper, raincoat, and the Chica shirt found in the lobby lay crumpled next to her. The black shirt had a drawing of a strange animatronic they hadn't met, though it was most likely this 'Security Puppet' Freddy warned them about.

It was bursting out of a white box with pink ribbons, the lid opened on a hinge behind the machine. White stripes crawled up the Puppet's stomach and down its arms. A white button sat just beneath a thin neck supporting a circular head. The face was split into two mirrored parts with red cheeks, a red streak down the bottom lip, and big black eyes with yellow dots for pupils. Out of the hood came a floppy black and white cone with a bell dangling from the end. Under the picture, 'surprise' was written in bubbly white letters outlined in red.

She already stood out more than enough, thanks to her bright yellow coat, so she was more than happy enough to at least have a dark undershirt, just in case. It was very soft, high quality and probably expensive, a welcome change from her itchy and worn-out jumper. With a little more sneaking around the large store, she found a pair of matching black sweatpants with striped white drawstrings at the waist. They fit much looser than her ruined jeans and didn't irritate her scars and bruises like the tattered denim.

As she pulled her beloved raincoat back over her head, Mono quietly rounded the corner. His incredibly dear trench coat was unbuttoned, showing a big gray shirt that only barely fit him. It had a print of Roxanne Wolf donning a hefty black and red jacket. Her gray hair fluttered behind her and her tail curled around her legs just above a series of blocky white letters spelling 'Roxy Raceway'. Just below his coat was a red skirt with a black waistband and several black triangles like spikes coming from the hem. He spun around, the skirt fluttering over some baggy black pants that draped over his feet, patches of spikey red triangles poking up from the foot holes and down from the waist. The soft red fabric coiled around his legs with the momentum as he finished his twirl.

'It does the swishy thingy!' His bright blue eyes sparkled through the Roxanne mask.

'Dork.' Six chuckled, how long has it been since either of them laughed?

"Superstars, remember not to wake the Security Puppet, something is deeply wrong with it.

Once you exit the Prize Counter, an alarm will go off and the Puppet will start searching for anything you stole. It moves around the establishment with rails on the ceiling." Freddy explained.

Above them, a grid of lines peeked out from the roof, only broken up by another set of diagonal lines. They covered the entire room.

"Fortunately, it cannot follow you outside of the Prize Counter, and you will be out of range before it even begins searching for you."

They nodded and found the door out of the establishment.

--- 👁 ---

"Thank you for showing me that picture. I am sorry I doubted you, superstar." Freddy apologized.

"Thank you! That thing's after me, I know it!" Gregory said.

"There is nothing to worry about, Gregory, she is not able to leave the Prize Counter." Freddy reassured.

Though I am not so sure anymore.

"It doesn't matter, she's in the Main Systems!"

"Yes, the Security Puppet is the archive for all security footage and tracks the usage of all badges at all points of the building." Freddy explained.

"So she can hack all those as well?" Gregory asked.

"No, she is connected to the Main Systems in a way the rest of us are not, but she lacks the equipment and software needed to influence them in that way."

Hopefully...

"That's never stopped her from messing with me!"

The Puppet manipulating the Pizzaplex in any way should've been impossible, between the detailed cybersecurity and limits placed on the animatronic itself. What was this thing truly capable of?

"Superstar, what has the Puppet done?"

"She locks me out of stuff all the time, the cameras and doors are her favorite, though. She likes making sure I can't tell what's going on."

"I am unsure how the Puppet could be capable of any of this, but I recognize the model.

That is an extremely outdated version of the Puppet, it was built in the 80's, but I do not know how it could have been smuggled into Pizzaplex, or how it is in such good condition for that age.

Fazbear Entertainment would not keep anything like it in storage, they would have found someone to sell it to, rather than have it substitute for one of us. It would be like replacing me with a version without any of the safety features required by laws that did not exist when it was first manufactured. I truthfully have no idea how that version of the Puppet got into the Pizzaplex, but if Safe Mode is preventing me from accessing the Main Systems, whatever is causing my friends to hunt Mono and Six may be coming from there and that imposter puppet is currently wired directly to them."

--- 👁 ---

This place was out to get them, Six was pretty sure of it before, but now she was confident.

"You found the Fire Escape. Unfortunately, I do not think there is a way to reach it without becoming a VIP... It is not a very good emergency system... You are lucky there is not a fire! I have lodged a formal complaint." Freddy informed them.

This stupid door was about to get them killed. There was nothing but a set of poles with straps tying them together and a locked-up orange door between them and the outside. Just a couple of painted steel slabs between them and the rainy outdoors. They'd never been there before, they couldn't have been if the Signal Tower was truly out of reach, but the dark clouds and freezing rain would still be far more familiar and comforting than this labyrinth.

"... How odd, my message has already been deleted. It should have at least been seen by Officer Vanessa." Freddy pondered.

"It is starting to look like you might need to hide until 6 AM, I will do my best to protect you from within my greenroom. Find a path to the elevator and meet me on the bottom floor, the Security Puppet should be finished taking inventory of stolen merchandise by now."

--- 👁 ---

That creepy thing was still out and wandering around when they got to the Prize Counter, returning to the box in its corner as they hid just behind the wall. Many white stripes lined its arms and legs, as well as down the length of a long hood with a jingling brass bell at the end. Three long fingers hung limply at the ends of its arms as it glided through the room on the ceiling rails. The Puppet's dotted yellow eyes stared blankly at the white present box before the strings pulled it over the opening and lowered it back in place. The white lid with its pink bow closed on the animatronic as it contorted to fit the small box. They gladly crouched through the walls of toys and clothes, almost reaching the exit when Mono noticed the lovely music had gone quiet.

"Superstars, the Puppet is waking up, hide!" Freddy whispered through the watches.

Mono ducked behind a shelf of action figures while Six buried herself in a display of plushies. By the shudder door leading to the arcade, a creaking lid opened just a crack. From the dark interior a black, three-fingered hand slipped out. A series of five white stripes traced after the hand, ending in a long black tube that continued to grow and grow toward the cashier's desk. The spindly black fingers wrapped around a key behind the desk and retreated to the door. With a click, the large shudder door was deadlocked in place and the arm extended to hang the key back behind the desk.

Slithering through the selves and displays, the elastic limb disappeared under the box. The lid opened fully to a set of strange arms curling out of the dark pit; they unfurled out of a heart shape and waved through the air like they had no bones, curving and coiling like the Teacher's neck. A pale-faced head peeked up next, followed by a set of cords descending from the metal cross beams. They clamped onto what seemed to be its wrists and elbows as the floppy neck rose the hooded head. The mask was far different from the one they'd seen just a minute ago.

The mask bore a set of narrow slits for eyes containing a pair of vile green pupils deep in their depths. Its eerie smile was framed by a set of round red lips and cartoonish rosy cheeks beside streaming lines of purple tears. Three white buttons were attached to the slim chest and ended at an incredibly thin gut. The string pulled the new animatronic from the box, revealing a pair of black and white striped legs with no feet. The limbs dangled a moment before they arched like it was bending its knees to prevent them from dragging on the ground. Its rails rolled around the tracks above them, quickly navigating the store like it had taken flight.

Their Fazwatches jingled, they'd gotten a message.

In an instant the Puppet shot an arm to its side, one of the stuffed animals the young girl had hidden under sharply rose to the air before it. A shadowy aura not unlike that of Six's grasped the orange-felt bear, strangling it like a wispy noose and a set of gaseous cuffs. Some of the threads and fabric squished and folded together like it was being put under tremendous force, enough to bruise and break ribs like twigs caught in a beartrap. Like a popped balloon the pressure vanished and the dark field placed the toy back on the pile.

As the machine lowered its head, tilting its mask downward, Mono could barely see the eyes filling with malice and Agony.

--- 👁 ---

She'd thought she heard it.

No, she knew she heard it.

The normally innocent jingle of a Fazwatch.

There was only one person with one of those ridiculous cash grabs that would be here after hours.

He was here, and she'd finally trapped him in.

--- 👁 ---

"Gregory, your friends are worried about you, they're here with me." It said.

At least they thought it spoke. The Puppet's jumbled, echoing, and garbled voice rang out in their heads. Speaking directly into their heads like their very minds were its speakers, the distorted voice of a young woman hummed in their skulls like it was stolen directly from the Night Guard's throat. It continued to roll around the rails, rounding corners and lifting random objects off their hangers, ripping open hiding spots before replacing them. Mono and Six quietly left their spots and peered into their watches, Freddy had almost gotten them killed.

'Mono, Six, Do not worry. Gregory has informed me that the vents have been blocked and the shudder's deadbolt is active. However, despite not having an appropriate security pass, you can open the door from your side and escape into the arcade.

You would have seen where the key is better than I could describe it. Please, stay safe.'

The pair snuck and crawled through the many displays, brushing a limb against a single one could completely give them away. They dispersed to opposite sides of the store, prepared to create a distraction the second their partner made a sound or the Puppet started looking their way. Little by little, step by step, and from hiding spot to hiding spot, they made their way to the hanging key.

Chapter Text

Why didn't it just reach its arms around the entire Prize Counter?

This Marionette glided around on its dark threads like the Lady, thoroughly ripping the place apart in its search for the pair, though for some reason it thought they were Gregory. Yet it didn't extend its limbs like it did to lock them in. Did it just not consider Gregory a threat? He'd been able to break into their watches and evade Freddy, but the way it lazily floated about the store was making it seem like he wasn't so impressive in person, like it didn't believe he could ever hope to run from it.

It could also just be toying with them, but that thought was a little scarier than Mono was willing to admit to anyone but Six.

From the corner of his vision he spotted several stacks of strange 'coloring books' (if he read the covers correctly) levitating, surrounded by frigid shadows. Based on where the faces of the books were, the mystical animatronic was looking the other way, now was his chance! He dashed between the displays around him, just behind the hunting doll and eventually catching up to Six, who expertly avoided the Puppet's attention like a mouse in a house full of cats. Now that the machine had been left in their dust, they sped up, almost getting to the desk before it appeared in front of them. In a blink of an eye it was hanging over a tower of multicolored presents, despite being on the exact opposite side of the store mere seconds earlier. Six pulled him behind a stand holding various T-shirts of differing sizes, but all big enough to help mask them from the mechanical beast as it circled the many gifts.

It could float, it could teleport, it could levitate and squeeze the life from anything.

Maybe the Lady wasn't as finished as they'd been led to believe.

Careful not to shift around the many shirts, they moved to keep the stand between them and the machine as its attention fell to another shelf of toys. The quiet clicks and squeaks of the doll's rails passed them by as it began sifting through another series of action figures and clothes stands and props. As they came to the desk, Mono found a compartment filled with damaged and discarded toys while Six snatched the deadlock keys. Among the broken items was a small plastic box with a thin cardboard backing, it held a short, orange plastic beam with velcro straps to hold it onto an arm. At one end it had two poles with an extremely stretchy cord attached to a felt pad between them, beneath it was a rod for the wearer's hand to brace against. The 'Faz-a-pult', according to the box, launched tiny rubber balls at a target, as he looked through the clear packaging he found two of the five balls had been lost at some point. They couldn't have been stolen, adults wouldn't need them, and what kid would want a pair of worthless toys in their pocket?

Mono dragged a finger through a tear in the back as quietly as he could, the plastic crumpled as he pulled the toy and three colored balls from the package. That deranged, Gregory-hunting Puppet began to turn towards the cashier's counter, starting to drift their way as if it wasn't sure what it heard. He fastened it over his coat and loaded a ball into the felt circle, an orange one half covered in a paler, more skin-tone orange and a light blue lightning bolt, then pulled it up the length of his arm.

Just as the Marionette was getting close enough to peek at Six's coat over the counter, he loosed the slingshot and the ball flung into a wall holding many boxes of 'Lego' building blocks of the various animatronics. The Puppet's head snapped in the direction of the toppling boxes, but it didn't seem to spot the tiny ball rolling around the carpeted floor and under one of the displays. It rushed, no, flew to the shelves, soaring right over the many other stands it had once taken the time to maneuver itself around. This machine was flailing through the air horizontally, the momentum of its dash was so great that the giant toy doll was being pulled behind the noisy railing.

Then they saw the beams holding the thing's strings in place.

It was dragging behind the Puppet, clattering around and getting stuck on the corners of the rails.

The Puppet wasn't being dragged through the air by its rails.

The Puppet was dragging its rails behind it.

That thing was flying, all on it's own.

We need to leave.

The many boxes buzzed and took to the air, held by a dark mist they both wished they could forget. Six led the way across the edge of the store, quickly and quietly pulling Mono to the door, there was no telling how long they had until that twisted creature resumed its search for Gregory and devoured them in the process. Its thin neck craned around the area, looking for anything that could've knocked down the blocks.

"Please come out." It whispered into their minds.

Something reached around Six's neck like a claw, it squeezed her heart and crushed her lungs like a constrictor serpent. For a minute she thought she was in the Maw, she would've stayed there if not for the Prize Counter being so dark compared to the bright light shining down in her illusion. She stumbled, almost running into a shelf and dooming them both, but Mono caught her. The grip on her chest tightened, almost as fierce as her hold of the deadbolt key. Mono held her to his side, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb and helping her walk through the strange spell put on her. Each time she blinked she was in that massive void with the Lady circling her, only Mono wasn't there. Her shoulders threatened to crumple under the weight of the mirror keeping her alive. It pushed down on her like an anvil, the one thing between her and the black magic slowly crushing her, and the Lady was approaching faster than she could turn the mirror.

Her hood ruffled as she shook her head, the ache was still settled in her chest but she was slowly breaking free of whatever power that strange Puppet had over her. With a little effort, she regained control of her breathing and got back on her own two feet, though she was still lagging behind the normally slow Mono, and that machine probably heard her losing herself. Her companion pulled another little ball from his trench coat's pocket, a white one with pink triangles around a big yellow spot, and pulled back his new toy's string. The ball soared to the desk they'd come from, loudly hitting and bouncing around the wall and damaged toys behind the counter. Again, the Puppet snapped its attention to the sounds and barreled to the source, dragging its rails behind it as the lengthy limbs slithered through the air and reached over any obstacles. It bent over the counter, eventually rising with a bundle of plastic and cardboard entangled in its three pointy fingers.

It was reading the package, then reached down to find the white Chica ball, it knew what he'd been doing.

They silently rushed to the door, Six shoved the key in a metal box by the exit and twisted it with a click. With some fairly difficult reading, she found an 'emergency escape' button that raised the door. The metal alerted the Puppet to their presence, but they'd already tucked under the crack and took a gamble at scanning their security badge. Since it was too low-level to access the store, it triggered the door to close and locked the Marionette inside. Piercing the door, three black fingers poked through the metal, it squeaked and dented under the force like it was nothing but paper.

"Gregory, I may have lost my temper earlier, but it was just a glitch, it won't happen again."

In her veins coursed the rush of energy she felt when being chased burst, that familiar rush that kept her hunger at bay just a little longer, that rush that drove her to pull Mono behind a row of the tall metal boxes. They found the vent they'd entered through, the cover of which was being tightly held over the opening by a mass of black and white striped tendrils. Right in front of them, the curling tentacles pulsed and oozed cold shadows like slimy leeches. Sharp screeching stabbed their ears, ripping into the bottom of the metal door and pulling up. Mono stared through the cracks in their hiding spot, wishing he hadn't; it was like watching all of his lost friends being caught all over again, so terrible that he couldn't look away. Three long fingers, completely unlike the ones that scratched the door, poked out of under the shudder.

--- 👁 ---

"F-F-F-Freddy?" Gregory asked through the watches.

"A-are you t-there?"

"Yes, Gregory, I am currently in the lobby. What is wrong?"

"L-l-look at the a-arcade camera."

"I am afraid I cannot, superstar, something is preventing me from accessing them. You may be able to see through a workaround in the Main Systems, but for Mono and Six's safety I must remain detached from them. Would you like me to play a song to help you calm down?" Freddy asked.

He'd been waiting for a chance to use his brand-new music box for a while now.

"...M-maybe?"

Through his Fazwatch, the Toreador March played. While he much preferred the main four's on-stage performances, having something, anything to distract himself from the monstrosity on the screens was greatly appreciated. What seemed to be an aberration pretending to be the Security Puppet wavered at it hung from strings, but one by one the cords started to slip away. It already had one of its arms free by the time he frantically called Freddy, now the other arm was harshly tugging on the pair of wires holding it up. They snapped off. All that was stopping her from reaching Mono and Six was the primary string in the center of the rail that clipped to the animatronic's back.

It fell away, but the Puppet remained in place.

She was flying.

Green glitches flickered across the screens, making him jump so high he almost knocked over his sweet tea. When the arcade cameras returned to normal, the Puppet was no longer there.

In its place levitated a beast, it looked like its upper arms and thighs were made from oily human bones, they even had a subtle twist to them like he'd felt beneath his own muscle. But that thing's forearms; they hung limply and boneless at her sides like strung-up snakes and had nine white stripes running down them, the black wrist split into four rounded ends that shined as they transitioned into four black fingers with five white stripes. Its legs were much the same, a shiny set of human arm-bones with a black and white tube that turned into four toes. Three curled as they braced it against the ground but slithered loosely and freely like they weren't actually supporting any weight. From the ankle a shorter, but equally wriggly tentacle writhed like a prehensile dewclaw.

Her body was as thin and narrow as it was every time he laid his eyes on it, but a set of striped ribs replaced the three white buttons over her torso. The longer-than-normal neck stood up stiff, holding her head far above the rest of the arcade, covered in five white stripes. Her porcelain face was smudged and gray, still dripping painted purple tears with stained red cheeks and lips. The right side was cracked, missing several ceramic chips and leaving a pair of cracks stretching from the forehead and 'jaw' to the eye, the fractured pieces still clung to the side of their proper places without any earthly way of floating there. Half of the mouth barely dangled from the wire supports meant to stretch the torn fabric inside over the endoskeleton beneath. Countless tiny cracks splintered over the Puppet's face as she glared daggers into the game room.

She raised her hand and waved to the arcade, the few remaining neon lights cut out before the cameras lost connection. Gregory was left with a handful of green glitches over the shattered Marionette's mask. Her bright green eyes stared blankly into his own.

Ding!

'Call me.'

Those infuriating words blared across his Fazwatch screen again. Just as Gregory was getting used to Freddy's song, the song from the music box he had installed, and right when he was finally starting to feel genuinely happy with something he created other than that incredible jammer, he just had to be broken from his trance. Maybe later he could get Freddy to play it again.

"H-hello?" Gregory called.

"Gregory, one of your scrap heaps could use some maintenance. I don't want it trying to eat me in my sleep."

Nice to talk to you too, asshole.

"10 tokens."

He was fairly sure it wouldn't kill him, but it wasn't exactly his best work. Nothing came close, really, compared to the jammer, that was still the only thing he got praise for.

"What'll you do with it?" Gregory dared to ask.

Why did I do that?

"15 tokens."

Combined with the 33 in his account already, it could get him a meal a day until the Pizzaplex reopened, around four. Maybe he could get five if he rationed, six if he could bargain.

"20" He countered.

"17"

An even 50, he could work with that, at least until Mono and Six were far away from this slaughterhouse.

"Deal."

He hung up, fighting the urge to empty his stomach into the trash.

Why does this feel so wrong, all of a sudden?

A part of him wished that stupid bear didn't say anything about Mr. Burrows, the other was grateful he did.

--- 👁 ---

The cracked face turned and panned across the arcade, like the Lady at her post looking over her many lumbering Guests. Only there wasn't anyone here, there wasn't anything here, the many Security Bots were nowhere to be seen and Roxanne had vanished like she was never there. Even the tiny red dots of the cameras had started going out. Quickly, one at a time, the dim neon lights and a handful of screens that hadn't been turned off started to flicker and die. Mono pressed his hand against the back of the game-box they'd been hiding behind. Though the buzz of static wasn't the good kind of familiar, at least he knew it, but even the many vile mazes of signals and frequencies had abandoned him in an emerald fog. Six was already trying to access her Fazwatch. Freddy had to know something about what to do, he lived here. The tiny glass plane was covered in green glitches and the Puppet's shattered mask. Even Mono's eyes hummed like sickly green disks.

They were alone.

Distorted green static filled the corners of his vision, though Six remained clear in the center of his sight. She took his hand and dragged him to the rear of their hiding spot, as far away from the last place they saw the Puppet as she could without running out in the open. For how far their eyes had brought them, they were little help when there was no light at all. They could only see a good few yards ahead like all the Pizzaplex's gentle glow had been sucked away, but it would have to do. In the shadows shone the last pair of glowing green lights in the entire room. The Puppet's long arms extended; not stretching, the white stripes didn't warp and widen, but the black of its elbows and wrists expanded like they were gaining mass from nothing.

The right limb brushed against the far, painted wall and its fingers reached around the many metal boxes, gliding over the buttons and flicking the joysticks as they curled around the wires. The left arm started approaching them, the nine white stripes waving through the air and fingers descending on their hiding place. Six pulled Mono to another hiding spot, leaving the row of machines and finding a new haven of screens to take cover behind. In the small green lights they saw the outline of the Puppet's neck. What they first thought was the snapping of wires and bending of metal supports turned into the wet squelches of tearing muscle and breaking of bones.

Its neck grew and grew, dangling the head over the center of the expansive room. The bright green eyes dimmed, leaving them in a darkness that even the pair of monsters couldn't see through and blending into the black and white cords running across the ceiling. The white stripes glowed in the dark, but cast no light around them, just standing out and covering up the small green dots telling them where this cursed animatronic was generally looking. Rising up, the torso twisted and stretched over the tortured endoskeleton, like it was the only part of its body that knew it wasn't meant to do anything the Marionette was demanding of it. The bending and breaking of steel echoed through its fabric covers and the robot's framework popped out of place.

Its legs reached forward next, the claw-like tendrils weaving over and under the rows and rings scattered around the lengthy room. Around the doll's chest, the set of striped ribs unfurled like the Hunter setting one of his beartraps to crush them in half. The ribs expanded outward, the pointed tips of the tentacles scratching the walls and closing in around them. The fractured form of what used to be the Puppet's body floated forward like a spiked barrier forcing them to move. While it had yet to spot them, the doll started reducing the space they had to run and hide inch by inch, dimly lit eyes slowly scanning the area before it continued to close in like the fleshy walls of the Tower.

Powers like that of the Lady, the grasp of the Janitor, the gaze of the Teacher, the oppressive aura of the Tower and its Signal. This machine, this creature, possessed them all.

Six and Mono weaved back and forth between the many screens, some of which had accidentally been left on by the pathetic handful of morning staff. Tiny spots of green static burst to life from the overlooked arcade cabinets, the cameras meant to let kids put their faces on their high scores recorded portions of the large empty spaces they would have to run across to escape, cutting them off at key areas and forcing them to reroute around them or be spotted. Like strange beacons, the black and white powerlines running across the ceiling guided them to the other side of the massive room, and the exit door with it. There was no reason to believe it wouldn't keep following them beyond that point, seeing as its strings had been meaningless the whole time, but they were swiftly running out of options.

It's not like they were about to try and fight this thing. Mono kept his eyes on the writhing limbs, watching out for the dark slivers of slimy, vague black matter as they dashed between safe spots with the wall of razor-sharp tendrils in hot pursuit. He would be the one to guide them over and under the floating arms and legs. Six, meanwhile, kept her head to the sky. She kept a close eye on where the Puppet's head was facing, plotting their next opening to escape as the few functioning arcade machines peered down on them, ready to rat them out as soon as one of them misjudged a step. All it would take to doom them was the edge of a foot or shoulder crossing the corners of the cameras' lines of sight.

"I don't hate you, Gregory, but you need to stay out of my way." It whispered in their minds.

Only it wasn't the voice from before. These quiet words were that of a completely different person. Within the Prize Counter they'd heard something akin to a glitchy version of that dreaded Nightguard's call, like a young woman's sentences had been layered over themselves dozens of times until it was barely recognizable.

But this was the whispering of a child.

The small, but far from afraid sounds of her voice were barely choked out, like she was hardly able to breathe or speak at all. She rasped out the threat to their ally like she was being strangled to death right in front of them, desperately trying to give them her final words before suffocating. Was there a little girl trapped inside that beast? Calling out from within the sharp remains of the metal supports and entangled by the wires like rubber-coated nooses.

But why was she disguising her voice before?

She had to know trying to pretend she was someone else was pointless at this point, so this choked and barely legible voice must've been how she truly sounded, it wouldn't make sense for her to imitate someone any longer. So who was she pretending to be, to lure out Gregory? Was someone other than the Nightguard here with them, that Gregory was familiar with? How much might he be hiding from them? Typically, kids never shared much other than food with others their age. It was rude to ask someone else what they'd been through, no kid wanted to be forced to relive what they'd been forced to do or witness.

If they were hiding something that could anyone around them killed, however, then there'd be issues. Granted, Mono and Six hadn't had much of anything that could be considered a real conversation until they were well on their way to the Maw.

And then they saw it.

With the wall of black ribs closing in behind them, the Puppet's head hiding in the wires, and her limbs slithering by their sides, a tiny plush was what caught their eyes. It wasn't any larger than most of the ones that had stared at them walking through the aisles of the Prize Counter, just a fairly normal toy in an unorthodox spot atop a mass of wires connecting to the ring of arcade machines they were hiding in. It was by far the most simple plush in its design, a solid black body with black cylinders for legs and lacking toes. The hands were only slightly more detailed, stuffed fabric tipped with three triangles of white felt like adorable little talons lining the stubby arms. Its most interesting feature was the face; a black bulb with a sewn-on mask. White dots sat inside the black holes that were its eyes, streaming greasy black tears into a black mouth filled with pointy white teeth.

Then it looked at them, the white pupils shrinking and turning lime green.

In a split second they were ready to run, they were already halfway to the door when they started. If they could lock it behind them, they might be able to find another hiding spot before she broke through and resumed her search. Over one of the limbs, they jumped, neither knowing nor caring if it was an arm or leg. The pointed and striped tips of her long fingers didn't curl as they approached, she didn't even try to grab them as she pulled her appendages back to her torso.

"You're not Gregory!"

As horrified as the pair of monsters were, the floating doll wavered where she levitated. In a painful burst, the lights shone all at once, activated at a wave of the Puppet's hand. Six nearly fell on her face as she scrambled to pull her hood down and Mono's eyes shut tight beneath his new Roxy mask. As quickly as it started, the glow ceased to be. Only a dimmed light illuminated them, surrounded in a black void their eyes couldn't adjust to. It was all happening again. They'd been found out, and now this terrible little girl was going to circle them like the Lady had done before reaching out to drain them of everything they were worth, only this time they didn't have a mirror to defend themselves. Not far from where they stood, but still too close for comfort, another light turned on, much brighter than the one above them. Under it stood the Puppet in all her demented glory, but she'd cast off the eldritch form she'd hunted them with.

She floated just barely above the ground in the form that chased them on strings, the tips of her striped legs barely sliding around the tile floor. Her main body flew in place as if it wasn't just contorted a million ways when she hovered into the arcade. The three white buttons held together the dark fabric and her smooth arms ended in three simple black fingers. Her crying mask was pristine, not a crack or smudge to be found on the red features or purple tears pouring from the calm, if empty, black eyes.

Chapter Text

The rickety, scrapped-together elevator descended deep into the sinkhole under the Pizzaplex. He'd never appreciated that a box of rusted metal and rotting wood attached to a moldy old rope was all that prevented him from tumbling down into the depths, but Gregory wasn't about to bring it up to Mr. Burrows, not if he didn't absolutely need to talk to him. The doors slid apart with an ear-piercing screech and he stepped into the masses of garbage and debris. Piles upon piles of trash and discarded animatronic parts crunched and shifted under his worn-out sneakers.

Against a wall of dirt sat a broken down endoskeleton covered in cracked pieces of a light blue suit. One of the legs was missing, having been replaced by the lower half of a staff-bot, and one of the tires clearly needed to be replaced. The 'spine' of the Staff Bot was welded into the top of the robot's hip at an angle, allowing it to turn the faux leg by rotating the bot's waist. He'd installed the Staff Bot's motherboard inside the hip itself since the Glamrocks didn't have the software needed to operate the swivel and gyroscopes required to drive around. The other leg was surprisingly in much worse condition, part of the purple, gold-star patterned casing had been left open, dangling from a set of rusty hinges and exposing the many frayed wires surrounding the bent endoskeleton and damaged hydraulics. He'd have to see if he could scavenge up some abandoned parts from around him, maybe he could tear apart a security bot limb to repair the 'muscle' and reinforce the frame. Any randomly colored wires would do to get the leg back up and running, Gregory was the only one who needed to know what they did.

His creation was horribly balanced due to Gregory having lost one of its limbs, something Mr. Burrows was sure to yell at him about and withhold some of the tokens he'd promised. The missing left arm had little more than a handful of wires and the sharp, torn-off remains of the shoulder joint, he'd been meaning to rip apart another security drone for a hip and camera to attach to the socket. On the other side, the right arm was thankfully doing better, the pointed lapis claws that once played guitar and went bowling clenched in an angry fist.

Massive slashes decorated the main body, wrapping around the sides and framing a long gash in the machine's back, spreading cracks like a web around the cold shell that forced him to replace almost all of the internals when he was first assigned the project. The entire gut was missing, he'd needed to scrappily sew together a few of the black rubbery sheets that covered the frames of the staff-bots to protect his creation's insides. Visible stitches poked loosely through the rubber patchwork, only a couple of the threads were actually tightened enough to hold the sheets together. Maybe later he would go back and redo the seams; while the jammer was the only thing he'd ever gotten an honest thumbs up for, he still wanted to be proud of how his creations turned out, someday.

A shiny gold star glinted from underneath the filthy purple vest, the chest area was largely intact with the exception of a deep cut in the shoulder supporting the remaining arm as if someone took an axe to the blue casing and ripped purple vest. There didn't seem to be a problem with it at the moment, but he'd yet to open it up to observe the inside. A set of slanted violet shoulder pads lifted the vest and gave it a broad and in-charge appearance, but were easily removed once showtime was over, preserving the friendlier and gentle demeanor of the ruined entertainer despite its destruction.

Buck teeth poked out of the upper jaw, lined by the rest of the thin white squares and framed by round purple cheeks with painted gold stars. Several cracks covered the head, morbidly decorating the baby blue snout and faceplate like it had been launched down a flight of stairs. Two floppy ears drooped as the head was lowered, though one of them was missing its top half, leaving a pair of metal rods meant to support the sensitive microphones and blue plastic tube protecting them. One of the kindly red eyes was gone, another screwup his employer hadn't let him live down ever since.

Gregory reached into his pocket, pulling out an extremely heavily modified Fazwatch SD card connected to a pair of small metal rectangles holding a handful of other circuits and tied together with wires. He stuck it into the side of his watch and triggered his invention to remotely activate. Its mouth snapped open and closed repeatedly, the pointed teeth clattering together, ready and waiting for anything to get close enough for it to tear them apart. He set the animatronic to maintenance mode, something must be making the jaws think something is in its mouth. Gregory carefully pulled out the animatronic's eye, it tended to get in the way when he was trying to remove the face and one wrong move could signal the steel beast to attack.

The ocular sensor fell into his hand with a satisfying 'plop', covered in smudges and dirt, he'd have to make a note to clean the lens. After leaving a reminder on his watch, he pocketed the red eye and pushed up on the upper jaw. Built-in springs helped him lift the metal block until a set of rods clicked into place, holding the top of the head in place and letting him access a pair of red buttons hidden under the cheeks. He pressed them, as he'd done dozens of times before, and they allowed him to pull off the face. A large bundle of curly blonde hair, stained dark red, was wrapped around the jaw's mechanisms, getting thoroughly stuck in the series of gears and pistons.

He wasn't sure if knowing where and who it came from rendered him relieved or nauseous.

--- 👁 ---

The Puppet's snake-like arms flopped limply around her like they were held by strings that had been sliced off despite not behaving as such since being released from her rails. Six started backing away first, reaching for Mono's hand as he stared down the doll. The exit wasn't too far away. Above the Marionette a flickered and went out. Mono got ready to use his abilities, no matter how much he hated them he wouldn't risk any harm to Six. Besides, his powers didn't come with the same painful cost that brought her to her knees. Yet the strange child didn't approach them. No striped tendrils reached for the pair from the dark as Six pulled herself closer to him. Almost as fast as the Puppet's light went out, another blinked to life further away. On and off, on and off, but revealing only empty space. Once the light stabilized, the animatronic appeared again, out of thin air between the bulb's failures.

"I'm so sorry, I swear I thought you were someone else." She choked out.

"What do you want with Gregory?" Mono rasped, his voice was already letting him down again.

The Puppet's posture changed on a dime, turning restrained and her mask became bitter despite only tilting downward. Livid green pupils glowed within the black eyes.

"You can't trust that boy, he's gotten many like you killed."

Gregory killing kids? He was a kid, that was something only adults were vile enough to do. Still, she was hunting them only because she was after Gregory, and went as far as to mimic a woman he must've known in order to draw him in, there had to be some element of truth in this mess. Neither could say they truly knew the boy behind their watches, after all. It was only to be expected that he wasn't telling them something. But if he played some part in the other Entertainers slaughtering previous visitors, why was he helping them? He was in the perfect position to lead them to a trap by hacking their watches, yet he got them the 'guest profiles' needed to access many of the machines and gave them the tokens to buy food.

It wouldn't hurt not to trust him or the Puppet too much, just in case. They rarely trusted anyone but each other, anyway, it was the smart thing for any kid to do.

Except Freddy, he was quickly growing on them no matter how much Six denied it.

"For what it's worth, you're able to turn in merch to the Security Counter for tokens and get prizes. I might be able to switch around with the inventory, make the gifts more suitable to your predicament."

"Like a new flashlight?" Mono asked.

"Of course! You just need to trigger the animatronic to give a gift, it'll happen every three items you return something."

Well, Six had been holding onto the Chica shirt for some time now. She offered the random shirt to the machine, rolling it into a ball and tossing it over to the other light. The Puppet's arm expanded to catch it. Almost as soon as she did, Five tokens appeared on Six's watch, enough to buy them both a bag of the Sun candies. Considering their voices were already starting to waver again, they'd need it, she wasn't a fan of having her throat feel like it was on fire again. Depending on what else they could scrounge up from the corners of this insane building, they might be able to get something nicer to eat as well.

In a flash, the dim neon rods decorating the room flickered on and the brutally bright lights above them shut back off. Their eyes readjusted quickly, finding the Puppet had completely vanished. Though grateful to have their night vision once again, not knowing where the little girl had gone wasn't ideal, but nothing seemed to be jumping out at them at the moment, so that was a nice change. They got to their feet and wandered to the door.

Just as they exited the room, Six doubled over. Her bones burned like they'd been thrown in an oven and her flesh seared like it was tearing apart. She wheezed and tears filled her eyes, her lungs thrust the air out of her lungs like a popped balloon and heart thundered like it was about to explode right out of her chest. A disorientating pounding in her skull threw her off balance and almost onto the cold, tile floor, if not for Mono picking her up as soon as her face paled and she began to sway in place. Her stomach loudly rumbled, drawing the attention of a robot with shining purple lights for eyes. Mono stood ready, preparing to destroy the intruder before realizing it was just a recolored version of the map bot they'd been frightened by. Like Freddy, a pair of blue lights shone on them with a quiet beeping noise. It was scanning them, right? Checking them for injuries and crap. But why now? Why wasn't it raising the alarm?

"Alert: Severe malnourishment, unidentified injury. Guest profiles: Six (no surname found), Mono (no surname found). Please follow me to Lost and Found for food and safety."

The robot picked up Six, softly holding her body in its cold arms and laying her head gently against its shoulder. Mono vaguely remembered passing that room on their way to the Lobby, it was locked shut but seemed to have a vent connecting to the rest of the Pizzaplex. If anything goes wrong, he could try ripping it open and dragging Six out. If there was food in there, they could fix the hunger-attack problem fairly quickly, and having an expendable animatronic between him and Six if they didn't get there in time was welcome.

They also really didn't need another cannibalistic nightmare taking a chunk out of his arm. They could play along, for now, so long as this machine might have a way for him to get Six feeling better.

--- 👁 ---

Lost and Found wasn't looking as helpful as he'd hoped. There were little more than a couple piles of various shirts on the floor, a shelf stocked with boxes of what Mono assumed to be abandoned toys and plushies, and a desk holding four boxes with screens stacked like a pyramid. Maybe he should've expected this. Why would anyone let food out of their sight? Even adults tended to be pretty honed in on a meal once it was outside of its cold box, especially when the meal was one of them. A part of him hoped this building would play by different rules, as it had for the majority of the morning they'd been here.

The lights flickered, the Staff Bot holding Six stuttered its movements as it set her down on the concrete floor. Its purple eyes fluttered back and forth between violet and a blank, black-eyed stare. It was already the second power surge Six had caused, one more and she would go on the attack no matter how much she tried to restrain herself. A dull ache spread across his bandaged forearm as he ran through the memory. The only reason he didn't lose the limb was that he led her to the dead Chefs' pantry and toppled over boxes until her curse decided it was easier just to eat the vegetables than continue chasing him, no matter how much she preferred to eat the living.

Eventually, the staff bot's eyes settled on an eerie red, a pair of deep crimson dots now sat within the cold lenses. It rolled backward a few feet as the door they came through swung open.

"Move, please."

The machine rolled out of the way for the Nightguard, carrying her flashlight and an orange bag.

--- 👁 ---

What the HELL happened to these two?

What the hell were these two? Because 'human' clearly wasn't the answer.

The little boy's Roxanne mask shifted as he sneered at her. Inside his rapidly expanding irises his dark pupils began to burst like they were growing spikes or unfurling tendrils that seeped into the whites of his eyes. The ratty mat of greasy brown hair draped messily over the back of his neck as if he came straight out of 'The Ring'. A black collar poked out from under his filthy trench coat. Though she couldn't see what exactly it was through the coat, she presumed he'd stolen a Roxy Raceway shirt based on the ends of bubbly white letters peeking from between the flaps of his coat. Loosely covered by the edges of his coat was a cute red skirt lined with the wolf animatronic's stylized black spikes over a pair of black pants with red spikes. His bare feet were covered in scars and dirt and bruises, as were his hands, but his right hand shimmered and buzzed with CRTV lines and static like one of the cameras.

Not the most insane thing she'd seen since playtesting Help Wanted.

Writhing on the ground, the girl in the yellow coat clutched her rumbling stomach. Her shaky breaths sounded incredibly rough and forced like all the air was being pushed out of her lungs with every exhale. She was even thinner than the boy, every bone poked through her skin and there was no muscle or fat to be found, yet she didn't seem to have a problem moving. Her nails dug into the pile of shirts she rested on like a cat tearing into a scratching post, she even had the pointed teeth to match. Knotted black hair covered her eyes, but Vanessa could see the pained outline of her cheekbones and molars through the horrifically thin skin like she'd been born from the Wendigo short stories she'd grown up on. Vanny almost didn't notice the boy, 'Mono', slowly backing away, putting distance between himself and the starving girl.

It was much different than when they'd been pointed out to her when she clocked in, they'd seemed so close and he scrambled to support her as they ran away. For some reason, now he wanted distance between 'Six' and himself. As she set her tote bag on the ground, Six went limp. Her movements seemed nearly robotic, going from agonizing and shaky to sickly smooth in the span of a second. She lifted her right arm first, pushing herself up and unnaturally sliding her left limb beneath her. The dark hairs dangled from under her hood as she dragged a leg to her chest, steadily pushing herself to her knees. Mono pressed himself against the far wall while his friend collected herself. His eyes darted between the girl and Vanessa.

Then Six turned her head.

Above them, the lights started flickering. Through the black strands of hair and under the lip of her hood, a bright scarlet cone shone. The girl's pupil had shrunken to the size of a needle's point. Her iris expanded over her entire eye, casting the red light over her face and the concrete. She slid her leg to her side, crawling like an animal and slowly inching to her feet. She held an arm to her side and flexed her hand like she was brandishing claws. Her spine left a ridge in the back of her raincoat, even some of her ribs could be seen before she turned to fully face Vanessa. The pair of glowing red, near pupil-less eyes locked onto her.

Black tendrils burst across the rest of her eyes like an Old One and would get brighter and darker with every flicker of the lights, humming with electricity as they repeatedly surged to life and died out. Her nails scratched the concrete as she pulled her remaining arm up, keeping it by her side and turning her body towards the Nightguard. Mechanically, she lifted herself to stand, so slow and even it looked like she'd defied gravity. It certainly didn't look like she was anything alive, the Glamrocks were infinitely more lively than Six had become, calling her a living being felt like an insult to them.

In the blink of an eye, she lunged. Her claws flew open and her teeth bared in a ravenous smile. The bright but smudged yellow raincoat approached as a blur. Vanessa hardly had time to force her arm ahead of her face before the small but quick girl collided with the woman. Razor-sharp canines pierced her sleeve and dug into her flesh, ripping into the muscle and barely missing the artery as she slashed through the veins. Six's talons latched onto Vanny's shoulders, tearing apart the fabric of her uniform and lightly scratching the skin. She dropped her flashlight and the orange tote, falling on her back.

At first, it was easy to push the girl away, despite being the one who had fallen on the hard ground, but things quickly got complicated. Like a dense fog, black mist gathered around the child as she cried oily tears. It flowed directly through the yellow coat and into her chest, swirling around the pair like a slow but menacing tornado or whirlpool, and coiled down her arms like shadowy springs. The girl suddenly felt like she could give Monty or Glamrock Bonnie a challenge. A little bit at a time, the sickly, dark winds filled Six with unnatural might. Vanessa was quickly losing the upper hand as they wrestled.

Completely out of nowhere, Six lurched away, her back painfully arching as she released the Nightguard's arm with a harsh gasp and coarse scream. Jabbed into the side of her neck was Vanny's trusted taser. It seemed that damned Rabbit wanted to help her out for a change, if only to preserve its preferred pawn. Against her own will, she drove the taser forward again, keeping contact with the child's neck as she backed away. A swift swipe of the bony arm nearly took Vanessa's eye out but instead hit away her arm. The taser nearly flew out of her hand, but she kept ahold of it with the tips of her fingers.

She regained her footing, grabbed her flashlight, and unwittingly flung the door open, slamming it behind her before she could process what was happening. Her red-stained sleeve fluttered beside her, but because of that twisted little Bunny, she wasn't able to bring either hand to the handle and reenter. Mono was still in there! He could still be in danger. Just as she fought to wrap her fingers around the handle, she saw the boy through the window, sifting through the bag she'd brought them. At first, he'd pulled the bags of chips open and tossed them his companion's way, the lights flickering even more violently.

With some time, the power surges weakened and the girl slowed her eating. Mono got closer, directly handing her small packages of fruit snacks and patting her back. Eventually, she stood on wobbly feet. Like he was acting on instinct, the boy pulled her closer, letting her lean on him as she shook her head. The dark fog faded away and Six blinked rapidly, as if regaining consciousness while her eyes returned to normal. Vanessa backed off from the door, heading for one of the medical stations before resolving to find a nearby security office, instead of trying to directly interact with the pair again.

Even though she didn't exactly appreciate being attacked, it was good to know they had that kind of tenacity and power, it might soon save their lives.

--- 👁 ---

Vanessa finished disinfecting the bite, looking down on the deep cuts left by the strange girl. Around a fairly decent-sized chunk of missing flesh, she'd left eight tooth marks. The four farthest sides of the bite, where the girl's canines ripped into her, were freakishly long and significantly nastier than the other pair of cuts. The innermost slices were shorter, but just as clean as the others. Did the little girl have fangs? It was starting to look that way, as she tightly wrapped the brutal bite in a bandage.

So Six seemed to control shadows, was a Wendigo lookalike, and generally messed with electricity when she was hungry. Then Mono had static running over his skin, but she couldn't tell exactly what was going on with him yet. At least that's what she gathered what was going on while she was being attacked by a tiny child with the strength of a Navajo spirit. Still not the most insane thing she'd seen since playtesting. Fortunately, she'd been well prepared to patch herself up since the Rabbit tried using that twisted thumb-trap on her, then couldn't figure out how to remove it.

As for the kids, she didn't have the time to care about being bitten or to figure out what the unearthly green glitch that pushed it away was. Those two need to get out of here before it wakes back up. She quickly checked through her gear; her taser still had plenty of charge left and had some blood spots covering the electrodes. The shoulders of her uniform may have been salvageable if not for the sleeve, it was ripped apart and drenched in blood, the red remains swung through the air and annoyingly brushed against her hip.

Her brown belt held the leather container for the taser and a loop for her light, though the flashlight was missing. She speedily searched around for the Bunny's equipment, wrapped together in its freakish costume. Vanessa pulled out a small box with an antennae and a green Freddy button, the bottom lined with various other symbols. One of the marks was the face of a Staff-bot. It glowed white when she tapped it and set it on the table holding a monitor and camera.

What she found in her hand after leaving Lost and Found was a damaged, filthy, barely functioning light she had no idea the origins of. Presumably, it belonged to one of the kids, but if her light was still with them, she doubted she'd be getting it back anytime soon. The dented metal casing was covered almost fully covered in rust that scratched her palm as she tried to turn it on. Countless smudges of dirt streaked across the malformed stick and restrained the pathetic bit of light coming from the barely-working bulb and its cracked glass shield.

The rubber button was worn out like it was an age-old, ripped at the edges and warped around the mechanisms beneath, even having the outline of a small thumb imprinted in the center. She hit the bottom of the light a few times, trying to get the bulb working, but it only flickered. With more than a little effort, she unscrewed the bottom cover to replace the battery. Vanny was only met with a silvery mess that stuck the cap to the container. It would take more time and effort than it was worth to chip away at the exploded battery, even if she was able to fix it.

It was barely 1 AM, tonight is gonna suck.

Chapter Text

Mono palmed his new flashlight. He didn't think the Nightguard would notice him snatching hers and switching it with his old light, but his heart had still raced and the hairs on his neck stood straight. A part of him did miss the flashlight he'd wielded through the forests before meeting Six and entering the Pale City. It served him well, but he should've known it wouldn't last forever. Beside him, Six leaned against on his shoulder, still recovering from her attack. He patted her back and shifted around, letting her rest her head on his lap as he inspected the new light. It was incredibly clean, almost everything in this place was, but Vanessa's personal light appeared especially cared for.

The casing was a sleek, shiny black. The smoothness was nice in his hand, a welcome change from the coarse rust that had scraped his hand many times before. He slid his scarred thumb over the plastic container, dragging it across the many bright stickers placed on it. Cartoonish butterflies, bouquets of colorful flowers, tiny stars, the guard had placed dozens of them on the flashlight. Mono found he admittedly loved the many bright colors, at least when there weren't massive, blinding lights bearing down on him like in the Daycare.

Six lifted herself from the ground where they sat, she'd always had trouble sleeping, or even taking a break. She couldn't stop herself from staying on high alert at all times. Mono was of little help, always convinced something would go wrong at every turn. Getting any minute of reprieve was a rare luxury they had trouble making the most of. He stuffed the light into his trench coat and got to his feet, looking at the orange bag surrounded by discarded wrappers and crumbs. When was the last time he'd eaten? It didn't matter, really, there was no telling when the next time they'd come across any food would be. In the corner of his eye, he saw Six frowning as she kicked away the bits of trash.

'It wasn't your fault.' He held her hand as he picked through the bag.

'I swear, I tried to hold it back.' She tightened her grip.

'I know, It's okay. Are you alright?' He pulled her into a gentle, warm hug.

'Feeling a little better, I can walk it off. There should be plenty still in this thing.' She stuffed a hand into the bag.

They took a small inventory of what remained. Not much compared to what Six had downed in her episode, but that was to be expected from her power's insatiable need to feed on flesh that she couldn't get. A few bags of chips, a tiny pile of granola and protein bars, and even a couple bags of Sun and Moon candies were waiting for them at the bottom of the bag. They split some of the Sun candy first, with all the talking Freddy did, they'd want to keep a surplus of them, if possible. With their throats feeling better, Six pushed the remaining snacks to Mono and lay down on the small pile of clothes. At first, she denied the small pieces he passed her way, any form of food constantly made her sick until her attacks.

Eventually, the hope that they might be as good as the candy got the better of her. The nuts and protein bars were alright, probably more appealing to people who needed an actual diet, rather than those forced to drain life until their prey was a scuttling gnome, but the handful of chips she accepted were laced with great flavors. After a while, all the lights went out. Mono continued shoveling down snacks while Six tried to take a much-needed nap, but couldn't even close her eyes. A sinking feeling crawled up her spine each time she tried to take a break, now was no exception. Usually, she would be the first watch; Mono was the only one of the two that could fall asleep quickly enough, she would stay awake no matter how hard she tried to relax, even Mono's crunchy chips woke her.

Of course, he noticed her, he always did, and did his best to quiet down. It didn't work, those crackers were just too loud. Still, she gave him an appreciative glance, he was always looking out for her. Even after dropping him who-knows how many times, he turned out as the only one she could count on, the only one who'd ever stayed alive and by her side. He was even 'special' like her, though they both wished they weren't. She finally gave up on taking a nap and started sorting through the boxes on the shelves; they were filled with toys, drawings, and the occasional sock or shoe. Nothing particularly useful. None of them seemed to have come from the Pizzaplex, so they couldn't even turn them in to the Puppet for tokens or gifts.

It shouldn't have been surprising for worthless heaps of plastic like these to be left behind, they were just dead weight. Still, this place was way different than where they'd come from, both the Maw and the City, maybe they had some value to someone at one point? One by one, the few dim neon lights flickered to life. Freddy must've gotten to one of the big tubes by now. Mono flicked through his watch, it was just past 1, and Six's attack wasn't long ago. They probably didn't have much time before the Nightguard returned for them. He motioned to Six, the tower of screens came to life just as they agreed it was time to move.

Vanessa's face appeared over the planes of glass like there were four of her. Sweat stuck her blonde hair to her forehead and pale skin and her tired green eyes stared down at them through the camera. She was no doubt bitter about what happened, but it seemed like the farthest thing from her mind at the moment. Mono's old flashlight sat in her hand, having been opened and revealing the silvery remains of the dying battery within the dirty and rusty brown case with its hardly functioning bulb.

"Alright, I'm willing to ignore being eaten if you two listen up for a second. You're both in big trouble! I don't know what's going on with you, or how you got in here, but I promise whatever you're here for isn't worth it."

Odd, Freddy taking care of them was one thing, the big bear genuinely looking after them just made him an exception. But Vanny also sounded serious, scared even.

"Mono, Six, and yes I know your names, we can get you out of here. You and me, together! They won't stop hunting you, none of them will stop hunting you. We have to get you out by morning."

She looked away as if checking if anyone was with her. They could practically see her heart pounding in her chest beneath her many heavy breaths.

"If you can, wait here until your parents or the police arrive, it shouldn't take any chances when there are eyes on the place, but don't hesitate to run if you think someone's after you."

The screens flickered again, cutting to black.

Not a chance, there's no way they'd be staying here, especially not because this random lady just decided she was gonna help instead of hunt them. This had to be a trap of some kind, if a weird one that encouraged them to escape. They could try to use the door if they wanted, it might have an 'override' to open from the inside like the Prize Counter. If not, they could tear open the vent and crawl into the lobby. For now, they could sift through the last of the lost and found boxes. The kids before them probably would've used anything worthwhile they had. However, unless Gregory already looted them; it also wasn't farfetched to think they might've overlooked some food, dropped a weapon somewhere, or missed some supplies while being chased.

--- 👁 ---

"Disassemble Lost and Found door." Vanny ordered.

The staff-bot standing outside drove over to the sliding door and reached for the badge scanner. They weren't exactly strong, but they typically got the job done. After a few seconds of pulling the cover for the card reader snapped open and it pulled apart some random wires inside. It would have to do.

"Perform standard nighttime procedures." She commanded.

No need to risk that thing getting in the way. It could hack any one of them at any moment, or it wanted to create a small army, for all she knew. The creepy green glitch just did the three of them a massive favor, she needed to make the most of it before the Rabbit returned or those kids might never make it to 6 AM.

Speak of the devil.

--- 👁 ---

Mono's head stung. A fog gathered around his mind and his eyes watered against his wishes, no matter how many times he tried to blink or wipe the tears away. Through the buzz in his mind he reached around for Six's hand, only able to catch glimpses of her raincoat between the water blurring his vision. She held onto him as the screens blared at them again. To him, they only looked like a bright red light covered in static and lines plastered over the glass, but he could hear someone talking to them. The robotic voice laughed, crackling and stuttering with each chuckle like it was speaking with a glitching microphone made of scrap metal, or they could have a voice filter. It was familiar, in some way, hadn't they heard it before?

The Puppet, not her real voice, but the distorted and high voice she taunted them with as she glided around her store. Only she'd thought they were Gregory at the time. Was this the person the Marionette was trying to copy? Did Gregory know this person?

"Are we having fun?" The faceless woman asked.

Although the four screens cut to black again, the stabbing pain in his skull remained. No, it was getting stronger. A bloody red haze covered what little vision he had left, blanketing the small handful of details and silhouettes he could spot in a deep, rich, and vile crimson like paint or stained glass. He looked around but still found nothing. He couldn't see where the pain was coming from, he couldn't figure out how to run from it, but he couldn't fight it either. Six pulled his hand towards the vent, silently pointing at it while something thudded down the hall beyond the door beside them.

There didn't seem to be a screwdriver handy at the moment, something like that would likely be kept in a worker's closet somewhere else. Maybe another kid got trapped here before them and never made it out. But they didn't have the same limitations as others, no matter how often they wished they did. Mono's hand buzzed, his skin rippling with dreaded blue static and black lines. The disgusting, distorting and disorientating power he'd been cursed with his whole life rattled through his bones like his entire being was falling away.

Somehow, the aching in his head subsided, the involuntary tears stopped rolling down his face, dripping from his shining blue irises that burst across his eyes and the pupils that split into tendrils reaching over them. The red hue hardly faded; not growing or concentrating, yet retreating to the corners of his vision. The infuriating clouds that hovered inside his head and slowed his thinking began to dissolve. They didn't disappear, far from it, his head was pounding against his skull, but it seemed his curse could counter the red force to some degree.

Through the window beside the broken door, a ruby-red outline of something vaguely resembling a person danced and bounced down the unlit hall. An unidentifiable mass of red shapes covered in static and black lines. Six would probably know something about what he was supposed to be looking at, but they needed to conserve their voices for when Freddy needed them, not waste breath describing a scrambled buzz of obscure shapes. He'll have to make do with what little he could see.

The bright red blob kept approaching, its source hidden by the static and black lines like an alternate version of the Signal and its Tower. At first, the large legs seemed normal enough; just ordinary-looking calves, knees, and thighs, but the feet were disproportionately wide like a clown's shoes. The hidden lady's arms were similar; a big, blurry outline of ordinary elbows and muscular arms, but her hands were bulbous like she was wearing massive gloves. She held something in her right hand, but Mono couldn't make out what through the glitchy red filter. It almost looked like a short rod, which should've been a challenge to wield with the stuffed mittens, but it twirled in her cartoonish fingers effortlessly. Whatever it was, she had to be intimately familiar and practiced with it.

Something dangled around her hip like she was wearing a belt stocked with supplies. It looked like a stick had been hooked onto the belt and was clumsily bouncing against her leg as she leaped and danced. A square was attached to the other side, a tiny line stretching from the top of it, maybe it was an antenna? It almost looked like one of the boxes of fruit juice in the vending machines they'd passed before. For now, he just couldn't tell what it was. There looked to be a hefty scarf around her neck, propped up on her broad shoulders, though he couldn't tell exactly. Over the woman's head swung a set of long, floppy ears; stiff around the bottom ends to hold them out of her eyes, while the tips freely fluttered through the air as she twirled.

She stopped in front of the window, brandishing the narrow object, pressing it flat against the glass while she waved at them with her free hand. Like the Teacher's decrepit nails being dragged down her chalkboard, the tip of the blurry item slid down the window, making an ear-piercing screech as she reached for the box on her hip. Now that she'd removed it, there seemed to be another square hanging from her belt, what else might be at her side that he couldn't see? The box beeped when she pressed a fat thumb to its center. The door clicked and shuddered, had it been unlocked? She must be trying to open it. He reached for the vent, blue static pulled and dented the metal cover out of place. The lady snapped her head to the door, letting him see a short snout with a button nose.

It seemed the staff-bot succeeded in breaking the sliding panel. She trotted to the door and wedged the object into the seam, pushing and tugging and punching it away from the wall. Six scrambled inside the metal tube, keeping a worried eye on Mono right behind her as he started crawling after his companion. The door finally broke open, the stuffed glove reached across the damaged steel sheet, the tall ears flopping around as she poked her head around the frame. Scrapes of metal-on-metal clattered behind them as they crawled through the vent, the disguised lady had dashed to the vent and was reaching for them, waving her weapon around tight space. She didn't seem able to follow them, too much muscle and equipment holding her back from crawling behind them.

In the back of Mono's mind, the pain and red fog around his thoughts faded away as they ran down the dark, wide-open lobby.

"Are you having fun yet?" The woman called.

With how poorly the animatronics navigated the building with the main lights out, it didn't sound too likely that lady could either, their night vision seemed to be far ahead of what the others were capable of. Still, the blurry blob of red skipped across the checkered tile floor after them, maybe her eyesight was closer to their level than he'd anticipated. They weaved through displays and ran around walls. Just as they thought they'd lost her, heavy footsteps echoed around the many shops, too heavy to be a person or Security Bot, but still much too light to be one of the Entertainers. She was chasing them, she could definitely see them in the dark, but not through walls.

Round and round, they kept to the darkest corners of the many rooms, occasionally ducking into a shop to keep out of sight. For some reason, this mind-scattering thing could see in the black just fine, just like them, unlike anything else in the building but the wolf. It was a strange sort of familiar; the animatronics and Nightguard all had something off, Chica acted like she wanted to help, Roxanne was more full of herself than genuinely after them, Monty treated this more like a competition than the hunt it was, Vanessa brought them food and continued to try keeping them in check after Six attacked. Then there was Freddy.

Everything about Freddy made zero sense.

He was looking out for them, keeping them as safe as possible, guiding them, giving advice, and cleared up Six's 'colorblind' confusion. This towering, strong, pointy-toothed mechanical bear that could rip a child apart in an instant was the one that defied everything they'd learned from years of dodging adults. Until meeting him, death was their punishment for the slightest slip-up. Freddy was terrible at lying, he could be relied on. He was nothing like anything they'd ever seen, and it was by far the most unnerving thing about the situation they found themselves in.

They didn't know a thing about him or why he wanted to help, and he might turn on them at any time, as he did for those before them. They had to stay on high alert, no matter how comforting he tried to be.

But this glitchy mound of shapes? Freddy might be unnerving, but this lady was terrifying; unlike Freddy, they could deal with terrifying, they had for as long as either could remember. She wandered the halls like any normal Guest, and chased them like a Viewer. She was predictable and pulled every trick they expected from her. She was her own type of comforting. Now they knew what they were doing. This woman wouldn't randomly turn heel and start helping them escape; they wanted to survive, she wanted to kill them, and there was absolutely nothing more to her than that. It was her biggest mistake, no matter how much danger she posed, no matter how much she threatened their lives, she could only put them right back in their element.

Getting rid of the woman took some time, a handful of close calls broken up by quiet bursts between the lobby's decorations and split-second decisions on what shops to hide within, all while the security bots stumbled around on their three spidery legs and cast their laser-lights over the shiny tiles. Though neither recognized the feeling or the word to describe it, a demented sort of nostalgia ran through them as they fled. The pair soon reached the far elevators to the center stage. Dancing across a large space behind them, the lady skipped and spun, her disruptive abilities ringing through Mono's ears as she bent around corners and bounced upstairs.

Mono reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling out the last ball taken from the Prize Counter with his slingshot. It was mostly green with a pair of black stars lined with gold printed on the front and a red rectangle on top. He loaded it into the small pouch and pulled on the elastic string, squinting down the middle of the supporting rods and lining his shot up with a distant security drone. The machine was quite far from them, but the lady was already investigating the mess of construction supplies between the staircases leading to the duo. He had to hit the robot's camera. Six grabbed his hand, adjusting the slingshot strapped around his arm, then nodded.

The ball flew through the air, nailing the three-legged machine in its laser pointers. It immediately blared the alarm across the lobby, sending the painful sound careening across the entire Pizzaplex in an instant. The Huntress jogged to the source, swaying her arms as she approached the machine. With their pursuer's back turned, Six burst toward the elevator button. The lift's dim lights shone only a few feet into the massive room, but it would've been more than enough to give them away without the distraction; if that madwoman had a box that let her open the lost and found door, she probably could've stopped the elevator in its tracks as well.

By the time she would've noticed the lights and doors, they'd be nearing the next floor. As the heavy doors closed and they began to ascend, their watches jingled their little song, flooding them with notification after notification all at once. They each did their best to sort through the wall of messages flashing over the tiny screens. They were all from Freddy, his robotic voice read through the notes for them, growing increasingly distorted the more they listened and read.

'Six, Mono, where are you?'

'Superstars, are you alright? Are either of you injured?'

'Do you remember where the medical station I treated Mono's arm was? Please meet me there.'

'Superstars, Gregory has told me your Fazwatches cannot be reached, is something wrong?'

'If you get this message, please let me know you are okay. I will be looking for you.'

'Superstars, the power is going to reset soon. You two must hide before the Daycare attendant finds you!'

'The power is out, Gregory is attempting to bring it back online while I search for you, please be safe.'

That bear was worried about them? If they couldn't hear or talk to him for all this time, there must've been something preventing them from communicating; it would've been the perfect time to turn on them, but he wasted time looking. He could've stayed in his big red tube and slept the night away. He should've stayed in the tube. It's not like they could judge him, Six especially would've done just that in an instant. Maybe Mono would need some convincing, but Six could always get him back to focusing on survival.

Why was this guy so hellbent on keeping them safe? He had to have something planned for them, there wasn't another explanation, right? But why would he put himself at risk for it?

"H-Hell-...o...g-...ys? Can... y-you hear m-me?" Gregory's voice broke through the watches.

"Yes." Six responded plainly.

"G-Great! Finally! We've... -en trying to find you- ages, but you just disappeared!"

"We were in lost and found, we never got your messages 'til now." Mono explained.

"A rabbit lady found us." Six added.

"Yeah, something was jamming coms. We'll figure out what happened later, just come to Roxy Raceway. Freddy piled up some boxes so you could hop the fence. Hurry!"

The doors slid apart; Roxanne was probably still here, the handful of security bots still cast their laser lights massive distances across the carpets, and the Bunny could appear from the elevators at any moment. It would take some time to find the entrance to wherever Freddy and Gregory wanted to meet, but they could look for items to return to the Puppet while they found their way, all while trying to decipher this worthless map.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory typed away at a stolen laptop, snatched from the Main Office before he left to find Freddy. An old wire covered in worn, ripped rubber wrapping and carrying data between his orange watch and the slow computer through a rusted cord. Another, much cleaner wire connected the laptop to Freddy, letting him fiddle with the many files on his watch and the animatronic. Interacting with the software of these incredible machines never stopped blowing him away; the complex neuro networks so intricate even those that made them couldn't be sure how they worked, their ability to replicate emotions like they truly had minds of their own, the modularity that let them use almost any equipment correctly wired to them.

It was this, no matter how frustrating figuring out code could be, that made his heart swell when he got to be with them. Maybe it was a little pathetic; his jammer and work on the Glamrocks being the only things that ever made the boy smile, but for those short times he didn't care. From taking them apart, fixing what was wrong, and putting them back together better than ever, to debugging and optimizing the fascinating programs, everything about them pulled him in like he had a home. Searching the many files compressed in his watch, extracting them on a computer, uploading them to the perfect host, it was his pride and joy.

But no matter how much he loved working on them, it wouldn't change the fact it ended eventually. He would always snap out of his trance once the job was done and the joy-filled haze would disappear. Now was no different. He'd just finished combing through a copy of Freddy's Safe Mode, something he'd never tried to access before. He'd already begun planning to rewrite almost all of the functions and global code, but for now, he settled on optimizing its power usage. He should be able to last a little longer between charging sessions, now.

Unfortunately, with the job complete, he had little more to do than replace the old version with his and sit with his thoughts while waiting for the others.

...

Ever since arriving, he'd never witnessed anyone escape Lost and Found. Mono and Six should be proud, in a sick way.

Maybe the cameras were back online now? He might be able to review the footage, not like he had anything better to do.

Chapter Text

It was magic.

THEY HAD MAGIC!

Gregory rewound the recording for the third time, reluctantly moving to sit on Freddy's lap so the giant bear could see better. There wasn't anything wrong with the animatronic, far from it! Freddy was great so far! But it's been so long since anyone touched him for any reason. He occasionally high-fived other kids on the streets, once got a hug from his last foster family's daughter back when he was naïve enough to give the system a shot, and learned to steer clear of everyone else. Then again, Freddy was having trouble moving, even with the extra power efficiency, so it was challenging for him to adjust himself.

He was nice enough, though, so Gregory agreed to be hoisted onto the plastic leg. Being lifted onto the bear felt odd. How was getting hauled through the air like a ragdoll fun to kids with parents? The hug he received afterward was almost worse. All Freddy did was pull him closer, holding Gregory steady on his knee, it could hardly be called a hug at all, yet the contact felt so unnatural.

The mechanical bear looked just as awestruck at the screen as the boy, despite the former seeing the video once already, and the latter twice.

Their wards barely got into Lost and Found when the lights flickered and the staff-bot carrying Six nearly dropped her, glitching and stuttering as it struggled to roll the last few inches into the small space. Then it all stopped, just as suddenly as it started. It had placed her on a pile of clothes draped over the cold stone. Six could barely move, shivering on the concrete floor and clutching her stomach in pain. Really, she should've been like this since she entered the Pizzaplex. The girl must've been in the latest stages of starvation when she got here, but as far as they were aware she hadn't even tried to eat anything but the Sun candies. Somehow, only now was she feeling any effects. Officer Vanessa arrived shortly after, bringing an orange tote bag of snacks.

Nothing that would make a substantial, or even acceptable meal, much to the robot's dismay, but anything that might help Six would have to suffice. Then she froze, still as a corpse, and began to rise. Every movement was a vile mix of mechanically rickety and utterly alien; much too smooth to be anything resembling a human being, yet jolting as she stopped the motion like one of the outdated, sub-par endoskeletons of the 80's. She lifted herself to her feet, crouching like a cornered animal and flaring her nails like talons. Her fingers scratched the slab of concrete beneath her and her black hair dangled in front of her face. Mono pinned himself to the opposite end of the room, even his trench coat stuck to the wall like it was trying to put as much space between itself and the girl as possible.

Then the blinking of the lights and drop in the camera's framerate worsened like an earthquake shook the building and frayed the powerlines or disrupted the generators. Six's eyes glowed a bright, demonic red, casting their light from under her smudged yellow hood. She lunged at Vanny. The Nightguard threw her arm between the child and her face. Six ripped into the woman's flesh like a starving wolf, claws latching onto her shoulders and pulling the head of security further into her maw like an alligator tearing apart its catch. At first, the guard began pushing her off easily enough, but then a black fog gathered around the pair. It swirled around them like an oily whirlpool, nearly blocking their view if it wasn't cutting through the empty air in such thin ribbons.

As if in the eye of a hurricane, the inky mass surrounded Vanessa. Rivers of dark mist flowed into Six's skeletal body, passing straight through her favorite raincoat like it was nothing. Her dead eyes glinted into view as they pushed and pulled, further opening the nasty wound in Vanny's lower arm as the little girl filled with impossible strength they could only describe as completely supernatural. A demented pair of spirals wrapped around the girl's arms like failing spring locks. The Nightguard pulled her personal taser from her belt and jammed it into the nightmarish girl's neck. Six convulsed in place, still desperately trying to devour the woman's arm before the shock forced her back. They both struggled for breath, but Vanessa stumbled away and slammed the door shut before Six could catch her.

Six stuffed her face into the discarded tote, practically slashing apart the many bags of chips and protein bars stuffed inside. The lights barely functioned, their camera glitched, and they could swear now more than ever that a pitch-black imitation of Six stood in the corner of the room, watching just behind the desk of computers. She wobbled on her feet, holding her gut and covering her mouth like she was about to throw up all the food she'd just shoveled down her throat. Mono reached her just before she started losing her balance. She leaned against him before settling down by the bag. They sorted through the remaining snacks while Six lay down on the pile of clothes. She should've been the one on death's doorstep, but Mono took all the scraps for himself.

It clearly wasn't out of selfishness, either. From what little Gregory had seen of them, he was the much more merciful soul. He offered Six tiny crumbs, but she refused them all until curiosity got the better of her. Why would someone in her position turn down anything edible, especially just after being willing to eat Vanessa? The Nightguard appeared on the computers, warning the kids and promising to help them escape, then they cut to a red screen and a garbled voice taunted them. As the kids started to collect themselves, the cameras began failing. They stuttered and black lines covered their recording, but not enough to stop them witnessing Mono rip apart the vent cover like it was tissue paper without touching it.

The two glanced at something behind the door and the camera feed cut as they crawled through the tunnel. Gregory switched to various recordings in the lobby, at first they could follow Six and Mono as they maneuvered around the dark room, but then the glitched red haze covered most of the angles, the rest were barely legible until the children evaded whatever was chasing them with the elevator and a well-placed Faz-a-pult shot. By now they were on their way to the bear and boy. These little kids, who just took a controlled shock to the throat trying to eat a person and tore apart a vent like a psychic, were now moving towards them. They had magic, they watched the two defy the laws of physics on a whim, what other explanation was there?

This could-

This meant-

Magic!

Magic!

Real magic!

Was this how they got in the Pizzaplex?

He-

Gregory just needed to lay down for a minute, process this... all of this.

Just for a minute.

--- 👁 ---

Six and Mono soon descended the short series of carpeted steps, they quietly walked around the concrete mixers and similar construction equipment scattered around the area. Freddy and Gregory sat in the middle, leaning against a small table surrounded by scaffolding and containers of debris. Freddy's every movement was strained and unsteady, he shakily supported himself with one arm while the other gently held a limp and exhausted Gregory close to his chest.

The boy was barely taller than Six and half-a-head shorter than Mono. He appeared to be somewhere around their age, whatever that age was. He wore a pair of worn-out shoes held in place by red velcro straps. His dirty tan, formerly white socks peeked through tears between the sole and toe. There was a small band-aid taped over his knee, just below the torn edge of holey khaki shorts. A few scars and small cuts decorated his skin, framing a couple old bruises. He wore a torn, navy blue shirt with two thin white stripes around his chest. It was incredibly thin and heavily stained, barely holding itself together, and exposing a handful of nastier scars in the few rips. The bottom button under the frayed collar was missing, leaving a bundle of loose threads, the top button was broken in half and barely hung onto the fabric by a thin string. Gregory's skin was covered in splotches of dirt, partially hiding more thin cuts and old scrapes.

Though they were much less abundant and life-threatening than Mono and Six's oldest wounds were, they were no-less telling of his own life story. An older bandage stuck to his cheek, smudged with dirt and poorly protecting a long mark from the back of his jawbone and finishing under his nose. His brown hair had a greasy shine to it, short and full of knots like Mono's, only the young hacker looked like he'd groomed and cleaned it somewhat recently. He was also about as thin as Mono; appearing much healthier than Six did, though that hardly counted as an achievement. His eyes, however, looked almost exactly like the girl's; bearing heavy bags beneath them as he quietly snored. A bright ruby red watch wrapped around his wrist, connected by a damaged wire to a shiny silver rectangle by Freddy's feet. His chest rose and lowered, lifting his limp arm up and down as he rested safely in the Entertainer's arms.

"Are you okay?" Mono asked, more looking for details or something to do than the obvious answer.

"There you are! I was so worried. We waited and waited for you. I missed the hourly recharge and have been trying to get down to Parts and Service."

His voice repeated and glitched as he spoke, surprising Gregory awake. The child stared at them with wide eyes, then scrambled to get off of Freddy's lap and grabbed the silver object, trying and failing to jump into action. His eyes glazed over, instantly growing unfocused as he began to wobble. Gregory nearly fell right on his face but placed a hand on the animatronic's shoulder plate just before he lost his balance and his legs buckled. He still landed on his knees with a harsh thud, taking only a moment to recollect himself and blink away the dizziness. The boy stumbled as he stood, supporting himself on the giant doll as he attempted to walk on his own.

"Got up too fast." He nervously chuckled, though his incident was the furthest thing from their minds.

Freddy really waited for them.

They both did, but Freddy was dying in front of them. He needed the energy from the building to survive, but still held out for them. It was completely irrational! Why did this thing insist on looking out for them? Being kind enough to help another survivor for a while was one thing, at least until it no longer suited you, but they'd expected that from Gregory, not an adult! This bear went as far as to risk his own life for them, even though he had no idea if they were even alive! Why would anyone in their right mind risk themselves for a child? Especially ones like them and Gregory who would never pay them back, even if they could.

Still... there was something... fuzzy?

Something fuzzy... something warm about knowing someone was worried about them.

"He's really low on power." Gregory started, snapping them out of their thoughts.

"It would take ages for him to charge on his own, but there are partially charged power cells stored in Parts and Service, it'll be way faster to use one of those. It's under the Main Stage, the lift is supposed to take all the animatronics down there after every concert."

They nodded.

"I can lead you to the rehearsal room. I'm pretty sure I've seen a Backstage Pass somewhere, but I don't remember where it was, we need to find it and lower the stage. I can fix Freddy from there."

"Good luck, superstars." Freddy added.

"I am entering Rest Mode... And Gregory, I am sorry for waking you." He apologized.

"I'll get you back up when we're ready, hold on."

Gregory tucked the silver item under his arm and brought them around a corner to a plain gray door. Forklifts and massive blue containers made a winding path to a set of narrow halls across the building. Mono and Six sidetracked to adjacent rooms, looking for anything they could exchange for tokens while frequently being forced to wait as Gregory to catch his breath.

This would've gone so much smoother if he could've told them where the pass was, instead of being the slowest escort imaginable.

--- 👁 ---

"Wait up!" Gregory huffed behind them.

This guy was getting on Six's nerves, they could all tell. He could barely go down a hallway without needing to catch his breath, sometimes he would cough loudly as well. All it would take is a single animatronic, even something minor as a Security Bot, to hear him and block their path. After more than a little freaking out on Six's part (not that she'd ever admit it), they came across the pass on a pile of tables in the corner of a music room. All that was left was to find the lift controls.

So of course Gregory just had to bring them to a room filled with computers.

Mono cringed behind his Roxanne mask, a shiver ran up his spine as he entered the dark gray room lined with strange terminals. The rest of the Pizzaplex was bad enough, but at least most of those screens were off, this room was covered in white static. Gregory tiredly walked up to one of the interfaces, pulling a screwdriver out of one of his pockets and counting the panels beneath the many buttons and switches. He landed on one of them and fiddled with the screws. It was painful to watch. All four corners of the metal sheet were right in front of his face, just below the dim light of the static, clear as day, but he couldn't line up the tool if his life depended on it. The ratty boy pulled a flashlight from his other pocket, it flickered as he pressed the button, then died. Gregory groaned, unscrewing the bottom and pulling out the empty battery.

"Do either of you have a spare on you?" He asked.

While Mono was hesitant to give up his new flashlight, he was willing to hold it over the large plate for a second, at least until Six stomped forward and took the screwdriver from their new companion's hand. She effortlessly removed the screws and wedged her pointed nails under the edges of the metal, pulling open the panel with a quiet pop. An orange duffle bag with light blue lightning details sat squished against the tangled mess of wires and hardware hidden inside. The yellow-coated girl snatched out the bag and shoved it toward the boy who continued to waste their time. Gregory looked at her incredulously, awkwardly unzipping the bag and pulling out an odd, scrappy metal contraption.

"It's pitch-black in this place, how do you see at all?!" Gregory said.

Six swiftly shushed him; barely being able to run was nightmarish already, constantly running out of breath was another problem to add to the list, but raising his voice? How had this kid survived a day? Let alone long enough to break into this hellish building and live off of it for months. The boy tended to the hunk of scrap metal from the bag; it was a small rectangular frame of dirty rods held together by screws, containing several different metal squares and three plastic containers tightly stacked together, connected by colorful wires and held in place by duct tape. A trio of identical gray panels holding many brightly colored parts were delicately fit together in a see-through tupperware, perfectly filling the space of the rectangle's longest end.

Many holes were cut into the sides of the container, allowing several wires to run into the mechanical boards. The next clear box held a mass of green squares covered in silvery lines and metallic bumps they had no idea the purpose of, all of them were layered in two rows running the length of their container's ends, completely stuffing the space full. There was barely any room for the plugs and wires, the entire bottom part of the box had been removed to connect everything together. Within the final, and smallest, plastic box were a few green sheets, each holding a thin chrome cube. Only a couple spots were carved into one side to feed the wires through, but the lid was riddled with holes and pressed tightly against a large fan.

The other half of the unusual machine was somehow even more disorganized, only Gregory himself could tell what connected to what. At least the other side was neatly separated into containers, but in one corner of this end was a bundle of differing strips. Most of them just had a gray box on them, but a couple held much more complex systems, and they were all loosely kept together by plastic wrap and the tiny wires connecting them. The see-through cylinder was lightly pressed against a long line of batteries connected to a black box with a fan, which was placed at one end of the round chip holders. On the other side of the long plates poked a small metal box holding a variety of wires in different sizes and with different plugs. Some of the cords had clearly been cut off, the plugs carefully taped onto shortened wires, and the rest had been cut and taped to be long enough to coil around the other side.

Over the top of the entire unholy disaster of wires and parts sat a pair of large fans pointing upward at Gregory as he placed the silver slab on top. He opened the top of the item, revealing a keyboard like that of a typewriter, and bent some clips made of door hinges and rubber bands to hold the device in place. Mono held his flashlight over Gregory as he plugged the wires from the built-in metal box into ports on the sides, then slid the mechanism around. A stolen light switch was duct taped to the back, turning on the complex machine when flicked. The many fans hummed to live and Gregory pressed the power button on the silver plate. He began clattering away at the screen, messing with its settings and slowly smiling. He removed his red Fazwatch and fastened it to the front of the machine with some hair ties, plugging in a final wire and clapping his hands together.

"What's that?" Mono asked, this thing had to be important if they took such a detour for it.

"It's a small computer I built to connect with any laptop. It holds a bunch of files and programs my watch can't run or store."

...

Maybe that made sense to him, but it was gibberish to Mono and Six; files were stored in tall cabinets and they had no idea what a 'program' was.

Gregory caught onto their blank stares and changed the subject, but they'd quickly wish he hadn't.

"It lets me do anything our watches can, but better, and a bunch more stuff. I can open doors, mess with the Main Systems, pretty much anything. Here, I can even pull up the cameras!"

He tapped on the many keys and slid his finger along a pad on the 'laptop', making the tiny arrow on the screen move around the many files and icons. A recording of the Lost and Found room appeared on a new window. Gregory almost looked smug as he ran the cursor along a bar under the playing footage, making the video play Six's attack and their escape from the distorted red figure.

"You guys are magical!" He celebrated.

--- 👁 ---

After some time of Mono preventing Six from strangling Gregory alive, the scrappy hacker holding his duffle bag between the deathly thin girl and himself, as well as protecting the laptop behind him, all while they tried not to make too much noise, Mono managed to calm things down. While Six slowly transitioned from a furious lone wolf to a puppy whose favorite toy was being held just out of reach, Gregory worked on finding a way to tackle the mess, she wasn't exactly the type of stray he could toss a treat to and move on.

'He's gonna rat us out to Freddy!' She nodded to their guide.

'No he won't, he already knew about that camera when he brought it up, but he's still helping us.' Mono pointed between the boy and his computer.

Gregory poked his head out from behind his bag, still acting as if it would protect him as he tried to figure out what they were thinking about. He'd hoped they might be telepathic, but it seemed they just knew each other well enough to talk without speaking.

'He would've told Freddy by now, anyway.' Mono turned back to Six and deadpanned.

She relented, her bright red eyes glaring at the programmer from under her hood.

"I-If it helps, I t-think it's cool!" Gregory offered, as much a statement as it was pleading for his life.

"It's not cool." Mono put plainly.

"Yeah it is! You ripped apart a vent like it was nothing, and she controls shadows! (Also please don't eat me)"

"It isn't cool!" Six snarled.

"This isn't fun. This isn't a game. This. Isn't. Cool!"

Six nearly lunged at Gregory again, but Mono grabbed her hand while the other boy quickly backpedaled.

"W-what about we trade? Questions for questions! I have something I want to do with this thing anyway."

Gregory returned to his salvage computer, typing and clicking away as they weighed options for their first question.

"Why does the Puppet hate you?" Six asked.

Gregory froze, his fingers slipping over the keys and pupils shrinking into his brown eyes. A twisted satisfaction filled her as he slowly recovered. He wanted to know about their curses so bad? Then he'd have to give up his own story for them.

"I don't know, at least not exactly." He explained.

"She was the one that gave me my watch a while back, we used to play games after hours. But then somebody wanted me to build things for them, she didn't like him, and we just fell apart after that.

What's with your whole... eating people thing?"

"I got hungry." Six responded.

Mono lightly elbowed her side, she rolled her eyes.

"My powers give me these 'attacks' every so often, I need to eat something to get rid of them, or my curse takes control... It likes flesh." She elaborated.

"What do you know about the Rabbit Lady?" Mono asked.

"Not much more than you. The cameras glitch out sometimes, but the error moves between cameras, not rooms. If it was a real person, she would be teleporting between them so I wrote it off as a bug in the Main Systems. But if Six could see someone causing the glitches, then I don't know how she's getting around without walking straight through walls.

What're his powers?"

Mono's hand buzzed, distorting like it was made of blue TV static.

"I don't really know, but I can move things around and mess with signals through screens." He explained.

"What else do you have in your bag?" Six asked.

Gregory's face lit up, he continued to type on the laptop with one hand while pulling a couple items from the duffle bag; a small orange and light blue box topped by Freddy's face and an antennae with many wires curled around it leading from the back of the device, Mono could distantly sense a frequency coming from it, another orange box with a black grip and two gray antennae coming out the top, and a Freddy mask filled with computer parts and screens built into the eyes. Gregory held up the light blue item first.

"This is just a walkie-talkie, I can talk to other ones with it. I added some things to extend the range... But it's not much use if you don't have one as well."

He then reached for the other orange object.

"But this is a Fazwrench, it's way more fun! It lets me play with endoskeletons and use terminals only technicians are supposed to use. I can get anywhere in the Pizzaplex with it, I also use it to mess with all the animatronics... Except the Puppet."

Lastly, he picked up the Freddy mask.

"And this one's an AR Helpi mask, it lets staff see all the internals of the Pizzaplex; mostly the main systems, wireless connections, and all sorts of nodes across the entire building. They all do different things, and this lets me tamper with them in ways I couldn't with a computer or wrench alone."

The boy put the items back in the bag, returning to the computer to finish up whatever he was working on.

"What's the deal with your shadowy stuff?" He wondered, Six thought for a moment.

"I don't really know, either. It just happens when I use my powers, they make me stronger and I can move things like Mono. Sometimes a shadow of me appears as well, but I don't understand it. She just kind of... Shows up, then vanishes when I eat something or someone.

What are the Main Systems? You and Freddy keep mentioning them, but nobody's said what they are." Six asked.

"It's a massive network all around the building. Almost every single piece of technology here is connected to it. It lets Fazbear Entertainment keep track of all the guest profiles, save all the security information, the animatronics can send messages to each other and gather information from the entire Pizzaplex! At one point there was even a program that let it write stories for all the robots to act out! I remember Foxy and I had tons of fun with that thing, but it got removed about a month after I wound up here, I dunno why.

Anyway, if you need a computer to do absolutely anything, you and any active animatronic can do it through the Main Systems, then they'll automatically archive it. The Puppet is supposed to be the primary Security Node protecting the archives, she should've been the first one to start freaking out when everyone went haywire, I can't figure out why she doesn't act like the rest of them."

Gregory clicked something on his laptop, clapping his hands together as Mono felt a new signal attaching itself to the makeshift computer.

Chapter Text

"Gregory? What did you do? Something happened, I can communicate again. I think you fixed my signal! Thank you, superstar."

Freddy's garbled, fading voice echoed around the room, his face appearing on some of the monitors around them. Mono perked at the sound of the kindly bear; sure, he hadn't known him nearly as long as he had Six, but the living machine brought a foreign sort of comfort nobody else could, and it was great to know he was still doing alright.

"I connected your transmitter to my computer, now you should be able to communicate around the jammer that cut off Mono and Six." Gregory explained.

"Well done, superstar!" The Entertainer exclaimed behind the screens, drawing a bright smile from the boy.

"How are you talking to us? I thought you couldn't even stand up." Gregory pointed out.

"Consider it a second wind. Some sort of 'gift' from the imposter Puppet, I believe, she did not elaborate. Safe Mode has not locked me out of whatever energy she gave me, so all seems well for the time being."

"Who's Foxy?" Mono asked, Gregory shuddered.

"W-what do you mean?" The Hacker questioned.

"You mentioned him when you talked about the Main Systems." Mono stared.

Gregory kept quiet, looking down at the cold floor and turning away from the pair of intruders. Six got tired and wandered to the other side of the room, around the center wall of screens and to a window overlooking a large portion of the Pizzaplex. Freddy's face still blared across the monitors as she found a familiar little box in the shape of their robotic ally's head. She pressed the black button nose and the container flipped open, revealing a higher-quality Security Pass within the plastic jaws. Just underneath the card sat a strange little circle. It shone many colors in the dim light, like it trapped a rainbow within. She examined the small disk, it had a hole in the middle where she wrapped her finger around the odd item. The word 'Showtime' was printed in bright pink, bubbly letters and punctuated by golden stars.

An alarm burst through the room, activating the lights and doors around them. Mono and Six squinted their eyes from the shining light and did what they could to protect their ears from the sirens. Gregory burst to his feet, immediately regretting it as his vision turned double and he completely lost track of which way was up. His balance gave way and legs wobbled a second before his knees buckled. Mono, fortunately, was quick to recover and lunged to catch the boy on reflex. After months of supporting Six through her attacks, he already had the experience to help Gregory regain his fragile footing. Despite the lightheadedness blurring his perception, the programmer spotted the other animatronics scrambling toward them on the cameras. He would be fine, Mr. Burrows made sure of it, but the others were on the chopping block the minute one of them broke in.

"Freddy! Your friends are on their way!" Gregory yelled to his computer.

"All I did was grab a new Pass!" Six shouted around the corner.

"Do not panic, those Security Doors are equipped with electrical deterrents. If you see them banging on the doors, hit the appropriate button. The shock should drive them away." Freddy explained.

Six took one side of the room and Mono the other, but Gregory returned to his computer in an instant, clattering away at the laptop. Most of the surrounding doors had been sealed shut already, the security here tended to be too tight for its own good. He'd need to work on disabling some of the measures while the other two handled the attackers. Gregory quickly formulated a plan; a massive grate sat in the center of their electrified prison, all the Glamrock series endoskeletons and suits hosted the massively powerful hydraulics needed to jump and run around their stages, and thanks to Freddy's updated Safe Mode improving his power efficiency, he might be able to access some of that functionality again. He tapped on his Fazwatch, still tied to the front of his computer.

"Hey Freddy, you know that big vent under the office? Do you think you can knock it loose for us?"

"Yes, Gregory, I should be able to force it open. I am on my way, but all the doors are on lockdown." The bear's heavy footsteps echoed through the speaker.

"I've got that covered, just give me a second."

With a few clicks and the press of a button, he began clearing a path for the Entertainer. Now came the other animatronic problem. They had everyone but the Puppet and that awful DJ marching to them like a band, their own sets of steps banging down the tile halls and dispersing around the perimeter. Four large steel doors were protecting them, at least until Roxy or Monty wedged their claws under the bottom or Chica's voice box disrupted the locking mechanism, but they had three killer robots and only two kids running between all the barriers. Maybe Gregory could help for a while, but he wouldn't last more than a couple minutes before faceplanting. He wouldn't be any use exhausted on the ground. Besides, the still-sealed doors beneath them needed to be opened for Freddy.

"There you are!"

The static-covered face of a white Rabbit appeared on the security screens around them. Though the video feed distorted with glitches, Gregory could clearly see the furred mask looking around as if she could see them through the glass. A black nose stood out against the mostly white fabric, framed by black whiskers above a set of plastic teeth. Two bright red eyes scanned the room, shining their twisted light into the camera around a set of dead pupils. The bottom ends of a pair of floppy ears swished through the air above her head as she shifted.

It's been a long time since he'd seen that costume, if only it could've been longer, though that explained what the jammer was for.

"I'll see you soon."

Great, they just needed a time limit, as well. It's fine, He'd been forced to learn to work fast.

"You are the best! You will catch them!" The wolf bragged

Ugh, Roxy's insufferable, what about her drew Cassie in?

A pair of neon green claws slipped beneath the yellow-black caution paint. Gray fingers pushed their way to the other side of the huge metal slab and the whirring of the hound's limbs attempted to lift the giant door. Six ran up to the wall and slammed a fist on the Freddy-shaped button. The metal buzzed with energy, it crawled over the shield like a painful film. Roxanne stuttered, all the hardware making up her endoskeleton fired at once as the bolts shot through her wires and frame like a rapid disease. Like nails on a chalkboard, her claws screeched against the lip of the powerful door as she pried her paws off of the charged metal.

"I'll get 'em." Monty loudly mumbled.

Gregory couldn't help but chuckle before Mono gently tapped the button by the opposite door. Monty angrily bashed his hands against the metal, his talons tearing into the barrier. He seized up as the electricity rippled through his circuitry. The livid guitarist shook off the counter and walked away, deciding on a new entrance to try and break through. Chica was following close behind, ready to scream a hole into anything blocking her way.

"I heard that!" Roxy screamed at the gator.

Her hearing was always unusually acute compared to the others, something about her keyboard's specific model being more difficult to tune than the rest of the performer's instruments, it gave Gregory an idea. Maybe he would only doom Mono and Six if he tried to sprint between the buttons around them, but he could still help while waiting for Freddy to get to the next blockade. He selected a random nearby camera, quickly and easily bypassing the staff-only passcode to activate the intercom. The boy quickly clicked around his files, unzipping a simple, online voice-generating AI onto the computer as Six ran to stop Monty from breaking in again. Mono zapped Chica, preventing her from resetting the door controls with her voice while Gregory scanned some recordings of the robotic alligator onto the new program.

"I know ya heard me, dog! I wasn't bein' quiet, just tellin' the truth." Monty's voice spoke from the speakers above him, but not from his voice box.

The hacker didn't even notice a notification coming through his Fazwatch while reveling in the anarchy. Gregory laughed as Roxy snarled nearby, swiftly giving away her position to Mono. He ran to the door and pressed the shock button just as she started scratching on it. Before the wolf even finished howling in synthetic agony Gregory had started uploading her data to his totally-not-pirated code. Power flowed through her suit like flames, starting with her paws and crawling up her servos, the searing fire ceased by the time her voice started playing above the expert racer, but not from her.

"You're the one that keeps stomping around. I told you this when we got into this mess, and I'll tell you again; you'll just scare them away and I'll have to pick up the slack, this is why you're nothing but Bonnie's replacement!"

--- 👁 ---

Gregory gasped for breath as he cackled at the duo of machines' expense. From the corner of his mask, Mono could barely see Six fighting back a smile of her own, even as she drove the back the pink chicken's deafening yell. At least she was starting to get used to the other boy, he'd begun worrying she'd want to rip Gregory apart the rest of the night. Through the halls beyond they heard Roxanne and Monty storming around, roaring and snapping and all but forgetting about the children they were hunting.

Then it appeared.

Completely out of thin air, a growing mass of rich violet cubes came into being before Gregory. A piercing stringer like that of a broken violin rang out as the cubes shrank out of existence, nearly making him jump right out of his skin, and a towering purple figure took their place. The Entity emitted a dark, cold signal like that of the doors; both the one restraining his adult self and whatever was hidden within the daycare attendant. Its black body was outlined in purple and covered in brilliant amethyst lines and patterns, but was otherwise quite minimalistic. There were no legs to speak of, it hovered above the ground right in Gregory's face, staring down at the thin boy that guided them. Like a genie emerging from a golden lamp, a tail-like rod clipped through the concrete floor as it 'stood' frozen in the air.

It was incredibly thin, barely keeping its long, slender, almost humanoid shape. Many purple lines stretched over and around its neck, creating a vague V design around its chest. The shoulders were little more than rings around where they'd connect to the body, floating in place to keep its form. Two bright beams of energy made up each of its arms, broken by semicircles acting as elbows. The bright beams and lights ended their run at the wrists, leaving long, uncannily human hands dangling at its sides. Its lengthy snout bore a pair of buck teeth in front of a jaw filled with almost-human teeth. More purple details defined the edges of its cheeks and rose up its forehead like inverted tears leaking from its angry glare. Rabbit ears poked out of its head, solidly in place, unlike the floppy and lively ones of the distorted red woman.

Pixelated black squares leaked off its body and hands like oil, glitching out the violet stripes and its purple outline as they broke through. The black boxes fizzled out of existence before they even hit the ground, flickering on and off for a moment like they were clinging to life as they went out. Its arm 'bones' spouted purple boxes, much smaller than the ones dripping from its faux flesh, fluttering above it like smoke. In quick flashes its hands altered between sickly smooth like plastic and masses of black pixels like the arcade machines, displaying purple eyes and twisted smiles across the slick 'skin'.

In tandem with the switching of its appearance, the body would develop dotted eyes topped with hooks resembling bunny ears, sets of hungry jaws awaiting prey like Six's, more smiling mouths, and tentacles made of black cubes writhed out of its back. For those split seconds of its alternate form it would have a pair of legs, but they were only masses of squares, spreading over the ground like falling slime to the point its feet merged, a deformed pile of sludge under a gap where its legs tried to separate into discernable limbs.

Whenever the hands would stretch into boxy claws and the body ripped itself into ravenous mouths and tendrils, the livid face would only crack an insane grin. The ears would attempt to come to life, changing sloppily like it was swapping between two frames. Pixelated purple ovals manifested over them like they were marking the inner ears. Its furious gaze would become wide, round purple eyes filled with a pinkish spiral swirling around them like the green streak that twirled from the locked steel barrier within the Moon. Its smile stretched across its face, far from a friendly grin. Strips of rotten 'muscle' stretched across the vile smirk like its cheeks had been torn apart, the purple mouth shone pink lights through the gaps in the pixels, creating the illusion of pink dots surrounded by purple circles in the general shape of a kindly smirk beneath a purple button nose with tiny pink squares for nostrils and pixelated pink lines for whiskers.

The Entity's movements jerked as it leaned forward, stuttering and glitching exactly like the Thin Man, swapping between the angry, smooth person covered in bright pink lines and the smiling 2D lunatic coated in jaws and eyes and tentacles. Neither of Mono's companions reacted to the intruder, not to the loud sound bursting around the room as it let itself in or the constantly shifting monster. With every stuttered motion, a surge of light would streak across the room and through the walls like spectral threads, curving around like nonexistent circuits framing an invisible pipe and shining a rich purple.

Three of its cords shifted noticeably and clipped through the walls, tracing the three Entertainer's movements just beyond the electrical doors. The fourth digital pipeline stretched in the vague direction of the Daycare, mostly unmoving, while a fifth extended to a part of the building they'd yet to venture near. Several strings wrapped around its base and descended deep into the heart of the Pizzaplex, somewhere even the tunnels couldn't dream to reach. A final wire flickered with red light, connecting to something not far from them, and getting closer.

It reached a hand and it's tendrils for Gregory; slowly creating a new connection to the boy.

It altered between a smooth black human hand dripping squares of digital oil and a pixelated claw surrounded by wriggling 16-bit tendrils. A pair of translucent spirals of moldy green and royal violet whirled out of its paw. Dim magenta static grew across Gregory's computer screen, though the boy still didn't react. Did he genuinely not see the towering monster standing above him? The hacker shivered but stopped just as soon as it started, then resumed typing on his computer like nothing was wrong.

The glitches over his screen grew and grew, yet the boy never acknowledged them, like he was seeing right through them. The speaker near his door went off, playing the song from the Main Stage this morning, he could faintly hear the same thing happening over on Six's end of the room. The wolf and alligator stomped over to the doors, but the music got louder, he could barely tell which door they were banging on, even with the glitching ribbons giving a general idea of where they might be standing.

Six faced the same problem, glancing between the steel barriers before deciding on a button. The gator reeled behind her door as Mono focused, deducing where the wolf was and shocking her back. They couldn't afford to waste all this time trying to figure out where the animatronics were coming from. Freddy's garbled voice came from the vulpine Fazwatch, though it was completely impossible to make out what the bear was saying. Gregory shook his head, trying to get a hold of himself. The yellow-coated girl sneered at the Programmer, catching a glimpse of his heavy purple and brown eyes as he typed on the laptop. He hacked another security door, letting Freddy get closer, but didn't cut the music or play another fake voice line over the intercoms outside. The pair of survivors quickly found themselves the center of the robots' attention, quickly deterring multiple Entertainers in quick succession.

The song was drawing them all in, making them more aggressive, faster. Mono listened closely and awaited his opportunity; Six swiftly electrocuted Roxanne and Chica on her end, right as Mono zapped Monty, they had a short second before another attack. His hand buzzed and rippled with light blue static as he lifted it towards the dazed boy and black beast. His power rushed into the Entity, immediately drawing its attention. Had it not realized he could see it? It rose its other talons at his hand as it flickered between its smooth and boxy forms, sending its Tower-like signal at him. Their arms glowed, clashing like the boy and his adult reflection. Soon the monstrosity recoiled, yanking its hands away from him and Gregory, stuttering like it was lagging between frames.

It dissolved into a pillar of cubes and the faint line between it and the programmer shattered. The violet errors around Gregory's computer vanished in an instant and the boy scrambled to open another door for Freddy, then snuffed out the music above them. He then put another few insults on the speakers outside, drawing the gator and wolf away and leaving the chicken to attack them alone.

"How long has that been playing?!" Gregory asked.

"Ever since you put it on!" Six growled, her throat clearly growing rough and pained.

"I didn't notice it, I was focused on getting Freddy through!"

Neither of them noticed the Rabbit?

What if that thing was the opposite of the Bunny Lady, was he the only one that could spot it?

Speaking of which.

A dull ache spread across his skull, wrapping up and slowing his thoughts in a painful red fog. His eyes watered, ears rang, and head throbbed like someone with sharp claws was crushing his brain. Red static distorted his blurry vision and black lines cut up his sight. He reluctantly flared his magic again, sending more ripples up his sickly pale skin as the source of the crimson haze slowly grew closer. One of the cameras turned to a bright red screen, covering the already hidden woman's movements. Mono looked to the doors, none of them were under attack yet, but the big battery displays next to them were rapidly draining. Error messages masked the few remaining screens. She'd cut them off in a split second.

"Raise office door."

Freddy's large claws poked through the vent below them, his weight tore it clean out of the floor and he toppled back to the ground.

"Jump down! I cannot stop her!" He shouted beneath them.

Monty's claws wedged themselves under the steel slab, lifting it up with no resistance and locking it into place above the green machine. The unstable outline of the rabbit woman followed the doll into the room as Gregory packed up his computer. Mono's entire body wavered with static, pushing back against the red disease. Six didn't jump, rushing to his side and grabbing his hand. She pulled him away from the metal animal walking towards them. Gregory donned his duffle bag and leaped for the exit. The alligator didn't react to their pursuer's ballet dancing and skipping, even when she passed right in front of his face. With his magic already active, Mono simply raised a hand.

It did nothing to stop her.

She wasn't a reflection of him, he couldn't counter her like he did the Thin Man; she wasn't an animatronic, he couldn't stun her the same way he did the Daycare attendant, but her disguise began failing her. Her outline became clearer and some spotty details of her costume burst through the sheet of red around her. She wasn't as muscular as he'd originally thought; rather, it looked like she was wearing something under the baggy white suit, like a series of rods or pipes running the length of her limbs. She spun around, showing a variety of tools and small controllers held by a black leather belt and some kind of backpack under the stitched white fabric, though it was difficult to tell what anything was or what they did. There was, however, a very clear object clutched in her gloved hand. The short metal rod she'd chased them through the Lost and Found vent and the dark lobby with had been a massive knife.

"I missed you. Did you miss me, too?"

Mono spread his arms, flinging them to his sides like a hug. It felt strange, the last time he'd made such a motion was when interacting with the gnomes, it stopped after Six lost the battle against one of her attacks. The strain on his shoulders didn't stop him from releasing his abilities on everything around them. His frequency hummed with the glass screens, vibrating them until they shattered and sent shards flying around the room. Monty flung backward, falling on his back as the surge of energy disrupted the door he and the Huntress came through, the metal fell out of place and crashed on the ground, sealing them all in. Bouncing and waving her hands, the Rabbit Lady moved to the broken vent. Whatever he did, it broke her disguise further. The split second of clarity revealed the seams between pieces of her fur.

But she kept advancing on their only escape.

She was closing in; an angry alligator on one side, a knife-wielding freak on the other. His powers weren't 'attaching' to her the same way they had the Thin Man and any random screen, something had to be protecting her, but what? And how? He struck again; he was clearly hitting something, her shroud wouldn't be breaking otherwise, but whatever his target was didn't do anything to truly bring her down. A deep snarl came from behind them, Monty rose to his clawed feet and snapped his teeth. His long talons opened wide, ready to pick them up and rip them apart.

--- 👁 ---

Six glanced between the Patchwork Rabbit and the animatronic; quickly but thoroughly debating with she'd rather take her chances with.

Time for what I do best.

First thing: there's no way she'd ever leave without Mono. She was always far faster than him, and while she was certainly strong enough to pull him up a ledge or carry him, her strength had faded since running out of Guests, so the plan couldn't rely on their speed. In order to escape through Monty; they'd have to run around him and open the metal door. Duking the big, slow, tank-like brute would be easy by itself. She could slide right between his legs, drawing his attention while her slower friend simply ran around the machine, then he could force open the door. Then she'd have to figure out where the other two Entertainers ran off to, all they needed was for the wolf to appear out of nowhere and tackle them, Roxanne was much too fast for any path she blocked to be viable for Mono, or even Six. Chica was much more feasible for the boy to outrun, but finding her counted on them picking the right hall to run down or stop to check the cameras.

All that trouble just to resume searching for Freddy, Gregory, and the stage controls. She liked their chances with the mascots better, but the only person she trusted to pull any of that off was herself. The Rabbit lady was the better option if she was going to get Mono out of there alive, a factor she wouldn't remotely have cared about if someone asked her a year prior. The huntress seemed immune to Mono's abilities, but they'd already known she countered him in some way already, she might be more vulnerable to Six. Unless they were willing to try running around a spry, agile, strong, and fast madwoman with a knife, they'd have to go through her. She could handle another attack in exchange for getting Mono out. She'd have to find something to eat shortly afterward, but there was nothing edible handy. Though, when all it would take was a single cut to cripple or kill them, she didn't have another choice.

Six rose a hand to the alligator. She'd need him out of the way for this, just to buy time. Her red irises expanded over her eyes and pupils burst into tendrils wrapping around the membranes. A black mist coiled around the green shell, he was heavy, even more than the others, but not impossible to hold back for a while. The gator's immense strength couldn't help him against a force beyond the physical world. Then she turned to the Bunny. Something changed about her, something she hadn't noticed without her curse coursing through her. She didn't exactly look any different. It was more of a sixth sense, ironic. Something deep in the very essence of her soul tingled, just like her nose when she smelled a person bleeding, just like her skin when Mono held her hand or pulled her close, or her ears when she'd listened to her old music box.

There was something unnatural, something that was never meant to be attached to a human being.

Something she'd never found inside her friend or any other kid.

Something that not any other adults, even the Lady, possessed.

Something with a close connection to her curse, inside that woman.

Something ripping away her self-control.

Something delicious.

She'd lost control.

It drenched her like a toxic film and flowed beneath her suit like the violent seas in a hurricane. With Monty still pinned in place behind them like he was running into a wall, Six pointed her free hand at the woman. Dark fog lurched around and out of her, being torn away from her knife and whatever strange equipment was lining the inside of her costume. Black mist transferred between the pair, even more appetizing than some of the meat cut off her previous victims and boiled into stew. The force didn't have a taste, at least not any flavor she could find on her tongue, all she knew was that it was good.

Yet wasn't what she was looking for, like there were two separate fields coating the woman in energy she could finally eat without feeling sick, but she could only access one of them. Perhaps the other was being held in a container? Was this other, infinitely more appealing substance running through the pipes under the Rabbit's costume, just out of grasp?

Mono flicked his wrist at her again, finally pushing the woman away from their exit, yet she didn't fall. She only barely slid away from them, but it was enough for Mono to grab Six's hand and bring her to the open vent.

Chapter Text

Mono and Six prepared to tuck and roll as they hit the ground, only to be caught by Freddy instead. His massive metal and plastic arms were oddly gentle with them, lowering with their momentum as they fell. Six slowly shook herself out of her haze. Whatever the Rabbit had locked inside of her equipment was great, she needed it, but they couldn't test their luck with the Huntress, especially not now. Fortunately, the black mist she drained from the woman's weapon and tools was just over enough to replenish the energy she expended on the Gator in their escape, she might not have an attack. It was a far cry from the denser energy within, but it would have to do for now. They quickly began moving away, no telling when the others might find their way down to them.

"Pursue Freddy." The distorted voice ordered.

Monty crashed down behind them. His knees buckled and tail slammed to the hard floor, but he recovered remarkably fast for such a tanky klutz. The machine adjusted his star glasses and rose, hunched over and holding out his claws. Even in his low-power state, Freddy was quick to stand between his malfunctioning friend and his kids. He wouldn't be letting them face this alone, no matter how confident in their abilities the children were. His vision glitched, leaving the Entertainer unaware that the Bunny had dropped into the room like an acrobat, landing right beside him with a subtle but gentle thud. She twirled her knife, dragging the tip across Freddy's cheek without the machine being able to notice, then made the mistake of giggling at the small scratch in his paint. Though she was completely invisible, in her overconfidence she'd forgotten the machine wasn't deaf.

"Tag, you're it!"

Freddy's round ear flicked and he leered to his side. From his perspective, there was only open air of the dark room, but now Six and Mono were both swearing up and down there was a Rabbit woman after them. He lifted his arm to his side and stepped towards the wall. Surely enough, he hit something, pushing someone unseen into the drywall. Freddy felt something move across his chest, so strong and fast that golden sparks lit up the black, something even Monty and Roxanne struggled to do consistently. It didn't do much more than send a message, which he promptly ignored, but she likely had other ways of dismembering him if her ego got too bruised. He distantly heard the trio behind him flying down the stairs. Freddy swung his arm to the side again, blocked the stairway, and rotated his waist, sending a huge haymaker across the small room. This wouldn't be easy, but he had to protect his superstars.

He instantly missed his target, but not for being too tall or inaccurate. The clank of metal and sparks of a grinder filled the room again, dragging across his arm's casing and forcing the attack right over her head. She'd ducked under his strike and pushed him away. Something blunt collided with his stomach hatch, launching him off balance. The bassist beside them barreled down the staircase after the children, so loud Vanny would have to notice something was wrong. She had a taser on her person, didn't she? They needed the Nightguard now more than ever. Just as he regained his footing he was sent tumbling into the wall and rails of the staircase by a blunt force. The horn in his nose honked as his head was bludgeoned to the side, more sparks flew as something scraped his face. Was she punching him? Did she have a knife? How long has she been chasing Mono and Six? Gregory didn't seem to know about her, how long had she been in the Pizzaplex?

With a hand steadying himself on the rails, he kicked a clawed foot ahead of him. The invisible woman grunted as his toes dug into her chest, her fake voice buzzing like static from a broken TV. He recollected himself, putting most of his weight on the rails, he guessed the woman across from him was doing the same, he barely heard her angrily catching her breath. Metal sparks scraped across the railing repeatedly as if it were a honing rod, the harsh motions joined by the deranged cackle of a rabid hyena. Freddy bared his pointed white teeth; if he'd been forced to attack children after hours in the past, most likely by this intruder's will, then he could do it for their safety as well.

"I'm it again! Try to keep up!"

The Rabbit didn't attack him again. He waved his paws around, but nothing was there, she'd moved. Something hissed to his side, something sharp and familiar; When she first became the Head of Security (not such an impressive title when the Pizzaplex was the company's only major location) of the building, Vanessa had vastly preferred sliding down the handles to using stairs normally. It was a different time, before this mess with a see-through bunny and his friends going rogue, she had a lively, if tired, glint in her heart. Foxy and Moon had caught her in the act so many times she stopped caring if the animatronics spotted her; her keys and flashlight would hit the metal poles as she slid, that is where he knew that sound from.

She'd left, down the stairs after the children.

He followed as fast as he could, no matter how much power he wasted.

--- 👁 ---

The long path of concrete walls twisted and turned around them as they fled the alligator. Gregory was quite calm about the whole situation, briskly jogging along them for short distances and frequently slowing to catch his breath. He would lean against a wall and cough his lungs out, trying to tell them not to worry about him as his eyes grew heavy and unfocused, assuring them none of the machines would attack him. Eventually, Mono picked the boy up, throwing him over his shoulder despite the protests that he'd only get himself caught. If they were dealing with Chica that might've been the case, if they were running from Roxanne then only Six could've gotten them all out of there safely, but Monty was clunky, slow. There'd be no escape if he caught them, the green lizard was built for strength, but Mono might still be able to outrun him with Gregory weighing him down. Six hung back, running by his side even though she could've escaped the gator long ago.

They came out onto the large stage, looking around the room for anything they could use or hide behind. In the dark they spotted short lines of photo booths, though Gregory couldn't see more than a few feet in front of his face. With the alligator hot on their tail, Mono carried Gregory over to them, though they were clearly in Monty's sight. A loud bang of powerful pistons came from behind them, just a moment later the machine fell in front of them, cracking part of the tile floor as he landed in their path. Mono's feet stung as he skidded to a halt.

Their green tormentor snarled at the pair as Mono doubled back, the machine leaped again, massively overshooting his jump and crashing into a table. The wood shattered into splinters under his weight, his claws popped abandoned balloons, his teeth furiously tore into the party hats and chairs. Six flicked open her lighter beside them, steadily separating from the boys as her friend ran the other way. She gently waved it through the air, her raincoat and light standing out against the pitch-black room.

Monty roared at her, as the echo ended she could hear the other dolls' footsteps, she was about to be surrounded by killer robots because she stuck her neck out for Mono.

It's worth it for him. Worth it every time, forever and always.

...I guess Gregory's there as well.

Once the boys were out of Monty's sight she booked it in the opposite direction, expertly weaving and parkouring around and over photo booths and tables. The gator slowly chased, occasionally leaping through the air to cut her off. He was going to bring every single animatronic in the building right on top of her! She ducked under tables, leaving right before he crushed her, she ducked behind booths, running out the other end before he rounded the corner. Roxanne was the first of his backup, she spotted Six from across the Atrium effortlessly. Chica was next, blindly following Roxy's lead through the dark. One was right behind her, one could easily see her in the black, and the last would join the fray if she triggered a security drone, not to mention she had no idea where the Rabbit went or how Freddy was holding up.

Not that she cared if Freddy was okay, Mono might be willing to take a chance with the bear, but she needed to stay the level-headed one, for his sake.

She started by breaking line-of-sight with Monty, she wouldn't get any clearance to think straight until she at least had him out of her hair. Six ran near a random photo booth, grabbing the curtain and yanking it behind her, pretending to go inside as she ran around the corner. Monty ripped the entire device apart, scattering parts of the frame and cameras as he lost her. Roxy was fast approaching, and she wouldn't fall for the same trick as the dim reptile. Six snatched a couple hats off one of the tables, holding the strings in her hand and swinging them around.

She found another booth to crouch behind; tucking and rolling to a painful stop with the box between her and the wolf and throwing the hats ahead. Roxanne burst in front of her just as she entered the booth from the other side. On her Fazwatch, she got a grip of her surroundings; she could hear Roxanne sniffing outside, running her claws through a few nearby booths, Monty kept his head on a swivel, seeing little in the dark, Chica was in the same situation further away and closer to wherever Mono took the hacker.

"Help me! I'm scared! It's so dark in here!"

The Puppet's strangled voice rang out in a corner of the room, drawing Roxanne away. Although the alligator remained while Chica returned to the Main Stage, she could deal with them, the bird was far enough away and Monty was much too slow. With the most problematic of the robots gone, she left the booth and started walking in her friend's direction. Cold tiles clicked behind her, and she burst into a sprint. Monty nearly splattered her into the floor as he pounced, but she was much too fast for him. She ran, he chased. Mono stuck his head out of one of the baby blue boxes behind Monty. She rolled under a table and waited for the machine to rip it apart. The girl protected her eyes from the countless woodchips and rushed under Monty's legs. Six gambled with grabbing the green and yellow tail, painfully wedging her fingers and toes into the segments and hanging on for dear life as he whipped around.

The Entertainer was looking at the boys' hiding place, but the curtain had been closed. Monty stomped around, looking for where she'd run off, snapping his powerful jaws and clenching his fists. Her digits ached as they were squeezed by the parts of the tail, but she held still as possible as she swished around, one misstep could let him know she was riding right behind him. Finally, the animatronic passed by her companions' hiding spot. She yanked her fingers out of the tail and eased them onto the scales down his back, pulling herself up without alerting him, then she quietly pulled her feet free and stood on some of the other ridges in the tail. Six hopped down to the floor as quietly as she could and snuck over to the correct booth. Mono pulled her inside, his wolf mask had already become as comforting as his face.

Immediately she wrapped her arms around one of his, accidentally plunging his elbow into her own stomach, but she didn't care. He'd almost gotten caught because he went back for Gregory, this boy they'd only heard talk and were warned about by the Marionette that just lured the wolf away. But he went back for the random boy, because of course he did, he was her Mono. So she held on tight, no matter how awkward she sat or how much it hurt her gut. Slowly, her heart rate slowed, Mono adjusted her to ease the pain, making it easier to breathe as she took greedy gulps of stuffy air. Her head throbbed as she lay on his shoulder, as it always did. It might be time to bring up that weird circle she found with the level 3 pass to Gregory, he might know what to do with it, since the stage controls plan fell through, but not right now.

Right now, she just wanted him.

--- 👁 ---

She's crazy.

Pure, unmitigated madness in the general shape of a baby Wendigo.

Right beside him, Six clung to Mono like her life depended on him. Their messy coats stuck together as they squished the hacker against the other side of the photo booth like they hadn't seen each other in years. First a passing comment about a candy-making cannibal as if fleeing a child serial killer was an everyday occurrence, now this? At least this time she wasn't acting like she didn't just have a friendly chat with death itself. Her bright red eyes blinked at him from under the yellow nylon hood; in the dark, it was challenging to tell if she was glaring at him, or she just always looked like that. Eventually she lowered her hand to entangle her fingers with that of her companion's, then stuffed the other into the pocket of her black sweatpants. She pulled out a small silver disk and handed it to him, tilting her head like a curious little cat. It might've been cute if she wasn't the second scariest thing in the Pizzaplex.

It had the words 'showtime' written in bubbly letters across the top.

"What is it?" She asked in a raspy voice.

"It's a program for the stage shows." Gregory explained, the pair stared blankly at him.

"If I can get in the sound booth on the balcony I can run the showtime program, it'll activate the lift for us."

That made it click. They both looked at their watches, finding each member of the band on the cameras. Roxanne had wandered off, chasing a recognizable green glitch crossing the cameras, like the Puppet was pulling her away for some reason. It didn't take long to locate Monty, he tore through a table in his way for no clear reason other than because he could. Chica was similarly easy to find, her bright paint job standing out against the darkness outside El Chips. Although none of them could find the Rabbit lady, as was expected, there were plenty of breaking video feeds and red screens suggesting she was in the Atrium with them. Gregory coordinated the others to watch different, adjacent cameras, letting him deduce where she was headed based on the growing and fading of the distortions. Her jammer was an incredible piece of equipment, he would know, but nothing was infallible, even when she seemed able to move through walls. With a little patience, she'd gotten an acceptable distance from the Main Stage.

With the Bunny searching as far from the stage as she would get, he'd have to make use of the little time he had. Freddy was awaiting Mono and Six at the lift, practically dragging himself to the platform by the time they arrived. Gregory took the disk and got to work, sending the pair to the Stage while he ascended the inactive escalators. He'd always been fascinated by the showtime setup, a set of keyboards surrounded by computers with sets of small switches and sliders between them, all operated live by a pair of extremely talented pair of DJs, rather than some creepy robot. He inserted the program disk and fiddled with some settings; muting the music and dimming the giant holographic band as much as he could without directly disconnecting the projectors around the stage itself. At that moment, as he finished his work and ran the program, one of the far right screens glitched. He took a second to tap the screen, a lot of this less fragile equipment just needed a gentle whack to get back online. The distortion spread to the other screens, crackling with static. Gregory began checking the wires connecting the devices. Maybe something was loose?

The screens began turning red.

--- 👁 ---

"S-superstars, my systems are failing. Try going to-"

"Gregory has it covered." Six cut in, no need for the bear to give them away or waste any more power on his voice box.

...Maybe I care about him a little...

The outline of the main four performers appeared over them, so faded someone likely wouldn't notice them if not for the slow movements; a see-through Chica strummed her strange instrument, head up and leaning back like she was bellowing a cheer to a room populated only by security-bots, Roxanne cast her gaze to the side, her hair flowing around her as she pressed the many keys of her handheld piano, Monty's sharp claws plucked his bass much like Chica, and Freddy roared into his black baton-like stick. All the machines were trapped in slow motion, barely visible in the dark, but still too visible for the survivors' tastes. Someone must have been paying attention, whether a security drone or Monty or the Rabbit. Gregory better hurry back, for all their sakes.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory jogged between the many picture stands and shattered remains of tables that dared be in the alligator's path. His lungs felt like they were seconds from collapsing, burning hotter than the bassist's temper as he fought the urge to stop and collect himself; he might not have an army of killer robots and a serial killer after him, but Mono and Six didn't have that privilege. The boy's eyes grew heavy and his vision doubled, but he had to keep going, even as he grew dizzy and lightheaded. The Main Stage came into his view, no time to check how close the Rabbit was.

By now that madwoman would've noticed the translucent holograms and Freddy struggling to stand, it's the final stretch. He burst into a sprint, knowing well how bad he'd feel afterward, and ran up the small steps leading up to the bear and other kids. The pounding of Monty's steps walked behind him, followed by the thunderous slam of his pistons and the crash of broken ceramic tiles right at the foot of the stage, no doubt the lady would be arriving shortly.

Right as he approached the massive, circular platform, Six leaped up to a pole with a button, smacking the glowing green Freddy face. With the last of his low energy, Gregory coughed and braced himself against the square orange stand as the lift began to fall, stopping himself from tumbling onto the floor as he blacked out.

--- 👁 ---

Mono lunged forward, catching Gregory's head as he fainted and flopped to the ground. The boy pulled Gregory behind him, laying the programmer on his back as the gator and Huntress approached. He pushed against the red haze to the best of his ability, vision blurring with unshed tears and thoughts slowing to a crawl. He spotted the Bunny's outline above them, preparing to jump down onto the elevator with them; he couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let her near Six, but his mind was so painfully foggy he couldn't make anything resembling a plan. Monty joined the fray, crouching down to jump off the stage and rip them apart. They were already far below the height of the vent those two chased them through; if he could stall them a little longer, they might get far enough that the woman and animatronic wouldn't want to take such a chance at destroying themselves. He just couldn't think straight long to come up with something and his powers had done next to nothing without Six's help.

I'm worthless.

Six flung her hand in the air, red eyes shining and pupils bursting into oily tendrils across her irises. Monty was quickly enveloped in swirling black winds, pushing against him as he tried to approach, but he was far too heavy to lift. Maybe he could still help? Mono placed a light blue, static-covered hand on her back as she raised her free hand to the Rabbit. She drained more black streaks of sickly air from the woman's suit and knife. Even through her, he could feel the purple signal within the machine trying to draw him in, to pull him into the buzzing hallway, but this time he could fight against it, this time there was no direct and clear-cut connection as there was with him and the Moon. Six levitated the green doll, now just barely able to support his weight, and threw him into the Lady's side. Garbled grunts and growls burst from her distorted voice. Even while he was crushing her, Monty didn't know she was there, unable to see or acknowledge the invisible killer.

By the time they got up, the lift was far below them. The green brute angrily stomped away, roaring and snapping at the dark Atrium, but the Rabbit remained. If the leaping lizard wasn't willing to follow them so deep into the elevator shaft, odds were she wasn't either, but she continued to eye them. At a glance it looked as though her knife merged with her waist, but Six could probably tell him that she returned the blade to a sheath on her belt. The other gloved hand yanked a box from her side, seemingly the same one she'd used to unlock the Lost and Found door, and could probably tamper with the lifts, but she was too late. Mono picked up Gregory and hopped off the lift before it finished lowering, Freddy and Six followed just behind him. Nobody had eyes on the serial killer and they were quickly getting out of earshot. Behind and above the group, the Rabbit clicked a small, royal blue, crescent-shaped button below the green Freddy on her remote. It flashed a dim blue light through the moon sticker, she had a connection.

"Disassemble Freddy."

--- 👁 ---

"S-s-s-omething i-i-is w-wrong." Freddy declared, his scanners picking up distant clattering.

Fazbear's loud, staggering footsteps echoed down the hall; the unconscious Gregory had sleepily wrapped his arms around Mono's chest as he rode on his back. Six and Mono were the only two left who could do anything in an emergency, and now their guardian was warning them about exactly that.

"Quickly-y-y-y! Get t-to the Re-e-e-charge s-station! F-f-follow-w m-me-e-e." The bear commanded.

The eerily familiar clicking and whirring of a certain, thin and spindly endoskeleton started pursuing them. Deep and rough cackles chased them through the narrow hall leading to the large red tube. Six was the first inside, ripping open the hinges with unnatural strength the animatronic had learned just to accept. She waved behind her, waiting for Mono, the boy carried Gregory into the cell. Freddy limped to the door, accidentally slamming it shut as something crashed into him. The Daycare attendant wrapped his thin fingers around the bear's neck, crushing some of his plating and dislodging wires, then pulled. The frame of his head bent and popped out of place, barely hanging onto his body by the many cords. He tried to push the Moon off, but the tear had severed much of his connections to his limbs and the remains of his battery were quickly failing. In the corner of his eye, he saw Mono's mask-covered face through the Recharge Station's round window.

Moondrop turned his head as well, waving to the little boy as he dragged Freddy away.

--- 👁 ---

'We have to get him.' Mono pleaded with Six.

'The Moon is still out there!' She threw her hands up.

'It can move down here without the cycle thing!' She pointed up.

Gregory started shaking himself awake. His head nodded around as his eyes fluttered open, he shot awake, finding Six and Mono having one of their silent conversations before him. At least they were safe. They both looked at him; the girl's eyes were dead, glossy, like the discarded endoskeletons he'd ripped apart for parts. She was thinking, that much he could tell, calculating. Mono stared at him through the Roxanne mask, his bright blue eyes piercing the dark. Like pale yellow lenses a set of dim lights poked out from both of their pupils, reflecting what little light they had like cats. Not the most concerning thing about them, or even the most concerning thing to worry about right now. The star-singer was notably absent, failing to squish the four of them into the crimson cylinder.

"What happened?" He asked, voice hushed just in case.

"Moon took Freddy." Mono responded, his voice getting raspy.

The Moon? That shouldn't have been possible, the Daycare attendant was meant to be in Safe Mode, like Freddy! Had the Rabbit Lady found a way to switch him off? Or break through Safe Mode? She couldn't, if they were both working with Mr. Burrows, he would've been the one to get assigned that project.

...Was Moon not in Safe Mode? Like a completely separate entity from the Sun?

Was that why Mr. Burrows wanted the lights out?

Did I almost get them killed?!

...

...I'm sleeping in tomorrow, as soon as they're safe...

Beneath the Pizzaplex was one of the only places he could move, the rest of the building was locked behind Sun's programming, a maintenance tunnel had to be directly installed into a part of the Daycare for cleaning and repairs. A simple underground tunnel into Parts and Service. Gregory exited the station and looked around, the Main Stage lift was only a short walk away from them, and the repair cell wasn't much further.

"I know where he is."

Chapter Text

"He's not far, just keep your heads low and follow me."

He stuffed a hand into his duffle bag, pulling a simple battery off of his scrap computer and fishing around his pockets for his flashlight. It flickered to life, illuminating the room despite the other two's protests. He didn't have their freakish night vision! Gregory led them away from a set of double doors, its security clearance was too high for them to access at the moment, but he was quite familiar with a path around them. they walked around many concrete support pillars and scattered parts of endoskeletons, abandoned by the small handful of human workers and the Staff-bots. At the end of a hallway filled with wooden crates stood a thin, metallic figure.

It had three, nubby toes meant to slide neatly into the slippers of a Gamrock suit. A few rings surrounded its legs, holding masses of colorful wires in place. The upper leg was thinner, a light gray pole attached to the knee joint and hip with a single, large black cord supplying power and data to the more complex mesh below. Many small pistons surrounded the center frame, giving the machine incredibly detailed motion. Its disproportionately broad chest held round shoulders, and the thin arms ended in blocky hands with awkward, clunky fingers.

The head lurched up, its mouth dangling open and big eyes glowed red, lacking irises, unlike the real Entertainers. Gregory knew they were placeholders for the endos to see while training them. Two tiny ears flipped up from the head; carrying a pair of small microphones, able to flip downward to fit in Chica's and Monty's casing. It stuttered and froze in place, bright ruby pupils staring straight into their souls as it stood its ground, unmoving and uncaring.

"Keep your eyes on it, they don't like being stared at." Gregory advised.

He flicked the light on and off as they moved, careful to conserve battery, he'd rather not waste tokens shopping for more. Six almost immediately went back-to-back with Mono, pinning the endo in place as they passed it. A tall fence blocked their path, but someone was stupid enough to leave an open vent right beside it. It was filled with cobwebs and dust, the Staff Bots weren't properly programmed to clean them yet, but it got the job done. He glanced to the duo behind him, but they weren't there. What was taking them so long to enter the vent?

Something clanked around the vent entrance.

The DJ.

It clattered after him, spidery legs echoing around the square tunnel. He crawled as fast as he could, exhausting, but anything to get away from that little nightmare was worth it. Maybe it wanted to attack him, maybe it was just patrolling the air ducts, he didn't care. Gregory scrambled around the corners, tumbling out on the other side of the locked gate. Six and Mono were still nowhere to be seen. He rounded a corner, finding one of the staff I-pads across from the gate. Six stood on the same side of the barricade as him, staring at the distant endoskeleton while Mono climbed over the fence and dropped to the other side. The girl grabbed her companion's hand and pulled him down the hall.

I could've completely avoided that thing every time I came down here.

...

On second thought, I'd just snap my neck doing that...

"Over here! This wall moves!" Gregory called to them.

He pressed a nearby button and a poster of an endo giving out balloons raised, it was one of many rooms used to give the machines basic training before they had a personality chip installed. Traversing the tight halls was easy enough; Gregory had been here more than a hundred times to wander without a map and Six was plenty coordinated enough to walk backward behind Mono, the stray robots didn't stand a chance! He was quite familiar with the spare security pass buried somewhere in this place, they just needed a minute to find it. With the kids beside him taking care of the skeletons, Gregory took a moment to check his Fazwatch, he might be able to spot the box on the cameras somewhere.

He had notifications.

When was the last time he checked this thing?

They were from Mr. Burrows.

Every

Single

One

They all were sent around the time he was in the office, and each one drained more blood from his face.

'Gregory, stop that.'

'You need to leave them, Gregory. It's for your own good.'

'Gregory, I'm not mad, but I need to talk with you.'

'Call me.'

'Turn off the intercoms.'

'Gregory, cut it out, NOW.'

'Don't force my hand.'

'Is this how you say thank you?'

'Is this how you repay me?'

'Gregory, you're starting to upset me.'

'You're hurting me, Gregory.'

'After everything I've done for you, every token I've sent.'

'Every extra chance I gave you, no matter how many times your creations fell short or you screwed up. I've kept you around, helped you grow, and then you pull this!?'

'All that you've ever done right was that jammer, but I still kept you close.'

'I've fed you, I've clothed you, I've sheltered you, I've helped you grow, I've toughened you up for the real world no matter how many times you've let me down.'

'And this is my thanks?'

'Answer me, Gregory!'

'You need to learn some respect!'

'I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!'

'THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES!'

'HER BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!'

What?

It's not like he had anyone he really cared about, he wasn't Mono. He didn't have anyone who'd miss him. There wasn't anyone remotely close to him, aside from maybe Mono and Six, and they'd never see each other after they left. The animatronics were already after them, anyway, it's not like they weren't already in danger.

He had nobody.

He was nobody.

He was nothing, the very world around him made that clear.

I'm nothing, but that's okay. I'm okay. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'M FINE.

Who in their right mind would be close enough to him, to make Mr. Burrows think he could use them?

There'd be time to worry about that later, he wasn't the one being hunted, he doesn't matter, he's never mattered to anyone but Mr. Burrows, but Mono and Six do.

They matter more than anyone else here, especially him and the animatronics.

They need that pass.

--- 👁 ---

Vanessa paced about the Parts and Service chamber, exhausted green eyes glued to the floor. There was a way to untangle this mess, she was sure of it! But her spotty moments of lucidity left it hard to tell where to start. The Rabbit just took away those two's best chances of escaping it, and her chances of repairing Freddy weren't very...

...Promising...

Who is she sugarcoating it for? She fucked everything up!

No, Dr. Emily said I gotta think positive...

"Alright, Freddy, I found them earlier and left them in Lost and Found." She started.

"Vanessa! You must have terrified them! You cannot leave children alone like that." He interrupted.

"Look, I didn't know what else to do! This is why I work the night shift!

Long story short, I did a background check."

"That is great news! They can be returned to their parents!" The bear celebrated.

"They can't, there's no record of them anywhere; no birth certificates, no missing posters, no nothing. They don't exist." Vanny explained.

"How unfortunate. If you re-attach my head I will help you look for them."

...

"Vanny?"

"A-a-about that!"

She twiddled her fingers with a crooked smile, folding them into knuckles and making finger guns at the damaged animatronic; there were long scratches across his torso plates and face, stretching from his left shoulder to the right of his hip, the left cheek had a large gash leading to his nose. Then there's the issue of his neck. It was totaled. Multicolored wires loosely connected his head to his body, his endoskeleton's frame was bent out of shape by the Moon, leaving the two pieces unable to slide back in place. They'd need to be unscrewed and replaced somehow, but she wasn't a mechanic.

A couple little circuits dangled from within the plastic casings, some of them still blinking with red warning lights. His Music box had been ripped out of its socket, trailing down from a gap between his open chest hatch. Despite the damages, his eyes tracked her around the room, held in place by the service clamps around his head. A broken ring taken from around the collar of his orange suit lay on a small platter next to his shoulder, propped up by a metal pole connected to the mechanism suspended above the Star Singer. She picked up the ring.

"I-I tried to fix you up, buuuuut... ThisthingbrokeoffandImadeitwayworse!"

"I am sorry, I did not catch that. Could you speak slower for me?" Freddy asked.

"Alright, I was trying to put your head back on myself, but I broke this ring-... Whatever this is and I don't know how to fix it." She tried to continue smiling at the Entertainer.

"Oh, you must have snapped my casing's collar swivel, there should be a spare somewhere around here. I can attempt to instruct you how to replace it." He offered.

"That's not gonna end well." She commented.

The Night Guard had heard plenty of horror stories regarding new employees making normally innocent mistakes while the Glamrocks were in maintenance mode. Fazbear Entertainment had spent plenty of 'silencing money' before the protective tube was altered to make repairs easier, and only a little less afterward.

"B-but it's not that bad! Worst case scenario we have Roxy or Monty can run a couple shows until we get your black box and casing on a new endo!"

"Or we could just fix the issue now." Freddy pointed out.

"I'm sorry, but I don't want you turning me into a meat pretzel when I screw it up. I can't survive having my head pulled off. Besides, I gotta find those kids."

She turned away from the bear, walking up the surrounding stairs and setting her violet eyes on the elevator. The moment the steel doors slid shut, Gregory rounded the corner, Mono and Six snuck behind him, holding hands as usual. Just beyond the confines of the maintenance chamber, the two survivors stared, unsure of what to do while the mall's resident hacker immediately began typing away on the nearby service panel.

"Superstars! I am so glad you are alright!" He exclaimed.

Neither of them responded, but Six gave a small wave and he could tell Mono was smiling from beneath his Roxy mask.

"Freddy, their voices are giving out already, do you know what happened after I was out?" Gregory asked.

--- 👁 ---

She just loved to draw!

Her pencil quickly scratched the tracing paper atop the Glamrock art book. As she'd done countless times, the visage of Roxanne wolf's face came into being. While she still wasn't confident in her ability to draw her best friend's face free-hand, she'd get there eventually! Roxy always taught everyone to keep practicing, always strive to get better, even when you're already a winner! She happily began drawing herself on the wolf's shoulders, wearing an oversized racing jacket and waving a massive checkered flag, her pigtails flopping around as they ran. She hadn't noticed a set of footsteps entering her room as she decided on a background. The blanket over her head was quickly pulled away, revealing her and her red flashlight with black triangles painted around the end and a cartoon Roxy's face for its button.

"Cassandra Lopez..." Her dad stared down at her. She smiled nervously.

"What have I told you about drawing in bed?" He tiredly crossed his arms, having just returned from a double shift of repairing endoskeletons and mascot suits.

"...Don't..." The little girl responded.

He took the drawing from her, admiring it before turning back to her bedroom door.

"I'm proud of you, never forget that, but it's way past your bedtime."

"But I'm not tired! Not like it's a school night, even the Pizzaplex is closed for the week." She protested.

Exasperated as he was, the man managed a smile at his daughter. Her creative side was going to be the end of him, they'd better get her that art-school scholarship. No matter how far in the future that was, he wouldn't be letting her and that talent down, not ever.

"Then try to sleep, you can finish this in the morning, and stop stealing coffee after 6!"

"You don't know if I did!" She blew a raspberry at the man.

"You're awake after midnight, of course you stole some." He grinned brighter and shut the door.

Cassandra tugged the blanket back over her, fluffing the pillow and reluctantly attempting to take a small nap before getting ready for the next day. Her eyes just wouldn't close! She couldn't stop thinking about what part of the raceway she wanted to make her background, she wouldn't be happy just making it a random desert rock or generic track. She was quickly distracted by a jingle on her Roxanne Fazwatch.

"C-...sie!"

"Cass...e!"

"H...lp...me!"

That voice.

Her parents had a tendency to leech off boarding checks, often homing two or three foster kids at a time. They'd usually be given a spot on the couch or messy guest room, they'd share toiletries and clothes, all to cut down on losses. She knew it was wrong, of course, but her parents weren't often great listeners aside from talking about her. Cassie's crosshatching had improved, as her mother had mentioned to her father while the three kids behind them wore the same shirts as yesterday and carefully calculated their shampoo usage. She made an effort to be nice and welcoming to all of the children coming through their doors. There was always the one that always stood out to her, though.

Gregory had always been especially jaded, even compared to the other orphans, but still drew her in in a way none of the others did. She gave him a hug, once, he didn't react badly, but clearly wasn't sure what to think, like affection or basic compassion was truly that foreign to him. He tended to look like a lost puppy when he wasn't resigning himself to a quiet corner of the house. The boy was no more exempt from being pocketed by her parents than anyone else. If she recalled, the payment for taking care of him was used to buy her a set of expensive colored pencils.

She shared them with him in a heartbeat, he used them to draft color-coded programs Cassie couldn't even begin to understand. Every once in a while, she'd end up drawing him out of his shell; a shared snack here, help with homework there, sometimes he shyly and awkwardly offered a small but sweet drawing. He fascinated her, but her parents thought he was weird. When they'd gotten news he was to be relocated in a week, he disappeared that night.

He just really needed a break.

But now he was reaching out to her, asking for help, something she didn't think he was capable of, too cynical to think someone might reach out to catch him when he fell.

Something's very, very wrong.

--- 👁 ---

"Then I specifically remember you hugging Mono, it was quite charming." Freddy chuckled.

This bear was going to be the end of him. For a solid minute he'd been going on about whatever the hacker's blacked-out dream was, he was starting to sound like that old Hippo. Gregory carefully grabbed the Entertainer's bowtie, the manual release for his chest cavity was trigged with a firm tug. The boy gently moved the many damaged wires back into place and reset the music box; he worked hard on that thing, he wanted to hear it again! He reached up to the bear's nose, tapping it. While it was fitted with a silly horn, it mostly functioned as a button to lock the torso shut.

"Can you test out your music box for me?" He asked.

"Of course, superstar!"

There it is again.

A warmth settled in Gregory's chest, something he hadn't felt since leaving Cassie. The girl's hug had completely unraveled him and the tiny acts of kindness always threw him for a loop to the point he started reciprocating them without realizing. When he got the news he'd be moved again, and gave up on the system, he'd thought he'd abandoned that fuzz around his heart as well, but then Freddy malfunctioned. Each second since he revealed himself to the big orange bear, he'd calculated everything with the boy in mind.

Obviously it was just his programming, all the Glamrocks were designed to interact with children at all times outside of cleaning and repairs. Gregory knew that, he'd gone through most of their code and neural networks by now, but something inside him still swelled whenever Freddy fussed over him or 'superstar!' filled the air. That little music box strummed in his ear as he slipped back into his familiar trance, the lovely rhythm of motions, repairing and altering equipment, resumed with the gentle song in the background.

The head was in pretty poor condition, but nothing he couldn't handle. There was already a semi-active endoskeleton standing in the corner of the room, it didn't take long to hack into its pathetic cybersecurity and force a shutdown. Without leaving his 'work trance' he removed the machine's head and pulled his screwdriver from his pocket, salvaged the neck pistons, and replaced the mangled mass of rods and wires poking out of Freddy's casing. All the while, Mono and Six sat next to the service computer, holding hands and occasionally gesturing somewhere, indulging in their muted conversations as he worked. Unfortunately, a much more major problem snapped him out of his joyful haze. A swivel meant to sit in the suit and support Freddy's head lay broken on a nearby tray, unable to be fixed without special equipment he didn't have. He'd need to find a replacement.

"Hey, guys." Gregory called to the pair, they only looked up at him from their spots.

"I need your help." He held up the snapped ring.

"I can't finish fixing Freddy without this piece, but I don't know where we'd find a replacement."

"I do not think it would be wise for you to go, superstar." Freddy intervened.

"Why?"

"The Better Health Channel recommends lying down for approximately 10 minutes after an individual faints, you have continued to work on me despite this. You should take a moment to rest." The bear explained.

"Six, Mono, I am sorry to ask this of you, but Gregory must remain here for his own health. Could you look for a spare collar swivel while I attempt to tend to Gregory?"

Mono gave a thumbs up before the programmer could get a word in, Six attempted to stop him from getting up, to silently talk him out of it, but wound up begrudgingly standing as well. Of course the boy would be the only one to get that cannibal to stick her neck out for someone other than her coat buddy. It didn't take long for her to stop and stare at Gregory. Her bright red, glossy eye glinted in the dim lights of the maintenance cylinder, glaring at the hacker between greasy strands of incredibly dark hair. Like she was staring directly into his soul, connecting to him, she stood in thought. He couldn't look away, as if she'd pounce the moment he broke eye contact, but continuing to look at her would drain him like she was a vampire. Right on the other side of the reinforced container he operated within, she remained. Just... thinking...

"You never answered him." She gestured to the taller boy beside her.

"Who's Foxy?" Her raspy voice eventually asked.

He froze.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory remembered his first foster 'family' better than he wished to. The Fergusons were too cheap to put their heater on, ever. They'd ditch him on the couch, even on the snowiest winter nights, with only a thin blanket, then get irritated if he tried to mess with the AC. He'd never gotten so many colds back-to-back. They only bought cheap, cold food that lacked much of what he needed, then forgot about it until it began to smell. All they were good for was icy cold water and a roof, and those were hardly benefits when they didn't bother to warm anything up, even near the end of the year. Not to mention they did little more than ignore him until they wanted something.

Back then, he was young and stupid enough to think they were the exception to the other caretakers he'd be bounced between, rather than the rule. He was faring a little better alone, roaming empty alley to empty alley by himself, save for the handful of stray animals or the occasional chat with other local street rats. Two of them recently managed to break into a store, stealing all the coats they could carry, almost enough for the rest of the gang to have three each. Gregory was stuck with two; his skill set just wasn't as helpful for gathering resources. Still, he was in much better shape than in the Fergusons' house; although the wind chill wasn't pleasant, it was only around as bad as their fan, and his jackets were much more effective than the moth-hole-ridden sheet they tossed his way.

In his hand sat the one thing he'd ever successfully pickpocketed; an inattentive, spoiled brat's smartphone, the battery was low and there was no telling how long he had until the kid's parents shut off the service, but it was getting the job done. A wire torn out of a panel beside the main door was slowly downloading a pretty basic virus of his own making. Right before his eyes, the front doors of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex swung open, the metal shudders clattering apart for the starving boy. The building was certainly chilly, but a far cry from the outdoors. He didn't have to walk too long until he found a wall-mounted radiator.

Gregory stuffed the phone in his pocket, to anyone else it would soon be a worthless brick as the power drained and signal cut out, but he might still be able to use it for parts. The warm air coated his hands, slowly relieving the twitching ache in the boy's joints. Gregory unzipped his two black coats, gratefully allowing the small, heated breeze into his body. Slowly but surely, his energy faded; but he needed to find the kitchen, grab a drink, steal some more clothes, and collect anything else that might be useful before someone noticed the door. Maybe, though, he could stay here for a minute? He'd overheard nearly the entire staff of this place were robots, they likely followed simple patrol paths instead of detouring to investigate the sound of the doors opening.

But he had to get to work! There was so much he needed to do, so much time he needed to make the most of.

But...

I'm so sore.

I'm so hungry.

I'm so cold.

I'm so tired.

Gregory's arms steadily fell to his sides, snow-encrusted eyelashes weighing down as he fought to remain conscious, legs too weak to lift him up. Great pressure quickly built up in his chest, like a frigid anvil falling on his lungs. Phlegm-filled coughs racked his thin body, filling his baggy eyes with tears and his ribs with white-hot agony. His swollen tongue stuck to the roof of his bone-dry mouth. Hunger twisted in his gut, but he couldn't stand on his own. The boy's vision blurred and darkened as his eyes began to shut. For a second he only slumped over despite his efforts to remain awake, but he soon gave up the fight and painfully fell to his side. Twice his head bounced harshly against the hard tile floor, but he just didn't have the will to care anymore.

--- 👁 ---

'Global Message Received - Security Puppet, Topic - Disturbance Detected:

ERR - unauthorized access to Loading Dock doors
• Security-Bot presence increased
• Staff-Bot presence decreased.
• Authorizing DJ Music Man - Security Mode (Timed Alteration: 12 AM - 6 AM)
• Authorizing Theater Attendant - Eclipse (Timed Alteration: 12 AM - 6 AM [Hourly Reset Cycle])
• Authorizing Glamrock Series - Security Mode (All [null: Daycare Attendant] [null: Glamrock Series (B)]) (Timed Alteration: 12 AM - 6 AM)'

...

'Global Message Received - Main Systems, Topic - You Can't:

ERR - 5: 'Access Denied' - Theater Attendant, Glamrock Series (All [null: Daycare Attendant] [null: Glamrock Series (B)]), DJ Music Man

Security Override:
• Authorizing DJ Music Man - Bouncer Mode (Timed Alteration: 12 AM - 6 AM)
• Authorizing Theater Attendant - Moon (Timed Alteration: 12 AM - 6 AM [Hourly Reset Cycle])
• Authorizing Glamrock Series - ERR (All)

ERR: Command Not Accepted - Daycare Attendant, Galmrock Series (B)'

...

'Private Message Received - Prize Puppet, Topic - Save Them:

ERR - unauthorized access to Front Entrance
• Disregard previous message, no breach to Loading Dock doors exists
• Authorizing Daycare Attendant - Safe Mode (Timed Alteration: 12 AM - 12 PM [Maximum Override])
• Authorizing Daycare Attendant - Mimic eXtraction and Extermination System
• Authorizing Daycare Attendant - Kitchen (All) (Maximum Permission)
• Authorizing Daycare Attendant - Prize Corner (Shudder Door)
• Give Gifts

High Priority:
• Blob_Thing_We_Still_Need_A_Real_Name_For: Maintain Distance (Minimum 10m)
• Beware The Kraken: Maintain Distance (Maximum - (At All Times))
• Stay Safe! <3 Mari

--- 👁 ---

A curved metal rod slid across the boy's neck, careful to keep the sharp tip far from the starving child's throat. The limb's missing finger sensors might make it difficult to sense his breathing or temperature, but his other hand was currently preoccupied with his parrot and jacket. The light triggers in his hook's base barely picked up the little boy's heartbeat. Their intruder twitched in his sleep, face contorting in pain and nearly-numb hand clutching a loudly rumbling stomach.

He plopped his bird onto its magnetic feet next to the kid's head, his heavy brown coat draped over him, and he returned the plastic parrot to his shoulder. Carefully and gently, he slid his hook under the pair of limp legs, making sure the point wasn't facing the scarred and bruised skin. It was much easier to lift the boy's main body with his functional hand. The bony shoulders slid onto his forearm and the head rested snug in the crevice of his elbow. A small coughing fit nearly woke the tiny invader, but the walk to the kitchen was otherwise uneventful.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory awoke next to a food warmer, though there was nothing inside. He shot awake, quickly getting to his feet before realizing his mistake. His head felt like everything around it had flipped, his vision immediately doubled and blurred, his knees buckled beneath him and he soon collided with the cold tile. Another painful cough shook his thin frame, drawing him to pull his jackets tighter around him for any kind of comfort. It was then Gregory noticed he'd been wearing another layer; a massive brown trench coat with short (fake) gold threads dangling from the shoulders, golden skull buttons with silver crossbones down the front, a gold trim around the edge of the sleeves, and large gold skull cufflinks with silver teeth and red gems (glass? plastic?) in it's eye sockets. A silky, deep red lining within the coat slipped comfortably over his scarred and battered body as he shrank into it. The young programmer didn't notice the heavy but quiet footsteps lowly echoing around the many ovens and cabinets as he found the strength to sit up.

"Aye, seems our lil stowaway's already doin' better, arr-n'tcha lad?"

Chapter Text

"Is something wrong, superstar?" Freddy asked from the operating table.

"N-n-n-nothing!" Gregory responded.

It was way too quick, his shoulders were tense and small beads of sweat began to fall from his forehead. A light shine grew across his brown eyes, but he soon blinked it away. Eventually, he decided it would be best to answer for him.

"Sun and Moon were not always the Daycare attendants, they used to be theater performers while Glamrock Foxy watched over the children... He is gone now..."

It seemed to get Six off his back, for now. She took the broken ring and they wandered off into the dark, leaving Gregory and Freddy to their thoughts. The boy took a deep breath, leaning against the side of the cylinder and sliding down. His spine burned, his shoulders felt like they were holding bags of bricks mixed with wet cement, and all his joints ached like the bones were grinding together until they were fractured to dust. Through the pounding in his head he tended to his Fazwatch, connecting to the service computer just beyond the bright container and deactivating the animatronic's Maintenance Mode. Sensing the broken machine was returned to Safe Mode, the massive door rose.

"Superstar, I know it is not exactly comfortable here, but please try to lie down." Freddy spoke, his music box still jingling away.

"Can I tell you something?"

Why did I do that why did I do that why did I do that why did I do that why did I do that why did I do that-

"Of course, what is it?" Freddy asked.

"...The jammer I made... It wasn't just a jammer...

A little while after I finished it, the stranger bought some sort of exo-suit? It had a made-in-china label on it, does that mean anything to you?"

Freddy took a moment to do some research, it didn't take long to find several designs and articles on the internet.

"Yes, they are primarily meant to reduce the strain of heavy lifting and reduce a worker's chance of injury." He explained.

"...Yeah, it had a big square thing on the back, I guess it would've been for big boxes? I dunno... I put the jammer on it, then he just kept asking for more. A bunch of endo parts, pistons, motors, even parts that are supposed to attach to your casing; a lot of the leg stuff was from Roxanne and Foxy, the arms came from Bonnie and Monty, and the chest from Chica. Mr. Burrows even- "

"Mr. Burrows?!" Freddy interjected, Gregory nearly shot up from where he stood, jumping a fair distance but remaining seated, he didn't want to risk falling without Mono nearby for damage control.

"I-I am sorry, Gregory, I did not mean to frighten you, please continue." The bear tried to calm him, though the boy still needed time, he wouldn't be so easily convinced Freddy wouldn't go into a tirade like his foster 'parents' and employer.

"... He wanted me to incorporate the jammer's double-coolant system into the entire exoskeleton... It wouldn't have needed it, I used some of your guys' coolant solution for it... I wanted to impress him... so he'd keep me around, maybe pay enough for a meal... He just called it 'tolerable' and told me where to leave it."

"Can you remember where you left it, superstar?" Freddy asked.

Gregory took a moment; calculating more than remembering, as far as the Entertainer could tell. Freddy didn't seem mad, but neither did Mr. Burrows, when he had something to say.

"Superstar, I am not upset with you, all of this is in the past and I am sure you have learned your lesson."

"...I gave him control of the lights..."

Freddy paused, the lights? Why did the imposter want the lights?

"...When Mono and Six were in the Daycare..." He clarified.

Oh.

OH.

"I understand..."

It was a test, it had to be, seeing if he'd turn the boy away.

"You aren't mad?"

He couldn't do that to him.

"I am not mad at you, Gregory, I am just disappointed." The programmer shivered, face twisting in pain at his joints and thin muscle.

"I'm not sure that's better."

"If I were mad, I do not think I would be willing to help you fix it."

"... I-I swear I didn't know Sun when I worked on them... I assumed they used the same files for everything..." Gregory choked.

"Everyone makes mistakes, superstar. Now you know Moon's neural networks are separate from Sun's, they just are not loaded until their light sensors return a low-enough rating."

"...Mr. Burrows wanted me to leave the suit near a vent... I don't remember which, he has me leave things in them all the time...

What's the deal with Mr. Burrows? Do you know him?"

Knowledge for knowledge. On one hand, he didn't want to scare Gregory again, on the other, all three of the kids were remarkably resilient, horrifically numb to the loss of life, especially Mono and Six. Withholding information would surely degrade their fragile trust in him, and it didn't take a psychiatrist to see all of them needed to meet someone kind for once in their lives.

"Mr. Burrows was a chairman of Fazbear Entertainment LLC... He disappeared some months ago, then eventually turned up dead." He reluctantly explained.

"What happened?"

"...His torso, right upper arm, and left forearm were found in separate dumpsters across the city... His head, legs, and the rest of his arms have not been recovered. They are lost between several landfills by now, but his chest had been stabbed two dozen times.

Do you think your employer could be the Rabbit Lady? Is she responsible for this?"

Gregory paused.

"...No, the stranger's an old man, he sounds like he smokes a bunch... I wouldn't be surprised if she killed Mr. Burrows for him."

"I see..."

They sat in silence for a moment, only broken up by a few minor coughs from the young hacker. His breaths were labored and eyes heavier than ever. His occasional dizziness was concerning for sure, much of his behaviors were, but not being able to run might get him killed if he didn't keep an eye on the boy, no matter how sure he was that he was safe. Keeping him awake for more questions wouldn't help, the entire reason he'd held Gregory back was to make him rest.

"Superstar, please attempt to rest. I am worried about you."

"And I still don't get why!" Gregory snapped.

"I've been here for months! I've been messing with the Pizzaplex! I've known people were dying here all the time! Why are you trying to help me?!"

His eyes fogged, holding back tears as he took deep breaths.

"Because you need someone to guide you. Maybe you have an underdeveloped moral compass, but I assure you, you are a fantastic person. You are so talented, so brave, and so kind-"

"NO I'M NOT!" He shrieked.

"Yes you are."

Gregory sat and glared at him, still thinking, just thinking.

"...I got people killed, too.

Mr. Burrows- whoever they are, they gave me a bunch of fake identities and sent me to therapy... I don't know what was so special about the doctors, but he wanted me to tell him if they brought up certain messages he's sent.

I never saw them after that..."

Not entirely true, he'd noticed some of them walking around after the building was closed, then he'd never seen them again. But what someone didn't know couldn't hurt them, fake-Mr. Burrows taught him that.

"Then I am going to help you make sure it does not happen again, I will not allow you to destroy your life like this."

...

Something finally broke.

The boy began to cry, still trying to hold the tears back, but some started escaping. It was the most like a child he'd ever looked.

"It is alright, Gregory. It is okay to cry."

"NO IT ISN'T! P-people overlook you, n-nobody wants to a-acknowledge i-it, e-everyone just t-turns away!"

"No, superstar, crying is good for you, it means you are recovering."

His paw twitched and stuttered, the connection to his head was still weak, but he managed to reach out to the boy. It took a few seconds for him to notice, but Gregory found it in him to crawl over to the table. Freddy ruffled his ratty, dirty hair and pat his shoulder. Little by little, the boy started leaning against his arm, steadily putting more and more weight on the massive hand. It'd gotten easy to forget just how small he was, compared to the Glamrocks and Security Puppet. His entire hand was barely over half the length of Freddy's finger. Objectively speaking, he'd gotten an accurate reading of Gregory's measurements through passive scans by now; but to truly experience it, to truly witness this child at last allowing himself to be so vulnerable, literally in the palm of his hand.

For a moment, he detected something damaging his endoskeleton, specifically his chest cavity, but his diagnostics found nothing was there.

Gregory's head slowly lowered, then rose sharply, over and over. While it was difficult to tell from his place on the operating table, he could barely see the hacker's eyelids struggling to remain open. He soon lost the battle and pressed his full weight into Freddy's arm. The boy's short breaths evened out and the tears ceased. Freddy wiped the remaining droplets from his face as he carefully lowered his head to the hard concrete beneath. While he would've loved to set Gregory down on his greenroom's couch with one of his plushies, a massive blanket, and a soft pillow, the cold cement would have to do.

--- 👁 ---

Cassie's dad got up pretty early for work, he always put in plenty of overtime, so he wouldn't be around for long. Her mom wasn't going to be much help, either, she had a business trip in the morning and wouldn't appreciate being woken up past midnight any more than her old man, even for a child formerly under their care. She instead hastily threw on some clothes and gathered some basic supplies; her Roxy flashlight, her phone, even her Roxy-talkie in case Gregory could get his hands on a Foxy-talkie! The Pizzaplex was a pretty short walk from her apartment, just down some well-lit streets surrounded by some sparse trees, and Gregory had plenty of skills of his own, this shouldn't take too long. Her parents wouldn't wake her up as early as when they'd leave, they'd never know she was gone!

Except for the foster kids in the guest room and couch, but there was one language all children spoke; parentless or not.

"I'll snatch you guys some candy if you never mention any of this." She whispered.

They'd been taking care of three kids at the time, a boy and two girls. Cassie had gladly shared soap and some of her nicer clothes during their stay, so maybe they would've been willing to keep quiet anyway, but getting them something nice never hurt anyone. They all deserved some butter bars and wolf-wafers for all they've put up with. She was sure not to leave without anything for Gregory. From what little she heard, the foster system never managed to pick him back up, though it was difficult to tell whether or not it was for lack of trying, yet he'd come out of nowhere to bring her a tissue on her failed birthday. An entire birthday party without any of her friends showing up, but Gregory of all people managed to appear from thin air when she needed someone by her side. He must've been living on the streets, maybe even in the Pizzaplex itself, if he'd gotten his own Fazwatch to contact her with.

She just needed to get close enough for a good signal, wherever he was; then a call to the police or paramedics could fix everything before it all went downhill. So she stocked her Roxy backpack with plenty of crackers, fruit snacks, a bag of cereal, and set off for the Pizzaplex.

--- 👁 ---

The large animatronic towered over the boy. Its foam paws muffling the stomping of its clawed feet. The machine walked with a slight bounce in its step, raising and dropping with the suspension of its dog-like legs, leaving it with the visage of a hunched-over, snarling animal. The lower-most part of the canine leg had a shiny red cover, a simple cylinder protecting the 'bone'. Near the center of the shell was a long line allowing a pair of springs to pop out, connecting to a hole in the next segment of its suit. The next part of the shell connected the 'ankle' to its 'shin' and knee, also red with ball-joint-like covers for all the motors. Draping over the red 'thighs' were a torn set of light brown shorts, though they weren't worn out or dirty like his. The rips in the shorts were clean, smoothly cut with purpose; a pair of tailored, well-cleaned and cared-for shorts, trimmed to look raggedy and unkempt.

Its main body was bright red with a pale pink belly, a black skull and crossbones 'tattooed' over its 'heart'. A brown leather belt wrapped around the hip, centered by a golden fox with a silver eyepatch for a buckle. A plastic cutlass, covered in gold engravings of foxes and ships and waves, hung next to a glossy hook and a flintlock dangled by its intact hand. A bushy red tail with pinkish highlights, a bright white tip, and three golden cuffs around its base swayed as it walked.

Its right wrist was covered in fake gold and silver bracelets; shining chains, cuffs encrusted with plastic sapphire and emerald gems, strings tying together imitations of countless precious stones and crystals, and collections of pearls. The right hand was replaced by a shiny silver hook held in place by a black rubber cover embedded with countless gems and crystals. Bright white claws connected to red fingers covered in decadent rings of silver and gold and diamonds, cutting through the cold air from their joints on a square hand with a pale pink palm.

Soft spikes of darker crimson fur peeked up from behind its elbows. Contrary to the rest of the animatronics plastered over the advertisements and merchandise, the fox lacked the huge, and heavily dated, shoulder pads. Instead more dense and dark red fur stood up from the sides of its slender shoulders; on one of which stood a cactus green bird with a lime green stomach, a set of yellow feet and an orange beak, a tiny black eyepatch and red bandana around its small head. Several necklaces of gold and silver and pearls dangled from its neck; some bearing symbols like checkered flags, bowling pins, green golf balls, a gold laser gun, and a pair of pink roller skates.

The fox's jaws bore many small gold lip piercings and sharp white teeth, some replaced with scratched gold points. Many earrings dangled from triangular microphones atop its head, sticking through holes in a brighter red bandana with a white canine skull surrounded by white cutlasses printed over the forehead. A felt eyepatch covering one eye had a crossed pair of a fancy white knife and pistol sewn into it, while the other was a kindly yellow with a big 'X' for its pupil.

"Never thought ol' Captain Foxy be the one ta' snatch up a raider 'fore tha' crew, too many doors 'tween me an' tha' Lobby, compared ta' their greenrhums, but 'ere we arrgh!"

Its suspension bounced further it it spoke, waving its hook and claw above its head, its rubbery black nose pointed down at the boy. Gregory tried to get up, but his knees quickly gave out beneath him. A loud, metallic 'crack' hit the ground not far from him. Foxy's hook shattered a nearby tile as he reached to catch the boy's head with his rubbery pink paw. The cold tips of the talons grazed the child's shirt, its fingers bent slightly backward, almost appearing double-jointed, to keep from cutting open the pale skin over his chest.

"I don' think yee be ready ta' fight on yer own quite yet, lad, but I like tha' spirit in yer bones!" It rambled.

He immediately helped the boy sit back up, grabbing his hand and lifting him back into place by the open heater.

"Stick yer hands in this ol' thing, they're cold."

"...Actually...my hands are always like that..."

"Than they'll appreciate a bit of warmth 'fore tha' raid!" It cackled.

What the hell is happening?

The fox seemed to catch onto his blank stare, awkwardly untying his bandana and wrapping it around Gregory's fingers before lifting him up, gently carrying the child with one arm like a parent would their toddler. It was so weird, being so close to another person, despite it not actually being a living being. Thankfully, the animatronic made it quick, bringing him before a large metal door. Cold air wafted around them, but the fox helped adjust its heavy coat tightly around the boy, picking up the dangling flaps and coiling the heavy fabric around his body. He gratefully took the chance to step back from the machine, stumbling a little the moment he stood back on the floor. It was so dark, he could barely see his hands. The bright reds and pinks of the tall pirate greatly stood out against the black beside the chrome utensils and ovens surrounding them.

"THIS!" The fox declared, shoving its hook into the lock of the door and yanking it open.

"BE DAVY JONES'S LOCKERRRRR!" it spun around gesturing to the newly revealed room, illuminated by a dim light once the door flung aside.

"...That's a cooler-"

"DAVY JONES be one of tha' greatest pirates ta' ever live, but even he an' tha' Flyin' Dutchman ain't a match fer the cunning of a fox!"

Maybe this will make sense eventually?

"Normally tha' whole crew's gotta' pitch in ta' earn their cut of tha' loot." Foxy started.

It pulled the small bird from its shoulder and placed it on the pad of the brown coat; it made a clearly prerecorded squawk and ruffled its plastic feathers by his face. 'Polly want a cracker!' it chirped. Was there a plate in the trench coat's shoulders? Or just something it could stick to? That would explain why he felt so weighed down when he woke up.

... Actually, that's pretty par for the course for me...

"But me bird likes ya, so I'll do yee a favor!

What'cha got yer hopes up fer, lad? A biscuit stolen from tha' now-sunken ship of a British Seadog? The croissants of a wretched French Admiral? Some chicken snatched from ol' Black Beard's lunch? Maybe a slice of ham Jones grabbed off a seasick farmer? Davy's world be yer oyster!"

"...Something edible?" He shrugged. Figures he'd be randomly put on the spot just minutes after waking up.

"Not a very picky one, arrgh ya? Well then..."

The fox's claws lurched to his side, grabbing the cutlass hanging by his hook and waving it in the chilled empty space above its s pierced ears. It turned back to the open cooler, pointing the sword into the dim light and charging inside.

"C'MERE JONES, YEH CRUSTY OL' PEE-PAW!"

Gregory only stood silently in place, the plastic bird spouting the occasional voice line or chirps in his ear as he bore witness to the haphazard scattering of boxes, tupperwares, condiment bottles, and the clanging of metal. Even the plastic sword toppled around the tile floors, bouncing off the doorframe then spinning and skidding to the boy's feet, stopping at his mildew-filled shoes. He couldn't stop a stupid grin growing over his face and a small chuckle bubbling up through his throat. This is ridiculous! The grin expanded into a bright smile, wider than he'd ever smiled before, though that wasn't saying much.

It almost felt as unnatural as being held, his cheeks and chapped lips hurt more than usual. Another chuckle escaped his yellow teeth, then another, and another. He laughed. Somehow, he actually laughed at something. His lungs burned, he couldn't breathe, but he just kept laughing at this insane robot with the most out-of-place theme an eighties-based mall could have. His chest convulsed, hacking phlegm into his mouth. Was there blood mixed in as well? Probably. Gregory fell to his knees, scraping them for at least the third time that day. The fox returned with a precariously stacked pile of containers in its arms.

"Grab me sword, cabin boy! We gotta turn port ta' starboard 'fore he gets back up!"

They ran, gunning it for the exit to the kitchen, or rather, Gregory tried to. The hacker's body ached like he'd been broadsided by a line of canons, he could barely tell which way was up before he was halfway across the room. Gregory's feet were too cold and numb for him to tell if he was touching the ground, he couldn't seem to breathe no matter how much air he greedily swallowed in his pursuit of the rogue fox. Once they reached the door he tried to call out to the fox to slow down, but only the choked pleas of an enflamed throat left his mouth before his vision doubled and all went black.

--- 👁 ---

'Private Message Received - Prize Puppet, Topic - One Job:

• All you had to do was grab some food, water, and blankets.
• Just until the others were distracted.
• You already trashed a cooler.
• I left you unsupervised for ten minutes.
• You're a menace to polite society.

High Priority:
• I'm just calling it the Blob until we agree on something better.
• Yes I know that's not a priority message.
• No I'm not sorry.
• The Blob has not changed position, do not descend into the Pizzaplex.
• The Kraken is currently unaccounted for, but most likely around Parts and Service.
• It's almost time for the power reset.
• I lost my plush, did you take him hostage again?
• He was a gift from Evan.
• If you hurt Psychic Friend Fredbear I'm confiscating your AAs.
• Stop looting the Pupper Queen's coffers.
• *Puppet.
• I'M MAD! >:( '

--- 👁 ---

The fox jostled Gregory awake, though the boy wished it didn't. It stared down at him, carrying the boy in his free arm and supporting his legs with its hook. Tied up in the big brown coat, the many plastic containers clattered together. It set him down on his feet near a large red tube and stone fountain.

"Thar ya arrgh, lad. I was gettin' worried the sirens gave ya tha black spot!"

"...Why are you being so nice to me?" Gregory eventually wondered aloud.

"A real captain always has his good eye on tha crew, and his last hand around their shoulders." Foxy didn't hesitate.

"Listen, laddie. Can ya hear tha cacklin'?" He asked.

Gregory strained his hearing, but found nothing. His ears may have been the one part of him not in pain or without a major problem, aside from the expected numbness, that much he was sure of. Though, this was an incredibly advanced animatronic, he could probably sense a lot of things better than a human.

He shook his head.

"Ahh, then I'll hafta look out fer ya."

Foxy pulled the plastic flintlock from his belt, pulling back the lever at the top with a satisfying click and flipping it in his claws, grabbing it by the barrel and handing it to Gregory.

"Tha laughs be tha man on tha moon! He be a nasty sea slug I've done battle with plenty a night. Me First Mate be ready to bring back tha Sun if he shows up, but I'll need ta step inta tha brig over thar fer her ta do tha."

He pointed his hook to the large tube, it had a blue lightning bolt painted over it and a round porthole at the animatronic's eye level. Gregory nodded. Apparently we're doing this now.

"When he shows his ugly mug, aim fer an eye. I can tell yer a capable lad, so I'm leavin' ya with me most trusty gun." He explained.

Gregory glanced down to the flintlock nestled in his palm, then back to Foxy.

"...This is a prop-"

"He's comin' quick, cabin boy! Hide 'fore he tries ta toss ya overboard!"

The fox bounded for the red tube, pulling it closed around him with his hook. With little else to do, Gregory ducked behind the fountain. The gun sat strange in his fingers, clearly made for a hand much bigger than his own. Clicks and whirrs of a poorly-optimized endoskeleton clattered around the wide hall. It passed by his spot, just missing him behind the decoration. Its thin legs were covered by baggy pants with stars and bells jingled from its wrists and collar. The Moon's neck craned around an unstable set of rods acting as its neck, shining its red and purple eyes onto the boy. Before it could so much as get a word in, he pointed the gun and shot.

With a cartoony 'bang' and a short flash of light. The Theater Attendant seized up, every wire firing all at once. Light filled the room a second later. Foxy burst out of the red tube a second later, picking up the intruder and resuming his run down the hall with a bright laugh. A large shudder blocked their path for a second, but began lifting automatically as the fox approached. It was too dark for him to see where they were, but the ground was squishy and the vague outline of many cutouts surrounded them. With another hearty laugh the pirate turned to the boy, taking back his gun and returning it to his holster.

"So tell me, lad, what be me new mate's name?" He asked.

"...I... I'm Gregory..."

--- 👁 ---

Gregory shot up, lightheaded and startling Freddy just behind him. He could distantly hear the bear trying to talk to him, but never registered what he was saying. That dream hurt. It hurt more every time, but crying about it wouldn't change anything.

...I miss him...

Chapter Text

'I need some work done. 5 tokens, 10 to keep your mouth shut.'

The simple message shook his spine, as it always had. They were always so bland, so vague. Mr. Burrows never specified anything, claiming he didn't want anyone to be able to pull information from the texts; whether he was paranoid or cautious, Gregory wasn't paid to wonder. He slowly got to his feet, heavy eyes still pinned to his Fazwatch while his mind raced. On one hand, this man likely had a hand in hunting Mono and Six, there had to be more to such a standard request than he was letting on; on the other, he needed to stay on his good side, or he was back to scavenging for scraps in the rain and cold.

His options had never been great, not once in his life, but Freddy was making this particular choice especially difficult. He didn't want to let the bear down, but he needed something in his stomach and a roof over his head. There may not be another chance to keep his place in the Pizzaplex. He could feel the Entertainer's eyes burning a hole in his back; although he thought it may not be out of anything malicious, he wasn't sure, and that made the hairs on his neck stand straight and brought a sweaty sheen over his forehead almost as much as the message.

"What is wrong, superstar?" Freddy asked.

What to tell him?

"...I-I need to take this." He shivered.

"Has the person pretending to be Mr. Burrows contacted you again?"

What he doesn't know won't hurt him. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. What he doesn't know-

"...Yes..."

Dammit!

"You are going to burn yourself out, Gregory, please lie back down."

His voice was so warm. Why does this big bear still bother with him? Why insist on being there for the boy who'd been inviting this monster inside? He must want something, everyone did, but whatever others wanted from him at least made sense. Still, going back to sleep sounded good; he wanted a bed, even a rickety old one with cotton-covered springs sticking out of the mattress and stabbing his back.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd been forced to fall asleep on something akin to a pile of trash, or just a garbage bag full of glass, even the concrete was quite comfortable, but he didn't have that luxury at the moment. In the time it would take to wait for Mono and Six to get back with the replacement collar swivel, he could get Mr. Burrows off his back, getting those two out of here would be much easier without the man trying to hunt him as well. At least Six could run and Mono could hide, all Gregory could do was lock himself in a Security Office until the power went out.

"I can't... He'll throw me out..."

"Do not worry, I will keep you safe." Freddy tried to calm him.

"You're barely functional, and you can't even see the Rabbit Lady."

"Perhaps, but we can manage, I promise."

"... I'm sorry, but I'm dead if I don't make them happy..."

Why does this hurt? This shouldn't hurt! We just barely started working together!

"...Very well, but only for your own safety... Just do not do anything too major, superstar, stay safe."

Why does he care?

"...Okay... I'll be back as quick as I can."

--- 👁 ---

This weird ring is already being insufferable, and we don't even have it yet.

For almost twenty minutes they'd been wandering the maze of concrete halls and disorganized metal shelves of unidentifiable equipment, the only details they could discern about the countless, frustratingly similar pieces of animatronics across the Pizzaplex, was that none of them were what they needed. The yellow-raincoated girl's apparent inability to see red, as discovered and instigating a small argument when being quiet was most important, didn't help.

The lights within the tiny pupils of the many scattered endoskeletons only dully illuminated the whites of their eyes, leaving the rest of their bodies to easily blend in with the background. They were fairly obvious enough, to Mono, but Six just recently learned she couldn't couldn't tell the difference between multiple colors, the machines were mostly hidden to her. They'd always been able to agree on a set, single direction to explore or run to, but now the entire basement of this colossal building was open to them and there was no telling where they had and hadn't checked.

Where in the world were they supposed to go next? Some kids had a better sense of direction than others, but it rarely came in handy when fleeing a threat unless there was already a plan to do something; which was usually a terrible idea, time spent planning to get rid of a problem was better used plotting to avoid the attacker all together. As such, the deathly thin girl was the first to suggest they go back to the Puppet and look over the basement areas with fresh eyes later, as they'd collected a small assortment of lost items around the building.

Various shirts, plushies, and posters had been stuffed into a nearby vent before they searched for Freddy in the raceway, and they hadn't even returned to properly search the Lobby yet. A small mass of shirts and plush toys sat uncomfortably in Mono's arms. Almost every few seconds, at least one of them would take a sweeping look around the room. They hadn't seen or heard anything yet, but neither of them were stupid enough to let their guard down for a second.

She'd never admit it to anyone, except maybe Mono himself; but her muscles tensed, the hairs on her neck stood straight, her palms coldly clammed up, her breathing hastened, and her heart rate spiked without being able to hold his hand. He soothed her. She didn't understand how, or care, really, but he did. Until they got rid of this stockpile of cheap clothing and soft toys she'd be denied of that relaxing sensation she'd come to depend on. Being so close to someone was never something she'd allow herself to do before the mess at the Tower, attachments are dangerous, but worth it for him.

He made it all worth it, he made everything okay, he made life worth tolerating beyond the most basic drive to persist despite their surroundings and curses. It was finally possible to sleep with him on watch, it was finally possible to laugh at or beside him, it was finally possible to smile with him by her side, it was finally possible to enjoy their time on this twisted world if she could spend it with him. He was kind no matter how many times she dropped him, he was so infinitely considerate that she'd started looking after him in turn, he could be trusted with every fiber of her being.

Part of her worried he wouldn't return the feeling, the other truly believed he did.

Whatever the answer was, she didn't care, she couldn't leave him behind ever again, even if it got her killed, because life finally meant something.

As soon as they opened the door to the arcade, the few distant neon lights flickered and Six was nearly thrown to the ground by her stomach flipping. It felt like her gut was being ripped inside out, like the acid was being spilled into the rest of her body, slowly digesting itself like she was the very flesh of the many Guests she'd slaughtered in an instant. While it was far different from her dreaded hunger, that always burst from her core, the bile crawling up her throat was unfortunately no less familiar, but thankfully far more manageable. Just another part of being her. Her mouth dried out and watered, but she swallowed back the stinging burn in the back of her throat. Mono tried to help her stay balanced, doing little to help with all the random merchandise clutched in his grasp, but it was appreciated anyway. Then he started to stumble as well, his artic blue eyes squinting in pain behind his mask.

"Is it time for hide and seek?"

The distorted Rabbit began to follow just behind them, her near-silent footsteps softly thudding behind them. An echoing stomp started following them into the dark room. In an instant the tiny handful of lights went out, plunging the room into perfect darkness. Although their night vision wasn't as reliable in these conditions, it wasn't hopeless. The Entertainer following them wouldn't be able to catch them that easily, but they needed to keep an ear out for it while weaving through the tall boxes between them and the Bunny. Mono couldn't just use his powers to block the red field out, his static would completely expose him in the black. Six, the insane survivalist she was, made a point to memorize this area the best she could once the Puppet made it clear they could return for supplies. Nobody was nearly as effective at exploiting a resource for all its worth as she was, and since the room was mostly just a line with tall screen boxes dispersed in a simple pattern, it wouldn't be too hard to dash between rows of the game boxes on her own.

Six grabbed the sleeve of Mono's trench coat and pulled him behind a set of arcade cabinets. She could hear the faint ringing of the Rabbit's special power, or curse, as it passed by multiple lines of metal towers. A bright white splotch shambled through the hall of games before them, a set of violet eyes following a yellow beak as it stabbed the empty shadows, searching for prey more like a soaring hawk than a pecking chicken, though she lacked the effective eyes she needed to find the pair. That madwoman, however, had some way to see them despite all light being ripped out of the building, it would be too easy to get reckless moving around Chica and drawing the knife-wielding adult right to them. She couldn't allow the twisting in her stomach to distract her from getting Mono out of there, she wouldn't let him down again, she couldn't let him down again.

He clutched the stuffed mascots to his chest, soaking the shirts with tears as he buried his face into them, anything to block out the red buzz cracking open his skull and crushing his brain. Six fiercely pinched the filthy brown trench coat, practically dragging Mono behind her and painfully wrapping an arm around her gut, desperately keeping its contents down until she could get the boy away. The Puppet wouldn't help them, would she?

This would be the perfect time to ditch them with those monsters, just as Freddy could've at the Daycare, but what other choice did they have? She did what she could to balance running across the tile hall with not-emptying her insides onto the tile. They traced the pitch black and glowing white wires above them as the aching blurred her sense of direction. The Rabbit would ebb closer, then dance away as they ducked behind another line of arcade machines.

Another burst of nausea racked her body. Her fingers slipped off Mono's coat as she doubled over, tumbling to her knees. Her hand loudly smacked the ground as she fell and sprayed spittle over the floor. The lights flickered, a dim sheen coating random parts of the arcade and neon signs flashing. Across the room from them, the Rabbit stumbled like she'd been hit in the face, nearly dropping her knife while she skipped. Her floppy ears swayed as she snapped her head around, sheathing her blade and almost flinging her mask off as she looked around.

Just as they noticed the woman had spotted them, Six turned away. There wasn't long before the girl was throwing up the remains of her disgusting lunch from Lost and Found, and they had that psycho on their tails now more than ever. She quickly grabbed Mono's collar and pulled him around more of the tall boxes. Soft, padded footsteps rapidly tapped the tiles behind them, but began getting further away followed by a strange click and a drawn-out hiss like scattering marbles.

The Bunny was running away from them; having abandoned her goofy and ecstatic demeanor and gunning it for the exit.

Chica rushed past them, but she wasn't running. With only one wide foot on the floor, she zoomed through the dark and between arcade machines like she was sliding, easily as fast as Roxanne. The machine rebounded between rows and columns, quickly pushing herself off the games. One by one the few still-powered boxes started flickering around them, they flashed with green static covering the face of the shattered, monstrous face of the Marionette with a fiery emerald glare. Chica seized up as she entered the view of one of the glitching arcade's cameras, wavering as she slid across its gaze and came to a rapid stop beside another row of machines. The Entertainer braced herself against the consoles, grabbing the joysticks and pressing buttons with her elbows while regaining her balance.

In the distance, the Lady froze, screeching to a halt just in front of the doors, out of the kids' sight. She clutched her head in pain, quickly running into a wall of Staff-bots blocking the path. Her distorted voice carried across the maze of games and into the ears of one fanatic survivalist. It almost sounded like she was snarling or growling.

"You're not supposed to hide, you're still it! Find them!" The static voice reprimanded, is she talking to herself?

Like an enthusiastic performer, she pulled her weapon from her belt and twirled it in her large gloves, spinning around and waving to the cold room as she searched.

The shudder doors to the Prize Counter clattered open, they were close.

Just don't vomit a little longer, we're almost there.

--- 👁 ---

Why does this feel so wrong?

Gregory trembled within the rusted, worn-out elevator. Every time the wood and metal lurched, a shiver ran through him. That alone would've felt normal enough, he was positive this thing would start careening downward with him in it, but now Freddy's words bounced around his head as he descended. I've never had a problem with this before. Even with kids potentially dying above him, the hacker had fallen in line with every request. All he asked was enough tokens to get something to eat; the various junk around the Pizzaplex had gotten him sick more than a few times, what little of sustenance there was had been locked behind doors and tokens, and anything remotely filling was sorely lacking in what he needed to survive.

His shoulders weighed him down, his knees were always on the verge of failing him, he was always so hungry, he was always so cold, he couldn't keep his eyes open, it was so hard to breathe, it hurt to think, it hurt to do anything. Sometimes, though, a soggy or cold meal barely gave him the energy to keep going, thanks to this stranger who gave him a chance.

But now? He was on thin ice, about to fall through and drown. He hadn't been at so much risk of being thrown out since failing to break the animatronics' Safe Mode. It took three nights and two days freezing in the rain, being pummeled with hail until his back was raw, scavenging for anything valuable before he was allowed back in. But he came out stronger, the man had drilled that into his head before the doors unlocked. He did whatever he could to meet demands, but it was never more than mediocre, he'd come to accept that. But that was better than nothing, right? His foster 'families' never gave him the time of day Mr. Burrows did, he'd rarely stay in one place for over a month before his agent moved him, this stranger was the only one who'd ever given him such a chance before.

That's a good thing, right?

Doing things for people, expecting nothing in return, was something good, right? That's exactly what Mr. Burrows was doing for him, letting him into the Pizzaplex at all. Gregory's tokens were just for doing favors, he got to live here for free, thanks to the strange man. Mr. Burrows was making sure he got by, even when his creations constantly fell short. Wasn't that what friends and family did? Taking care of you, even though they knew you couldn't ever repay them?

He'd looked after Gregory in a way nobody else did, even though they'd never met face-to-face. Wasn't this place the closest thing he had to a house and family? Not like I deserve anything more. He'd thought he'd known, but then Freddy malfunctioned. Freddy wanted to keep him safe, even though he wasn't the one in danger, getting him to take a break even though the machine's head was disconnected from his body.

This is wrong, the bear was putting his faith in him, and he was on his way to help his enemy almost as soon as he awoke from his memory. This is wrong, Mr. Burrows was almost certainly one of the ones hunting Mono and Six. This is wrong, people are dying here.

This never bothered me before! I can't afford the privilege of worrying about right or wrong! What did that robot do to me? It's just a machine! It's not even a person! Why couldn't I just go back to sleep?!

The squeaky metal doors opened.

He knew the answer, of course; Six and Mono were like him. Most others who visited the Pizzaplex were decently well off, for an area with such a high cost of living, most of them taking the world for granted while he rarely had a meal a day. But here was a pair of kids in the exact same predicament he was. He could feel for someone for the first time since Cassie was abandoned on her birthday, he could understand in a way he thought he'd lost the empathy for, he connected to them, even though it wasn't reciprocated.

That connection brought him to Freddy, whom he'd never interacted with aside from secret maintenance and hearing children going wild when he visited the Kid's Cove while Gregory was trying to sleep behind the fake boat. At first, it was nothing special. He took a gamble at asking to be called 'superstar', Freddy obliged because he wanted information, it was normal, something he'd expect from anyone. Then it just kept coming, being called a superstar interchangeably with his name, and that warmth around his heart followed every single time.

A part of him wished he could just forget about the bear entirely, go back to the way things were, another was grateful that could never happen.

He was right on top of his latest assignment by the time he realized he was walking. It was one of his more... experimental creations. Two bodies of Security drones stacked on top of one another, taped and screwed in place. The bottom tripod of legs bent more than the top, as it wasn't strong enough to carry the entire machine on its own, leaving the upper half of the base to stand much taller than the three lower legs. In place of cameras were the bodies of six Staff-bots hotwired together, four of them holding various knives, hammers, and drills; the remaining two had their heads and an arm replaced with cameras, ready to cast their laser lights as soon as they were powered.

At the moment, one of the camera lenses had been shattered. It would be pretty annoying to replace, but wouldn't take long; he'd grown to loathe the simplicity of such menial swapping of parts, they were too easy and lacked the extra creative edge he always tried to add to his creations. Of course, it never impressed his employer, but he had fun before it was time to show it off, that small glimpse of joy lasted him most of the night. He got to work, removing the damaged lens and checking for internal damage.

Would he notice if one of its arms went missing?

--- 👁 ---

The Rabbit woman ran across the dark hall, her torso turned to the cameras and arms beside her head making jazz hands, taunting the inanimate eyes as her strange red signal protected her, only to nearly trip over herself as she entered the sights of one of the arcade machine cameras. The box cast a bright green light into her back, and the woman clutched her head in pain, immediately losing track of her prey and animatronic helper. Through the bubbling growl in her stomach, Six grabbed Mono's coat and dragged him into the Prize Corner. She almost crashed into the Puppet's box as she blindly clambered between the many displays.

In a split second the chicken was after them, rushing the pair with incredible speed and sliding across the floor like she had wheels for feet. The Entertainer skidded to a halt just outside the massive shop, violently twitching in place like she was being electrocuted. Like Roxanne in the Daycare, something prevented Chica from entering the establishment, but they shouldn't take any chances with the Rabbit woman. Slowly but surely, and painfully, another burst of bile began to build in Six's stomach. I can't keep this up much longer.

With a big twirl and a jump, the Bunny stood before the open entrance. She took a seat on the cold tile, crossing her legs and keeping her hands in the 'bowl' the position created. Her ears bounced as she waved her head side-to-side like an overly giddy child. The knife most certainly sat between her legs as well, waiting patiently to be unleashed. The four remained in silence as the animatronic still couldn't notice her companion. Without the need to hide, Mono gladly flared his abilities, dulling the bone-splitting pain and moving to Six's side. Since the Huntress had so suddenly paused her pursuit, he slid off her hood and gently pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail as she started losing to her curse. I feel them squirming in my gut. Her skin pulled even tighter over her intestines, burning like it tore open.

They couldn't hear a music box.

A sickening black mist surrounded many of the larger toys and stands. The heavy boxes and figurines soared through the air at the animalistic beings. Chica stumbled backward, her head spinning around and feet sliding away like they were the wheels of a trolley. While the machine eventually wandered off, the Lady sat still, plushies and boxes bouncing off her. More shadows gathered around the thrown toys, bringing them back into the shop and coalescing around a random shelf. The stand flew through the air, the Rabbit immediately ducked under it, flinging herself to the tile floor and scrambling to her feet as a long arm grabbed a nearby machine. An arcade box blocked the Bunny's escape a moment before its plug popped out of its socket as the Marionette swung the arcade cabinet around herself, carrying the immense momentum to her other tendril and sending it after the Rabbit. She dove to the floor again and ran as the box crashed into a line of other machines.

Six gagged, her tiny throat darkened with black fog crawling up and out of her body. Black tears stung her face and oil dripped from her mouth. It always started with a painful cough, spewing dark spittle mixed with the gray dust of whatever non-flesh or life she'd eaten. Ashes of the chips and food bars soaked in dark mud, drained of all their energy, coated the floor. Knowing what came next, she took as deep of breaths as she could. Her chest pulsated, she choked on the sludge and the writhing inside of her slithered up her neck. With another heave she hacked up a trio of slimy black leeches. Mono patted her back, sending light shockwaves through her spine and forcing more oil out of her system. Six's face was slick and cold with sweat and sludge, the whites of her red eyes turning a vile gray with black veins.

It always took a little time for her limbs to stop feeling like jelly and darkened vision to return to normal. The three leeches inched around while Mono swung an arm behind Six's knees and the other behind her shoulders. She strained to pull her neck up and lay on his shoulder. Her eyes were so heavy, she hadn't been able to sleep all day or night, even Mono had managed a nap in Freddy's stomach before they were brought to his greenroom. The empty Faz-a-pult still strapped to her friend's arm uncomfortably poked her side, the boy having held onto it despite running out of balls to load into the pouch and shoot at robots or distractions, he quickly adjusted and pulled her tightly against his chest. His heartbeat nearly drove her to sleep as it slowed and calmed. There's no time for a break, we have a job to do.

"You can manipulate Agony?" The Puppet asked.

They both turned to her, tilting their heads in unison like kittens, as they'd done when Freddy first asked about their 'profiles'.

"... Agony is a powerful force." She explained, levitating and killing the leeches.

"It tends to latch onto nearby objects or viable bodies, but to those that come to understand it, whether through their own research or coming across others' notes, it can do nearly anything from being a power source to imitating life. I've taken much time to learn about it, and it's served me well.

But you seem to have a natural connection to it, I wonder what might happen if you learned what I now know."

Six immediately shook her head; the Puppet may somehow be comfortable with her curse, despite how utterly ridiculous it was to suggest she looked into this 'Agony' willingly, but Six wasn't so reckless. The Marionette didn't rip apart her only friend's arm during an episode. Their host stepped, or floated, back, keeping calm and inquisitive eyes on the pair. She simply hovered in place, thinking. Shadows gathered around her three-fingered hand and whirled around her striped arm.

"Whatever has happened to you, it shouldn't stop you from getting to know your gift-"

"This isn't a gift!" Six's raspy, burning voice carried across the room.

"... Perhaps..." The Marionette lifted her mist-covered hand, emitting ribbons of dark winds in a small tornado of Agony.

"But if you allow yourself to look from a new angle... To change your perspective, make the most of the cards you've been dealt, even despite all that is wrong..."

The haze faded away, being replaced with something... wonderful... The same strange power that was hidden behind the Rabbit's suit and a film of Agony, always just barely within Six's grasp, but somehow out of reach. Something delicious.

"...Then you may finally discover something new and great about your abilities...something truly incredible..."

Out of the mass of black, a small light grew. It was bright enough to cast a few separate, tiny rays around the room, but dim enough not to hurt the children's eyes. A swirling, silvery mass warped and bulged, levitating between the Marionette's sharp and curved fingers like it was being pulled in several directions. Small white streaks rippled over the abstract, mercury-like mass, surrounded by a gentle white glow that cast little to no light, like the stripes on the wires over the arcade. Six was immediately enraptured; staring blankly at the watery energy like a hypnotized Viewer. She managed to leave Mono's grasp and reached for the bubble, stumbling as her legs recovered from her sickness.

She'd lost control.

Though the Puppet's laugh sounded more like she was choking, she giggled as she waved the spec around the room, driving the girl to chase it like an animal following a red dot. It didn't last long, she hadn't manifested here to tease these kids, but something specific down in parts and service caught her attention.

Chapter Text

Freddy did his best to look around, searching for the source of a harsh scratching. His head remained stuck in the support clamp, almost all his wires were intact, just waiting for the collar swivel to be put in place so Gregory could finish the connections and switch out the last of the frayed cords. While he wished Gregory remained in the maintenance tube, enjoying a long-overdue nap without the stresses of rationing his next meal or figuring out how long he had until he could try to sleep through the loud echoes of guests around the Pizzaplex, it was best the boy wasn't here. The high-pitched scratch of metal on metal screeched around the Parts and Service chamber, bouncing around the dark room and within the bright container. The bright spotlight above him prevented his eyes' automatic lighting adjustments from clearing up the confusion. Every echo made it a little harder to tell where the sound was coming from, but it kept getting closer, slowly approaching from the black.

He couldn't see it, his eyes couldn't adjust, he couldn't hear where it was, the sound was coming from everywhere. Although he couldn't tell exactly where, Freddy knew in his circuitry it was right on top of him. Loudly clattering to the ground, a ceiling vent crashed just outside the service cell. Nothing fell to the concrete after it, instead, the clicks and whirrs of barely functioning motors and the shocks of rusted wires trying to carry currents across a battered endoskeleton resounded. The incessant clicking got faster, like the entity was moving quicker than its servos and pistons should've allowed. A sharp hiss came from just above the operating container like compressed, stale air escaping an empty hydraulic that certainly shouldn't have been able to move, yet clearly creaked as it carried and pushed forward something powerful and big.

A low hiss came from above, like Monty when he just barely missed a hole-in-one or lost to one of their canine companions, yet lacking his friendly and competitive undertone. Like nightmarish, metallic breathing, a deep and raspy groan or snarl joined the weighty but muffled steps of many different legs across the top of the bear's container. The light above Freddy flickered, going out and plunging him into the black, then flickering back on before his sensors could adjust. A strange green glow replaced the spotlight. Though the bulb was never modified to change color in any way, it wasn't the most unnerving thing he'd witnessed tonight; between two of the children under his protection possessing supernatural qualities, one of them taking a bite out of Vanny (which he was certainly not excited to properly address), an invisible Bonnie-themed serial killer who supposedly murdered the founder of his company, and his friends revealing the deaths and disappearances of various therapists and children. He considered he was doing quite well, if only because he wasn't programmed with or learned a bad response.

More green light came from the service computer, just beyond his vision. Whatever had happened, it drove the container door to seal shut on its own. He hadn't been put in Maintenance Mode and all of his safety procedures were still active, the door shouldn't have been able to close without him being prepared and an engineer present. Just before the reinforced barrier locked him inside, several dark wires dangled from the roof of the glass prison. They were covered in dirt and mud, in rust and mold, in dust and the wet sheen of drying water. Broken casings protected the large cords, simple rings made of some lightweight and corroded metal, the gaps in which revealed glimpses of ball-joint rotors allowing them to move like tentacles despite them all being hopelessly clogged by molten plastic. The scorched and cracked remains of plastic rings with wire-organizing clips clung to molten rubber, hanging on in the withering where the possibly tin or aluminum cases peeled away.

From the split ends of the wires, jade green strands of copper prodded the tough glass, poorly held together by the melted and droopy lines of what once was their rubber coatings, the blend of its color-coded mesh having swirled into a gross and slimy black over the entire body. More air hissed behind the door as the tubes moved, flexible and unnaturally fluid, like Six before she lunged at Vanessa. A stiff and rigid limb smacked the glass, dragging a set of claws over the window; the five fingers were drenched in malformed rubber and grime, tipped with triangular steel caps connected to rusted springs holding the smudged yellowish-white rods acting as its frame. Another two pieces of off-white framework were melted into the mass of rubber and tubes connected to a tarnished chrome ball joint. It swung back and struck the door, leaving a small web of cracks and sending sharp glass chips to the floor. Then, after a short minute, it slowly retracted.

"Who is there? You cannot be here, you must exit the Mega Pizzaplex once the doors open!" He called.

It obviously knew he was in there, and wouldn't care about his warnings, but the star performer was more looking for a sign of Glamrock-level AI than a real response. If the intruder was able to speak, it said nothing, silently retreating to another part of the large tube. He could barely see the mass reaching down from one side, stretching behind the service computer and grabbing Gregory's duffle bag. Though the quiet sound didn't penetrate the glass, he could guess it was pulling open the zipper and searching inside. Eventually it withdrew again, grasping something bright orange and pulling it upward. With many more footsteps, the figure rattled the roof and made for the elevators.

"STOP! THAT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU! RETURN IT THIS INSTANT!" He shouted, while it was impossible to tell what was stolen, it belonged to Gregory. With how little the boy possessed, that could've been something important to him.

Though he couldn't crane his broken neck to spot them, he could hear the doors slide open and shut.

--- 👁 ---

The rickety elevator stuttered and shook as it brought Gregory up to the Pizzaplex. Sweat stuck his hands to his khakis and shivers crawled up his spine as the frayed steel cables tugged the lift upward. In the corner of the cramped space sat the severed arm of his Staff-amalgamation, still clutching a weighty meat mallet well suited for caving in a child's skull. Anxiety coursed through him for sure, but so did a sort of excitement. He'd both directly and distantly witnessed the deaths of multiple children, but now? It might not be much, it probably wouldn't save anyone's life, but it was something. Never before had he had an issue with this, it was their lives or his, plain and simple. They'd all wanted to live, but only one could see the next day, he had the skills to get him there, but they didn't. No matter how horrible he knew it was, he reminded himself he couldn't afford to stop. Then Freddy just had to get in his head, and now he'd shifted the odds.

It was stupid.

He could lose everything for this.

But for the first time in his life; he didn't fall short, he wasn't pushed away or put down, he might even make Freddy proud of him.

Because Gregory finally did something right. Even when he'd thought he couldn't afford to.

The elevator came to a stop, but the doors remained closed. He couldn't stop shivering. Was something wrong? Was this scrap lift about to give out? Gregory looked around, nothing looked out of place and he couldn't tell if anything outside had snapped. Then the speakers came to life.

"Gregory..." Mr. Burrows started.

"Y-yes sir?" He asked.

"Stop stuttering, you're not some pathetic little child locked in after hours, speak up."

"R-right! Right! What do you need?" He asked again.

"Why are you helping them?"

"... I-I don't know what you're talking about." Nice one, idiot.

"You're a terrible liar, Gregory, get a hold of yourself! Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"N-no-" He choked.

"Do you think so little of me, that you could betray me so easily?"

"I didn't want to-" This is it.

"Oh, so now we're onto what you want? Is everything all about you, now?"

"N-no! I-I-" He's getting rid of me.

"You what? Did you want to play both sides? See what you could get away with? What are you trying to accomplish?"

"I-I just w-wanted to h-help! I d-didn't mean t-to-" He's gonna cut the elevator.

"Didn't mean to what? To hurt me? Make me mad? It doesn't matter what you meant, it matters what you did. What you did was betray all the trust I've put in you. What you did was take everything I've given you for granted. What you did was prove you're spoiled, disloyal, and dishonest to the one that has taken you in, clothed you, sheltered you, and fed you no matter how wasteful it is to spend anything on you."

"I-I-I'm s-sorry-" Tears streamed down his face, he's about to kill me.

"Sorry? You're sorry? No, what you are is even more meaningless than the animatronics on our stages. Did I let that stop me from taking you in? Did I do the smart thing and cast you aside like the rest of the world?"

"N-n-n-" He tried to speak, but no words would come out.

"No, I gave you a chance to make something of yourself. Are you going to waste it?"

"N-no!" He sobbed.

"No, you're going to fix this mess and make yourself useful. Now quit crying like an infant and stay away from those kids!"

"B-but Freddy said i-it was okay-" WHY DID I DO THAT WHY DID I DO THAT WHY DID I DO THAT

"Freddy's a machine! It's not a person! It's not even alive! None of them are! Their lives don't matter any more than yours! They don't even have lives! They're programmed to tell you what you want to hear, not what you need."

"I-I know-"

"Then start acting like it. You aren't just some kid like anyone else, you're here for a reason. Crying makes you weak. I'm doing everything I can to make you something greater, I'm not about to have you undo that with a bunch of incessant wailing."

Gregory choked and sniffled. He tried getting a hold of himself, but his body continued to shiver and shake with painful hiccups.

"Gregory, listen to me." Mr. Burrows commanded, his voice unusually soft.

"I'm only doing this to prepare you. I know you've seen how the world works, throwing you scraps and tossing you to the streets. I'm just an old man, I won't be around much longer; I took you in, and I'm making sure you're ready for when I'm not around to support you anymore. Got it?"

...

"Gregory, listen to my voice."

"...I-I will..."

"Stay the course."

"...I will..."

"Don't let anyone lead you astray."

"I won't."

"Good, now stay away from those two."

The doors opened.

...I can't...

...I can't abandon them now...

...

..wait...

...They aren't people...

...They're just robots...

...They don't matter...

...Mono and Six matter...

...But the rest are just robots...

--- 👁 ---

The metal shudders closed and frigid black slime dripped off Six's face as she wobbly stumbled after the glowing dot of silvery-white energy. She brought up an arm to wipe it away, smudging it over the sleeve of her raincoat as she blinked away the oily tears fogging her vision. Every joint felt weak and numb, from her bruised ankles to her fingertips, but she still reached for the levitating orb. Her claw-like nails latched around the amorphous ball. The energy warped around her hand like she was squeezing a shining metal water balloon. It shimmered in her palm, sticking to her fingertips and spreading flat over her wrist. It was hard to tell how it felt; like it was warm to the touch yet so unbelievably cold it sucked the heat out of everything around it, it buzzed and hummed with beautiful power despite sitting completely still and devoid of all energy but the dim light that cast no glow to the room around them.

She crushed the silver mud between her hands, it bubbled and oozed through the gaps of her fingertips and slid over her scarred skin like tiny snakes. Six pulled the small mass apart, if it could be called a 'mass' with how impossibly weightless it was. Two smaller spheres sat between her hands, connected by a long strand of 'material' that was both clearly grounded in reality and didn't exist at all. Ripples and swirls of white light sparkled and shifted hypnotically; casting small waves across the supernatural matter like the swing of a pendulum, floating back and forth like the sway of a metronome, spinning around the silver string like the calm ticking of a pocket watch, sending soothing platinum rays into her scarlet eyes like Mono's arctic blue static. It sat frozen in space in her grasp like it was beckoning her, waiting for something to happen, waiting for her to rip into it. She couldn't think straight enough to stop her red irises from spreading across her eyes or her pupils bursting into black tendrils, and not through lack of trying.

Just like when her curse swelled into an attack or purged the food she couldn't digest, the lights flickered and dark drool filled her mouth, but the searing pain in her core didn't appear, no pain began spreading through her impossibly thin body. Whatever this freezing-warm energy was; it eased the ache in her cramped fingers like a massage, it dug into her mind like a spiral putting her into trance, it didn't react to or move away from the dark mist and abyssal ribbons of Agony that surrounded her. She could hold it without worrying it would run away or be taken from her. She could smell and taste it without her nose or tongue. She could feel it not through her fingers, but her very essence. She could bite it.

Six's fangs sunk into the silver-white cord.

The yellow-coated girl shivered, her whirlwind of black fog coiling faster over and around her skeletal body. Streaks of Agony coalesced from her surroundings and pierced directly through her ribcage, gathering inside her. Two sharp pairs of incisors latched onto the metallic strand of glowing white energy and pulled it apart. She tore apart the mass, the connective string splitting in two, one still attaching the shining orbs in her hands, the other hopelessly locked between her jaws like a mouse caught in a bear trap. The force didn't move, nothing squirmed between her teeth. It would've been disappointing had she not been so hungry all of a sudden. This isn't supposed to happen, I'm never hungry before an attack. Although she couldn't taste it with her tongue, she could tell it was good, like the fuzz in her chest during a hug from Mono. She wanted more, she needed it, it doesn't matter how she gets it, so long as there's more.

She'd lost control.

In an instant she threw her head back. The wire stuck on her fangs snapped in an instant, dissolving down her throat as she wound up for another bite. Her fangs scratched her fingernails as she forced down one of the orbs, severing the remaining string in the process. The small amount of mass quickly retreated into the remaining sphere like a broken rubber band, before she devoured it just as mercilessly. The black haze in her mind steadily cleared, letting her once again feel the dull ache all over her body. As the silver dispersed into her, the burns and bruises and scars subsided, almost numb. She could feel the carpet beneath her feet, the soft Puppet shirt and sweatpants over her dirty and abused skin, her beloved raincoat rubbed her sweat and oil-covered forearms, but it took some time for the sting of her worst cuts and scrapes to return. In her lucidity she did a quick check of herself, a few of her minor injuries had mostly faded; some slivers of lost flesh were scabbed over here, a rash had calmed down there, even a bruise seemed to shrink and she'd almost forgotten about her ever-present headache.

Was that what it's like, to not be in pain?

--- 👁 ---

"Interesting." The Puppet thought aloud.

The animatronic pretender tapped its porcelain chin with a floppy, tentacle-like finger, then floated above him. Her strings pulled tight and her rails clattered along the grid above them as she returned to her giant box. Six swayed where she stood; eyes heavy as ever, arms limp at her sides, and wobbly knees buckling. Mono was there in an instant, lunging for her. In the blink of an eye she was leaning against him, but somehow, he didn't remember running. He'd stuck out his cyan static-stained hand and had pulled her into him before he knew what happened. Mono turned to the Marionette as he shifted Six's concerningly light weight, but she was facing the other way, she wouldn't have seen what occurred. Before him, a shadow lifted the abandoned items they'd brought to trade, as well as a pair of orange and blue presents from behind the living machine. She sent the boxes in front of them and handled the rest of their rewards, draping her tendrils over the edge of the box like she was crossing her arms.

"Two cheap mascot name shirts - 10 tokens.

A quality cartoon shirt - 12 tokens.

Stuffed Monty and Chica toys - 10 tokens.

Well done!"

16 Tokens appeared in both of their accounts, as well as the 5 Six already had, there could be food or supplies waiting for them somewhere. Mono threw Six's arm over his shoulder and wandered around the Prize Counter; finding a small, vending machine-like box holding a variety of packages behind the glass. Trying to break into it would surely alert the Entertainers, as would disrupting it with his abilities or using it too much. Leaning his companion against the side, he reached to type on a pin pad, straining to read the instructions. The Faz-a-pult was still fastened to his side, despite him using the last ball to trigger the drone that drew away the Rabbit Lady in the lobby, and it was uncomfortable trying to keep it from poking Six as they walked.

The majority of the small stand held fairly worthless items, more so put behind the glass on account of them being small and easy to steal, rather than holding any true value; keychains, carabiners, pins, patches, stickers, packs of crayons and pencils, all organized by whichever character they were based on and none of them of value. There were, however, some packs of 'Fazer blaster batteries' and 'Faz-cam film' hung up beside many small boxes of tiny squeaky balls for his slinger. They were mostly containers of four themed around one specific animatronic, but there was an eight-pack of the main four, Foxy, a blue bunny, the Puppet, and a golden ball. He bought two, already spending ten tokens on ammunition. Maybe the batteries and film would come in handy eventually, but they couldn't use them yet, so he left them be and brought Six back to the Marionette. Six was the first to open a present, eager for something they could use. Inside was a small set of colored pencils and small erasers in the shape of the robot's heads. She looked tiredly at the Puppet and tilted her head like a kitten.

"Those'll make more sense when you open the other one." The masked girl explained.

Mono twisted the handle on the second box. It popped open with confetti and held a small notebook, a picture of the band covered the plastic front and a cartoony rendition of the Sun and Moon was on the back; a cold spiral of metal held the many, woodsy-smelling pages in place. They were all blank and pretty thick, lacking lines to write on. Maybe it was a sketchbook? Whatever it was, they didn't need to strain their voices outside of using the Fazwatches anymore, messy as their writing was. Mono gave a small, coarse 'thank you' while Six leaned into his shoulder. He took a seat on the carpet and coerced her to lie down on his lap. She rubbed her eyes, further smearing the oil tears and drool; Mono took a short moment to wipe her face with the sleeve of his trench coat and pull back her hood to stroke her hair.

'We need to get going.' She nodded her head to the closed shudder.

'You need a break.' He shook his head.

'I can't sleep like this.' She leered.

'Please just close your eyes.' He waved a hand in front of his face.

'And rest up until you're ready, okay?' He gave a smile through his mask.

'Then I want a hug.' She awkwardly pulled him closer.

Mono wrapped her in his arms. Six gave a small smile and kicked her feet as her eyes shut; predictably, she couldn't doze off, but an opportunity to steal Mono's attention and a warm hug was always much appreciated.

"You can stay here for a while, I will protect you, but it will return eventually. All it needs is a few extra Security Nodes to overwhelm my barrier, it's probably rounding up Monty or Roxanne. I recommend you leave through the vent, once you're ready to go."

'Thank you.' Mono scribbled on the sketchbook with the blue pencil; his writing was barely legible, and some of the letters were completely backward, but it got the message across.

'What do you mean by Security Nodes?' He asked.

"...They're hard to explain... They're collections of code that do different things to protect something. Sometimes they just lock doors, others they encrypt cameras. Some of them even electrify barriers, like the ones I have around the Main Office you confronted the Glitchtrap in.

Thank you, by the way, you made my job much easier..."

Six shot up from her spot. Glitchtrap?

"Don't worry about Glitchtrap. It's just the flawed reflection of an old grudge of mine, nothing of your concern. Your only focus should be escaping the Pizzaplex, it won't dare follow you too far beyond its hunting grounds or past nighttime.

But the second those doors open, run. Don't look back, never return to this place, don't even stop until you're on the other side of the city."

'I practically blinked! What'd I already miss?!' Six glanced to Mono.

'I can explain later, bedtime.' He booped her nose and she begrudgingly shut her eyes again, both of them stifling a giggle.

'Can it control people?' Mono wrote, this better not be another Tower situation.

The Puppet paused, taken aback without the context of the Signal, but willing to answer.

"It's tried to, but only ever succeeded once." She explained.

'The Rabbit Lady?'

"Exactly. I've seen it manipulate people before, but it can't get any further than changing their perception for a short time. That's how it's gone unnoticed by the dayshift for so long, they only see a few glimpses of a virus before it hides again.

That would also be why Gregory didn't notice the music playing until you forced it back... Somehow... It's not important, all that matters is that you're safe."

His Fazwatch jingled, directly next to Six's ear. Her brows furrowed as Gregory's voice came through the tiny speaker.

"Guys, I have an idea, what's the situation with the collar swivel?" He asked.

...

"...Guys?"

"Gregory."

The Marionette's mask tilted downward, her eyes turning vile and dark. Her gentle green pupils burned a harsh emerald, staring down the tiny screen like it was the young hacker himself. The signal-child could almost feel Gregory shivering behind the light signal.

"H-hey..."

"Hey? Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

...

"Tell me, Gregory, what've you told them about the other victims?"

"I-I-I don't-" Gregory started, but was quickly cut off by Mono.

"Don't even try that." His coarse voice hurt his throat; they already knew they couldn't trust the programmer, but they needed to know what was going on to make a plan.

"So nothing? Nothing about the 11-year-old you watched Freddy eat? Nothing about the innocent doctors trying to help you? The girls Roxanne ripped apart? The little boy Chica pecked to death like an animal? What of the twins Monty bit in front of each other? Or those the DJ crushed to a pulp?"

"I-I-... T-there wasn't t-time-"

"No time? Perhaps there's time to mention your little monsters in the depths? Everything you did to yours and Freddy's best friends? Maybe Foxy just didn't mean anything to you, after all?"

"H-he was my b-best friend!"

"Please, you can barely even say it."

"HE WAS!" He shrieked directly in Six's ear.

"Then why'd you have him put a hook in someone's skull?"

"That wasn't me!" Six winced, her eyes glowing red as they snapped open. Mono glared between the Puppet and his watch.

"It was you, whether through your actions or enabling another. You caused their deaths, living life like you're the only one who fights and struggles to live. What goes around comes around, Gregory...

...Do you remember any of their names?"

"W-wha-"

"Tell me their names, any of them, and I'll leave you alone... for now..."

"...A-A-Amanda... She was the o-one that Bonnie g-got..."

"The ONE...Bonnie murdered?"

"...I-I don't like keeping track of them... it h-hurts...T-they didn't do a-anything w-wrong... They w-were just here at the wrong t-time..."

"I know. Believe me, I know... It was Alex, by the way. She had a little brother, she got trapped in this hell because he lost his favorite toy and couldn't stop crying, so she remained to look for it.

He couldn't have been half Cassie's age, and his parents had to explain to him that his loving, brave, generous big sister was never coming home because of your twisted creation.

And you couldn't even get her name right, she's just another mark on the wall to you. Would you like to share why that is? Or should I?"

"I-I'm sorry... t-there's just s-s-so many..."

"Exactly... I don't know why you're so fond of these two, but aiding Mono and Six won't change the fact you could've saved all of them. Being afraid for your life, just trying to get by, is one thing. Do you truly think this can be justified?"

"I-I didn't h-have a choice! I w-was gonna d-die out there-"

"Enough. You could've left this damned place well enough alone the moment the snow started to thaw. You didn't. You could've stayed with me in the Prize Counter until you were ready, back when I had everything handled. You didn't.

You helped that demon. Now I've lost control and this is a place of broken families, I've seen it all happen before.

So don't you dare try to explain yourself at this point, I've seen more than enough, young Afton."

"...I-I-I don't know w-what that i-is..."

"...You will... You're just a little boy, so I may not come after you myself, but don't expect me to shield you from consequences..."

...

"...M-meet me at Freddy, w-when you two a-are r-r-ready..." His voice eventually squeaked out.

The call cut out.

Chapter Text

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to witness that. Are you okay?" The Puppet asked, her eyes softening at the pair.

Mono only nodded his head and encouraged Six to lie back down. Best to keep this brief, no telling when the Rabbit's coming back.

'You said something about Gregory hiding things in 'the depths?''

"Ah, those... They shouldn't come up, so far they've only been relevant when Glitchtrap's targets managed to get somewhere he doesn't want the Main Four or the Daycare Attendant going; usually by way of hopping a certain fence or accidentally breaking a safeguard on a specific elevator. They're much harder for me to tamper with than the Glamrocks...

I've seen you trying to fiddle with your watches, and technology in general... No offense, but you're not exactly 'stellar' with computers... Just don't touch anything you're overtly not meant to mess with and you'll probably never encounter them...

...Having said that, if you do come across them, and you'll know if you do, find a staircase, most of them are too scrappy and lopsided to maneuver them quickly..."

Good to know.

'Why don't you just kill the Rabbit Lady?' He asked. This seems like a very roundabout way of stopping her and the purple thing.

"Because it might not be necessary, you already know she isn't truly the one hunting you, I believe she's a good person. I don't want to kill her if I don't have to, but I can and will should the need arise... Also, she can't be so easily confused for the real culprit, we all made that mistake with Michael at least twice...

If you end up killing her, I won't get upset, but I'd appreciate if you keep an eye out for... an alternative route... if you believe there's a way to simply escape her..."

'Who's Michael?' Maybe, if he was a kid or anything like Freddy, he'd be willing to help?

"Not important right now, he's just an old friend."

'Why are you helping us? Freddy says it's the right thing to do, but never really says what the 'right thing' is.'

Neither of them had ever witnessed an adult concerned with morality before the bear, right and wrong only vaguely and occasionally applied to kids. What was right to an adult who shouldn't have cared for them? Was it not actually that different from kids? Or was it just another case of Freddy being an exception?

"...That's... A difficult question... Not one I can fully answer, it's complicated... Usually, it's good to help someone, to look out for people other than yourself, but there are some who don't deserve it or want to manipulate you... I'm afraid that's the best I can explain it..."

In an instant the Marionette's head snapped to the side, gathering a swirling wind of Agony as Six got to her feet. What's happening now? The lid of the white box creaked open, pushed back by no visible arm or tendril. The Puppet floated out of the crate, summoning yet more dark mist from the world around them.

"They're coming... But before you go, I've found a way you can flee.

There was an old birthday activity revolving around collecting Golden Plushies hidden around the Pizzaplex. It was run by an old Storyteller program that no longer exists, but many of the files weren't fully removed from the Main Systems.

The reward for finding them was Temporary VIP access, which would include the fire escape. There are seven toys in total. I left one by the vent opening for you, but you'll have to find the rest by yourself."

The shudder door rose with a distorted, digitized giggle.

"One last thing, you can call me Charlotte..."

At first, only Monty and Chica stood far apart before the door, snarling with claws flared and a beak limply hanging open, waiting for someone to tear into or devour. Mono and Six ducked behind some shelves, still keeping an eye on the pair as they carefully chose their path through the rows of stands and displays, avoiding the prying eyes of the machines just behind them. Monty was the first to lunge at the Puppet, immediately seizing up as he tried to cross the threshold into the large shop. Charlie wrapped an arm around his neck, the forelimb expanding further than a robot should've been able to. A black fog gathered around his body like a whirlpool as the tendril strained to lift him a foot off the ground. His tail and the sharp tips of his toes smacking and scratching the arcade tiles as he tried to shake her off. In a flash of green light the room filled with an electric buzz, drawing a pained roar from the suspended gator as forest green arcs burst from the swirling shadows.

Charlotte then turned her attention to the white chicken; lifting the animatronic with only a dark hurricane, much easier than the brutish alligator clutched in her other tendril. With a click, a set of wheels poked out from beneath Chica's feet. The winds dispersed and the Marionette stabbed the Entertainer right in the chest with her free limb, sending her rolling back into the arcade cabinets. The Puppet, with great effort, threw the thrashing gator into the chicken, toppling and crushing several game boxes. In an instant, she grabbed the thin air and pulled something into the Prize Corner, throwing it into a nearby shelf of figurines. Mono clutched his head like a knife had been driven into his brain, his eyes watered and burned like the Doctor's furnace, but he kept going. He summoned his abilities as they dashed behind another set of hangers, clearing his head enough to see the glitching red haze of the Rabbit Woman.

Six grabbed his hand and found another stack of plushies to hide behind, the vent wasn't far. The Rabbit got to her feet behind them, brandishing a long stick with a shape at the end; one side was broad and square, and the other had a narrow point like a hook. She swung at the Puppet, slicing through the air, but the machine was too fast, too light, it floated out of the way as quickly as Six could run. The oily black form was on the other side of the room when the woman started winding up for another strike. She leaped for her target, the dark tornado intensified around Charlie, disappearing the moment the weapon fazed through her blurry black cover. A surge of cold, dark air flung the Lady into another stand as the survivors made their way for the exit.

The Bunny didn't fall to the ground, landing on her feet like a cat and turning to the attacker. Hovering above the Puppet's three fingers was a burnt mask, a tainted purple bunny face covered in streaks of soot and swirling Agony, staring the murderer down with empty eye sockets centered by white dots for pupils. She threw it forward, turning it into a full phantasmal blue rabbit with countless burns and dark streaks down its limbs, missing one of its lower arms and holding its face in one hand, the casing for the fingers having peeled away into endoskeleton rods. From within its suit, black and white tentacles spewed out of the massive gap in its head and fractured arm like oily wires, surrounded by more small striped strands of Agony bursting from holes and tears in its costume.

The apparition pressed the Rabbit against the shelf again, vanishing into thin air as a high-pitched hiss resounded across the store. Both Mono and the Rabbit had their vision blocked by the scorched and smudged mask, his eyes and the madwoman's static disguise turning a sickly green. A black arm expanded to grab the blade in the woman's hand, wriggling through the air and tugging at the stick. Just before Six pulled Mono into the next room, she witnessed the Marionette strike the Rabbit's arm, reopening a very recognizable wound and turning the fabric dark red.

Another negative swarm appeared in Charlotte's hand, manifesting a scorched and aged Freddy head and tossing it behind the checkout counter. It became a burnt statue of the old incarnation of the bear, very different from their caretaker and missing an ear and leg, both with striped tendrils swaying around its missing appendages and gaps in its suit. The creature sent a lovely but incredibly loud song across the room like a squeaky and jammed rendition of their orange friend's music box, quickly getting the kids to cover their ears and the animatronics outside to bang on the metal door. The pair gladly ran through the security office as the Huntress recovered. Charlie pulled back on the weapon, dragging the Rabbit with it and far away from the exit. A large knife quickly dug into the Puppet's arm, dragging it through the white stripes and spilling slimy Agony onto the carpet floor. The tendril retreated, replaced by the other arm swiping into the murderer's side and sending her into another display. With a blade in both hands, the Rabbit lunged, but the Puppet had vanished.

--- 👁 ---

At their feet sat a small, golden present box with a sparkling ribbon, shining even in the low lights of the inactive office and guarded by an unfortunately familiar mass of pixels. It flickered between a smooth, genie-like base and a set of 16-bit legs that merged at the feet like they'd melted. A humanoid hand connected to a bright pink-purple arm reached out to Mono, violet squares fluttering above it like fire and black cubes dripping from the synthetic skin like oil. Like changing channels, it flashed between the slick, angry grimace covered in brilliant purple lines and the pixelated form filled with sharp mouths and eyes and smiling rabbits with its spiral pink gaze set on them. The human fingers and pixel claws blasted purple rapids into Mono, quickly blocked with his body as he scrambled to pull Six away from it. It racked his body with searing fire like the other Rabbit's red aura.

Though she couldn't see the mass of blocky tentacles and twisted mouth with a smile made of rotten and torn faux-flesh, she witnessed the empty space in front of her shimmer with power. Her friend's skin hummed with calming light blue static, one hand wrapped around hers, the other flinging out to channel a violent frequency into the unseen 'Glitchtrap' that had stalked them all this time. His arctic irises and pupils burst over the whites of his eyes. Six stepped behind him, placing a hand on his back, she'd always found it easier to 'connect' their cores. Her red eyes shone ruby, a black cyclone enrapturing the two. Her eyes adjusted to a wave of static and cyan lines washing over her like starving leeches, finding masses of writhing black tentacles and flying purple cubes filling the rippling air with a stream of violet.

She reached to the Signal-like monstrosity, discovering and wrenching ribbons of Agony from its abyssal chest. It certainly wasn't like the silvery-white blob the Puppet fed her, but it was enough not to trigger an attack while they were getting chased by the pair of robots beyond the vent. Mono pushed the beast back, countering the new signal the best he could while Six pulled it closer, draining it of whatever it was worth. Despite its lack of legs, it began to stumble back, still switching between a sadistic smile with an ecstatic glint in its eyes and an annoyed grimace with a calculative gaze as it was forced against the far wall. Soon enough, a pillar of red and blue cubes hid the Glitchtrap, sending it away and leaving the vent open.

Six snatched the tiny golden box, beginning to crank the handle while diving into the air ducts. Mono attempted to follow, but ran into a gateway of black rods with violet edges; they were cold to the touch, like the air about Charlie, but lacked any other feeling as if they weren't even there. They effectively locked him out of the vent, despite the emptiness Six had dashed through. She turned to find a layer of purple static over her companion's hands as he slammed his fists on a barrier she couldn't see. Before her mind could catch up to her, she'd gripped his wrist and forced his hand through the blockade, inadvertently sending a void-black cloud up his arm as she burrowed a hole in the field preventing him from following.

The metallic thud of the small wind-up toy echoed around the vent, its disks clanging together and feet clattering around, but they were much too fast for the small spider. They exited the tunnel and inched behind the handful of arcades beside the Entertainers, their nails and claws still distracted by scratching at the shudder door as the irritating, garbled song of Charlotte's creation blighted the children's ears from the opposite side.

--- 👁 ---

His eyes burned like he'd been staring into the sun, his cheeks were rubbed raw, and his nose stung as he sniffled. Now that Gregory thought about it, he's been gone for a little while, he should probably call Freddy and let him know he's okay, but his throat felt like someone was slicing it open whenever he prepared himself to contact the bear. Maybe I should head to a bathroom, first. There was always a water fountain nearby and he really needed a cold sink to wash his face, it wasn't one of the showers in Chica's giant gym-thing, but anything with clean water would do at this point. Every muscle ached, his head pounded with each step, and his eyes struggled to stay open. Even when he felt he was already dead, he kept moving, as he always had.

Just my luck. The restroom he wandered into reeked of excessive bleach and hydrogen peroxide, probably some other chemicals like acids mixed in. The stench was still almost as foul as the night before, when he'd been contacted to help clean up a boy's body. It was at least the twelfth corpse the hacker handled.

That first child he'd swept and mopped away like it was just an object still haunted him, a girl with auburn pigtails, just barely pale enough not to be mistaken for Cassie, but only barely. His only ever friend's face peered at him in his dreams, the side of her jaw shattered and limbs all chopped apart like that young girl's. The kid tried to hide in a photo booth, but was swiftly located by the Rabbit. She'd been cut up around the wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles; that 'project', only a month or two prior to tonight, was the first time he'd been paid to clean up. He'd sorted through a janitor's closet for gloves, a mask, and a rubber suit he'd carefully cut apart and sewed together, covering the seams in plenty of tape. It was hard to breathe through the mask's filter, and it didn't cover his stinging eyes. Eventually, the hacker left to tape some goggles to the face cover, he'd been deducted tokens for that, he would've been able to get an unusual abundance of food if not for the watery hiss in his eyes that drove him away for just a few minutes.

Not that it would've mattered much, he couldn't keep anything in his stomach the following few days, anyway.

Just last night, a little boy tried hiding in this bathroom and met the same fate as those before him. Gregory was asked to help handle to pools of crimson and the splatter on the ceiling, as the Staff-bots weren't programmed to properly search for and clean blood. His first time he could barely touch the severed appendages, the little girl's eyes froze him in place for almost ten minutes, and his legs shivered as he shambled over the red smears; the other night he haphazardly tossed the parts of arms and legs into a couple buckets, didn't flinch at the boy's faded eyes, and was more annoyed by repeatedly moving a latter around to reach the red spray with an awkwardly long mop. That livid Puppet's choked voice echoed in his head, though he couldn't tell if she was truly communicating with him. What was that kid's name? He seemed a few years older than Gregory, probably fourteen-ish. Through the maroon stains in the child's eyes, Gregory knew they were a soft green, and there were some round glasses were shattered under a sink.

Was his name Matty? I think it was Matty. But just because he wasn't sure about the teen's name, and didn't react to cleaning and scraping up his viscera, didn't mean he was nothing but a statistic to Gregory... did it?

...I miss when gore made me sick...

...I miss not knowing what a child's guts looked like...

...I miss being disgusted...

...I miss not knowing how to clean up a body...

...

...I miss playing with the Puppet...

...I miss Cassie...

...I miss Foxy...

...

...Maybe the Puppet's right...

...Maybe I should just disappear...

...

...I want Freddy... His music box... Being a superstar...

...I want Cassie

...I want a mom... a dad... I don't care if they drink or smoke or yell!

...I just want someone to be there for me... I want a Six or a Mono...

...

...Why did it have to be me?

...Why was I the one that got to live?

...Why did I get thrown into this mess?

...I never should've come here...

--- 👁 ---

The night was quiet, the city streets mostly devoid of sounds like crickets or the snapping of twigs, replaced by the relentless tapping of heavy, absolutely freezing rain and hail. Tonight, the blinding lights of speeding cars and loud motorcycles were shockingly absent, leaving the cracked and hole-ridden streets cold and barren. Cassie speed-walked down the well-lit sidewalk. Her bright red umbrella, covered in a print of Roxanne, protected her from the cold water and painful balls of ice, but the surrounding alleys were populated with less-lucky folk. She admittedly wished she could look away from the lonely and rejected; old and injured veterans robbed of the respect they'd risked everything for, sickly men and women down on their luck, even addicts looking for anything to help forget the bits of frost pummeling their backs.

Then, of course, there were the kids. Several of them were gathered around a metal barrel, smoldering with the dying remains of a once-warm fire. The small gang had messily made a cover with rusty poles, rotting wood, and a torn plastic tarp. Bags of garbage pinned the supports next to massive dumpsters, stretching the plastic across the short length of the alley. Hail and water fell through holes in their protection, leaving visible wet spots between the areas the kids were lying down. Half of them were covered in ripped newspapers and worn-out jackets, the other half standing around the weak flame with makeshift shanks and a long pipe to poke the top of their shelter with, periodically dispersing the weighty puddle growing in the tarp.

Against her better judgment, Cassie trod a little closer, awkwardly lodging the handle of her umbrella into her armpit while she slid off one of her backpack's straps. A few seconds later she handed some nutty bars and fruit snacks to the group's current watch. It wasn't much at all, they'd have to count the gummies and split the bars to make sure everyone got some, but it was the best she could do without giving away too much that Gregory would go hungry. They deserved it, though, this was far from an easy city to live in, between the brutal weather and high costs for everything. She'd begun to realize she'd overpacked the hefty bag, anyway. It hurt to start getting up again, lacking anything more to give them, but there was no telling how much time Gregory had before something went severely downhill. Cassandra had yet to get a somewhat decent signal, her only remotely helpful lead remained that he was most likely in the Pizzaplex.

"...C...ie...?" A static-filled voice called.

"...C...ou...hea...e?" Her Roxy-talkie buzzed.

She had the item in her hands in an instant, rapidly twisting its knobs as she hunkered down beneath the plastic shield with the others. She felt more than a few eyes on her as she clumsily fiddled with the device, searching for the right frequency.

"Gregory? Are you there?" She asked, drawing more stares.

"Cassie! Finally! I've been trying to reach you for ages!" The familiar boy exclaimed.

Yes! We're getting somewhere!

"Cassie, I'm so glad you got this. I'm trapped in the Pizzaplex. I don't have time to go into how I got here, but I really need your help."

"Where are you? The raceway? Bonnie bowl? Fazer-blast? I need something to work with!"

"Remember your party? I mean... It was supposed to be a party... I'm sorry, but only you'll know where to find me... Please save me, Cassie, it's so dark in here!"

The boy's voice shook like he was freezing. It was way after hours, the heaters probably weren't powered where he was hiding, but that could be said about the whole building, not much help.

My birthday... When he'd shown up with a tissue and a tiny bit of cash to spend on a gift, despite not having anyone she knew who could've gotten him entry or a Guest Profile, something she'd overlooked for the sake of having someone to celebrate with. But where was he talking about? He had some spare change on him, he could've hacked the Main Systems to break into an ATM. From what incredibly little she'd deciphered from the least complex bits of pseudo-code he'd left at her apartment, such a thing was evidently within his skillset. Maybe he was in a server room or security office, for easier access to the systems? But what did that have to do with her birthday? Plus, if that were the case, why couldn't he give himself more cash? Why not just steal a bunch and bail at that point? What was stopping him? Something's not right...

"Something's coming! I-I have to get out of here, but please, Cassie. I-I'll figure out a way t-to repay you... S-somehow... J-just... Don't give up on me yet."

He's being chased? I have to hurry!

My party started in the rooms above the Daycare; Foxy was still the Daycare attendant at the time, he had a pirate ship prop that drove around all the play-thingies, but some of the tracks were bugged out and dad wanted me nearby while he fixed them.

Mom and some Staff Bots finished setting everything up, but nobody else was there.

Freddy brought the cake, but nobody else was there.

The Sun escaped the theater and brought a gift from the Marionette, but nobody else was there.

Then Roxy showed up! She tried to help, she brought me to the salon for a haircut, we got the same makeover and manicures. Nobody else was there, it was still just me and Roxy, even mom had to go to work by then.

But Gregory came for me. He brought a tissue, helped me clean up, and we played all day. He got me a present, a Roxanne figurine; he couldn't actually afford it, but that creepy replacement-Puppet gave him a discount.

I don't think it was supposed to do that, but it made everything better... It all started there...

Roxy's salon... He has to be at the salon...

"I wouldn't answer that if I were you." One of the kids piped up.

She was one of the oldest, 16 maybe? At least half a decade older than Cassandra. The girl almost looked as tired and bitter as Gregory himself, wearing a torn black hoodie and chipped black nail polish, probably both stolen. In her boney hand sat the blade of a box cutter wrapped in a filthy rag and dirty tape, leaving only a small edge exposed, more for intimidation than attack, but Cassie could barely see the handle of a long scalpel poking out of the weathered hoodie pocket. The tap-tap-tapping of the freezing rain didn't hide the low, nearly feral growl that came from the chapped lips topped by short and messy blonde hair. Long jeans draped over a set of mismatched sneakers, one of the legs was torn apart at the knee, casting frayed strings of denim over a bruised and scarred shin.

"Why? Do you know Gregory?!" Cassie asked.

"Yeah, we knew him. Foster kids stick together... At least we're supposed to. He broke into that tacky-ass mall 'bout a year ago, refused to let the rest of us in... Got so cold we almost lost Bobby 'cuz of that traitor."

The teen gestured to a small boy beside her, flanked by two other awake kids with a baseball bat and metal pipe. He had to be the youngest, 8 or 9, sleeping on a torn-in-half dog bed like it was a pillow.

"'Lil punk kept us locked out." She continued.

"Did he say why?" Cassie asked, the hacker was always pretty distant, but Gregory being completely unwilling to lend someone a hand sounded pretty out there.

"Nope." The teen answered plainly, popping the 'p' and rolling her eyes.

"Good, that place is cursed as hell." A black-haired boy with a rusty piece of rebar interrupted.

"The Pizzaplex isn't cursed, Dan, it's just creepy."

"It's totally cursed." 'Dan' insisted.

"Jimmy got killed there, remember?" He pressed.

"No, he didn't-"

"Yes he did, Bailey! There was a ton of blood on the sidewalk!" Mark cut her off.

"There was a little bit of red stuff between the cracks on the sidewalk; if it was blood the place should've been closed for an investigation, police would've checked the cameras."

'Bailey' cast a side-eye to the younger kid, whose outburst woke a couple other members of the gang, followed by a small chorus of 'not this again' and 'why now?' murmuring over the crackling fire.

"Not if the cameras were off!" He protested.

"So now you're tryin' to tell me all the security magically went out presumably when Jim got comfy under the rain covers? Assuming he was even there." The teen sighed.

"Someone could've deleted the recordings!" He snapped, getting no reaction from Bailey.

"The Pizzaplex has people goin' in and out of it all the time, an employee's gonna notice that. Jim just vanished, none of us like it but I dunno what else to tell ya, Dan."

"I don't care what you tell me, that place is cursed and we're better off here than there. If Gregory wants to get iced, bully for him, but I'm not even putting my pinky toe behind those doors.

You shouldn't either" He turned to Cassie.

"Whatever the backstabber's promising you, forget it, just go home and forget he ever called you." Dan recommended.

"I can't! He's my best friend, he was there for me when I needed him. I'll just be in and out, anyway. Help where I can, then call the cops for the rest, it'll be fine...

Thank you, though. I wish I had more snacks for you, but I need to keep some for Gregory. It was nice to meet you."

Dan huffed and looked away, The teenager only gave Cassie a nod as she waved the group goodbye.

"By the way, if ya find some weed anywhere, I'll buy!" The older girl offered.

"There won't be weed in the Pizzaplex!" Dan glared.

"Not with that attitude, there won't!" Bailey countered.

Cassie admittedly stifled a giggle and picked up the pace. Gregory's waiting on me.

Chapter Text

Six was the first to spot Gregory standing motionless at the center of the Main Stage lift. The programmer didn't react to their presence as they climbed the stairs, keeping his worn-out velcro shoes firmly in place. The torn ends of his ruined blue shirt and khaki shorts swayed in the slight breeze that chilled the boy's scars and cuts and bruises, but still drew no attention from the programmer. Instead, his bloodshot and baggy eyes were pasted blankly to an empty spot on the ground, slightly covered by his filthy and knotted brown hair. Mono waved his hand in front of the other boy's face, also gaining nothing resembling a response but a small blink.

Six, reluctantly deciding she was willing to abandon some subtlety in favor of getting something done, snapped her fingers in Gregory's face. His head shot up, turning his vision double and blurry. Mono pressed the stage button, lowering the lift while Gregory wobbled in place. The taller boy moved to stand by the hacker's side, prepared to catch him if his dizziness got too much to handle. Gregory shook his head and rubbed his eyes, his face had already turned a bright, angry, and irritated red. It took a moment for him to notice the lift had stopped, earning him an annoyed glance from Six while Mono pat his back until he was ready to get going. The three wandered the Parts and Service halls, searching for that infuriating piece Freddy needed to get back online.

Being preoccupied with their companion or their thoughts, most of the group almost didn't notice the quiet tapping and cackling echoing through the dark, electronics and endoskeleton-filled halls. Thin fingers clattered around the concrete tunnels like a woodpecker on a tree, followed by the small clicks and whirrs of spindly arms, their plastic and metal casings clanking together as they moved through the black. The raspy voice box buzzed through a toothy grin, humming inside the small torso of a celestial jester, grating on the two survivors' ears as the third kept swimming in his own head. A pair of glowing red eyes scoured the winding maze of maintenance halls, indistinguishable from the small lights of the endos if not for the vile purple halo surrounding them.

As per usual, Six was the first to jump into action, rapidly investigating their surroundings with calculative and uncaring eyes. There was little more than shelves they couldn't hide behind and boxes much too small to conceal any of them; although there was a pretty large gray bin they could fit inside, it lacked a lid and the Moon liked to climb, it wouldn't be much use aside from evading the hordes of skinless robots. Maybe it was possible to ditch the jester with the vents? But then all three of them would have to deal with being cramped into already claustrophobic air ducts with a tiny, territorial toy spider. Running away would be child's play for her, Roxanne remained the only threat she'd ever faced that genuinely challenged her speed, but Mono wasn't as gifted in that sense.

Sure, he'd drawn the Moon away in the Daycare, but she didn't get the chance to see how he fared against the machine. Was her slow and occasionally clumsy friend actually faster than Moondrop? Or had he simply dodged its advances using the various play structures? The colorful buildings were no longer available to them, what if he got caught? Then there was Gregory; while the other boy was little more than a tool or convenience, he was a useful and effective tool, when he wasn't being lulled to sleep or otherwise tricked by the Glitchtrap. It would be preferable to keep him by their side, but he was a nightmare to deal with; between barely being able to run down a corridor without falling unconscious, coughing periodically, and apparently working on something behind their backs, Gregory was a sword dangling over their heads.

In case things went sideways, he'd make an excellent sacrifice. Whatever it takes to keep Mono safe.

But for now; Mono seemed to be warming up to their newest burden, so she reluctantly stood by as her friend quickly yanked Gregory onto his back and jogged by her side. The three kept their eyes on the wandering endos; Six ran circles around the machines, pinning them in place as the boys kept their eyes peeled for the chuckling Moon. The bouncing of colorful plastic balls echoed around them, and several orbs rolled to Mono and Six's feet. Beside them was a short slide leading into a small ball pit, no doubt connected to the Daycare in some way, a tube for the animatronic to arrive for repairs. Had he lodged himself in there to avoid the lights?

The remaining balls in the small pool didn't move, whatever displaced them must've been laying low.

Sun never made a sound when he reached for us, even in the ball pit.

Faster than her own tired mind could catch up with her, Six dashed. With unnatural strength she tackled Mono to the cold rock floor, crushing Gregory in the process, as a white and blue hand swiped out of the pit. His lapis fingertips barely managed to wrap around her hood and yanked on her collar. Again moving faster than her thoughts, she clenched a fist and swung it behind her. Right as the Moon's long neck craned over the lip of the tiny pool, bony knuckles slammed into his faceplate, popping one of the panels loose and knocking the sleeping cap out of place. With their attacker off balance, Mono rolled off Gregory and wrapped his arms around Six, quickly wrestling her out of the fragile grasp and looking for a way to escape. Gregory can't run for too long, we need to get out of sight and find somewhere to hide.

Six and Mono pressed their full weight into Moon's shoulders, sending him tumbling into the pile of balls while Gregory got to his feet. The pair had already rounded a corner as his vision swirled like he'd been thrown through a twister. Nausea swam in his gut and crawled up his through like the machine rising from the pool behind him. He fell painfully to his knees, already bruised and scraped, now with droplets of blood sticking to the dusty ground and dribbling down his shins as he crawled to his feet. Bits of bouncing and rolling plastic followed him as he began to run, crashing into the far wall as he tried and failed to turn. The far more agile and coordinated robot tip-toed after him, spinning its head around and stretching its fingers like an eagle's talons.

--- 👁 ---

It was so dark. Gregory's eyes couldn't seem to focus, even if he had the other kids' night vision; his head throbbed with every step, like a jolt of electricity was running up his leg each time it touched the hard floor. In the back of his mind he heard the clicking of the machine's limbs as it pulled itself atop the surrounding shelves and over the dangling lights, the glow of Moon's twisted eyes shining down on him was the only light guiding him, leading him to trip on some spare parts as he ran down the cold, black hallway. He shivered as his face collided with the concrete, feeling the old cut on his cheek reopen and soak his filthy band-aid. Moon passed the gray bin Mono and Six had dove into, too distracted by Gregory to investigate the normally poor hiding spot.

Various endoskeletons approached as the programmer slammed his head on the ground, their dotted red eyes trailing him as he crawled away from Moon, who glided across the ceiling on the hanging lights and the tops of shelves. 'I'm safe' the logical part of his brain tried telling himself, he'd done what Mr. Burrows wanted of him, they weren't about to rip him to shreds. Everything is under control. Laughing its vile, sadistic cackle, the Moon pounced. The full force of the machine's mass connected with his ankle, pressing it into the dirty rock. Gregory winced, but did what he could to stay calm. I've been through way worse than a twisted foot, mainly his seventh foster family. The crescent face hovered over him, the red eyes burning into his and the demented smile swirling around as its head rotated.

"Naughty boy, naughty boy. Did you think he wouldn't notice? Why'd you steal the arm? He told you to stay away from those two... Naughty children must be punished!"

--- 👁 ---

'We have to go get him!' Mono pleaded to his friend.

'No we don't' Six shook her head. He'd gotten others like them killed. For some reason, they were an exception, but Six wasn't about to test their luck.

'He's useful to us.' Mono deadpanned through his Roxy mask.

It was a trick, obviously. Mono wasn't the type to suddenly start agreeing with her when talking about anything but standard resources, he wasn't so willing to stay detached from kids they met, even when they always threw the two out of whatever groups they'd made when they inevitably caught wind of their curses. Still, she didn't exactly want to get rid of the boy already, he still needed to fix Freddy for them and she'd rather him be bait for a real threat like the Rabbit or Roxanne, not something simple as the Daycare attendant. While she leered at her kind and soothing, if idiotically selfless best (and only) friend as he crawled out of the gray bin they'd taken cover in, she did nothing to stop him from confronting the animatronic. So there she sat in wait, prepared if anything went wrong.

--- 👁 ---

Moon's pointed fingertips dug into the thin flesh of his Achilles tendon, pulling him closer with a sharp tug that stung like it popped a bone out of place. More harsh stabs pierced his shoulders as the drone let him go for a split second, pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him up. This is it, I'm done for. Not for the first time, GGY's mortality lay bare in front of him, this time in the shape of a demonic smile and searing gaze. Moon prepared to drag him away, no doubt to Mr. Burrows or his death, but seized in place mid-stride. It stuttered and froze and spasmed where it stood, dropping Gregory at three endoskeletons' toes. Six peeked her head up from the nearby gray bin, keeping the robots from attacking anyone while Mono's body hummed with cyan static and black TV lines.

The boy fought the pull of the purple signal within Moon's systems, finding himself in the manipulative violet tunnel only a moment before managing to pull himself free of its lure. The Daycare Attendant was far lighter than the Glamrocks, his neck and every limb thin and long compared to the broad and dense workings of Monty or Freddy. His arms and legs flailed as he was lifted in the air, chanting 'Error! Error!' as it struggled to compute anything resembling a coherent response to the signal child shattering all he thought he knew. In his rush to save Gregory, his curse surged far more than he ever meant it to. Six could take care of herself, he'd never made this mistake when she seemed in danger; The programmer, however, was a dead kid walking in comparison, and he'd unleashed his abilities further than he had since overcoming the Thin Man.

Various objects began levitating around them; boxes of spare parts, tools, and scattered trash. Gravity itself began to fail them all, the hem of his trench coat and stolen red skirt billowed, Six's raincoat fluttered, and the frayed ends and strings of Gregory's clothing lifted with their surroundings. It was too much. It's way too much. He quickly dropped the machine, sending the unfortunate objects to the floor in the process. His body glitched and fizzled with static, fading into his ordinary skin. Sun was in there; the animated oddball that tried to protect them from his other half, who did what he could to make them comfortable in the short time they'd been admitted, who tried keeping them safe in his disturbing, somewhat obsessive way. If the Daycare Attendants were one and the same, wouldn't disposing of the Moon also get rid of Sun? They'd hardly been on good terms, but Mono didn't want to kill him. Then again, he was a threat to them, if only through his counterpart.

He's a threat to Six.

--- 👁 ---

In an instant he was face to face with a Bully. The porcelain face stared down at him and clay arms flared to the sides, ready to strike, only now he lacked a mallet or pipe to shatter them with. They want Six. Those loud, sadistic dolls took her, they want her back, they want to hurt her. Mono flung his arms to the sides, sending a wave of static around him. The cyan haze forced the Bully back just before he noticed it was far larger than any of the other constructs they'd faced throughout the School. It clattered to the ground as if it were made of metal; they were all built like pots, weren't they? A rough, scarred thumb brushed the back of his hand. Mono looked to the side to find Six holding onto him, donning her bright yellow raincoat, but that was impossible, right? She hadn't put the coat on until after they escaped the Teacher.

He blinked rapidly; right, we're far away from the School. He focused on the concrete beneath him, it's not the wooden floorboards. He focused on the walls around Six, they were made of stone slabs and covered in shelves of equipment, it's not drywall or bookcases. He focused on Six, her pale and bony face was hidden by her short black hair, which she'd cut since they'd fled the City, she didn't have the coat back then, and her hair was longer. He focused on the lights, or the lack of them, it's too dark, the School was brighter than this. He focused on the Bully, it was metal and whirred with machinery, it's not made of clay, and he's the one who hunted us through the Daycare.

I don't want to hurt him.

Sunrise is in there, he has to be, he just transforms into Moondrop when the lights go out, he's not trying to hurt anyone. He could, though. All it would take was one wrong move or a light going out to send another problem their way, not even that! Just the reset-thing could get one of them killed if they didn't deal with the Daycare Attendants now, but only one of them did anything wrong. Was it worth putting Six on the line, for a doll they barely knew? Obviously the answer was no, but that didn't mean he liked it. That, and he really wasn't willing to delve so deep into his abilities. No, I can't do that again. I won't become like it. Sweat poured down Mono's forehead, dripping uncomfortably into his arctic blue eyes as the Moon recovered and crawled towards Gregory once again.

He couldn't...

Correction: he shouldn't...

But then again...

It would be easy, maybe even a little fun, and we wouldn't have to deal with Moon anymore...

His hand snapped forward before Moondrop could snatch the programmer again, flickering back and forth between distorted blue power and pale, greyish skin. The robot stuttered in place, grabbing the thin air with its crooked fingers and its joints seizing like they'd been electrocuted, but he didn't float upwards again. I don't know if I can do this. Six gripped his hand firmer, pulling him to her side and giving a poor attempt at a calming smile; flashing her sharp fangs and shining red eyes straight into his soul like she was hungrily hunting him down.

'No matter what happens, I'm on your side.'

I don't wanna do this...

But I have too...

He'll come after Six...

I can't let her be taken again...

His body flared and distorted, rippling with static and black lines. The buzzing and hissing traveled up Six's arm, boxes and tools ascended around them, and a desaturated blue fog masked the dark hallways. Moon rose up again, quickly being flung to the right and crashing into the wall. Mono swiped his entire arm left, smashing Moon into one of the endoskeletons and knocking it to the floor, then barreled into a shelf. The Sun's pointy yellow 'rays' poked out of the sides of his head, knocked out of their sheathes by the pure momentum that riddled the small suit with dents. He raised his arm in an arc above his head, scratching the metal and plastic casing on the ceiling and smacking one of the inactive hanging lights. Moondrop quickly gripped the light, desperate for anything he could use as leverage to escape the faux-gravity pull.

The long bulb shattered as Mono pulled Moon before him, remaining just out of reach of the machine while fighting back the purple signal still trying to draw him into the cold, violet hallway. He pushed the attacker away; toppling over the remaining endos and sending a spiderweb of cracks throughout the bent and smudged case. The Daycare Attendant rolled across the dirty floor, losing small plastic chips of Sun's rays in the process. Another wave of energy burst from behind him; the mass of black squares and sleek skin hummed behind them. Its purple lines shone over him and Six, the pink spirals pulsed in its violet eyes as the mouth flashed between the angry grimace and torn-up smile. A pink-purple arm, burning with magenta cubes, extended a hand to them, glitching between a smooth palm and pixelated claws.

Gregory swiftly pushed himself away from the distant animatronic, scraping his palms and tearing his shirt on the stone as he struggled, fazing straight through the specter as he scrambled, completely oblivious to its presence. Six, still connected to the boy through their arms, spotted it and released her curse. The beast stuttered, freezing for a moment before continuing to press forward. The kids took a few steps away from the Glitchtrap; allowing themselves some distance from the far less-understood threat. While Six focused down the digital manifestation, extending more and more whirling Agony than she'd hoped to use, Mono returned his attention to the cackling animatronic.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory witnessed the tunnel around something that fought back against her, yet somehow nothing he could see. Streaks of dark mist transferred between the girl and her opponent, but still nothing she might be targeting revealed itself. He took the opportunity to bring himself to his feet, careful not to move too quick and fall over, but as fast as he could, he'd rather not see if whatever Six was hitting was able to reach for him.

The child who warped reality itself around them lifted the machine again. Mono swung his arm to the right, cramming the Daycare Attendant into another shelf. The rich navy half of its face plate, which Six had already broken with her impossibly strong and fast punch, fell out of the metal frame and spun through the cyan-filtered space devoid of true gravity. Mono flicked his wrist downward and made an uppercut motion, throwing Moondrop to the ground with a crack and smashing the light above them. Its yellow spikes snapped into pieces and flew like throwing knives beside shards of glass, massive chips of its suit were jammed into the cracks in the concrete and splintered across the rooms. The machine screeched a pained, static yelp, mixing the gravelly voice of Moon and the frightened yelling of Sun.

CRTV lines coated the area, tainting the room an unnatural and foreign gray-blue as Mono made a figure eight. The Entertainer fell to the concrete of the coiling tunnel, losing the bells around its wrists as it slid across the rock and fraying its baggy pants. A spiderweb of massive cracks spread across its dented and stained casing as it squished against and was pulled up the tilted wall, its face being pressed against the ceiling before being flung diagonally into the same shelf. The steel stand's legs bent out of shape, further crushing the robot's many rods and wires. The Daycare Attendant rolled up the slabs of equipment, one of the legs of its pants getting caught in several screws and torn apart, revealing the wire framework holding them together.

A distorting blue hand pressed to the ground, crushing the robot, then retracting to Mono's chest. Moon was frozen in place before him, limbs fidgeting and spasming while its voice box stammered like every single circuit and line of code fired all at once. Both of its ocular sensors flashed between a red light with a purple halo and a pale white, each personality matrix within its neural networks struggling to regain some semblance of control over their mutual problem. At last, Mono flung the lapis menace down the stretched and swirling hallway. It spun and swirled like it had been shoved in a colossal tornado, gaining far more inertia than what should've been possible for such a short hall. With a sickening crack, the Daycare Attendants came to a stop at the far wall; its side completely shattered, opening into a gaping hole exposing its thin endoskeleton, the framework of its jester pants collapsed to a mesh of scrap and the long neck jammed itself into the back of its head and swivel.

The ruined animatronic slowly and limply fell to the dirty ground.

--- 👁 ---

Shimmering magenta light burst from the flickering humanoid hand and an oily claw, the limbs dripping black squares like dark rain. Purple rapids flowed from the clawed mass of squares and long fingers into her dark mist. Glitchtrap's brilliant purple details alternated between vibrant lines around a thin scowl and a series of fanged mouths and eyes and rabbit faces decorating a wicked and rotten smile with hooks for its tall ears. The monster's base switched from a djinn's windy tail clipping straight through the concrete and a pair of black, pixelated legs whose feet melted into a shadowy puddle. Over and over the two bounced their favorite incarnations of Agony between each other, one feeding off the pulsing emotion to fuel her own abilities, the other drawing from an unknown source they both longed to consume.

Six's mouth watered, filling with blackish drool. A sharp pain stabbed through her chest. It spread around her heart and lungs in an instant, wrapping spiked tendrils around her torso and slithering through her stomach and intestines. Her blood burned as it pumped, her muscles tightening so suddenly she'd thought they'd snap her bones, but she kept her arm pointed at the demon. The beast continued to push back at her, lunging and retreating with the sway of the clash while Six held her ground, standing firm in its path to Mono. Crimson drenched her tongue as it opened for her eight incisors, giving her the shock she needed to keep her head clear despite the burn in her body.

The creature split itself apart; the full shapes of its sleek and angry form staring her down next to the pile of pixelated oil coated in smiles and eyes. Between the two stood a much clearer, better defined, and smaller entity; it wore a wrinkled yellow rabbit costume with blatantly visible and sloppy seams, a rich violet vest covered in golden stars draped over its body around a purple bowtie and two black buttons. The new projection waved in her face, the tight sleeves folding in on themselves at the joints as the hand passed back and forth in front of its smiling face. Four long whiskers poked out of the face around a button nose under a pair of glowing pink eyes and greatly exaggerated eyebrows.

Its silhouette crackled with cactus green sparks, far less stable than the visages of its flanking appearances and lacking the overwhelming amount of Agony and energy they possessed. The three pointed to her, forcing their energy into her as she blocked. The black whirlwind shifted and gave way to the many competing forces; all much weaker than that of the fully-formed aberration, especially that of the golden bunny, but attacking from too many directions to manage alone. Their sickly wide smiles taunted her, the lone snarling glare keeping its gaze stern, as they pushed back. She couldn't lift her other arm to help regain control of the situation, she needed to be in contact with Mono just to see them, she couldn't summon more Agony to help, she'd already expended more than she'd gain from the Glitchtrap.

Always by her side, Mono struck the center attacker, the frailest of the bunch. It fell quickly, turning a transparent mossy green with beaming purple eyes before fizzling out of existence. The other two fared far better, but it wasn't nearly enough, it'd spread itself much too thin. A black shroud and rippling blue hand pressed against the pair of abominations, forcing them back together and banishing it in a pillar of red and blue cubes. Six trembled, her knees giving out and pain searing her small body again. Mono caught her, frantically searching for something edible, other than him and Gregory. Though the boys wouldn't know, her curse flared and pulled her in the direction of the inactive Daycare Attendant, ravenous and desperate for the unfamiliar rush of silver and white power to course through her.

It's inside them, formerly out of reach, out of sight and mind. Now something had been cracked open, released into her curse's equivalent of vision or hearing or smell.

Chapter Text

The little girl half-lucidly shambled towards the shattered Moon, his sleeping cap flopped to the side of his head and six broken yellow spikes poked out of his head, all broken and covered in dust and dirt. Tools and boxes smacked the concrete floor as Mono's curse pulled back into the signal child, the blue static that seeped into the gray stone dissipated, slowly returning the twisted and stretched hallway to something more bound by common logic than the nonsensical results of her friend's tampering. As the end of the tunnel grew closer, so did the machine's blank eyes; one still lodged firmly behind the faceplate, the other bulging from its place in the wiring and supports behind the missing case.

Thin bits of metal dangled behind the crescent's smile, lined up like teeth in the unique endoskeleton's long and thin mouth. She reached into the torn-open gap in Sun and Moon's side. Split ends of wires stung her skin and bent metal tried to block her way, but she found the center of the device easily enough. She collected the strange energy as if once again draining the life of the Guests. Another surge of hunger knocked her off her feet, sending her forearm into a sharp metal rib. Red dribbled down to her wrist and fingers, but did nothing to stop her from proceeding after some painful coughs and the searing twist in her abdomen. While there were certainly trace amounts of Agony lacing the inside of the machine, it wasn't much more concentrated than the passive negativity permeating throughout the Pizzaplex, nor was it what drew her curse to the remnants of the Daycare Attendant in the first place.

A silver slime coated her hand, slowly rippling over her wrist with glowing white waves. It was only a little more than the orb the Puppet gave her, but no less appealing. A little at a time, her inhibitions failed her; blackish saliva filled her mouth and dribbled down her chin, her chapped lips peeled back into a cross between a sadistic smile and savage snarl, her shining ruby irises spread across her eyes and her abyssal pupils burst into black tentacles. The world around her blurred like she had a migraine, which she did, and her sight honed in on the chrome energy flowing over her bone-thin hand. She could distantly hear one of her companions trying to reach out to her, but their voices fell flat, words melding together into a grating ring in her sensitive ears.

Something between a sharp hiss and a low growl spilled from her mouth as the throbbing pain continued to swim through her body; searing her muscles and bones to a crisp, her guts ached like a mass of acidic leeches was burrowing its way through her intestines and stomach. It took immense effort just to breathe, like pins and needles gathered around her chest every time she inhaled, sending countless cascading cracks through her bruised and pronounced ribs as they shifted and bent unnaturally. A cold mist crawled up her throat and poured from her nostrils and jaws, weaving black ribbons filtered through her incredibly sharp teeth and poured over the swirling mass of silver and white. Its gentle glow and shine effortlessly cut through the frigid fog, mercifully easy on her eyes as they focused on the tiny waves crawling over her palm.

Each line of pulsing energy ingrained itself into her mind like a swinging pendulum, she couldn't look away if she wanted to, the winds she exhaled blurred her perception and darkened her vision until she could only see the writhing, shiny mass. Her eight incisors snapped straight into her hand, her molars crushing the base of her thumb as her fangs pierced the bone of her index finger. The shimmering matter seeped into the wounds and oozed up the roof of her dry and blistering mouth, dripping around her tongue and moving down her sore throat like pain-killing water.

The slime never reached her stomach, instead spreading throughout her veins and arteries the instant it reached the core of her body, bursting into her lungs like beautifully clean air and chilling her burning heart like a soft hug. Droplets of her own crimson mixed with what remained on her hand, far darker than anyone else's blood. It began tainting the silver a shiny maroon, making spotty splotches of pinkish light within the white sheen. Her fangs scratched the flesh of her palm and the back of her hand as she pulled away the first bite; the glow around her pinky and ring finger faded as she ripped off the material. The very essence of life itself filled her body with the first bite. Six didn't bother trying to restrain herself, it was too good.

She'd already lost control.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory shivered at the scene before him as he steered clear of the starving girl. He wasn't sure what that silver... Metal? Slime?... freaky crap on her hand was doing inside the Daycare Attendant, and he didn't know if he wanted to know where it came from. He hesitantly reached a scraped and bloodied hand to the hole in the machine's casing, shaking and clamming up with freezing sweat, ready to fling himself into the opposite side of the room if she set her sights on him. Thankfully, Six stumbled backward, wincing as the lights above them flickered and a dark imitation of her manifested in the swirling shadows behind her. The copy only stood and stared without eyes, or any features, for that matter. It never so much as moved a limb or turned its head, like an endoskeleton awaiting instructions.

What the hell is happening? I didn't sign up for this...

Just beside him, Mono didn't bat an eye, clearly plenty familiar with this... phenomenon... like it was completely normal. The taller boy didn't appear fazed by his friend's hunger, keeping calm and neutral behind his Roxanne mask, even while approaching the little monster. Gregory steadied himself and stuck his hand in the shattered robot, sorting through its insides under the flickering lights. The power surge stopped as he located the more advanced battery pack, plunging the room back into darkness while he ripped the part out. With the reroute system he made on his computer giving Freddy a way to communicate around the Rabbit's jammer and the new battery pack, he could prevent the mishap at Lost and Found from happening again.

In the corner of his eye he could see Six leaning against Mono, her eyes heavy and glazed over; her hand was in way too good condition for someone who just ripped it to shreds eating chrome mud. The set of eight cuts weren't quite deep, but they certainly weren't shallow either, and very clean and thin compared to the massive fangs that caused them. Gregory only pocketed the information for later; magic was real and Six generally defied every limit her body should've had on a regular basis, he did not want to deal with processing anything about her and Mono if he didn't really need to, his nerves felt like he was being chased by someone with an axe already.

He recovered his flashlight from his pocket, investigating the inactive Entertainer's neck; both ends were thoroughly stabbed into the torso and face, cracks slithered around the covers, and he could tell the ball joint in its center was very stuck in place. On the off chance this thing got back up, it wouldn't be able to track them so easily. He reached into the collar, wiping some blood on the inside of the casing while he located and pressed a pair of red manual-release buttons within its shoulders. The pair jumped as the chest folded outward, allowing him access to the internals. Mono totaled the entire endo; a network of bent metal, tangled wires, and snapped supports made up the Daycare Attendant's remains. Fortunately, its collar swivel was largely intact, if a little trapped by the warped spine. The issue was that it had to be removed by a wrench, he only had a screwdriver.

"Are either of you able to twist off a hex nut?" He asked. These two are completely insane as is, might as well exploit it.

Neither seemed to know exactly what he was talking about, but both inferred enough. Six gave the first try, removing the first nut after a few tries and cracking her fingers. Mono finished removing the remaining hexes in almost half the time, forcing the collar swivel out of the steel frame with his bare hands and handing it to Gregory.

--- 👁 ---

"These parts came from the Daycare Attendant?!" Freddy panicked from the table.

Gregory flinched back, raising his hands to protect his face, fully expecting the bear's metal fist to split open his jaw or tear him apart. Nothing happened, of course, Freddy wasn't here to harm anyone. He's not like my fifth foster. He didn't even move his giant arm off the maintenance table, just kept staring at Gregory. It took the boy a long minute to recover, catch his breath, and figure out where he left off. GGY limped back up to the chest cavity, having entered the operation container the second he arrived with the salvaged parts. Six eyed the two from outside the tube. She and Mono lay on the ground on either side of a branded notebook only they knew the origins of, both scribbling away with a small packet of colored pencils before the Star Singer's outburst.

"Gregory, I would never intentionally harm any of you, do you know that?" Freddy questioned, wondering if he should reach a hand out to the shivering child.

"Y-yes! Yeah. You're not p-programmed to." He answered quickly.

"I am sorry, but I do not believe you, superstar. Perhaps you should take a break-" He tried to offer.

"No! I like doing this! I'm almost done, anyway." Gregory cut the bear off, hurriedly looking for the next problem to solve.

The boy resumed his work, still shambling with a noticeable limp from end to end of their volunteer guardian, though the hacker was the furthest thing from Six's mind. This bear is so weird. He continued to defy everything she'd thought was common sense; asking Gregory to rest instead of finding a way to fix him, encouraging them to take time to themselves, looking after them, getting his head ripped off because he ran out of power searching for them. It's not right. Right is giving other kids a hand, at least when it didn't get you killed.

Right is sharing resources with the rest of your group, until they throw you away for a curse beyond your control, as they always did. Right never applies to adults, they don't care, but the Puppet was clear about Freddy helping them because it was right. He shouldn't care about them! Charlotte was an exception, she may not be a grown-up, but Freddy was absolutely meant to be on the opposite side. Even Mono brought it up with the Marionette before the Rabbit Lady arrived.

The entire dilemma with the machine had been plain uncomfortable since they met him, especially to Six, but slowly grew into something almost... uplifting...

...I'll miss him, only a little bit...

...I'll really miss him...

They had to leave this hellish building, nothing would change that, but this giant doll brought a warmth she'd never experienced. Still best to keep a little distance from him, as tempting as it was to get closer, Mono was happy to handle the bear business for both of them. On one hand, it might feel better to make the most of the time they had, but that wasn't a risk worth taking in exchange for a small flutter in her chest. It's better to keep everyone at arm's length, she'd learned through brutal experience. It was a lesson that lasted her until she mended things with Mono in the Maw and it would last her until her heart stopped beating.

She eventually returned to her half of the notebook, glossing over an unfinished drawing of the yellow bunny the Glitchtrap created to help hunt her. Both she and Mono engaged in drawing their hunters when they could; it gave them space to think, reflect, and understand their experiences in ways they couldn't put into words or comprehend by themselves. It wasn't her worst work, there wasn't anything particularly wrong with it, but it was exceedingly average. Just meh to her.

However, she'd just decided on something else she'd much rather color.

--- 👁 ---

Almost finished.

Freddy's internal wires had been mostly sorted back into position, the stolen collar swivel finally sat in its new place, and the Daycare Attendant's extra battery was fully installed. Gregory fiddled with a service panel within the maintenance cell, triggering the supports around Freddy's head to press his head back into its socket. As he tinkered with the movement overrides, testing the bear's range of motion before releasing him, his watch dinged. He wondered why the bear sent him a message despite being right next to him, but paused his diagnostics to read the note anyway.

'Superstar! Would it be alright if I tuned my hearing, while you finish my work?'

Why he wanted that, and why he couldn't just ask normally, wasn't any clearer, but Gregory gave a small thumbs up as he returned to the panel. According to the display, Freddy indeed modified his microphones. Now that the beeping of the many colorful buttons wasn't chiming in his ears, he found a small, muffled song coming through the operation tube. It was incredibly soft, near impossible to hear through the reinforced glass shield, and he couldn't make out the words, but wonderful and calming all the same.

"Little ones~

Steel yourselves and put your raincoats on~"

--- 👁 ---

"With your lights in tow~

Bloody maws they sing their hungry songs~"

Freddy's sensors strained to find the source of the song. Granted, he already knew where it was coming from, he just wanted details and the lyrics. Six and Mono's voices were both pretty androgynous, partially because of all their skin being pulled so tightly over their bones, it'd been difficult to tell them apart when they spoke through the same Fazwatch. He was getting somewhat confident Six was the culprit. Freddy's ears twitched as he positioned them in the right direction. It was always lovely when a frightened or shy child got settled enough to start humming or their eyes filled with wonder without a care in the world. Six specifically had a sweet voice, when it hadn't been worn down and turned concerningly gravelly. Had they found some Sun candy? Or had her voice recovered on its own?

"Look out one thousand gazing eyes surround~"

"No more Bellmen among the sea~"

He was almost there, he could barely recognize some words.

"The depths of hunger tear your spirits down~"

...Honestly, from the duo of supernatural children who've apparently never had parents, or seemingly any life advice aside from trial and error, he should've expected something like this...

"Each Nightmare's lies~

Stringing you~

Along~"

From his spot on the operating table, Freddy could just barely look down far enough to see the little girl.

"Don't close your eyes~

Don't fall asleep~

The Little Nightmares make you weep~

Stay out of sight~

They feast tonight~"

--- 👁 ---

"Little child, tunnel vision leads you through the wild~

But will you reach death's door? Or go further?

Deep down you'll feel their shadows raging on~"

Just behind him, Freddy walked as quietly as he could. The door to their cell had long opened, sliding mostly silently out of their way and letting them hear Six's song much easier. Knowing what little he did about these two, Gregory couldn't say he was surprised in any way, but an odd mix of disturbed and curious crawled under his skin with every word.

"You can't turn back there's nowhere they'll belong~

And darkness lies~

In their souls~

So wrong~"

--- 👁 ---

Bloodied hands~

In evil lands~

Never give into demands~

Diagnosed with lachrymose~

And hiding out without a plan~"

She still didn't seem to notice him and Gregory. Six hadn't come off as the type not to care if someone heard her singing. Or rather, she clearly didn't like if anyone heard her at all. She must not have realized. Mono had stopped his drawing to look at her; she was very unusually at ease, perhaps the two decided the boy would be the lookout? She unexpectedly had her back to the hallway they came from, Mono was the one facing down any threats that might wander near. She kicked her feet behind her, waving them through the air as she lay on her empty stomach, touching up her drawing. She was extremely talented; although she struggled with hard edges and straight lines, Six could make soft or jagged waves and circles with expertise. Mono was the opposite, happily drawing the jagged corners of Sun and Moon's arms and neck, but struggling with the curve of his pants and face.

"No control~

They won't emote~

Their souls are away from home~"

Six's song began reaching its crescendo, her tiny voice barely rising before the final chorus.

--- 👁 ---

"You'll never see~

What they will be~

When their fates are set in stone-"

How long have they been watching?!

Six turned to Mono; his arctic blue eyes beamed behind his mask, clearly smiling. He knew they'd been listening to her. She didn't even know she was singing. She didn't even know she could sing. Freddy gave a robotic, plastic smile and a small wave. Gregory thudded to the floor beside Mono without an ounce of grace, but he was the least of her worries. Sound, unless it was to lure an adult somewhere, was always bad news, and she'd let herself sing. Why did I do that? This never happened before. I got too comfortable, comfort makes kids complacent, complacency makes kids vulnerable, vulnerabilities get kids killed. I can't repeat this, I won't ever sing again. Shouldn't Mono have alerted her? He knew how bad noise was as good as her! Why didn't he stop her?

'You were supposed to be the first shift!' She glared at her friend.

'But it was pretty!' He chuckled through his wolf mask.

"You have a wonderful voice, superstar! You should sing more often!" The bear praised.

Six's face turned a deep red, somehow burning brighter than her ruby eyes. It wasn't that good, was it? It would never happen again, she was sure of that, but knowing she did well was... It made her warm, like whenever the Entertainer would call her a superstar or her friend tiredly cuddled up to her when she couldn't sleep.

"What was that song? I have never heard it before." The bear asked, Six tore a piece of paper from the notebook and grabbed a brown pencil.

'Its about us. I don't know who made up the song, but almost every group we hung out with knew it, a couple sang it when they threw us out.' She put plainly.

What?

"I... Do not understand." He pushed, she began to scribble away.

'The 'Little Nightmares' are us, monsters with curses.'

Monsters? Monsters! This cannot stand.

"Six, you and Mono are not monsters! You may have had poor fortune in life, but that does not make you a monster."

'Yes it does. We don't belong with anyone, theyll push us away before we get them killed.' She frowned.

"You and Mono have not gotten each other killed, you are closer than anyone else that has visited the Mega Pizzaplex." He countered.

Six and Mono shuddered. Better he doesn't know, both of them sure wished they didn't.

'That doesn't mean were not monsters. Gregory must've shown you the video of me and Miss Vanny.'

"Countless people are born with various conditions or illnesses, that does not make them monsters, they are just less fortunate. I will admit you and Mono are... quite an extreme case... But you should not speak so little of yourselves, I think something great can come from your abilities!"

Though he tried to be encouraging, Six's brows furrowed. Her yellowed fangs poked out from under her irritated, burning, chapped lips. A pair of watery and bloodshot eyes narrowed at him, an angry and frustrated glare holding back tears. Mono had been looking away, trying to work on his drawing of the Daycare Attendant before finding an uninteresting spot on the concrete to stare at.

'Were not PEOPLE, were JUST MONSTERS.' She insisted.

"Not to me." He declared.

'WHY?'

He paused. They were special, of course. All kids were their own kind of spectacular, he'd been programmed to tell them that, but these three were something more. Gregory had broken into and hid in the Pizzaplex for months, tampering with their servers and modifying them without him or a single one of his friends knowing. Mono could manipulate and shatter things with a wave of his hand, probably more. Six commanded shadows and seemed able to keep surviving on nothing but the purest determination to persist, no matter how long ago her impossibly thin body should've given out, physically unable to keep going any longer. Not one of them were given the love and attention they needed to grow, to become wonderful people, the affection and mercy they deserved as neglected children already robbed of so much.

"According to my programming, Gregory has gotten people killed, and you have assaulted Officer Vanessa, so I should have called the police; but you are children, and I am also programmed to protect you first and foremost. As there is no clear greater or lower priority between these two actions, the choice is left up to me.

I know you are all capable of great and terrible things, and that can be scary to anyone. I understand that anyone would be frightened, but that does not mean you deserve it. That does not make you monsters.

I truly think that if you are given some form of guidance, you can become wonderful people. I know we do not have much time before the doors open and you must leave for your own safety, but I promise; for as long as you are here, I will do what I can to help you become your best selves.

I will protect you, I will help you learn, and when you are gone I will think of you every day. You three are incredible, you have the opportunity to become so much more than forgotten kids on snowy streets or a worker for a madman, but first you need someone to point you in the right direction."

Six stopped, unable to respond or unsure what to think, simply staring at him with no clear expression or reaction. Mono reached for the paper she'd written on and wrote in a blue pencil.

'Like a parent?' The boy asked.

...

"...I am not designed to be a substitute for a parental figure... But I will do my best until you must leave."

Mono got to his feet and clutched his drawing of the Daycare Attendant, a cross between Sunrise and Moondrop reminding him of the pair's days as the Theater's main attraction. He shyly raised an arm to the bear, then retracted it, like he hadn't decided what to do, though Freddy had an idea what he was after. The animatronic kneeled to Mono's level and spread his arms wide. After a few seconds the boy stepped closer, slightly reluctantly letting himself be wrapped up. Caught without having to worry about being eaten or dying. He tried to do the same, but his thin arms were much too small. The hug broke and the tall boy held up the paper.

"Sunrise would love to see this." Freddy assured him and ruffled his greasy and knotted hair.

Six came up next, holding her own drawing tight to her chest. Freddy offered her a hug as well, but predictably didn't get the same response as her much more open companion. She stood in place, out of reach for a minute, then walked over to one of his hands and awkwardly shook it.

Her eyes stayed hidden under her hood as she placed the crumpled paper in his paw; it was of him! As she couldn't see the colors, her sight limited to blues and yellows, it was a little off, but no less gorgeous; the main orange wasn't quite the right shade, the peachy hue of his belly and face was accidentally replaced by a pale yellow, she'd left the lightning bolt designs an uncolored white, his microphone stand and hat were crooked but it was amazing! The picture lacked the gaps in his casing, being fluid and smooth like he was a real bear back from extinction, only broken up by tufts of fur and dimples around a huge smile and starry eyes that were a too-dark blue. One of his arms was raised, giving a huge wave with 'Well Done Superstars!' written in brown at the top, though she probably thought it was red when she wrote it.

"I would love to keep this, Six, may I?" He asked the talented young girl.

She froze, eventually failing to hold back a faint grin under her misty eyes, and gave him a shaky nod.

Chapter Text

"Alright, first things first!" Freddy started, quickly standing up and storing Six's drawing in the corner of his chest cavity.

"You and Gregory seem to have gotten into some trouble, there is a first-aid station just behind the maintenance cell."

Two sets of stairs leading up to four elevators of the animatronics had another white box with a red curtain in the center. Being the one with a painfully obvious limp, Gregory was swiftly enveloped in the bear's huge arms. The boy was barely big enough for his head and feet to stretch to the machine's shoulders, sliding in place in the centers of Freddy's elbows as he was brought to the medical stand. According to his scans, Gregory's foot didn't seem to be too severely damaged, just a tiny sprain result of Moondrop's attack with some bruising around his shoulders and a dirty scrape on his cheek; nothing some numbing cream and a compression bandage couldn't fix. Freddy carefully took off the boy's shoe and grabbed a simple wipe to gently remove the layers of dirt coating his leg.

'Why do you four need a first aid thing here?' Mono held a paper up to Freddy as he rolled up Gregory's sleeves.

"We do not, this station is for the mechanics and technicians in the event of an accident while repairing or updating us." He explained.

"Some guys almost got killed 'cos they crossed some wires or pressed the wrong button." Gregory cut in.

While the bear would've preferred if that information was kept under wraps, so as not to risk scaring anyone, these two were hardly squeamish or jumpy, even compared to a couple of military vets whose children dragged them to the Pizzaplex. Mono nodded at Gregory like it was nothing out of the ordinary and curled his hand around Six's, touching her open cuts with his filthy palm. The animatronic overlooked the blatant health hazard, for now, he needed to finish tending to Gregory first.

"Superstar, I understand that you were just answering the question, but sometimes the details are better left unsaid. Just because they are brave does not mean you should not be more careful about what you say, you will frighten someone."

"They're the last ones that'll get scared." The boy deadpanned.

"Maybe not, but it is still important to mind what you say-"

"We can get scared." Six's small voice interrupted, already beginning to get raspy once more.

Mono passed her the notebook and let go of her hand.

'We can get scared, were just quiet about it. Were not empty.' Six wrote. All the other kids think we are, though, sometimes I wish we were.

Freddy finished handling Gregory's injuries, helping him put his shoe back over the bandage. He would've been happy to put some ice on the foot, but there wasn't any present and they hardly had time to get some, not that Gregory would've appreciated trying to walk with an icepack strapped to his leg. The boy again flinched when he moved to pick him up off the med stand, but relaxed quickly. Freddy ruffled his hair as he gestured for Six to take a seat. She was compliant enough, likely just wanting to get this over with as soon as possible. The dried blood trailing down her arm was incredibly visible, even under her raincoat, but he'd need more details. After a detailed scan he found a gash in her arm, various small cuts in her hand, and some split skin around her knuckles. He started cleaning up the arm and preparing to warp it and the fist in a bandage while Six clumsily wrote on the paper with her off-hand.

'The Puppet told us about a way out.' She'd scribbled, very wobbly and crooked compared to her other messages.

"That is great news! What is it?" He asked while applying plenty of bruise cream to the limb, she passed the book back to Mono.

'She was talking about a bunch of toys around the piza. pizzaplecks around the place that can unlock the fire door.'

The Golden Scavenger hunt?

"Yes, that activity would grant you temporary VIP access, but it was removed from the Pizzaplex a long time ago, I am not sure if that will work"

"It'll be fine." Gregory cut in.

"I found some of the files still in the Main Systems a while back, Fazbear Entertainment never paid anyone to finish getting rid of it. I dunno where the plushies would be, though."

"I see... However, I think it will be best for us to hide in my greenroom until the doors open on their own. There is no need to risk being caught."

That, and teaching these three some basic lessons will be important when I am no longer able to look after them.

"What about the Rabbit Lady?" Gregory asked.

"What about her?"

"She'll find us... I-I kinda made Mr. Burrows mad, he's after me now, everyone is... The R-rabbit's gonna kill me..."

"If you do not mind me asking, what happened with Mr. Burrows?"

"...I thought about what you said and... I sabotaged the robot he wanted me to fix... I stole one of its arms and he got really mad... Then Moon attacked me..." Gregory explained.

That is... a lot to unpack...

"You did the right thing, superstar! I am proud of you." The hacker's face lit up.

"A-another thing... I'm gonna leave the Pizzaplex with them." Gregory elaborated.

"That is good to hear... I will miss you, but you must never return, for your own sakes... I fear it may never be safe here." Freddy lamented.

'We still have to deal with the bunny.' Mono interrupted with a piece of paper.

"Do not worry, I will protect you." The bear assured them.

"You can't even see her. The other animatronics have a bunch of extra features we can use! We can upgrade you!" Gregory pointed out.

"They are my friends, Gregory. We cannot just break them, they are not themselves. There are other ways to stay out of their way until 6 AM." Freddy said as he got done patching up Six.

"They're the ones trying to kill us!" Gregory countered. They get what they deserve.

"They are being manipulated. Maybe it is a virus, maybe they are being controlled, but they do not want to harm you. There must be another way."

'Theyre being controlled by a purple rabbit.' Mono wrote.

Freddy did a double-take. There is two?

'The Puppet told us about something called Glitchtrap. She said it man-ip-you-lates people, it might be messing with your friends.'

"That sounds promising! If there is a way to get this 'Glitchtrap' out of the Main Systems, then it may not be able to reach the others anymore!

I am sorry to ask this of you, but do you know if there is a way to defeat it? Or a way you can help?"

Mono paused, Freddy could practically hear the gears turning behind the child's bright blue eyes.

'So far only I can see it.' Wonderful start.

'Six can too if she holds my hand, but thats it. We fought it a couple times, but it always comes back. I dont think we can kill it.'

Normally, he'd be extremely abhorred by the idea of killing anything for any reason, but this... thing had potentially caused the deaths of countless innocent children and therapists throughout the Pizzaplex, it couldn't be left unchecked.

"That is... concerning." He looked down. Mono's face fell, tilting his mask to the concrete floor.

"Please do not be upset, superstar, it is not your fault. I should not have asked that of you in the first place, I am only looking for a way to get my friends back. I am sorry to put that on you."

The boy beamed as Freddy ruffled his hair. Six proceeded to motion to the notebook, getting Mono to hand it over.

'The rabbit lady is Miss Vanny. Glitchtrap is using her for its killings.' She wrote.

...

What?!

"That... That cannot be correct! Officer Vannessa may be a little rough around the edges at times, but she is not a murderer." Freddy exclaimed.

'The Puppet hit her arm and it started bleeding a bunch, it was the same arm I bit, and theres not anyone else here with us. If you havent caught her, shes probably just really good at lying.' She claimed.

"Vanny is not a deceptive person, it is very obvious when she is stressed or something is on her mind. She cannot lie, not effectively enough to trick us."

'Isnt that the point of lying? Make you seem one way, when youre actually another? Of course you wouldnt know something was wrong, you didnt even know you killed people before tonight.' Six argued.

Fair point, but... Vanessa? Why?

"She's right." Gregory popped up.

No.

"I brushed her off since if I could live here without anyone noticing, the Rabbit Lady probably could too, but Vanessa is the only other person I've ever seen after hours, and she tends to disappear from the cameras around the time the red glitches show up.

I still don't get how she moves between cameras, though. I never really guessed the jammer could have that effect on the cams, that's why I never thought about it being more than a glitch before, but...

I'm an eleven-year-old who broke into the Pizzaplex, made friends with a giant fox, and then got wrapped up in a murder scheme while being hunted by an angry sock puppet. Mono ripped off a vent without touching it, kicked Moon's ass-"

"Language, Gregory." Freddy warned.

"Come on! It's not like I'm insulting anyone!" He complained.

"Not at the moment, but it may not be a good idea to use profanity too frequently."

"Fine, Mono kicked Moon's butt and bent space-time in the process." Gregory carried on.

"One moment, Mono what?" Freddy interjected again.

"He bullied reality until it let him beat up a robot." He then pointed to the yellow-coated girl.

"Six can control shadows, summons a copy of herself when she's hungry, is probably a cannibal, is literally nothing but a walking skeleton with some skin attached to it, and I'm pretty sure she's a baby Wendigo."

The 'baby Wendigo' in question proceeded to snap at his finger, her eight, serrated incisors loudly locked together like they were made of steel. Gregory jumped straight out of his skin, yanking his hand away and falling to the concrete with a yelp. Six smirked as Mono politely held back a laugh, followed by a short and simple lecture from Freddy as Gregory recovered. Without standing up, the boy scooted a short distance away from the still-smiling girl.

"A-and at the moment; the closest thing we have to a family is a humanized plastic replica of an extinct species that sings and can eat us to hide us from his murder-drone backup singers.

If Vanessa is secretly an H. H. Holmes style freak of nature in a fur suit and can clip through walls like she's in a Bethesda game, she'd still be the most ordinary of all of us." He finished.

Perhaps. It wouldn't be impossible. The Rabbit slid down the staircase's railings to chase the kids, like Foxy and Sunrise repeatedly caught Vanessa doing in her spare time. The Rabbit was clearly a strong and eccentric woman, Vanessa was certainly quite spry and agile. The Rabbit used a voice changer, but not a great one, she did sound vaguely like Vanessa, but only in the sense of being a young woman. The Rabbit had gotten everywhere she wasn't meant to be, Vanessa had the highest security clearance of any Fazbear employee as the head of security, if only because she was the only significant non-animatronic worker in the position.

The Rabbit was invisible to him, so it's not like he could compare their dimensions. But Vanny's a friend. This anxious, mess of a person who took the night shift to avoid interacting with people, only to gain the full attention of every major property or character owned by Fazbear Entertainment LLC. This wonderfully awkward person who tried and failed hilariously to repair his neck this very night. This woman who eventually began chatting with all his friends, one of the only staff and corporate personnel to share conversations about the ups and downs of their shifts and daily lives.

This wasn't just Officer Vanessa, the Mega Pizzaplex's standard nightguard keeping the building safe from trespassers and vandals; this was Vanny, the band's best friend.

The one who could see any and every security concern the moment it was filed into the Main Systems, like his complaint about the locked Fire Escape. The one who should've been able to override the locked doors at any time, like the second she found Mono and Six. The one who must've seen his wards on the cameras at some point, and could've tried to contact them or the authorities long before the mishap with Moon. The one who knew every inch of the Pizzaplex to the point she never needed a map anymore. The one who had a background testing the company's VR retelling of its violent history and would've known all about the first founder's legendary killings, including his signature of killing with a rabbit suit. The one who speed-ran the promotion system through helping manage a glitch of unknown origin in the Funtime Delivery Service.

Vanessa... why?

--- 👁 ---

'So Vanessa's the rabbit and Glitchtrap wants her to kill people, we still need the plush toys to get out, any ideas?' Six asked through the notebook.

Freddy stayed quiet, only for a moment. First, his friends start vanishing off the face of the Earth, then he and his band are forced to slaughter the children they were built to love and protect, now this? Vanny, of all people, was a monster. There's no time for this, they are the only priority, they must get out safely.

"We do not necessarily need the golden toys. There is nothing stopping you from hiding in my greenroom until the doors open, I will keep you safe." Freddy promised.

Besides, I will be better able to focus on preparing you for the aftermath of this travesty.

"Vanessa's gonna find us if we stay in one place! We need to keep moving." Gregory pointed out.

"Then we will run into the others, it is too great a risk." Freddy said.

'Id rather take our chances with your friends than the night guard, at least we can all see them, the wolfs the only one thats hard to deal with.' Six offered.

"Superstars, you know what apostrophes are, correct?" He pitifully deflected, Six began scribbling away.

'If we dont keep running, Vanny will find us; shes fast, smart, strong, and knows the area better than me and Mono.'

Mono and I, Freddy corrected silently.

'Your friends arent as big a problem; Montys to dumb and slow to catch us, hes only a concern when another ones helping him.

Roxys fast, but shes too full of herself to stop to make a plan.

Chicas easy to distract with food. She had something weird with her feet, she could slide around really quickly, but thats it.'

"Are you talking about Chica's skates?" Gregory asked, earning a synchronized, cat-like head tilt from Mono and Six.

"They were on her before I showed up. I 'dunno why she's only using them now." Gregory explained.

"Chica's roller skates were added because Roxy Raceway was originally going to be a roller rink, it was changed when the advertisements did not boost Chica's popularity as much as expected and several guest surveys suggested a go-kart track would bring a much greater profit.

Fazbear Entertainment did not want to pay someone to remove or replace them, so they have remained since the remodel. I would guess she has not used them because they are ineffective on carpets and she needs walls to push herself off of, otherwise she would not be able to turn or gain speed.

She will likely try to skate to you in tight spaces, like in hallways or between the arcade machines, but walking is more effective in the rest of the Pizzaplex." Freddy clarified.

'Another reason we dont want to corner ourselves in your room.' Six deadpanned with her paper.

"So do we agree we need to keep moving now?" Gregory questioned.

"...Perhaps hiding will not be such a good idea after all..." Freddy relented. Why does Six know to consider all of this at her age? What happened to you two?

"What if we broke them and stole their upgrades?" Gregory pondered, much to the bear's horror.

"Gregory! Those are my friends! They are not hunting you out of their own volition, they are only meant to entertain. You cannot harm them." Freddy stated firmly.

"You're the one that got on my case for not wanting to leave when Roxy tried to eat them! Your friends wanna kill us!." They're not people.

"They are not in their right minds, superstars. There are ways to defend yourselves other than bringing harm, there are ways to exploit their programming without decommissioning them." Freddy insisted.

'Whats this about upgrades?' Six waved the sheet through the dark air. Ever happy to talk about machines and his own handiwork, the resident hacker perked up from where he sat.

"I installed some things in all the animatronics!

Roxanne has special eyes to help her win races, they're also connected to the same AR vision that the technicians use to fix stuff in the Main Systems or machinery all over the place. She sees things nobody else can with or without Helpi masks, she's even talked to the other robots through walls!

Chica's voice box was supposed to let her hit tougher notes, but it keeps messing with the other animatronics at higher volumes, so she's not allowed to sing anymore.

Monty has claws to play the bass and stronger hydraulics in his legs that let him jump around the Pizzaplex... They're not great though... He was supposed to jump way higher..."

The boy looked down. Obviously, much of the work done on the band had been the result of his mind and the fake Mr. Burrows' bribery. Had it not turned out as planned? What had that man done to him?

"Superstar, is something wrong?"

"...I... didn't get the tokens he promised for that one, he wanted me to make Monty jump over the stairs in the lobby... I couldn't do it, he's too heavy..." The young Mechanic admitted.

"Up the Lobby staircase? Maybe that would have worked before he was modified to replace... him... but that would no longer be possible with his current dimensions and weight class. Losing that payment did not cause you too much trouble, did it?"

"N-no. I just couldn't get food for a couple days, I'm f-fine."

...

"A couple days. You should always have at least three meals, superstar."

"I can't afford that much food. I'm lucky to get enough to make it through the week as is."

'Whos giving you the tokens?' Mono asked, grabbing another paper for Six and himself.

Gregory didn't answer, looking to the floor instead. A good thing, in a twisted way that made Freddy's coolant run wild and again tricked him into thinking something was damaging his internals. It's for the best, that Gregory was growing uncomfortable with his actions, but nobody should have to learn like this, especially a frightened little boy. He couldn't fix what Gregory had already done, but he could still spare him the dread of trying to face it alone.

"A man with a fake name was paying Gregory to make the modifications, which we are not going to kill my friends for."

--- 👁 ---

The four sat in silence; there was a way out of this, for certain, but getting the other animatronics' upgrades would make it much easier.

In Gregory's opinion; it was too much of an advantage to overlook to preserve a few, ultimately meaningless robots. None of them mattered compared to getting away from this hell, and they could be completely rebuilt on a whim, anyway. Management might've been able to redistribute their assets to cover for Bonnie and Foxy, but they'll either go bankrupt or sell out if they don't fix everyone when the night's done for. A thought that sent both a hopeful warmth through the programmer's freezing cold chest and a nervous shiver up his aching spine. What would he think, of all that's happened? Of what Gregory's done, in his absence? Would he hate him? Throw him away? It won't matter, he wouldn't ever get to see what would happen to this place, when all was said and done. In the end, it'll all be worth it, because no matter what he thought about Gregory, he'd finally be okay.

This time, they'll have to bring Foxy back...

But I need to get the other parts to get everyone out safely first...

Six was already on his side, but that was about the only thing he could be sure of. She was different, even compared to Gregory and Mono. All she ever suggested she cared about was survival and her little boyfriend, dismantling the other animatronics would help guarantee both. Freddy, of course, would never approve of any of this; they'd need to get away from the Entertainer's prying eyes to get anything done, but he also couldn't get too far, the boy's survival depended on it. Their guardian would need to stay nearby, if only for Gregory's protection, but far enough not to know what was happening to his bandmates. What he doesn't know can't hurt him.

Monty's claws were by far the least promising, brute force wouldn't be nearly as reliable if Roxy and Chica showed up together. It might work better if he could switch Freddy's arms with the gator's legs, those powerful hydraulics should make short work of anyone below Vanessa, but he'd need a way to remove its lower half to get the parts he needed. All of that worked entirely under the assumption Freddy would be willing to use them at all. Otherwise, a pair of greatly enhanced claws would only let them tear into parts of the Pizzaplex normally chained off to keep Monty in check; it'd be neat, no question about it, but not very helpful until all other threats were already out of the picture.

Chica's voice was a better choice, if only a little. All it takes is a well-timed shout to completely invert any of their attackers' motor functions, aside from Vanny. That was a feature Freddy might actually be willing to exploit against the others. The only issue was that the bear's code may not be fully compatible with the beak; replacing his arms would be one thing, just interchanging a basic limb for another, but the voice box had a vastly different vocal range than the rest of the performers were supposed to be capable of. Chica's endoskeleton was very different from the others, built with the old plastic-smiling Barbie stereotype in mind. Its endo was the only one that fit the measurements Mr. Burrows gave him for the rabbit suit and it had the extremely compact and modified hardware to match, able to withstand the unintended backlash of its voice. If he installed them, Freddy might not always be able to hit the right note to disable the bots.

Roxanne, however, would be wonderful to get rid of. Unfortunately for Cassie, Gregory knew the value of information much better than most his age. The majority of problems in their way could be nullified by stealing Roxy's eyes. The wolf itself was easily the most glaring roadblock, the fastest and most aggressive of the bunch, destroying her would be the hardest, but would also get the biggest thorn in their side out of the way. They wouldn't need to try and push Freddy to use Monty's claws if they got a massive heads up that someone was approaching, they wouldn't need Chica's voice if they were hidden by the time something was in range. With the eyes' built-in connection to the AR technician filter and more, there was no telling how detailed a picture of their situation he could get; maybe there was a way to track the gift boxes holding their escape or let him see Vanny with the same signal-circumventing tricks he'd run through his computer.

"We should go to Roxy Raceway!" Gregory blurted, drawing more feline head tilts from the duo of survivors.

"Why is that?" Freddy asked.

"For the carts! We can run circles around Vanessa and Roxy until they're drained, and it has the character block so only Roxy can get into it!"

"Under normal circumstances, yes, the attractions are off-limits to unrelated members, but it may be possible for Vanessa to activate one of the special event programs that would let them enter, not to mention I cannot travel with you until that same program is activated."

"Yeah, but I can block the program with my Fazwrech and a security node, we can hole up in there until Vanny shows up. Then we'll just pack up and find somewhere else to go."

"...Perhaps that could work, but we will need at least three party passes to get into all the establishments, I am unsure where to find them." Freddy admitted.

"No need! One of the first things I did when I got here was break the pass system. If you're able to get any card and put -1 on it, it'll glitch the card readers and they'll always interpret you as having the highest number of passes the Main Systems can count to.

We just need to get to the doors and I can do the rest with the stuff in my bag!" He declared.

Right, that duffle bag.

THE BAG!

"Wait, superstar! Before I forget again, something was stolen from the bag while you were gone."

"WHAT!?" His eyes shot wide open as he quickly got to his feet, his vision doubling and his head feeling light as Mono rushed to catch him before he fell.

"I did not see what was taken, or what stole from you, I was unable to stop it." The bear explained.

Gregory wasn't listening, laser-focused on his bag by the service computer. What if they were taken?

Chapter Text

Gregory desperately sorted through his bright orange duffle bag, pushing around the massive scrap computer in his search for what was stolen. The Fazwrench was fine, present and in nominal condition, aside from some strange, black, oil-like fluid seeping into the internals. He tampered with the gray switch, the item operated just as fine as it did when he first stole borrowed it. His computer was completely intact, even the laptop he snatched was still snugly held in place in the center. Intentionally buried in the bottom of the bag was a tiny pile of trinkets; a faded red bandana with a dirty white, dog-like skull sewn on the front, a fake flintlock pistol with cracked and dusty plastic casing, and the broken remains of a green bird with it's speaker dangling from it's shattered plastic head and ruined circuits tangled in wires dangling from the hole of it's missing wing.

A deep sigh escaped the programmer, they were all fine, and everything important was okay. All that was taken was his Freddy-talkie. That was fine, it was just another piece of junk, he only grabbed it because the Foxy versions were out of stock. The only thing of value in that radio was his modifications, and all he needed to completely replace or upgrade them was an average phone or anything with a transmitter. While it should've been concerning, knowing something stole from him, something he knew nothing about, he could only feel the immense tension bursting out and away from his body. What's important is still here, everything's gonna be okay. Maybe the question he should've been asking was why? What about his radio was so special that something needed it enough to steal from him?

"Are you alright, superstar?" Freddy broke him from his thoughts.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine now. We can go when you're ready."

--- 👁 ---

Mono leered into a screen on the wall; a fairly small glass panel with a pinkish rubber lining, on a simple loop it played a basic animation of a white and pink version of Freddy walking down a path placing triangular flags beside him. As if she were speaking to him, Charlie's words rang through his head, words he hoped Six latched onto as well. What if his curse wasn't a curse? At least not to the degree he'd thought. His incredible and vile abilities were evil, undeserving to see the light of day, no doubt about it; they'd gotten him thrown out of fearful groups and alone in the woods until he found someone like him, they'd pulled him to the Tower no matter how much he tried to block out the Signal pounding in his head, and in her own fear his best friend abandoned him for his abilities.

She'd never do it now, but it stung him in a way he was used to. His powers were bad news, no exceptions or silver lining. Six's powers were bad news, no exceptions or silver lining. They were bad news, no exceptions or silver lining, but they'd gotten used to being bad news together. Then this terrifying Marionette and weird bear came into their lives. This looming Puppet with powers not dissimilar to Six's, who could've crushed them in an instant, taught them the barest basics of Agony and encouraged her to delve into the darkest depths of her impossible abilities. Freddy never once abandoned them, risking himself to keep them safe despite their abundant issues with him.

For once, even though nothing good could come from their abilities, they'd been given a chance, and becoming something other than the Thin Man or the Lady's far more horrific replacement felt possible, however unlikely.

Maybe it's time for the next step?

Mono walked up to the screen, the hairs on his neck standing straight as the Tower and sweat pouring down his palms like waterfalls. His abyssal pupils and arctic blue irises burst within his bloodshot, pearly eyes. His hand hummed with static, blue waves crawling up his arm like snakes constricting the limb until it popped clean off. Five cold fingers pressed the middle of the glass and buzzed their sharp ring-like tuning forks, vibrating in sync with the information passing through the wires and circuits hidden beneath the interface. Pale surges coursed through the concrete wall, spreading cracks across the stone. Chips of rock bounced around his bare feet, doing little to deter Mono's creation; his very own Signal, refined and personalized, unlike the frantic and last-second manifestation brought down on the Daycare Attendant's metal face.

He'd put a piece of himself into a packet of information and Agony, buried in the minuscule portion of the Pizzaplex.

--- 👁 ---

Six kept her eyes pinned to her friend's back, their red sheen masked by the shadow of her hood and greasy hair. The air tingled in a way she'd hoped to never feel again; the millions of needles crawling across her skin as they did in the haziest bowels of the Tower, its Signal beaming directly into her, but refusing to put her out of her misery like another mindless viewer. Instead, that beast fed off her curse, leeching her Agony until she was freed or no longer useful to it. Then it did the same to Mono, feeding on him like a parasite until he was of no use to it except gathering more kids to devour. Eventually, even the Thin Man would become a bore, and the cycle was renewed. Now, before her eyes, Mono was replicating it, but improperly.

Calling it wrong wasn't accurate, nothing about Mono could ever be wrong. Rather, the longer he spent on the Signal, the better it felt; the piercing of pins so sharp they didn't hurt turned into the gentle grasp of his hand holding hers, a ticklish static wrapped around her sides like when he'd 'attack' her after she made a joke at his expense, a criminally soft warmth hugged her like she was a black kitten in his lap. Never let this stop. Something wilder shivered through the wall, dark rings rippling out of the device he'd touched; the windows of the many glass rooms around them writhed in place until they shattered, only the greatly toughened planes around the massive tube in the center of the wide space remained intact. Tools and spare parts and shards of glass of all shapes and sizes hovered around them, they floated through the thin breeze like they were but scraps of thrown paper, quickly drawing their guardian's eyes as they fluttered around them.

In an instant it all stopped, much to Six's dismay. The cracks over the wall vanished as if they were never there, like the fleshy monolith restoring its tall disguise. Flashing over the monitor was a pale blue screen crawling with dark static lines, centered by a simple but lovely white icon. It was the minimalist image of a child wearing a raincoat; two small lines poked from under the hem as it swayed around its shins, like the computer's distortions were a gust of wind pushing it around. There were no clear arms, they blended into the main body, but the triangular hood was big and obvious with a diamond in the center of her face. Around and behind the small child was a massive eye, half closed like the ones on the Maw. The design broke at the bottom, making a gap where the child could stand and the hood would fit within the huge pupil.

The Entertainer and other child gawked at him, both lacking a reaction or any idea where to start trying to make sense of what they'd witnessed.

--- 👁 ---

In the back of his mind, something echoed down the dark halls beyond. A familiar pressure grew in the back of his mind, only this time it was more like a mosquito bite; you know it's there, but you never feel the long mouth stabbing your flesh and drawing out your blood. A pair of phantoms were hiding in the dark maintenance tunnels surrounding them, but were getting closer fast. Mono could feel the sharp angles and short bursts of speed of one of them as it careened through the maze of halls with purpose, its destination clear in its metal skull; the other moved much slower, but didn't care for the many barriers of wire fences and computer displays blocking its path, blurring his perception of its position in a red and violet storm. Before he could turn to warn anyone, the glitching red mass of CRTV lines spun around the exit and struck a pose. Her large knife twirled a circle around the side of her tilted head, her free arm rose in the air as if shouting 'presto!' and one leg kicked the empty space beside her.

"Ding-dong, guess who's at your door now!" Vanessa taunted.

--- 👁 ---

Even while he couldn't see her, Freddy glanced in her general direction. Vanny... WHY? He scooped Gregory into his arms, hastily helping him into his stomach hatch and throwing the hacker's duffle bag over his shoulder, then rushed the remaining two up the nearby staircase. Her padded footsteps barely made a sound, but she was just close enough for the machine to hear her as she pirouetted towards them. Chica followed suit, rapidly rolling into the room and sliding into one of the broken glass cells. Three red out-of-service lights glowed above the elevators to the animatronics' greenrooms and a green one above Roxanne's lift. The staff were afraid to enter Monty's room and fix it, Chica's elevator fell victim to her voice, and Freddy's was locked down in the aftermath of his malfunction, they had no other choice but to intrude on Roxy.

Six grabbed Mono's hand and dragged him far ahead of the others. He could sense Gregory's heart rate pounding through his casing, the hacker's breathing getting ragged with Freddy's rapid stomping. Chica swerved around the corner of the small room and crunched over the scattered bits of glass. Her yellow feet had retracted their skates and started chasing them up the stairs, just behind the Nightguard. Six desperately struggled to read the 'Close Door' button as fast as she could, repeatedly pressing it as their parent dashed into the cramped space. Freddy whirled around, regretfully jostling Gregory as he made himself appear as big as possible, blocking the door. Vanny giggled as the metal sheet clicked shut before them. Now settled in the cramped space, Six calmed and tapped the next button, preparing for the machine to carry them to the wolf's bright den.

They didn't move.

The illusion of gravity increasing on them never came, the lift didn't move an inch. Inside the chest cavity, the programmer worked to regain control of his breathing, using his Fazwatch to get a hold of his surroundings through Freddy's eyes. A weighty clank slammed against the door. Mechanical clucking pecked at the steel sheet, her nails sliding across the metal. She didn't scream, it was too quiet and the mechanisms she'd need to disable the lift with were far above them, atop Roxanne's room, something else was holding them here. Freddy looked around. He couldn't scan anything wrong with the hydraulics, nothing looked broken, and they were still well below the weight limit.

A small beep echoed around Parts and Service, joined by the hiss of another door rising. Vanessa's muffled voice and laughing came from behind their own door. Then another beep and hiss, the woman cackled; 'Not this one!' she boasted. Mono let go of Six's hand, staring into the door. This is new. His eyes still weren't burning and his head didn't ache. Had he countered the red aura? Whatever was going on, whatever refining a Signal of his own had changed about him, it pushed back against the searing pain that loved to chase him, all without any direct action of his own. Automatically, the Signal adjusted, targeting something within the elevator. It wasn't strong enough to get rid of it, but it revealed a small box with an antennae and big, Freddy-shaped button in his mind's eye; many smaller, color-coded keys decorated the small space beneath the main button, but the image was too blurry for him to see what they were.

The Lost and Found door.

She'd tried to open the door, and their hunch in the Lobby was correct, she could command the elevators as well. Vanny trapped them, but she'd gotten too cocky again. Mono's hand burst into static as she continued toying with them, passing them by and 'investigating' the door to Freddy's room.

"Hmmm... let's see what's behind door number 2!"

--- 👁 ---

Chica stomped around, pacing in front of the steel barrier as her invisible companion approached. With the press of a button and a garbled voice spouting a generic order, the door slid open. Freddy quickly blocked Chica's advance. A simple task, being twice her size and significantly heavier. The fatherly bear gave his friend and Gregory a quick apology as he bashed his shoulder into the chicken's collar, throwing her off balance with ease. Blue static levitated one of her feet until she flipped over the side of the staircase, barely grabbing the guard rails to land legs-first and crashing onto the first-aid station. Vanessa came next, though his inability to see her remained a quite literally glaring issue. Freddy blindly swiped his claw ahead of him. All the machine got in response was another smug giggle before a hidden palm threw his head back.

"Now, now, there's no need for that!" She chuckled.

Fortunately, he could tell she'd gotten up in his face and launched himself forward. His painted nails tried to grab her, but she was too quick. Her hand latched onto his wrist and pulled him towards her, Gregory yelped within his body as a sharp object was wedged between the plates of his torso. Freddy felt her tug on him, making him stumble partially out of the elevator like she was trying to waltz with him. A stuffed, oversized clown shoe pressed down his clawed foot, and he felt the swirling wind around the woman's knife as she spun it in her hand. With a swift click, Vanessa sheathed the knife and replaced it with the hefty weapon she'd attacked the Puppet with. The hook-like protrusion on the rear end snapped into the back of his jaw, then yanked downward as his face was smashed against the Nightguard's endo-enhanced knee.

The moment Chica again reached the top of the stairs, the blue static surged anew, covering the lift in dark lines. Freddy felt himself getting lighter as a thunderous blast pulsed across the rooms. His avian guitarist tumbled down the steps and a glitching, wavering red outline of the girl in the rabbit suit appeared. The distorted silhouette vanished as soon as it became visible, but it was enough for him to estimate where her stomach was. Freddy's fist crashed into her gut, smashing the metal supports within her costume. She barely staggered at all, but it was enough for him to push Vanny off. A high-pitched scream came from inside him; slightly comical, if there wasn't a blade currently buried in his shoulder pad. Shards of his polished coating and red shoulder piece fell to the ground as the stick was ripped out of him. The clattering of the lift's ceiling tiles thudded behind him, as did bits of glass and electrical sparks. Freddy made an uppercut, hitting nothing, but it deterred Vanessa for a critical second to let him turn around.

A thrashing limb scratched the air above the other two's heads, neither had yelled or panicked, but both reacted in an instant. Six had tackled Mono to the ground, then rolled off him to get a handle on what was happening. Coiled tubes with broken and rusted metal covers swayed from the roof. It dripped black slime like an oil leak and more bleeding pipes dangled out of the hole in the roof, they slithered around like foul maggots searching for a corpse to burrow into. While they were clearly attached to the same sludgy creature that stole from Gregory, the hand swiping at his kids was very different from the talons that scratched the reinforced glass tube. It lacked the sharp caps on its fingertips and the yellowish-white rods wrapped in the mesh of oxidized copper and molten rubber. It only had two segments to each finger, as opposed to the normal, more humanoid three, and was held together by melted white plastic or metal tubes. Possibly the remnants of a glove? Was it one of Chica's spare arms at some point? Salvaged from right under the technicians' noses? Strands of material connected the appendages, the index and thumb had their ties severed, the remains stiffly poking out of the sides of the rods like spikes, while the remaining two fingers were fused together.

He tried to swat the limb away from the children without leaving an opening for Vanessa to step through. Just before the woman's disguised arm swung her weapon at his neck, a dark mist gathered around it. Six's hands were hidden in black fog as she threw them to her side, trying to launch the Rabbit down the stairs, she only sidestepped to regain her composure and slid a short distance over the floor. Vanessa shifted her footing and lifted the weapon above her head, ready to bring it down on Freddy's skull until Six stopped her again. The giant doll couldn't see the Huntress, but the freezing cold ribbons of negativity were well within his sights. Freddy stretched to help hold back the blade and pull the swiping arm away from the kids. The exoskeleton's raw strength wrestled with him from the stick and the arm's supernatural might pulled him into the lift, but he held on tight as Six pulled back one hand to hold down the writhing limb trying to snatch her up, splitting her attention to the best of her ability.

--- 👁 ---

Mono reached into the Parts and Service chamber, searching for his Signal. They were barely out of range, the pulsing energy could barely help him find the source of the elevator's interference; perhaps they could crush the thing above them as they ascended, or at least get the Nightguard out of their hair so they could deal with it, but he needed to tune in first. The moment in the Prize Corner crossed his mind, as did his many encounters with his adult self; the Thin Man could blink across short distances, why couldn't he? Why hadn't he? Because he never wanted to use this curse. But now, what stopped him? Time seemed to slow as he pointed behind the Bunny. It was so easy when he lunged to catch Six, what did he do? How does he replicate that? He just didn't want her to fall and hit her head, he wanted to catch her, be there for her. He wanted to change position.

In a flash he was overlooking the center of the maintenance room, Chica climbing the stairs and Vanessa struggling with Freddy beside him. He reached for his Signal, the quickly made logo of Six standing before an eye imprinted itself into his mind's eye. He quickly searched for something that could help, anything he could use before the animatronic reached him. In his head the static grew, not that of the Tower's transmission, but his own Signal that tampered with the world around him. His mind's eye showed him the blurry image of a set of claws coated in multicolored spots ravaging a wall he didn't recognize, too unclear to get any idea what it was. Was this how the Spire perceived the world? The vision shifted to a mouth filled with sharp square teeth chomping down on a massive steel wire.

The elevator.

I can see the monster above the elevator.

He reached deeper into the Signal, his Signal, and wrapped a metaphorical hand around as much of the beast as he could. Mono could only barely grab onto the arm or leg he saw, but it was enough to yank the rug right out from under it. He heard the creature fumble around the top of the elevator above him as he blinked back inside. The roof dented and caved as the full weight of whatever was attacking them crashed onto it. The hand retracted, giving Six the room to focus down Vanessa. She and Mono pushed against the madwoman with all their might while Freddy stepped forward, all forcing her out of the lift. Six glared at the entity in the elevator shaft, raising both hands to fling it in the air and siphon its precious Agony. Black ribbons swirled around her and Mono, who kept his hands pointed towards Vanny.

He eventually found the source of the disturbance, a small spot on her belt. Was it the box he saw? In any case, he could mess with it from here. Mono clenched his hand into a fist as Chica tried to get closer, stopped again by Freddy, and concentrated on the tiny remote. He couldn't completely get rid of the device between it's pulsing commands to the lift and the Rabbit's crimson aura, but still suppressed it enough to get the lift moving. Six continued leeching off the beast above them, small rings of rusted metal clinking on the tile as they slowly peeled off the masses of wires. The green copper snapped at the ends of the tubes as they melted away into sloppy black piles of unidentifiable goop on the floor. Slowly, the blobs of tar, very clearly not rubber or plastic, fizzled out of existence, gradually being consumed by the raincoated girl.

A swarm of hands grabbed the swiftly collapsing limb and pulled it up as the doors closed and elevator rose.

--- 👁 ---

The doors opened to the rear of Roxy's greenroom. Mono and Six took a seat by some boxes, Freddy put Gregory's bag on the ground and walked to a nearby charging station. The bear's top chest piece stuttered as it tried to open. Gregory nearly fell over as he slipped out of the container. Fortunately, Mono was happy to practice his new trick and teleported to his side. Unfortunately, Freddy was looking the opposite direction and Six got too distracted by the feelings of his new Signal to notice until he was done. She watched him heaving to pull Gregory up, she'd figured the other kid would be a little heavier than her, but it looked like he was barely trying to help himself stand; Maybe he was exhausted, maybe he was weak, she couldn't care if she tried. What she did care about was that he could barely handle someone attacking him, as if it were something new to him, brushes with death happen all the time and Gregory's acting like it's something new and terrible.

But fine, he can freak out and die if he wants to, just as long as he could get Freddy those parts before he's done for.

She'd watch his back for the time being, but only for now.

--- 👁 ---

This guy can teleport.

Gregory shouldn't have been surprised by now, but whenever he thought he'd had them somewhat figured out, these two found a new way to blow him away or freak him out; Six was usually in the latter category. The signal child helped him to his feet, though his knees kept giving out, and shifted back to the ground by his friend with a bony hand in hers. With only some small difficulties he managed to open his bag and sort through his equipment. Similar to all their respective attractions, the animatronics weren't supposed to enter the wrong greenroom, mostly so guests couldn't get pictures of multiple mascots with only one photo pass, but these specific security nodes were always pretty pathetic. They just weren't as necessary as the rest, he just needed to find one Child Node to destroy the parent and let Freddy pass through. His Freddy AR mask flickered to life and revealed the purple-filtered Helpi system.

The Roxanne-shaped Parent Node hovered over the door to her room, made of violet polygons with a single cone pointing below it. The charging station was highlighted a dark red, waiting for him to deactivate it with his Fazwrench and destroy the main security module, but that wasn't what caught his eye. Mono and Six were... off, much more so than usual; the boy's body was distorted and glitching, even slightly see-through. Faint pale blue static with dark lines buzzed and rippled over his thin form, near-transparent if not for the grid of arctic blue lines outlining where he stood. The same white icon that covered the staff iPad in Parts and Service stared at him within Mono's head. Gregory flicked up his Freddy mask, he looked normal in the real world, but nobody else had that effect on the Helpi system.

Nobody but Six, anyway.

Only her outline remained visible, a swirling black mass of shadows, sometimes protruding out like it was trying to create extra limbs. A series of horns poked out of her skull, at least they looked like horns; some of them had extra spikes coming out of them as they reached for the sky, others simply stabbed the air above her, like a mix of cannibalistic antlers and an umbral crown. Red spots covered her body like shimmering eyes, all pointing at him, glaring into his Soul. Strangely, despite the symbol presumably being Mono's, a crimson version of the child's logo blinked at him in her head. Were these two connected in some way? They could hold hands to see this 'Glitchtrap' that apparently attacked them, so what if Mono inadvertently passed a section of his off-putting network to her?

Gregory lifted his mask again, also finding Six to be about as ordinary as she could be in reality. What's going on with the Helpi mask?

She was staring at him.

They were both staring at him, but Mono didn't share his companion's sadistic vibe.

She's still staring...

He tried and failed to ignore the livid ruby eyes on his back as he disabled the Security Nodes.

Chapter Text

Freddy stepped out of the charging station as Gregory finished disabling the Security Node blocking their path. The door itself clicked as it unlocked and the block in his programming lifted, allowing him access once everyone was ready to proceed. His left shoulder was missing its red shoulder pad and a web of cracks spread across his chest plate, with how hard it was for the panel to let Gregory out, one of the hinges or motors had to be broken. Some deep gashes remained where the other weapon, probably a knife, sliced between the doors to his container. There might not be time to go back to Parts and Service for replacements, even if Vanessa wasn't just there, all that's left is to power through. Quiet sobbing came from behind Roxanne's door, raising and lowering in volume with fake breaths. Has something happened? Gregory stepped back, still with a small limp as he neared Freddy's side. He considered keeping his voice low, but settled on sending everyone a message through their Fazwatches for a much less obvious and shorter sound, no telling how good Roxanne's hearing might be.

'Superstars! Unfortunately, my stomach hatch has received extensive damage, it would be especially unwise for more than one of you to attempt to hide inside it.

I will attempt to carry you through Roxy's greenroom one at a time.'

A little while after the message was sent and the small ringtone jingled through the room, Mono and Six struggled to read the note, then got up and wandered to a nearby vent. Gregory packed his things and lifted the heavy bag. Freddy gladly took the mass of tools and computers off his hands, tossing it over his shoulder while he forcefully opened his orange panels. The hacker gladly climbed inside and prepared to brave the wolf's den as the survivors' chase with the Music Man began, the clattering of its toothpick legs echoing throughout the tiny metal tunnel.

--- 👁 ---

The crying got louder as the door opened, joined by Freddy's stomping. Roxy's curtains were unusually pulled shut, still swaying gently side-to-side as if they'd been closed only recently. The keyboard player in question sat at its dresser, its hands buried in its paws and crying its heart out like it was alive or feeling, which it wasn't. The lights around its mirror shone down on the robot as it honestly quite effectively imitated genuine human emotion. Obviously no tears poured from its golden eyes, no blood vessels painfully bulged or irritatingly enflamed as they were rubbed raw; but the way its shoulders hunched and bobbed, its mouth snapped open and closed as if struggling to inhale through its weeping, the uneven sounds spewing from its voice box, sent an uneasy shiver up Gregory's spine.

"I-I'm NOT a loser!" It stammered, though GGY often begged to differ.

"Roxy, what is wrong?" Freddy asked, the wolf snapped it's head towards him.

"Get out of my room, Freddy!" It shouted, almost looking like it was about to throw something at them.

"I am going, I am going." The bear hurried out of the room.

The wolf's eyes were incredibly shiny, recently polished, but gave the illusion of watery tears trying to drip down its face. It was much too real. It couldn't be true, it was just a machine; lines of code couldn't replicate a living being, lines of code couldn't mimic emotion, lines of code couldn't create a personality beyond exactly what was written, lines of code couldn't define what it means to be real, lines of code couldn't imitate sentience, lines of code couldn't give and take away life itself. The wolf isn't alive, no matter how much Cassie acted like it was, it doesn't truly matter to anyone but itself. The lizard isn't alive, it doesn't truly matter to anyone but itself. The bird isn't alive, it doesn't truly matter to anyone but itself. The DJ isn't alive, it doesn't truly matter to anyone but itself. The Puppet isn't alive, just generally creepy and impossible, it doesn't truly matter to anyone but itself. The Daycare Attendant wasn't alive, it didn't truly matter to anyone but itself.

Because if lines of code could genuinely bring a machine to life, which they couldn't, then Gregory was about to make a big, big mistake.

--- 👁 ---

It didn't take too long to find the vent the little survivors crawled out of. Mono was the first to clumsily flop out onto the carpeted hall and hurry to make room for Six to escape the duct, who got up and pressed her back against the wall next to the opening. She waited there a moment, leaving Freddy to stare confused with Gregory watching through his eyes. Loud thumps of the missing wind-up toy's many feet echoed through the vent, stopped at the exit, and turned around to disappear again, only for Six to round the corner and snatch it up. Its dirt and dust-covered body easily stretched across her deathly thin torso like a giant huntsman spider, legs scrambling to find somewhere to run, the disproportionate head too small to chomp its piano teeth on the girl's hand and arms flailing to try and crush her wrist between the tarnished remains of it's disks.

Not knowing what else to do, Mono swung his fist into the Music Man's face. Somehow, the writhing doll bled black blood from its mouth, spitting out the dark slime and several teeth as its head whiplashed. A pretty impressive punch for a kid small as Mono. Like a thirsty vampire or rabid lycan, Six sank her canines and fangs into its head, slicing a hole in the layers of muck coating its plastic shell and piercing the toy's skull. Blackened blood seeped from the item as she held it in place, quickly but expertly adjusting her grip on the Music Man. Dark spittle sprayed as it thrashed, trying to bite or clamp down on her elbow and remove it. Then, swift and brutal, Six twisted.

In an instant the figurine's movements became stuttered and labored; liquid shadows erupted from its neck like a severed artery, its twitching arms struggled to slam its cymbals together, the frantic legs spasmed and curled into its base, cracks spread across its body and poured darkness itself like polluted waterfalls. The child dropped the spidery antique, watching it squirm and try to move with a twisted smile as she passively pulled umbral ribbons from its core. Scattered specs of the object's blood bubbled and swirled into tiny particles that fazed straight through her bright but dirty raincoat. Freddy felt the programmer's breathing hasten as the doll managed to turn its head to the bear and held his arm protectively over his broken chest. He sensed the starving boy's breathing even out as Mono stepped closer to his companion.

While Gregory calmed down, mumbling something about spiders and what vaguely seemed like a flimsy apology, the reason for which Freddy had no idea, Mono held Six's hand in another silent conversation. She slowly abandoned the vile grin and continued draining the toy, its black blood peeling off its plastic and floating into her. Her bare foot smashed it's head with such force it shattered, even against the soft carpet. She didn't remotely flinch or care that the many shards were scraping the sides of her foot. Its dark lenses popped out of their sockets, revealing the many gears that turned on their own, no tension or winding of a key required. The small metal rails the teeth sat in tumbled out of its mouth, drenched in black viscera and bending under Six's foot with the force of Monty's bite.

The Entertainer gently pried open his top panel and craned his neck to check on Gregory, finding exhaustion had again caught up to the small hacker. Good, I wonder what he will dream about. They'd only need the tired infiltrator's help again once they were at Roxy raceway. He sent a message to the others to keep quiet for the broken boy in his chest, not that they had to be asked.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory remembered well, his 5th foster residence. He'd grown to loathe referring to them as 'homes' long before getting stuck with Mrs. Gertrude. She was in the middle of her thirties and he couldn't imagine her liver lasting much longer. Due to the same issues that were surely soon to get her killed, she'd only ever met anyone at a local bar and any relationship that could've started would end extremely soon. As such, she'd never had any kids of her own and threw herself into the system like some 'good Samaritan', convinced she'd make a great mother figure to kids like him. In reality, her expansive wine and alcohol closet was massively overstocked at least every two weeks. She'd drink her sanity away, try to cut back to make this week's fling stay with her, resume when she thought she had them around her finger, realize they weren't stupid enough to think their pathetic excuse for a 'relationship' could ever last, then down another few bottles of whatever she grabbed first.

He'd gotten used to some random freak from down the block getting dragged into her apartment every so often. Most of them never paid him any mind, but the ones that did either ditched her the second she turned her back or left without so much as a note after a very loud night, immediately after which and the next day he'd sneak a glass of Fireball or something fruity to forget. If she knew, she never stopped him. Though at some point he stopped tinkering with electronics on those days, better not to drink and think when potentially causing an electrical fire (which she would've been too inebriated to notice, had it happened). He'd also gotten used to her throwing arm and tendency to slam her cups on the table, then neglect to clean up the razor-sharp debris, it didn't take long for him to start wearing shoes inside.

Foxy was similar at first, waving around a large plastic jug painted brown with a cream stripe around the center and three black Xs. It was empty, of course, just a prop he'd 'take a swig of me favorite rum!' from every once in a while. Still, Gregory would wince every time the poorly-decorated bottle would raise or lower. It never hurt to be prepared for something to be sent flying for his face, but Foxy actually noticed him, something nobody was supposed to do. It only happened a couple times, and the Daycare Attendant wasn't even looking at him every time he shivered at the bottle, then he adapted his behavior just to make Gregory comfortable. Everything about him was fascinating. In the frequent event the boy was out of energy or got up too fast, and had to sit down for a little while, he loved just watching the robot exist.

What random object would he pick up and examine? Would he do something with it when he was done, or just put it back? What structures might he decide to climb or prepare a game with? What would those games be like? What grand tales would he make up for a bag of Faztokens or plastic gems? The pirate's neural network was endless! Having been self-edited by experience to the point even the programmers weren't sure how he worked, result of all the extra playing and accessing the Storyteller he'd done compared to the others. It was no surprise the captain was given all the prototype modifications that the rest of the band wouldn't be able to adapt to as quickly.

His legs were designed differently than all the other animatronics, given an experimental dog-like structure compared to the humanoid stance of the rest, an ongoing field test in preparation for the upcoming Roxy Raceway remodel. Gregory doubted the company would spare the change to give Roxanne those same legs, but they were so cool! Letting Foxy jump and run higher and faster than the rest, very necessary for keeping up with the many kids running and playing around his Daycare during open hours. His massive trench coat was so warm, Gregory was always allowed to wear it when the doors closed and the heaters cut off, sometimes he got to wear the bandana as well, his hair poking through the holes for Foxy's pointed ears. There'd even been nights where Foxy let him wear his eyepatch.

They'd play and play and play until the boy couldn't keep going, which never took long. They'd dig up a spare sword for Gregory to use and go on adventures (ride the moving ship), find treasure (food and Fazcoins), mutiny (sword fight), Foxy would even sing little songs about the sea or loot. His favorite 'booty' was the many necklaces he'd amassed from beating the other attractions at their own games; a checkered flag for crushing Roxy's best time (which she still hadn't gotten over and wouldn't beat for a long time), bowling pins for outmatching Bonnie, green golf balls for getting the lowest number of hits Monty golf had ever seen, and a gold laser gun for the best shots in Fazer Blast. The pink roller skates were just a gift from Chica, seeing as her roller rink was replaced by the wolf's go-carts, but he didn't cherish them any less and boasted them like they were one of the shining gold trophies in his room atop the room.

Foxy looked down to him, his claw on his shoulder and subtly monitoring his health to the best of his ability. His personal quarters and most valued treasures sat in a special place, a huge faux-wood tower with a giant foam model of a canine skull with a rope ladder leading down for Foxy to jump up to. Gregory slept in there during the day, he got to see the gold cups and chests of fake gems and bags of coins that all had a special story connected to them, usually related to the fox's mechanical friends or greatest escapades. Tonight, as he crawled through the play structures, firing their stolen hard-earned Fazer Blasters between the forts and cutouts, a knock came from the massive wooden (plastic) doors.

Every alarm Gregory had built up over the years started going off the second the Rabbit entered, so tall it genuinely loomed over them, despite being on the opposite side of the room. It looked like it was holding something over its shoulder, ready to bring it down on someone's forehead until they stopped moving, maybe it wanted to pin someone down or to a wall as they slowly suffocated in its gloved hands, maybe it wanted to chop him to bits. He didn't exactly see what the Bunny was carrying, he and Foxy kept the Daycare dark for their gunfight, but he barely saw that it was long and had a lump at the end like a hatchet or hammer. What he absolutely saw was its bright red eyes; a shimmering crimson light that washed over the padded floor like a disease and wrapped around the scattered toys like a pool of blood. The bright dots outlined the Hare's floppy ears as it looked around, knowing for a fact it heard someone else playing with the fox. It's hunting him.

"Bonnie, lad! How ya been? Tha seas been treatin' ya well and tha winds in yer favor?" His friend hollered to the new machine.

Gregory kept his head down. This is it, he's tired of me and he's gonna leave me to that thing. It didn't take long for Foxy to warn him about the other animatronics. 'They be a buncha' landlubbers waitin' fer a chance ta' tie ya down!' he'd explained in his weird, light-on-details way. 'They'll hire ol' captain Kidd ta hunt us 'cross the ocean if tha be what it takes ta bring us 'fore tha royal judge!' he'd said. Now it was all over, Foxy was sick of him and he's getting thrown away again. This time, he wasn't sure if he could handle it. Foxy paid attention to him, Foxy didn't have to be paid to deal with him, Foxy didn't need to house him for all this time, he'd thought Foxy liked playing and going on journeys with him. For once, one of Gregory's foster residences seemed to care, but now it's over. He'll soon be handed over to the Rabbit and tossed into the nearest clump of ice-shard-filled snow.

"Hey, bud! I've been good! Just got back from Monty's place, we're finally figuring out how to play a few notes on this thing without real claws." Bonnie presumably gestured to the item he brought in.

"I think he loves it! Started fumbling around for some good songs before I left. How's the night been for you?" The visitor asked and began walking towards the structure he was hiding in.

"It be a storm ta behold tonight, yee stingy ol' rules lawyer!" Foxy answered.

"C'mon! Telling you not to trash coolers isn't rules lawyering, it's stopping us from getting a health and safety violation."

"Clearly yeh 'aven't seen tha outhouses or trash compact-arrgh if ya think tha governors don't be bribin' tha critics." Foxy cast a one-eyed side eye to the Rabbit.

"I... Okay, fair point, but we don't need to make it worse. I wanna be proud of what we've got going on, here."

Only a little more menial banter bounced around the Daycare as the pair got closer to Gregory's hiding place. Foxy's footsteps were much lighter than his ally's, softened by his lesser weight and high suspension, while the Bunny stomped around on a pair of redwood trees for legs. His gigantic torso tilted as he turned to sit at the base of the prop pirate fort, a deep purple vest covered in twinkling gold stars swayed at he shifted. The tops of the legs and his hip casing had a deep violet paint job and more sparkling golden stars printed over them. Bonnie's hydraulics hissed as he sat down, landing with a loud thud and crushing the fluffy white pom-pom that was his tail. He threw one of his humongous arms over a foam rock, clutching a bright red bass in his free hand. Bonnie's long claws grazed the instrument's strings, making them hum as he conversed with Foxy.

"Listen... I know you're hiding something." He admitted, the fox didn't hesitate.

"Ya got a problem with tha, matey?" Foxy glared, his x-shaped pupil appearing like a crosshair as his talons spun his Fazer blaster.

"You were shooting that thing at someone, they can't stay! I know you probably want a buddy, but you know what's been going on with the others, even Freddy's been acting off."

"Of 'course ya had an eye on tha grizzly... 'ave yeh checked tha crows nests?" Foxy asked.

Bonnie paused, decoding his friend's speech and realizing he was referring to the external cameras.

Which were currently pointed at the heart of the biggest blizzard they'd seen in the last two years.

"Oh... That might be a problem." Bonnie relented.

"Exactly. Listen, matey, tha stowaway doesn't 'ave anywhere ta go, me third mate be doomed ta drown if we be throwin' 'em in tha dingy. Maybe tha Puppet be tha only one who can duel with tha Siren, but tha doesn't mean we can't protect tha kids till then."

"...I guess we can try, but what about the other one?" The Rabbit pressed.

"Tha blob fish be a filthy bottom feeder tha can't tell port from starboard or it's face from it's rear, it couldn't breach tha surface if it tried!" The fox boasted, though Gregory's mind was elsewhere.

Are they not getting rid of me?

"You know I wasn't talking about the Blob, bud." Bonnie pushed again.

"Trust yer captain, tha Kraken's gonna hafta lose an eye and an arm 'fore it gets anywhere near me or tha lad." Foxy reassured his friend.

"So a little boy snuck in? On second thought, never mind, that's not the point! We might not always be around to keep an eye on him, and I wouldn't be so sure we can take that thing down."

"Ya got bayonets fer hands, mate! And I got me hook. My point stands, an eye and an arm, me lil scallywag's not gonna be in question 'less tha beastie already be belly-up." The fox insisted.

"You know it's not gonna be that simple, we wouldn't have this problem if it was." Bonnie pointed out, Foxy only huffed at him.

What the hell are they talking about?

"Just work with me 'ere, Bonnie. We get 'im outta 'ere, what do we accomplish? We just be maroonin' another soul in a whirlpool he may not escape. But we look after 'im? Get 'im ready fer when we ain't on duty or made ta feed tha mermaids?

We teach 'im ta swim, tha blubberin' mass of tentacles will never be able to reach 'im. We teach 'im ta plug 'is ears, then tha Siren will hafta go back ta fightin' ol' Mari else it finally gets tha boot." Foxy started.

"He'll make it big, one day, he's a grand seafarin' rouge in tha makin'. Tha bite-sized swashbuckler just needs a great big map." Foxy tapped his chest, hook banging the black skull and crossbones tattoo on his 'heart'.

"And a shinin' north starrr." He pointed the hook to the Bunny.

"If he be eavesdroppin', and I'd wager me right leg tha he is-"

"You always bet that foot." Bonnie interrupted, only for the thief to carry on.

"Than he be sittin' tight in this 'ere fort. Have a talk with 'im! We'll figure somethin' out together, eventually."

A pair of tall, cylindrical ears poked through the opening in the play fort. Bonnie's shining red eyes shone on Gregory as he held his Fazer blaster tight, as if it would protect him from the bassist's gargantuan talons. The bright red bass lay over the machine's chest, his vest pooling and folding on the cushioned tiles beneath him as he lay down and his microphones flicked against the structure's padded bars with weighty thuds. His jaw clanked against one of his dark red shoulder pads as he turned to look at the incredibly thin boy huddled in the corner and wrapped in Foxy's coat. The wide, impossibly compassionate lenses dimmed their gentle ruby glow, trying not to hurt the freezing child's eyes while still illuminating him.

"Hey there, cottontail!" Bonnie greeted in a very quiet and restrained, but enthusiastic and soothing voice.

Gregory didn't trust him for a second; the people with the nicest faces, calmest voices, and slowest movements were usually the worst to stay around. If he was extremely lucky, they might spare some soggy dollars only sometimes in good enough condition for the local convenience stores to accept. Usually, they wanted something from him; sometimes they wanted to snatch his food for no good reason other than it was easy, sometimes they ripped away what little change he'd scavenged, sometimes they wanted him to make a distraction and rarely delivered on their promises for clean water or a snack in exchange.

Sometimes they'd reach for him...

Sometimes they wanted to grab him...

Sometimes...

Sometimes they did so, so much worse...

Someone caught him, once...

The bleeding felt like it didn't stop for hours...

Dan found him and brought him to the gang...

He couldn't be alone or touched for a few days... Bailey and her bat didn't leave his side...

"It's alright, bud, my claws look scarier than they are." Bonnie stated, clear and calm.

It was tempting, Gregory gave him that, but he wouldn't fall for it again. Not ever.

"Might this make ya feel better, lad?" Foxy asked, handing him the toy flintlock, the low shine of his golden eye beaming onto him.

Do all the animatronics have that lighting bug?

He took the gun, pointing it at the Rabbit and slowly scooting closer. Bonnie held out a hand, letting the boy come to him, rather than trying to get on his belly and crawl further into the fort. At first, he held out an open palm, waiting for a high-five or handshake. Gregory refused to get any closer than just beyond arm's reach, so he curled his fingers into a fist, except for his pinky. At last, the boy grabbed the pinky with his own and slowly lowered the toy weapon. Every passing second Bonnie was careful not to point his sharp nails at the child. Something he always made sure to do with all the guests that visited the Mega Pizzaplex, but he was especially concerned with how damaging a relatively small cut could be to such an underweight and sickly little boy.

"See? I'm not all that bad. I'll help your buddy look after you, okay, cottontail?" Bonnie never lost his soft but low voice, like he was talking to a toddler or the most fragile kid in the world, as if getting too loud might push him over the edge.

With the rollercoaster tonight had already been, anything louder might've been enough to shatter him, so Gregory said nothing. The Bunny stared, lost in thought before questioning him with the same tone.

"Mind if I see your hand?"

He inched back. No matter what it was for, getting close enough to get snatched up again wouldn't be happening.

"Don't pull up tha anchor just yet, Gregory. This'll help!" Foxy cut in, giving him the ornate cutlass.

"I'm not sure I like all the weapons you're handing out." Bonnie laughed, but still didn't try to get closer to the child.

The hacker held the sword tight; technically the gun would've been the better option, being the one that could disable the robots for a short time, but he felt braver with the silver and gold blade. Gregory pressed his palm to the back of Bonnie's hand, it was pathetically small compared to the Entertainer, but the doll's eyes lit up.

"You've got pretty big hands for someone your age, it won't be long until I can start showing you how to play the bass! Maybe one day, you and Monty can have some lessons together, I bet you two would cause all sorts of trouble. You might even beat Foxy in a prank war!"

"In yer dreams!" The fox challenged.

"Until then, you're still a little too small, and I wouldn't be able to get you your own bass, anyway. I can play you some songs when I find some downtime." He offered, fondly rolling his eyes at the pirate beside him.

"Does that sound good, cottontail?"

"...Yeah... it does..."

Maybe he's not that bad.

--- 👁 ---

I miss him...

The doors to Freddy's torso drummed like they were being tapped on, waking Gregory as gently as possible. He looked through the tiny screen of his Fazwatch, they were waiting just outside a large shutter door to Roxy Raceway, surrounded by the renovation team's fences and equipment. He just needed his Helpi mask and Fazwrench to break the Security Node. It was tighter than the ones protecting the greenrooms, the main attractions were considered a much higher priority, seeing as they had far more than generic memorabilia and furniture within. While it would be harder to open the door, it was still more feasible than trying to allow Freddy access in the short time they had. Besides, the bear needed to be out of the way for what was coming.

No more stalling, it's time to get started.

Chapter Text

Something was very wrong with this Security Node.

As expected, a Roxy node was blocking the door, keeping it locked shut. The Node was her normal green face made of triangles and attached to many Child Nodes nearby. Glitching next to it, however, was a purple rabbit face surrounded by distorted black squares. It couldn't be a Bonnie Node, those were blue and his face was rounder. Maybe it was a virus? Probably a virus, Gregory had to quarantine it before he could start working to open the shudder. On the upside, it didn't take long; assuming the 'Glitchtrap' was causing this, it probably didn't care too much about this place and was focusing RAM elsewhere, and his block on the purple code wouldn't last forever. The green Roxanne Parent Node was much more problematic, having eight Child Nodes attached, the equivalent of a Security Pass of the same level. He couldn't get Freddy through in a timely manner, but a few minutes later he raised the door enough for him and the other two to enter. Gregory was careful not to look at Six and Mono while the mask was still on his face.

Freddy stood guard, scanning the atrium as if he were a sentinel. Not that he could actually stop any threats; only one of the three other animatronics could enter, Vanessa was invisible to him, and she and Roxy probably had a back entrance stuffed in a corner somewhere. Six lead the charge into the raceway, weaving through the masses of materials and stacked crates while Mono stuck by Gregory's side. Still without saying a word, the Signal Child got the girl to slow down and wait for the hacker. The pair held hands in front of him, their bare feet smeared the dirt and sawdust they walked on, gathering light brown stains on the tips of their pants. Mono's red skirt and trench coat blew around in the air conditioning, as did Six's raincoat. The boy's lengthy scar twitched behind his wolf mask, his ratty brown hair swayed behind the mask's plastic mane. Six's bright ruby eyes shone under her tangled and oily hair.

A bitter jealousy swelled in Gregory's chest despite how much he tried to hold it back. He knew they weren't trying to mock him, Mono was clearly just a very touchy person and Six was willing to let down her standoffish demeanor for his sake, but how often they hugged or had their fingers locked together sure made it feel like he was being constantly made fun of. He also wouldn't put such a thing as bullying above her. After a while, Mono slowed down, evening out beside Gregory's tired shambling with Six in tow. His arctic blue eyes peered at him through Roxy's face, the top tip of his scar just barely visible running along his nose. The fleshy and angry red mark, covered in an abundance of dirt and grime, slithered and coiled over his face like a tentacle whenever he blinked.

Now that Gregory was getting a good look at him; his skin almost looked gray beneath the layers of soil, maybe with a light tint of a metallic blue mixed in, the whites of his kindly eyes subtly darkened with lines of static like a brick of a TV from the 50's, his irises were distorted and flickering with tiny protrusions like videos of the surface of the sun. The taller boy offered his hand to Gregory. He paused, fighting the temptation; there's nothing bad about him, but Gregory really doesn't want to be closer to that terrifying psycho-cannibal he called a friend. A short time after the pause, he took Mono's hand. That hug Cassie gave him when he lived with her was sudden, he might've tolerated it if there was a heads-up first, but the illusion of her arms constricting his chest for the remainder of the day deterred him from approaching her about it. Freddy picked him up a lot already, but it was way too much contact at once, more than he could handle. Holding Mono's hand gave him the much-needed time to ease into it, he could focus on the texture of the boy's countless scars as he slowly adjusted, with practice it might be easier to handle being so close to people later.

The rhythm of Mono's rough thumb rubbing the back of his hand helped slow his breathing and ease the tension building up in his shoulders.

--- 👁 ---

Roxy Raceway opened up before them; the many foam props of sand-covered rocks, plastic cacti, and cutouts of animals littered the massive space. Mono couldn't help but squeeze his companions' hands. Six squished his palm in turn, either through her own hidden nerves or trying to ease him the way he'd been there for her so many times before; Gregory jumped a little, not expecting the pressure or knowing how to respond. The race track was so big compared to the rest of the Pizzaplex. The Atrium and Lobby made enough sense, they were the main areas of their respective floors, but this place was unreasonably expansive next to every other room besides the Daycare. The cold breeze filtered through the countless decorations, sending shivers up the hacker's spine while Mono and Six, having lived in the constantly-raining Pale City and depths-striding Maw the majority of their lives, remained unscathed.

"What's your plan for Roxy?" Six's pained voice quietly asked, figuring it was too dark for Gregory to read their messages.

"Get a kart, go around the whole track for momentum, and run her down." He explained.

"How will we get her in position?" Six questioned.

"... Draw her in with the sound?" He blurted.

"What if she doesn't get on the path?" She asked again, voice burning.

"...We... uhh... w-we make her?" Gregory stammered; though he could barely see his hands in the pitch black, he could certainly feel Six staring him down.

"I KNOW YOU'RE HERE!"

The wolf's howl sent the hacker jumping out of his skin. He liked to imagine Six did the same, if only for the sake of his own spite, but he could only tell that she was the one pulling them to a side area. Now out of the way within rows of unused karts, she and Mono fumbled for their notebook. Gregory did what he could to steady his breathing and locate Roxanne in the dark. Of course it was already here, it must've noticed its primary Security Node had been tampered with; which, through the Main Systems, meant everyone knew they were here. There's no telling how much time's left before Vanessa decides to show up. The hacker squinted through the shadowy track, his tired eyes were worthless next to his partners', but he could distantly hear the machine's savage and angry stomping getting further away. With what little memory he had of the attraction's layout during the day, it sounded like it was searching the heart of the course first. Not a bad idea, there were plenty of hiding spots there, but it'd only distracted itself while the three gathered themselves among the stored cars in the far corners.

'You came in here, wanting to break Roxy, WITHOUT A PLAN!' Six shoved a paper in his face, which Gregory took his sweet time trying to read without a light.

"I-I had some ideas!" He whisper-yelled, Six ignored him in favor of continuing her writing.

'How does the race track work?' She passed the paper back to him.

"You're supposed to get in a go-kart and race other kids around the track. There are a couple modes, one is who can get the most laps within a time limit, the other's who can complete three laps first. Then there's some flags that pop out with a bunch of confetti when the winner gets to the finish line."

'Which race is shorter?' She scribbled.

"Usually the three laps race is over quicker." He explained.

Six looked around the massive room, clearly able to see the majority of it despite the lack of lights. Presumably when she located the flag-waving machine, her red colored pencil scratched away.

'You do the laps, I can lure her to the flags. Theyll knock her down when you finish so you can break her.'

Mono nudged her shoulder, asking what he'd do in their silent, slightly unnerving way.

'Mono will blink me away if something goes wrong.'

"Okay, I like it!" Gregory smiled, stopping when Mono wrote down his own complaints.

'Freddy said not to hurt anyone.' He pointed out.

"They're trying to kill us! We need to get rid of them before one of us gets bit in half." He exclaimed a little louder than he meant to, earning him a twisted snarl from the girl.

Six's growling never failed to shake his soul. The way it rippled through her skeletal body and the freezing air was nothing short of unearthly, like she fell from the night sky of a blood moon or crawled out of the deepest, murkiest depths of the churning seas that planes and boats often disappeared over. It bubbled like she was smiling up at him from a pool of crimson, the only indication she was even there being the glint of her shining, blood-red eyes. Her threats were higher pitched, like a starving velociraptor torn from action movies, never meant to be associated with something this chilling. He couldn't see far enough to find her long fangs poking out of her lip, but Gregory could easily imagine the many interlocking incisors clamping down on his windpipe and arteries if he did or said too much. No living thing should be able to make that noise; she was just a beast in a child's skin, come to haunt him for what he'd done.

No, she's just a kid, like me. Not just some thing like Roxy.

"Y-you get the point. They can be rebuilt, we can't. Just don't tell Freddy and we'll be fine." Gregory justified, trying to look past the raincoat.

Mono looked down, arctic blue eyes glued to the concrete floor and the edge of one of the small tires. Six silently stepped closer, taking his hand in hers and pulling down her hood. With the hand holding her paper and pencil she brushed aside her rat's nest of oil-ridden hair, staring at the tall and thin boy with the calm and restrained ruby eyes reserved only for him. Whatever they were 'talking' about as they locked eyes, he reluctantly nodded to Gregory and steeled himself for whatever was to come. Due to Fazbear Entertainer LLC. not wanting to spend money on gas or better ventilation, all the karts were completely electric, quiet until speakers playing race car sounds were added to improve the experience; speakers that were easy for him to mute with his Fazwatch and a wire dug out of his duffle bag.

Next came activating the thing. It shouldn't take too long, either, just disable the parking brake imposed by Main Systems when they weren't in use and reactivate the motors. Then he could hop in and get in position to run Roxy down. He'd chosen an orange kart with light blue stripes and maroon highlights, it would stand out better than most of the others, Roxanne wouldn't be able to resist! The less fun part would be disabling the security; each kart had a weak computer built-in to prevent anyone too short to drive from turning the devices on, a part of the programming that locked up the wheels after hours. Of course, it was part of the Main Systems so staff could monitor them during races, run diagnostics at any time, and remotely perform maintenance via Staff Bots, which meant the Glitchtrap or Mr. Burrows could probably influence them if they attracted too much attention before executing Roxanne.

Gregory downloaded a basic firewall onto the kart, though it would do little more than buy them a couple minutes against whatever seemed to be corrupting the computers around them. There was one issue he couldn't solve, the size of the vehicle. The seats had a mechanical lock connected to a pressure pad in the back of the seat and the pedals, designed for the same purpose of preventing anyone too short for the ride from getting the karts anywhere, the only digital part of the system he could hack was the security records of each time the kart was used or locked down.

"Freddy, do you know if there's a way to get around the brake locks on the cars?" He whispered through his watch, it didn't hurt to ask.

"I am so sorry. It appears only Mono is tall enough to ride the karts alone. You and Six will need a working driver assist bot in order to play with him. Only a few of them are installed with these robots, and they will not be functional at this time, their heads are removed at the end of the day for cleaning and repairs.

Fortunately, the automatic Staff-Bot repair center is located in the West Arcade, there will be plenty of functional heads for you to use."

Gregory stopped hearing him when he brought up the arcade.

--- 👁 ---

Two giant, soulless eyes almost as dead as the ones that hunted him that very week. Piano-key teeth, hungrily chattering, each the size of his entire body and nearly matching that tar-covered monster's iron-shattering bite force. Its hands waved and invited kids around him to dance, each one large enough to completely crush him to a bloody pulp. Then it walked forward on another pair of arms, then another, then another; like the artificial daemon his best friend screamed at him to run from.

--- 👁 ---

"I-I-I can't d-do it." He barely managed to stammer out.

Six's eyes narrowed as she pulled her hood back over her head, poorly hidden by her blackened hair. The scorching red glow distorted as his vision watered, turning from rays split by tangled strands of hair to faded blobs of light, their origins he'd already lost sight of. His lungs burned hotter than the Boiler room underneath them; rapidly expanding, taking in as much air as they could handle, only to collapse before they could truly breathe. His thin muscle twitched like every nerve was firing at once, his hands couldn't stop shaking. A frigid sweat ran the length of his already incredibly cold palms and numb fingers. The child's knees were ready to buckle before another pair of arms wrapped around him. Enough with the arms, please! NO MORE! They held on tight, but not so rough he couldn't escape if he tried.

A gentle blueish-gray hand rubbed circles into his back. Dirty brown hair tickled his nose as the signal child pulled him closer, seeing as Gregory didn't protest. Cool air flowed through his chest like coolant calming his thundering heart. A few small but heavy tears dripped from his chin onto the shoulder of the filthy brown trench coat. Gregory eventually pushed away; there wasn't anything wrong with Mono, he was surprisingly warm for someone with such an indifferent, though not necessarily cold appearance, but all the contact was quickly becoming too much to sort through all at once. Arctic blue eyes looked down at him with a soft static, figuratively speaking, and turned to the kart. Mono somewhat clumsily got into the seat, intentionally or inadvertently making it very clear he didn't have a clue what he was doing and getting a sharp but more reserved snap from his companion.

"T-the pedal on the right makes you go faster, the left slows you down. You only need to go as fast as possible when Roxy's in the way, just survive until we get her in position." Gregory explained.

With the click of a few buttons on his watch, the kart came to life and Mono was off.

--- 👁 ---

The first lap was child's play. With the kart's speakers disabled, it took a moment for Roxanne to realize it was even active. Despite the boy's obvious discomfort with driving, nonsensical fear of pressing the acceleration too far, unfamiliarity with the steering wheel, and general anxieties keeping him from looking where he was going for too long, he only crashed into a few barriers before he began getting used to the speeds. Roxy, however, wasn't nearly stupid enough to jump in front of a moving vehicle, that's where Six came in. The Security Badge allowed her access to some gated-off staff ladders, she had plenty of time to get to the top and next to the flag-waving machines. Sure enough, it had prepared itself when Mono started going around the track.

Roxanne was already trying to problem solve around the car; waiting at long curves to snatch him right out of the seat, dangling herself from a raised portion of the road to rip his head off, hiding and jumping from behind the massive props. His eyes were too clear, Mono could spot the neon green strand of hair and bright red designs as she weaved through the decorations, unaware how well he and Six could see through the black. The wolf made her way to the top area where Six had hid, snarling and stomping as Mono completed the first lap. She grabbed a chair and spare foam rock, throwing them onto the track in Mono's way. He slowed down, maneuvering through the obstacles one by one. In the corner of his eye he saw Gregory tampering with the device he used to open the door, plugging it into a panel next to a forklift. The machine roared and rammed itself into the ladder Roxy used to get above them, its headlights flickering as the wire connecting it to the interface was yanked out.

More and more random objects piled up on the figure-eight road, scattering whatever she could throw wherever she could throw them. By the time the second lap was complete, Mono was at last getting used to the kart and its mechanics. He began navigating the roadblocks faster and faster, finding the car could slide a little when he took a sharp turn with enough speed. A soft smirk grew on his face as he got closer and closer to fulfilling his part of the plan. The cold air ran through his messy brown hair as quick as the excitement in his heart. Now wasn't the time to be holding back a smile and a laugh, but this was just so much fun! A shame the daytime guests probably didn't get things thrown at them, there'd be a unique path every round!

"HEY! GET BACK HERE, LITTLE COWARD!" The wolf yelled.

--- 👁 ---

Just as in the room above the Daycare, Six's lighter flipped on and off. Its warm orange glow drew the machine's advanced golden eyes, the repeated flicking of the brass cap opening and closing clicked in tune with the pianist's metallic stomping. Roxanne crouched down and flared her claws, ready to pounce. Her bright white teeth prepared to shove Six in her mouth and clamp down as hard as possible. Before the hound could leap onto her and tear off Six's limbs one by one, the deathly thin girl dashed to the side, leaving Roxy to readjust herself as she gunned it for the flag machine. Six easily ducked under the railing and climbed atop the boxy mass of motors, cannons, and rods topped with black and white fabric.

Roxanne picked up and threw a few more faux rocks and toolboxes onto the track before she too crawled onto the metal and plastic case, rabidly snarling and barking in her pursuit. Her tail brushed around the box as they circled, simultaneously chasing and fleeing each other, both vying for the best possible position to complete the hunt. The flexible rubber center of the steel beast's tail smacked Six's face, the many thick hairs swiping over her raincoat and blinding her for critically important seconds. Roxanne's neon green nails loudly scraped the machine they danced around along with the hip joint and swivel controlling her tail as she tried to smack Six to the ground, repeatedly giving away her every movement when the child was blinded by fur.

Six laser-focused on her hearing, finding the quiet hum of Mono's kart. He's almost in place. Without a minute of hesitation Six vaulted over the top of the flag machine, sliding just beneath a set of pearly fangs and pushing her bony heel into the animatronic's ankle. Time felt slower than ever as the wolf slipped. Both their claws dug into the mechanisms, painfully squeezed by the tightly packed wires and handful of small gears. The cannons beside them blasted colorful scraps of paper and shining specks of glitter around them, the shriek of airhorns stabbed Six's ears and sent her head spinning, a massive pole flew past her skull. In the aftermath of the horns and cannons blowing out her eardrums, she couldn't hear the cracks and bending of metal as the large rod crushed Roxanne's shoulder pad and casing, being much too busy resisting the urge to rip her hands from their slots in the motors and cover her ringing ears.

Her eyes watered and squinted in the stinging pain. Shards of Roxy's suit bounced off her coat and stolen black sweatpants as the howling canine plummeted to the racetrack. Six hissed as she pulled herself up, wedging her fingers deeper into the flag-waver. She looked up to the catwalk she'd fled the machine on, the huge flag passing back and forth in front of her, its square pattern blurring together with the burning tears in her ruby eyes and the quick motions. Bright red light spread across her face, irises and pupils bursting open and turning into black tendrils. Agony whirled around a bone-thin arm like a spring, peeling open a space in the nest of wires for her to wedge a foot inside. The dull ring in her mind drowned all distractions, letting her purest instincts take over as she honed in on the platform.

In a single blink, she was floating just above the floor.

Her body was completely gone.

--- 👁 ---

Right on cue, the checkered flags flew through the air. Though the sound that echoed across the Raceway hurt his ears, he finally couldn't stop the smile growing on his face as he pressed the right pedal as hard as he could. Another painful squeak rang sent him reeling as the tires burned on the tarmac. In an instant Roxy, quite ironically cat-like, landed on her claws and feet ahead of him, giving a much-needed reminder that he wasn't here to have fun or revel in the rush he got from fleeing an attacker. She got to her feet in his way, barely managing to process the kart barreling toward her. Mono's abyssal pupils and arctic blue irises unraveled within his kind eyes, skin distorting with dark lines and static.

He threw his left hand to the side, the right remaining to keep the weighty projectile on course. The blue fuzz around his body blinked through the room, sending him far from the track and dropping the boy off between some of the many fake stones and plastic cacti surrounding the looping road. With a wave of Mono's hand the back of the empty go-kart lifted, sending the spoiler on the back careening for Roxanne's muzzle and the top of the leathery seat ready to burrow straight into the center of her broken torso. The car's front bumper noisily scraped against and broke off on the sandy path, its searing hot tires rippled with the mirages of heat and momentum as they kicked up dust devils of loose bits of the asphalt and sawdust, their electrical propulsion hissing through the dark like the roar of a gas engine.

The front bumper twirled and crashed into Roxy's shins and knees, fracturing the colorful tubes and gray ball joints guarding the endoskeleton with ease. Her bright emerald nails were quickly filed off by the now-exposed wheels as she tried in vain to protect herself. The head cushion snapped to the side, crushed and broken away by the lycan's tough chest piece, sending a spiderweb of dark cracks throughout her body, and clattering onto the road. It's steering wheel wedged between her belly and hip, pushing both parts of her case out of place and denting them at the edges, revealing wires and bits of metal and plastic like her intestines had spilled out through her stomach as the wheel itself rolled into the railings. As expected, the spoiler caved in her face; her nose sank into her head, perfectly cleaned teeth flew across the scene, and her jaw dislocated and slid to the side of her face.

Still flying with the force of the Hunter's bullets, the kart dragged the wolf across the ground. More shards of her plastic and metal shell dispersed, hopelessly mixed with the props and construction equipment for at least the coming months. Massive strands of manufactured hair tore off and frayed on the rough floor, the backs of her plating swiftly had their paint scratched off and part of their mass reduced to toxic powder coating the street. Bright red shoulder pads flung to the sides of the area, revealing the workings of her shoulders and disconnecting the wires. Roxy's head smashed against the guardrails; her circuitry bounced in her steel skull, the shining yellow eyes bulged out of their sockets, barely hanging on by the wires still tangled within the endo, her ears flopped and twitched as they desperately clung to life. The wolf's entire body had overheated with the friction and was slightly stretched out by the same grinding resistance.

The gray cylinders protecting her fingers and claws fell away as she attempted to push the car off of her, her metal bones shivering and falling limp.

Chapter Text

Gregory's exhausted brown eyes glazed over the hound's carcass. A satisfying click resounded through Roxy Raceway as his plain black flashlight shone onto the mechanical remains of its star attraction. Every few seconds, one of its fingers or wrists or elbows or knees would jerk, zapped to life by the fading battery of the wrecked kart atop it. The remains of the palm-covers struggled to stay locked in place, eventually being shaken off by the dying twitches. Roxanne's vanity and intensive self-care washed away to a heap of parts tainted by sand and melted rubber, tarnished by grains of smudged asphalt. Hydraulic fluid leaked from its limbs, seeping through the splits in its concussed exoskeleton. Snapped wires, its 'veins' and 'nerves', littered the same cracks, covered in the animatronic's 'blood' and torn to shreds at the copper ends.

Much to his surprise, another light beamed onto the machine. Mono stood beside him with a strangely sleek and shiny black flashlight daintily decorated with girly stickers; anything and everything butterflies and rainbows and sunshine and flowers, all of which Gregory hated with an unreasonable passion. Wasn't that Vanessa's? How long has he been holding onto it? His eyes peered down at Roxanne through the mask of her own face, difficult to read. The rush of victory, brought on by the loud flag machine, faded away behind an arctic blue glow. He'll be fine, it's just an oversized toy. The signal child looked up, searching for his companion. Where is she? A violent chill shot up the hacker's spine like his nerves were powerlines, both so cold it rendered his back completely numb like he'd been paralyzed and utterly freezing it painfully shattered his vertebrae like a polar bear's jaws closed down on his organs.

Gregory's muscles seized, so cold they sent a burn through him like they were on fire and crushing his bones. His knees slammed and scraped on the rough tarmac, leaking red before a hand followed, scratching his palm open. Against his will a series of gasps shook his chest. His ribs hurt like they'd been caught in a beartrap, shivering and bruising under his pale skin. What little air he could get into his lungs stung like he was inhaling icicles. A pair of long arms wrapped a warm coat around his shoulders. Frost nipped at his nose and disgusting mucus uncomfortably dribbled from his nostrils. His thumbs ran over the outside of the brown garment, brushing off crumbs of dried mud and stuffing his hands into the crevices of the sleeves. His eyes slowly opened like his tears had frozen them shut as he was effortlessly lifted onto someone's lap, his backbone and shoulder digging into two bony knees and his head being held in an elbow.

...Foxy?

Instead, Mono looked down to him, gently squeezing him against his empty stomach, waiting patiently for him to be ready to get up in his own time while black ribbons fluttered through the dark around them. The vile fog quickly sifted through the inner workings of Roxanne's shattered form; gathering the trace amounts of Agony lacing her endoskeleton and slowly increasing its demented mass, harshly pulling the black strands of hazy pseudo-matter. The decommissioned wolf's entire system spasmed under the crushing weights of the go-kart and whatever force was stripping away the small amounts of unnatural power. The shadow swirled before them, neither boy able to tell where the hurricane of negativity stopped and the natural darkness of the Pizzaplex began. Specs of the night sky floated around them like ashes from a forest fire that cast no light.

In another surge of toxic essence the cloud concentrated between them and the wreck of wires and metal. It sucked what little light and life and zest and jest remained out of the room; long and translucent ribbons unraveled around the singularity, void particles coalesced into vague and distorted approximations of several small children with diamond-shaped heads, and sub-zero smoke enshrouded the piles of debris. The suffocating cold intensified around the shadowy imitations of Six, all of them standing in different places with their bodies growing increasingly unstable. One or two duplicates would burst into a small plume flanked by more see-through streaks, collide with each other, form a new copy, and slowly begin to fall apart again. Each reflection of the yellow-coated girl would fizzle out and join another mass, gradually getting better and better at keeping their shapes with every iteration.

One of the three remaining shadow-children seemed more solid than the others. The wavering of its outline calmed and the suffocating fumes around it spun around and retreated back into its body. A pair of red dots dimly shone within a small plume spewing from the center of its diamond head and desaturated yellow began breaking through the cold mist. The color grew brighter, covered in dripping lines of dark oil like standing in polluted rain. One of the last copies of the girl faded and burst into a line of fog surrounded by black ribbons, twirling through the air and lunging into Six's body, calming the deathly wind under her hood into thin strands of messy hair. Her face took shape next, yellowed fangs and extra incisors flashing from under thin, chapped lips and sickly pale skin.

Beside her, the Shadow Six stabilized, standing still with no clear purpose other than being a spot for her excess Agony to condense. The abyssal ring of ash and negativity grew smaller and smaller around them, focusing down on the raincoated child. It drenched the floor with the illusion of sitting in dense tar and flew above her like a tainted wedding arch or corrupted halo. Just as those before it, the Shadow Six faded into the coming storm. The energy seeped into her chest, ran up her sleeves and the hem of her coat, then leaked down her limbs as a slime far too thin to be glue but much too thick to be water. A little bit at a time, the smudged black material vanished, as if being blown away by a gust of the ever-fatal North Wind.

--- 👁 ---

Six's fingers shivered, twitching violently as some semblance of life and warmth returned to the area. Gregory laid on Mono's lap, wrapped in her friend's earthy trench coat and staring at her with wide brown irises, bloodshot eyes, and minuscule pupils. Her best and only friend looked up at her, his red skirt and Roxy Raceway shirt loosely fitting him and wrinkling around the dusty floor. The boy's calming blue gaze didn't even flinch at the freezing, soul-draining display, he'd seen everything long before she unwillingly tried to rip his arm off. Frozen black blood ran through her veins like poison, retreating up her arms like cowardly leeches as she rolled up her coat to look at her arm. The repulsive darkness inside her bloodstream turned gray as it dissipated throughout her body and fazed into her core. She flexed her hand; most feeling had returned to them, which included the dull aches of her scars and cuts. Her knees nearly buckled and limbs all felt like jelly, her normally impeccable motor controls and coordination failing her as her body readjusted from the strange shift. If she intended to keep doing this (which she didn't, but might have to), she'd need to practice her recovery. Maybe it would help her get used to Mono traveling through screens, as well?

'I think I figured out how the Lady floated around.' She waved a hand in front of her face, poorly conveying the image of the geisha's mask in a way only Mono could decipher.

'Oh really?' He tilted his head like a cat.

--- 👁 ---

GGY shakily managed to stand. Though the oppressive aura of Six's twisted abilities had receded into her impossibly skinny body, the impression it left refused to let go of his heart. What the hell is she? Clearly nothing human... but she's still in the same position as the rest of us. The moment he recollected himself and got up off Mono's lap, the boy grabbed his coat; a ticklish buzz ran through his body before vanishing. Yet another frustrating twinkle of involuntary jealousy ate away at the back of his mind as Mono reappeared by Six's side, somehow already having put on his coat and quickly pulling her close, allowing her a second to lean on him as she got her bearings. The programmer trod the sandy ground, stepping over the sharp and shattered remains of Roxanne wolf, her displaced sensors still holding onto the endoskeleton behind her shattered faceplate.

His feet slid over the growing puddle of coolant and hydraulic fluids, tiny bits of metal bent and flattened under his worn-out soles, meanwhile a stray bolt uncomfortably snuck into a large tear between his shoe's toe and base. Roxy's unfocused eyes looked up at him, staring misaligned at his shoulder and face. The taste of victory dissolved in an instant; the eyes still had a shine to them, filled with fake and unshed tears. But it didn't matter, right? It was nothing but a big doll, wasn't it? Why does this feel so wrong, all of a sudden? This shouldn't bother him. He's gotten people killed, he doesn't deserve to be bothered, not anymore. This sad machine had hunted them the whole night, tried to murder them over and over, why should she it be exempt from consequences? Roxanne ripped lost and frightened children apart, and he helped; from giving her it and the band special parts to giving access to parts of the Pizzaplex sealed off by the Puppet, he'd even aided in cleaning up the bodies. she It brought this on herself itself, just like he had.

Then what feels so off about giving her it what's coming to both of us?

A part of him wanted to turn back, grab his stockpile and a change of clothes in his Kid's Cove hideout, a warm shower, find Freddy's greenroom and huddle up, crossing their fingers Vanessa didn't show up again, but they were here for a reason. This was all for it's eyes. The things it could see might be the difference between life and death. Gregory reluctantly reached for the pair of golden eyes, his arm a parasite. It's not a big deal. It shouldn't feel like it. It's not a big deal. It's not a real person, we're not hurting anyone. It's not a big deal. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'M FINE. He gently grabbed both eyes, yanking them free of the casing, then pulled the screwdriver from his pocket to wedge them free of the destroyed outlets and nests of wires. A shiver ran up his back and the hairs on his neck stood straight on end as he held the advanced ocular sensors.

What have I done?

Everything is fine, I'm fine.

...

Something's not right...

Searching for anything to take his mind off the stolen eyeballs, the starving hacker spotted a small chip inside the wolf's skull, only barely given away by a blinking violet light. Was it still operational? The blinking suggested it was, but those types of (modern) LEDs were usually green when the hardware was functional, and red when it wasn't, he'd never encountered predominantly purple tech outside of what Mr. Burrows wanted him to work with. Even when the eyes in his hand were taken away, stuffed in the deep pockets of Mono's coat, the eyes in his head were trained on the chip. He'd always adored working on the glamrocks and Daycare Attendant, every modification and upgrade he made was thoroughly cataloged in his head and a small notebook he kept in his Kid's Cove stash. Writing the procedures down helped drown out the children's laughing and screaming, despite not actually needing them to know what he'd done. That blinking chip was definitely not his doing; the black casing was too clean to be something he scrapped together from nothing, it must've been purchased, it also wasn't as built into the machine as he would've made it, being somewhat awkwardly stuck on somewhere it would fit and crooked despite the relatively little damage to Roxy's head, the metal pegs lining its perimeter had been bent out of place like they were gracelessly forced to fit somewhere they didn't belong.

Before he could try to snatch and investigate it, a random surge of the totaled kart's electronics triggered Roxanne's jaw to snap shut, its sharp teeth merely waiting for the next spasm to sever any limbs that got too close.

...Maybe I should stick an arm in there...

...It's the least I deserve...

Best not to mess with that right now.

--- 👁 ---

Vanessa awoke standing in a random janitor's closet. Strangely, her half-baked plan to sloppily weld the handle and lock and hinges of the door did the job. The door lay smashed on the ground, its cheap metal dented like a meteor barreled into the center. She'd honestly expected her plan to lock up to fail as always, she never had the time she needed to make something truly effective against the Rabbit and that freaky costume it made. For now, Vanny looked for another place she could seal herself in before the impossible thing returned for her. The Daycare, unfortunately, wouldn't work anymore. It would've been at least a little effective to have Sunshine lock her in his room overlooking the entire Daycare, the Bunny wasn't dumb enough to try throwing her into that disgusting ball pit and the door was sturdier than it looked, but that wasn't an option anymore.

It's fine, I can say he helps with security and make them fix him...

...Hopefully...

With any luck, those two didn't break anything else while I was gone.

The slightly more concerning issue was what was suddenly so much more important than her, its 'big bad bunny' character, that the thing had to use so much it's RAM on that it ditched her.

Honestly kinda insulting.

Yes, she liked having control back before she wound up murdering someone, but why? In the fading glimpses of its hold on her, she witnessed it trying to access something. What exactly that was eluded her, but it almost felt like a Staff Bot. Multiple, really, all huddled too close together for their bulky and poorly balanced bases not to be ramming together until they broke. Plus, those things were far from the ground floor, buried deep beneath the foundation like they were uncaringly tossed into graves, which certainly wasn't something the attractions departments would be unwilling to do if it saved a few pennies. Even then, how had so many different parts of different Staff Bots been crammed so tightly together?

--- 👁 ---

Mono, the wolf's eyes safe in his pocket, gladly held Six's hand as he wandered to a nearby screen. It was identical to the one in Parts and Service, so it should be just as simple to expand his signal. He put a hand on the small but powerful computer; his arctic blue irises burst in his eyes, his pupils unfurled into tendrils like leeches dangling from the Maw's abundant pipes, his body hummed and flickered with blue static and dark CRTV lines. The walls and floor warped around them, rippling like they were water as random objects floated. She couldn't quite tell if being in his signal made her feel like she was flying, or that was just gravity failing, but she liked to think it was the former. Not wrenches or hammers, but entire toolboxes dotted the empty air and smokestacks of nearby sawdust and sand floated like a thin fog at their bare feet.

An unusually gentle smile grew over her dirty and scarred face and a fuzzy warmth formed in her chest as the sensation of his lovely magic washed over her once again; the illusion of laying in his lap, the feeling of his arms around her, the knowledge he was keeping watch as she did her best to sleep, and his thumb brushing the back of her, though it was hard to tell if the last one was real or arcane. She gratefully grinned watching deep cracks spread around the advanced wall-mounted device and happily rested her head on Mono's shoulder. She almost gave into the temptation to allow her heavy eyes to close, finally letting some of the stress of the day and night get to her, but quickly pushed the thought down. There's no time for that, I have to look after him. Still, she remained at his side, basking in his new aura. I could stay here all night.

She almost crushed her friend's hand in frustration as a purple glow, fiery lilac particles, and black cubes started bursting from the glass sheet.

--- 👁 ---

I've never been here after hours before.

The normally bright neon Freddy face of the Mega Pizzaplex was a daunting black, staring down at her like she was nothing but a bug in the world's eyes. This feeling, being so small, wasn't helped by how the mall towered over her, looming over the tiny handful of dying trees that remained of the forest it was built upon. Even the buildings in the distance felt like dioramas compared to this place, where 'fantasy and fun' were supposed to come to life. All that could remotely cut this place down to size was the pouring, freezing rain and dots of hail and roaring thunder beating down on it. It was nothing short of repulsive, seeing the massive parking lot completely empty and the front doors devoid of all life, like the vicious storm itself was screaming at her to run. Not a single part of her favorite place on earth had any light or life inside, the black windows staying the same no matter how much she hoped there might be someone there to populate them.

There was nothing, nobody, this colossal wonderland was dead in the water, being repeatedly stabbed by the rain and hail while thunder kicked it while it was down. Both reduced to a soggy and collapsing ruin and standing taller than it had any right to, sending an anxious shiver through Cassie's spine and trapping her breath in her throat. She sunk into her coat, putting her head down and scrunching up her shoulders like it was armor, then pulled her umbrella down on her head as if the bright red Roxy-designs it could hide her from the beast this incredible park became at night. Cassie stepped forward, despite how badly she wanted to turn heel and walk home. Gregory needs my help. She wouldn't let him down, the last thing he needed was for someone to turn their back on him again. Cassie wouldn't be that person, she refused to watch someone so broken but brilliant like him fall so far like everyone else she'd walked past tonight, she will save him.

Cassie shook off her umbrella under the rain cover, clipping the end on the side of her backpack and turning to the large, locked steel shudders.

"Cassie! Are you there? Save me, please!" Her Roxy-talkie blared.

"Gregory! I'm here, what do you need? Uh... the police? An ambulance?" She rapid-fired the boy.

"What? How's that supposed to help? They'll never get here in time!" He panicked, yet almost noticeably didn't breathe.

"I-I-I don't think that's a good idea, I think I should call someone." Cassie countered.

"Nonono, Cassie, you don't get it! I-I've... I messed up... I've done some really bad things... I have to do something about it first...

...I c-can't fix it alone, though... I can open the doors for a split second, I swear I'll explain everything when we meet up. Everything will make sense... J-Just... Please, you're all I have left..."

How's someone supposed to say no to that?

"O-okay... I'll do it."

NOT LIKE THAT!

"Thank You! Thank you so much! You'll be back home way before breakfast, a-and I'll make it all worth it, I promise!" He cheered.

"One second, I'll let you in. You have to be quick, though, I won't be able to override the security for long. Let me know when you're ready and run."

"Do it!" She answered, what's going on with you?

The doors clicked as they unlocked and the shudders on the other side lifted. Oddly, they almost looked like there was a purple grid over them. But that was impossible! The shudders were decorated, of course, but they were painted over, none of them had LED strings. I just got here, and I'm already seeing things, great. She threw a glass door open and rolled under the shudder before it finished opening. With a weighty slam the metal sheet rapidly lowered behind her, the illusion of a violet grid coating it again. On second thought, it's probably a lighting trick. Sure enough, a lot of the neon rods around the support pillars were purple, it must be a weird reflection when the main lights weren't drowning out the rods. Cassie quickly got to her feet and looked around. Somehow, it was even darker here than outside. The neon bulbs did nothing to shine on anything but the immediate area around whatever wall or advertisement screen or support they'd been built into.

So of course, her Roxanne flashlight wasn't turning on.

She tried hitting the bottom of it a few times, sometimes that got it working, but not this time.

This is what I get for staying up drawing so late.

"You saved me! You saved me..." Her Roxy-talkie blurted.

What? I just got in...

"Gregory?" She muttered to the radio.

A single, deep purple light came to life in front of her. Its beams pointed at the ground but a very clear, pinkish pupil was staring straight at her, like there was something on its face cutting off the magenta shine beneath. Another light clicked on, an orange one, then a blue one, then a yellow one, then a red one, then a pink one. All over this... thing's body a series of multicolored lights pointed around the room, barely illuminating long tubes and rusted wires coated in an oily black slime. One of them, the big purple glow, remained on her, slowly rising like a head or body was pushing itself upward. Mechanical thuds and whirrs followed, stale air passing through the tubes, trying to move something that should've been unsalvageable, yet still managed to rise with a lively fluidity that even the glamrocks sometimes struggled to maintain.

"I... I'm Gregory..."

The voice was almost perfect, but struggled to imitate a breath in the pause. It was rougher than Gregory's voice, even when he was sick, much more of a choked wheeze. In the dark, its 'throat' thrummed and bubbled with oil as it pretended to inhale. The purple light grew brighter while the grinding of corroding materials echoed throughout the Lobby. It poorly illuminated two splits running through a metallic mask; one running from the top to the bottom, straight through a smiling mouth, while another line separated the jaw from the split face along the top lip. The mask's edges were uneven and dented, like it'd nearly been melted down. The light of its lavender eye shone through the crooked mouth and around a large, dull red button nose and an empty eye socket, outlining various frayed wires dangling from its missing optical sensor. A strangely bulky Freddy-talkie slid across the tile, coming to a halt at the mat she stood on. It was heavily modified, a wire coiling around the antennae and running into a plate of circuitry she didn't recognize mounted to its back.

"Y-you're not Gregory... W-what are you?" Her tiny voice shook as she frantically smacked her flashlight again and again.

"I... I'm Gregory." It repeated, a mechanical undertone overshadowing the nervous sound of her only true friend.

A row of long, humanoid teeth broke up the light in its mouth and countless little cords dangled from the bottom of its jaw. Its large white mask, darkened to a necrotic gray by the lack of light and age, and once bright ruby button nose was covered in smudged streaks of ash and black tar leaked from the accessory's every opening. Tears and spittle of dark, abnormal fluid sprayed over the ground at her feet. Some of the vibrant lights decorating its body turned enough to outline the remains of ears; a set of white semicircles, one of which had been destroyed or withered away, leaving strings of copper and peeled rubber drenched in the eerie, shadowy liquid in its place, meanwhile the other barely remained clipped onto a bit of metal on the side of it's head. Its mouth opened; the wavy ends of each separate plates making up the clown's face slid apart. The two lower parts descended in perfect unison; neither plate spread in either direction, looking just like a human's jaw opening wide. Once the mouth was wide open, mockingly inviting a hand to be stuck inside, all four face plates flared outward. Four poles held onto the sides of the four-part mask, swinging outward like one of the Funtime-series animatronics. Cassie knew the Funtimes very well, having gone to work with her dad several times before the Pizzaplex opened, the delivery service was shut down, and sending her to the Daycare became an option. They were easily the most interesting bots to watch him operate on, but none of them had four face plates, Ballora had two and the rest all had six.

Finally, her flashlight gave Cassie its last dying bit of dim light, desperately trying to show her the machine that brought her here.

A shrill scream tore through the establishment's ground floor.

Chapter Text

A new chill ran up Gregory's back, something had gone very, very wrong.

Something other than the nightmarish display before him, anyway, he'd have to deal with this first.

Just as he was again trying in vain to process the signal child's abilities, distorting and shattering the walls around them like they were made of paper, a blast of purple energy burst from the mounted iPad he'd interfaced with. Neither Six nor Mono reacted to the burst, not in any meaningful way, at least, but Gregory stumbled back and almost fell onto Roxanne's twitching remains. It would've been for the best. Mono ripped his hand away from the screen, the world around him still crumbling and shifting as Six wrapped her arms around him and practically threw them both to the ground. A long arm stretched from the device; a smooth black, human hand and a lone plate for an elbow connected to an unseen shoulder by beams of pink energy burning with pixelated lilac flames. A violent violet grid formed over the wall, sending flickering images of wide-open eyes and fanged mouths and disturbing rabbit faces across the small space.

Six helped Mono up as... something started climbing through the purple rectangle. The taller boy's abilities cast waves of dark lines from his feet and the screen, the rings collided between them and quickly surged outward in massive surges of quantum energy. The shining purple grid, too, expanded like poison, gaining light lavender lines with a deep magenta backdrop. Its long hand turned and pressed against the wall, rapidly glitching between its almost-human form and a greatly pixelated claw, littered with the same designs crawling over its vile grid and dripping black squares like sweat. A sleek head popped out of the iPad, bearing brilliant purple lines over its angry sneer and toothy grimace, then turning into a boxy face with a cut-up smile and pink spirals within large purple eyes, all framing a button nose with cartoony whiskers surrounded by 16-bit tendrils. No legs stepped through the small window. As if it teleported, the creature simply appeared before them all, 'standing' on a genie-like tail that often distorted into a pair of legs that melted into a cuboid puddle at the feet.

In a flash, Mono clutched his head and dispelled whatever power he held over the room, and the monster was gone.

--- 👁 ---

Little by little, Glitchtrap started dragging Mono back into the violet hallway, presumably present in all the animatronics. The rough road he stood on slowly turned into cold tile, a magenta haze clouded his vision and thinking, carnivalesque music painfully rang through his skull, and the sickly sweet scent of cotton candy filled his nose and flooded his tongue like he was choking on his own blood. He did what he could to push back, but the demon already had a clear shot into his mind. A cold sweat dripped down his back and face, pressure built in his head and chest, his stomach flipped inside out, his heart drummed faster and his breath caught in his throat like he was being strangled. Even when the many children's drawings and decorations started lining the violet hall, he couldn't stand still enough to begin making a plan, frantically backing up and looking around at the pictures and hanging paper stars, but not seeing them.

In his mind's eye he was locked in that hall. The floor's many checkered tiles blended into large, gray ceramic slabs. Through his static-covered eyes the scattered papers turned into the bland drywall of that twisting corridor and the purple haze became a pale cyan. At the other end of the hall stood the apparition of the Malhare; a strange cross between the smooth and pixelated forms he'd grown accustomed to. The new shape lacked the flickering distortions of what manifested to attack them in the Pizzaplex itself, 'standing' on legs that completely melted together at the shins, strands of 'flesh' tying the knees and thighs together like the ripped remains of its cheek's faux-muscle. Its feet pooled into a large, oily puddle of black tar, sprouting the pinkish outlines of snapping jaws, demented rabbits with pointed ears, and piercing eyes with curious purple pupils.

It lacked most of the aesthetic lilac lines in this body, save for the ones around its collar and ran down its mimicry of a ribcage, joined by a new set of lines rounding its hip, forming an X over Glitchtrap's chest centered by a pink-purple padlock covered in dark CRTV streaks. Its thin arms swelled with abyssal tumors that burst open in hungry mouths and eyes, some further expanding with sets of long ears and vile smiling faces before they all settled, then renewed the cancerous cycle. The creature's left arm was an oddity, even to the rest of the building he and Six found themselves in what felt like an eternity ago; the upper arm was fairly normal compared to the rest of the body, but the forearm was clunkier than the rest, slightly more in-line with the Glamrocks. A purple light shimmered under the cylindrical black casing as it slowly spun over the endoskeleton-like rod.

The lone piece of the suit was rounder than the animatronics they'd seen, more like the older models he'd walked past the first time he ventured through the tunnel within Moondrop. A series of small purple circles lined the length of the dark tube, each with a magenta dot near the circumference. The rings twirled, the specs near their edges rotating as the glowing pole acting as this form's bone condensed into a coil, like a spiral staircase or spring. Five fingers, segmented with rounded tubes connected by purple lights, made its twitching hand, more like an unintuitive glove than the four-fingered paws of his temporary parent. The Entity's other hand was much more cohesive, aside from the oil pustules growing and disappearing over the dark flesh, almost looking like a human limb covered in paint so dark it absorbed almost all light. The beast's fingers were incredibly long, tipped with lengthy purple nails like talons. Clutched in its hand was a large, long pink butcher's knife with a purple outline, 'burning' with the same lilac embers rising from the original form's sleek arms like wafting venom.

Torn, shadowy flesh barely attached its jaw to its head, the flayed remains of its cheeks fighting to keep its smiling face from coming apart with sadistic lunacy. A few purple lines and dots marked its whiskers and a heart-shaped nose with pink nostrils. Pink buck teeth poked out of its magenta maw, sliding over its black lip as it pretended to breathe. Lighter violet tears streamed from its purple eyes with pink spirals and spittle speckled its round chin, like streams of lethal mold growing like crashing waterfalls. Malhare's ears swayed and stuttered, flopping around its forehead as expected for a rabbit, but the tips stood straight like tall, pointed horns ready to gore anyone in sight who escaped its weapon or strange left hand.

A mass of curvy tentacles swirled from behind the monstrosity, a far cry from the lines of squares that stretched for the closest prey. Five of them were normal as they could be; clenching around the oppressive air, smooth if not for the same tumors on the body bursting forth at every turn the slimy appendages made. However, nine extra limbs swirled behind it with very different manifestations. Most were significantly larger than the five plain black ones, writhing angrily, but one tendril with orange protrusions and zig-zagging lines was noticeably smaller and weaker than the rest, hanging on to life by a thread. The rest were comparatively straightforward; one with light blue details that had more rabbit faces than the rest, one with yellow designs and more snapping maws, one with dark red etchings that swelled with especially mutated protrusions that refused to form into anything special, one that hummed with a dark green glow with many longer jaws, one bore a neon green shine and many peering eyes, one cast pink light and seemed to be trying to sprout spindly hands, and one with a familiar bright red that jutted out crimson spikes like it was being stabbed inside out.

Perhaps it was something truly meant for this realm? It was far more stable in this shape than the frantic and stuttering of the others, like this world belonged to it. The Glitchtrap could wander this area so easily compared to reality, so stable in contrast to the split personality that stalked them thus far.

Whatever it was, it was a tall figure in a long, tainted tunnel, and all Mono could see was the Thin Man.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory's mind was being pulled in several directions. The strange chip was thoroughly buried in the roof of Roxy's skull and protected by her its powerful bite still nagged him, even though it was clearly the least of their worries, the presence of what was presumably 'Glitchtrap' sent a discomforting electric buzz after it vanished. Just as he thought he was beginning to get a handle on the situation, Mono fell to his knees, covered in blue static that he didn't want to risk getting too close to. Six got to her feet and dashed to his side, meanwhile the wolf's corpse stirred behind him. The starving programmer barely managed to snatch away his duffle bag before the wrecked go-kart tilted and smashed atop the abundance of fragile equipment and sentimental relics. A brand new wheel, already burnt-out into a smooth tire, rolled past his face as his head painfully bounced on the ground.

"W-w-w-what-t d-did you d-d-do to my FACE!?"

The kart's remains smashed to the asphalt, scattering the last of the loose casing and equipment around the tarmac as Roxanne got to her its feet. The massive mane of hair and furred tail swished through the dark, noticeably tattered with dirt and uneven with huge strands ripped clean off her its mechanical scalp. What was left of the shell on her its hands crumbled away into long, sharp endoskeleton talons. A pained and frightened whimper escaped Gregory, followed by a loud slap as he cupped his hand over his mouth. The wolf's jaws swiftly shut as she it turned to him, investigating the empty void in front of her it as he frantically crawled away as fast as he could. A sharp whistle drew their attention. Six had run from Mono's side and began flicking her lighter open and closed with noisily echoing clicks. Roxy's ears twitched, struggling to point themselves towards the sound and set off after the little girl.

"GIVE ME BACK MY EYES!" She it roared, blindly chasing Six through the maze of props and debris.

GGY scrambled to his feet the second the gray fur and yellow raincoat vanished into the dark, only for his vision to double and head to spin. His coordination vanished and he scraped his chin as he fell back to the ground. Bits of the black road stuck to his wound as he dragged himself and his heavy bag to the other boy. All of a sudden, Mono's hand flung in the air, distorting and flickering as he cast light blue rays into nothing. The area distorted, splitting and overlapping like a broken computer screen. That thing wasn't just a virus infecting the Main Systems, but an entire Entity commanding things it shouldn't have had access to. Between the two clashed a set of lines, wrapping through the air like they surrounded an invisible cord attaching them, one half was blue and the other a deep violet. More purple lines ran from behind the Bunny, presumably connecting to the other animatronics, but a few clipped through the floor and descended into the basement while a bright red one disappeared into the void with the others.

Thinking fast, Gregory booted up his scrap computer and loaded some old files. They were a mix of a signal scrambler and a custom data encryption program. He'd learned a lot since creating the now-highly outdated programs, but they'd have to do. He pulled a wire from the attached laptop and plugged it into his Fazwrench, a few clicks and some typing later he was prepared. Gregory toggled the small gray wheel on the device, pulled his bag over his shoulder, and clumsily rose to charge the Rabbit. It didn't acknowledge him at first, not knowing he could see it until the orange tool's pair of gray antennae plunged into its side. Its arms wildly swung around, stuttering and rubber banding around its body, but the torso stayed in place.

Gregory quickly recognized the lines over its chest and collar as bits of circuitry, swiftly adjusting his wrench to interfere with the purple stripes as Mono continued to push against it.

--- 👁 ---

Clattering on the tile floor before Cassie was a mechanical beast drenched in thick oil; countless pipes wriggled across the floor, spreading dark slime over the ground, yet lacking the air pressure required to let them move. The pointed tips of corroded wires flailed at her from all angles. A pair of arms pushed its top half further above her, long with multicolored eyes dotting the upper limbs. Its four-paneled clown face, having peeled open to show off its long teeth, revealed an unmistakably human skull buried in the wires and tar, a Funtime series camera peeking out of its left eye socket. Dozens of tiny strands of material spewed from the empty eye socket beside its glowing magenta sensor, nose hole, and upper jaw, dangling through the bottom of the mandible like it was frothing with infected black saliva. Tangled in the wires of its neck were shattered bits of vertebrae, grinding together and against the sludge-tainted pipelines.

The metal creature's chest was held together tightly by many squished-together pipes and wires connected to a once bright red button, dulled with age and wear. Most of the pipes on its right side had fallen away long ago, the tin rings and rubber seemingly melted off by an intense flame, barely showing off a ribcage hidden deep within the slime and hodgepodge of endo parts. Over its belly was a mess of scrap parts vague resembling a Funtime Freddy head with a single, large orange eye and needle-like teeth. Another set of arms unfolded from its sides and pushed it further in the air, looming over Cassie as she stumbled over the welcome mat. Her back hit the ground with an aching thud as it dragged itself closer. Both of the new hands were covered in the remains of melted plastic, like a ruined glove or smudged white fingers, some of which were stuck together by the hardened plastic shell. On one hand its pinky and middle/ring fingers were attached, the other its middle and index appendages were sealed into one stiff clump.

Its four limbs turned to point their sharp metal caps and grabby white fingers at her, like a raptor ready to snatch up prey, revealing a set of joints sprouting from its back. As if there was another animatronic endoskeleton welded to its shoulders, four limbs without hands or feet bent unnaturally from its spine and melded into the bases of its functional arms' elbows, stretched by the forearms to support and enhance the massive claws as it began to stand. This beast towered over her, easily nine or ten feet tall if it stood straight. The scrap Freddy face started splitting open; the jaws creaked apart at the center and many metal plates opened like the bud of a toothy flower and ribcage folding like a toothy mouth on a hinge. Making up its stomach was a whole other suit; its stomach and face ripped open and filled with less-advanced animatronic parts, the man-sized machine's limbs were fused into the significantly larger arms and legs of the hungry monstrosity.

Out of nowhere, a cacophony of soft ticking resounded inside the smaller robot. Slowly but surely, the complex system of cracked gears, oxidized coils, squeaky poles, and greasy old joints were compressed into the back and of the mostly featureless costume. What little was left of the forearms and shins tried to free themselves of their muddy prison, meanwhile the upper arms and thighs succeeded in popping open, leaving a gaping hole where an entire person could wear the mascot costume. The many pieces of the scrap Freddy's face opened as wide as they could and the ribcage spread like a beartrap, the ribs almost seemed to sharpen like the fangs of a sabretooth and the sternum flicked up like a lightswitch, making it easier to climb or be shoved into the bland suit and unveiling many strings of circular buttons on the perimeter of each part of the suit, all blinking with red lights inviting Cassandra inside the malevolent stomach hatch.

Its left leg slammed on the ground, shattering many tiles and sending dark fluids into the cracks. It was the most humanoid the entire machine had looked, wires and pipes running the length of a thigh, knee, and shin-like demonic muscles. The toothpick-like corpses of at least fifty Minireenas poked through the gaps in the black strands, all burnt to a crisp and covered in splinters, but still waving their fingerless hands and their porcelain skulls looking around with dotted yellow pupils. Two Bidibabs gripped the thin, frigid air, one with an especially long wire connected to its belly like an umbilical cord and connecting to something on its back, but both were trapped within the calf and hip by slimy pipes and their own melted shells. Their eyes had been gouged out, no doubt dispersed around the rest of the fiend's body, in their place were disgusting cords dripping with sludge swaying over the deformed noses and mouths. A shattered black screen stuck out of its thigh; a handle was jammed behind the knee's ball joint like a stop, the monitor poorly protected by a dirty yellow casing with a pair of googly eyes poking out of the top, an especially soot-covered rectangle appeared in one of its corners like a sticker had been seared away.

The right leg scooted closer like a spider. The thigh had a third molten Bidibab imprisoned within while the knee-down had been heavily modified; the foot was replaced by an entire other endoskeleton, clearly another of the Funtime series, its ankle attached to the middle of its back and many coiled pipes blended into the hips and shoulders and headless neck, three arms and large hands 'walked' for the limb like it was sliding into place, the fourth was missing its hand and pointed a mass of jagged, sharp poles at her as it approached. From somewhere behind the aberration came the many steps of more legs, scratching the floor as many clawed hands-for-feet ebbed forward. Was she only seeing half of the machine this whole time? The fleeting seconds as it hungrily closed in passed like entire hours. There has to be someway out of this, right?

Another loud scream ripped through Cassie's throat as it lurched, an arm harshly gripping her leg and dragging her nearer. Her head bonked against the shudder and the doormat slid out of place. Black liquid, both burning like acid and freezing cold, flowed over her dark leggings. The flickering remains of her Roxy flashlight glazed over the crushing grip, trying to illuminate the bleached human bones holding the creature's appendage together. Making up the hand were many yellow-white rods curling around her shin and heel, the tips all slotting neatly into the pointy metal cones acting as eagle-like talons. The subtle spiral of a radius and ulna swirled around the gooey pillar of wires before vanishing under the elbow, most likely disconnected from the well-buried humorous.

Cassie's throat had yelled raw by the time it brought up its other arm, also bearing the remains of a human skeleton, to start pulling her into the mascot costume substituting as its stomach. Out of hopeless instinct she grabbed the sides of the cream-colored mascot suit, vainly pushing against the edges of the chest piece with but a fraction of the amalgamation's strength. Thinking fast as she could Cassie cast her blurry brown eyes to the purple orb staring at her from the scorched remains of a skull. One day, during a special Monty Golf event, Roxanne snatched her a Fazer Blaster and placed the girl on her shoulders. As revenge for the former Daycare Attendant beating Roxy's best Raceway time, they waited for Foxy to step up with his golf club and, with an incredibly lucky shot, nailed the fox in the eye right as he hit the ball. He'd still somehow managed to get a hole-in-one, but promptly fell into the ball pit. They'd dashed through the crowd, surrounded by laughing and the pirate yelling behind them.

'We'll see who be laughin' when thar be silly string an' streamers 'cross yer greenroom!' He'd threatened.

To this day she'd sworn she'd seen her only human friend hiding in a group of kids.

In a blur her hand shot to her pocket, pulling out her phone and almost dropping it as she searched for the flashlight button. It works in the games, and this thing's tech is way behind the Glamrocks, maybe all the animatronics have the lighting bug? She frantically clicked the button over and over, turning the absurdly bright light on and off directly in the glutton's face. Just as her other arm gave away to its strength, nearly plunging her into its gut, a miracle struck; the head jerked backward and its top limbs, their tied-up human bones rattling in place as it released her. In her head she was already celebrating as she launched herself out of the suit, only to land in the lower pair of white-tipped arms. The orange eye in the faux-Funtime Freddy face flashed a violet glow. Its right arm firmly gripped her collar and some hair, almost trying to scalp her with its bare hand as the other swatted away her phone, sending it bouncing across the ground and leaving shallow cuts over her cheek and lip.

All four faceplates closed, remaking the visage of a warped clown as it glared down at her. It recovered far faster than such an old and damaged endoskeleton should've been able to. She now saw a short rod poking out of the top left piece of the mask, the annihilated remnants of an incinerated party hat gliding across her vision like a bull's horn, stirred into a senseless rage by its own red nose. On the machine's more humanoid leg, the Bidibab built into its thigh began to hum with energy. Yellow rays peeked through the melted gaps in its case, sending a current up the umbilical-wire and between its shoulders, a pair of red and blue lights burst from behind it and redirected the volts down its arm. Cassie's back violently arched as it forced its palm into her side and resumed pulling her into the metal cavity. Her feet kicked against the waist area, her clammy palms desperately pushed against the large suit, a searing hot sting ran up her spine as her back was bent out of shape, a conglomerate of choked pleas for her life escaped her lips while sweat and tears ran down her face. One droplet of salty water fell onto one of the circles lining the stomach-suit; in an instant the round circle sprouted four small spikes, snapping into her hand. Not even a second later, the corroded animatronic parts the small daggers had been holding back rushed into the empty costume with impossible speed and crushing force.

Quickly and brutally, the rusted metal was released from its highly compressed state. A large cross beam smashed into her chest as it was freed, crushing her lungs and liberating what little air she could inhale. The dozens of little circles started spinning once more, pulling back the mechanisms again. Her hand stung like she'd been brushed by a jellyfish and dripped red as the small clamp stuck in it ripped away, leaving two of its spines buried deep in her flesh. Black pipes like constrictor snakes gathered just out of sight, flying like they were underwater, and wrapped around her limbs and torso and neck. They steadily tightened, forcing the last of her breath away and manipulating Cassie to fit the opening, the charred ribs closing and jabbing her sides as she continued to kick and gasp and punch and push and cry and choke. Its scrap Freddy face reformed around her, its needle teeth dragging over her legs and piercing her shoulders. A vile stench of cooked human flesh, toxic black mold, and mildew engulfed her as she drew closer to her soon-to-be-casket, combining with the tendril smashing her intestines to evacuate the contents of her stomach into her crushed-closed throat.

With maroon staining the welcome mat, her own bile stopping any final attempts to breathe, tears clouding her vision, watery snot dripping down her pale green face, sweat flooding every inch of her body and a pair of bright purple eyes laser-focused on it's latest catch, neither Cassie or the Kraken paid any mind to the world around them. Why me? I just wanted to help. What did Gregory do? Was he ever here? Why did I get called here? What did I do wrong?

Behind the predator and prey, all but one of the scattered neon lights flickered off, their electricity siphoned out of them like they'd been lined with leeches. The walkie-talkies sent grating sounds through their ears and audio sensors before they too died, batteries completely empty. Neither realized bright bathed the room as the last neon light, somehow glowing a soft green, outlined an overcharged screen meant to blare advertisements and sponsors, now displaying an angry but smiling painted face.

Chapter Text

From the black came a long, dark limb. Nine white stripes decorated the arm and five pale lines covered its four lengthy fingers. The air around Cassie and the Kraken hummed with static, her hair standing on end as she slowly lost consciousness. The four eel-like fingers curled and writhed around its chest, stabbing into the red button and crushing the extra endo on its back. Green arcs coated the animatronic monstrosity. It unleashed an ear-splitting shriek as its faceplates flung open; the Bidibab in its hip flashed yellow, the red and blue lights between its shoulders flickered, the countless colorful eyes glanced in every direction, the jade green wires waved through the air like powerlines in a hurricane, even the skull sealed in its face seemed to scream in unfettered anguish. The swarm of air tubes quickly uncoiled from around Cassie, dropping her to the ground with a painful smash as the vomit clogging her throat spewed onto the welcome mat, followed by what little else remained in her stomach spreading across the tile.

In the dark distance a mannequin-like shadow flew past the glowing green pillar. The long arm gripping the monster pulled tight, the Marionette wrapped its remaining arm and legs around the black tendril and spun around. Like a pulley, the tentacle ripped the aberration several yards away from Cassie. It slammed into the overcharged screen, releasing another aching screech as green light filled its body. The girl's phone levitated to her in a black fog. Her rescuer stood between her and the machine, already recovering from the hearty shock. It was a strange, twisted incarnation of the Puppet, more like something she'd seen in Help Wanted than the Pizzaplex's Security Puppet. Its upper arms and thighs were slimy black human forearms, the stiff ulna and radius swirling into the bulbous elbows as they became the arms of the Nightmarionne. Four striped fingers swayed and swept Cassie up in its incredibly gentle grasp while the three floppy toes and dewclaw hovered just above the floor.

The Puppet swirled black mist around it, banishing the stray stomach acid around Cassie's lips and washing away most of her blood. In the palm of its long hand manifested a violent storm that it forced into the shudders with a loud ring. A purple grid made its return across the doors, dispersing the blast. 'Worth a shot' she heard the Puppet whisper in a strangled, raspy little girl's voice. The Marionette's ribcage, made of small tendrils that tickled the little girl's nose, rotated. Her extensive arms stayed in place, expanding but not stretching, creating a small cradle for Cassie to lay in as she caught her breath. A roar bellowed behind her, the monster crawling after them. Over her head the Puppet's striped neck grew tall, rising above the hungry demon. Her bright green eyes stared knives into their attacker. A cracked white button on her chest stayed still, despite the machine clearly breathing right beside Cassie's ear before the smudged and shattered mask spoke out. Or more accurately, thought directly into their minds.

"...I always wondered what became of you after the Pizza Place... I won't pretend I'm not impressed... Having said that, this child is under my protection, so I suggest you slither back to whatever bunker you lied and scooped your way out of this time..."

They only got a raspy huff in response; the jaws of the clown mask fell, then split apart to point its long, humanoid teeth and stolen mandible at the Puppet. The ribs and sternum in its belly, covering the large costume, slowly clattered together as they shut. Each cobbled piece of the scrap Freddy's face slid closed over the opening in the killer suit. Loud metallic slicing and grinding rust echoed around them as the small circles rounding the casing allowed the mechanical parts to burst back into place. Its body shook as the mechanisms rushed to their sockets. More and more of the pipes around all four of its immensely powerful arms unraveled, thrashing and swirling like the tentacles of a giant squid. With a pop and a hiss, a hatch opened behind the creature, freeing more tendrils into the cold air. The Bidibabs and Minireenas fused with its legs shivered as the tubes broke free of their melted casing and prodded the tiles beneath its large feet.

The living nightmare rose from its white-tipped hands, standing at a full eleven or twelve feet tall with bloodlust in its violet eye. The jaw and mask shut as the tendrils around its top limbs finished peeling away from the shoulders and backup endo welded on by their spinal crossbeams. Stuck to the upper arms was a pair of Funtime heads, one from Foxy, the other Ballora. Both faces were deformed and dirty, melted into the mass of black wires to the point they couldn't be told apart, flashing crooked smiles and dented features like the four-paneled mask. On its right arm, the Ballora face tried to split open, both face panels only getting a few inches apart before getting stuck in the cords around them. Her light blue hair-piece popped out of place, the silver tiara getting consumed in the shadowy lines and her bun having melted into the shoulder joint, yet somehow not impeding its movement. One of her eyes opened, casting a small purple glow while the other was presumably melted shut. The base of the Funtime Foxy skull was also buried in the shoulder, small wires rising from the ear-holes and eye socket like sapient mycelium as his muzzle ran the length of its arm. An orange light shone behind him, the dying echoes of his remaining scanner, just out of sight. His canine teeth locked deep into the dark muscle, the lower jaw either gone or hopelessly buried in the tangled limb. The human humorous' revealed themselves from the sides of the limbs, carefully wrapped in tar and wires like they were being displayed as trophies. Small puffs of black fog coiled around the jade green tips of its decaying wires, spinning the old copper into long, sharp spikes pointed at Cassie.

"...Very well..." The Puppet choked.

Shadows gathered around the two, Cassie still being held close in the Marionette's unnatural arms. The Kraken lunged forward, a dozen legs ripping up the tile flooring as it charged. Cassie let out a yelp and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as the darkness condensed around the two, opening them to find they were at least twenty yards away from the front door. The monster's many claws and greasy tendrils scraped against the steel shudders, protected by the same violet grid that prevented her escape. It didn't turn around, instead climbing the door with its momentum and letting the top part of its body crane back at them. The clown mask stared at them upside down, then righted itself as the torso rotated. Its top third lurched forward, driving its top limbs into the ground and quickly crawling towards them, dragging the rest of its body behind it as it righted itself.

The Puppet softly set Cassie on the ground and pulled back her free arm. In an instant the little girl was limping away as fast as possible, her protector sending a gust of black wind into the beast's chest. It swirled around, pipes compressing under the force. Its front body was facing the other direction, but it kept crawling. The warped face of a Lolbit now led the rest of the body, its knees snapping backward to continue walking, like it didn't have the stops the Entertainers had. The four arms on the arctic fox's side of the body lacked the human bones, but seemed no less stable than the arms on the clown's half of the body. Its claws angrily scratched away, also connected by the elbows to a separate endoskeleton on the Lolbit's back, a yellow-eyed Freddy endo with a deformed Circus Baby face poorly forced to fit its head. The eyes looked unnervingly big, lacking the nose and white plates bridging the gaps between its eyes and red hair.

A blue Bon-Bon and pink Bonnet hand puppet stuck out of the endoskeleton's left and right shoulders, empty eyes looking at the Puppet and Cassie at the same time. On the clown's back was the skinless and decapitated body of Circus Baby, its ice cream dispenser had been ripped out and connected to the umbilical-wire inside the Bidibab that shocked the child. A small pair of buttons, one red labeled with a lightning bolt, the other blue with a sun icon, blinked as it pursued. The insides of Funtime Foxy's and Lolbit's tails ran from the yellow-eyed Freddy endo and attached to the back of the cream jester suit in its gut, securing it in place as it pursued the little girl that fled its jaws. Dark grease dripped from its mouths and eyes like bloody tears and rabid slobber, slime spewing around the area as its tentacles splashed their burning hot yet freezing cold sludge. The demon roared, coughing up black blood in the process, and crawled after its target like a spider with entire centipedes for legs.

Getting used to the sting in her crushed foot, Cassie started running faster. In the back of her mind she heard the Puppet slamming into the attacker, sending shards of polished ceramic flying across the pitch-black Lobby. Shattered glass and random objects, from potted plants and furniture to merchandise and equipment, scattered around Cassie's path. The Marionette crashed through a distant shop's metal door, breaking the Security Drone inside as her ward reached for the stairs. Maybe that thing's too big to follow me up the elevators? The monster slammed into the staircase in front of her, its tendrils very swiftly ripping up the steps with disturbing efficiency. Just a few too many steps and that would've been her. Cassie stumbled back, the clown side of the twisted machine turning to swat a massive claw at her. It only tore into the flooring at her feet, but Cassie stumbled back, falling on her Roxanne backpack as she jumped out of the way.

It readied its tentacles again, trying to stab them straight through her body, but Cassie rolled between the nearby Pat-Pat wet floor signs and into the small renovation area. Pointy pieces of broken squares bounced around her as she got up and tried to hide behind various construction tools and a large debris bin. A pair of animated wires with pointed, rusty copper tips tore into the steel bin, spilling dust and pebbles beside the girl. With a single hand it grabbed the edge of the bin, filled to the brim with solid rock and its wheels locked in place, and pulled it away like it was nothing. Cassie grabbed a bar as if she could stop her only protection from the beast from being dragged away. Eight striped fingers and several ribs stabbed into its back as the Puppet flew behind the towering animal. She yanked on its arms and pulled the beast to the ground.

Charlie levitated, pretending to stand, tall before the Kraken and Cassie, ready for anything.

--- 👁 ---

The Glitchtrap Thin Man, strangely, didn't approach Mono, as he did on the highway leading to the Tower. The signal child and virus his future self stood still as they clashed. Their opposing yet parallel forces pushing against each other as they dueled within the long, blueish hallway in the Monolith's depths. This dreadful time, his hunter adult form was strangely powerful; it took a little longer to break the Spire's soldier's suit arm, it he didn't fall as hard as they finished their clashes, it he didn't stutter or distort, as if it he was more stable than it'd he'd been before. The hologram apparition seemed to favor its left side, unlike their fight on the road under the pouring rain. Mono's energy faded and his arm started to waver off course, his opponent slowly gaining the upper hand, only to be pushed down again. He firmly held his ground and successfully pushed back the program adult over and over, but just barely before they both needed to recover their strength. Slowly, the tall figure started copying his movements, both the tired and unsteady motions and the frightened but persistent defiance.

Out of nowhere his tormentor adult form staggered; it's his body blurring and buzzing with purple static.

Purple? Since when am I purple?

Mono blinked rapidly, his mind's eye breaking through the illusion he'd trapped himself in. The stabilized version of the Glitchtrap appeared for a few vital seconds before the scene set him back in the Thin Man's grasp. Mono fought for control of his breathing and heartbeat. His breaths came out labored and frantic, blood rushing through his veins much too fast. Mono waved his free hand back and forth, searching for Six's hand, but she was gone. Where is she? Did something happen? Is she safe? He pressed his curse against the malware Thin Man, vigor renewed faster than his opposition adult form could keep up with. Before the code adult could react he sent a new blast of his own Signal into the imitation of a rabbit him. Exhaustion ate away at both of them, but only Mono had experience facing a reflection of himself. Cracks formed over the checkered floor, drawings and paper stars and chips of concrete fell to his bare feet and the Glitchtrap's oily puddle Thin Man's shoes.

Though it had the stronger Signal, Malhare still lacked the knowledge to reach its fullest potential.

From Mono's perspective, the Thin Man fell to his knees, a flickering blue light growing in his left side. In the digital world, Mono exerted himself to launch all the power he had into a final blow, raising both static-covered arms straight into the broadcaster's chest, meanwhile Gregory made countless adjustments to his wrench in reality. The only limits they had were how fast they could move their hands, adjusting their frequencies and altering their jammers in tune with the Entity invading the Main Systems. Fractals of the hallway Mono fought in floated away and clipped through other objects, peeling off of the tunnel to reveal the purple grid and blue binary void it was rendered around. Cracks formed over the creature's body, and the padlock over its torso shook and released pinkish particles like embers from a burning building. The neon green tendril covered in eyes wrapped around and prodded the electric blue wound slicing open its hip and stomach, the wiggling tip glowing with a purple dot like it was trying to weld the faux-flesh shut. It rose its other arm, clutching its magenta knife and poorly mirroring Mono's movements like it just now learned it could use both claws to combat him.

The violet grid shattered and Mono was thrown out of the illusion, back hitting the Raceway roar with a painful thud. Within his head he still saw the Thin Man, only now they stood apart in the Pale City's pouring rain. The millions of droplets flew through the sky but didn't leave any cold sensations over his skin, he was too focused on the enemy to concern himself with the weather. Unaware the Glitchtrap's stuttering pair of alternating forms were quickly being enveloped in a sea of blue cubes, he sent another wave towards his adult self, not realizing he'd thrown Gregory across the tarmac in the process. Bloody scrapes already covered the hacker, not made better by the sand and asphalt he rolled over before thudding into the wall beside the mounted iPad. He slowly struggled to stand, checking on the contents of his duffle bag. Nothing was any more broken than it already was, aside from his pride and maybe a rib to two.

Mono ran to his side, frantically waving his arms and muttering out parts of an apology in his pained voice despite the searing burn in his throat. GGY leaned against the wall, head spinning as he dizzily pointed to the screen beside him. The taller boy almost tripped as he placed a hand on the computer, his entire body glowing a light blue as he infected the CPU with his Signal. Pieces of drywall bounced on the ground as Six returned, Roxanne in tow. The wolf's claws tore through the open room, her green nails covered in dust and debris. A chunk was ripped out of a foam rock here, a plastic cactus was knocked down there, and the heavy toolboxes and equipment she'd thrown at Mono were kicked around as she chased the faint footsteps of the yellow-coated child she presumed snatched her eyes. Six gathered black fog around her as she ran, clapping her hands to keep the shattered animatronic's attention over the loud hum of her friend's abilities.

--- 👁 ---

She dashed straight into a foam rock, dispersing into a dark storm as the wolf crashed through her, smashing into the prop and dragging her endoskeleton claws over the soft material. Several lines of mist surrounded by streaks of black booked it for the boys, casting shadows of Six over the sand as they soared like a murder of crows. Roxy reared her head back with a snarl, sniffing the air and swiveling her pointed ears. With a deafening, thunderous pulse the abundance of sawdust draped over the Raceway was sent hovering in the air and the sound of Gregory's knees giving out from under under him reached the machine's microphones loud and clear. Six's faint snarl echoed around the dark cloud as the wolf snapped her head towards the boy. This kid's becoming more of a liability by the hour. Agonizingly slow, her smoke coalesced into a dense orb. Her shadow copies burst open and swirled around her as oil dripped from her newly reformed raincoat.

Six's body had yet to manifest, throwing off her coordination and making her tumble to the ground as more blue static enveloped the area. Lines of sand and dust formed around the three, long rings that thinned and thickened, expanded and contracted, created intricate patterns and faded into shapeless arcs surrounding them, every grain an obedient Viewer answering all of the most minor changes to her best friend's wonderful Signal. For each inch of her skin that returned to normal she could feel another part of him; his hand in hers, his fingers running through her hair as she tried and failed to fall asleep, his toes as they played footsies under whatever they made into a dinner table, his trench coat around her shoulders, his ribs poking through his skin as he carried her around the Maw, his arms around her, his palms squeezing her cheeks as she refused to get out of bed until she blew a raspberry in his face.

The world's desaturated colors brightened as her eyes were summoned, a red glow flashing over the ground for a split second as the tendrils of her pupils curled into spheres and her irises shrank back into place. A small circle of light grew outward from the small screen, its perimeter made of rippling drywall sprouting a cyan grid and filled in by an arctic blue haze covered in dark CRTV lines. Her toenails scratched over the road as she lunged for Mono's side, grabbing Gregory by the collar and tearing the fabric as she yanked him closer to the pair. Like the floor vanished right from under them or gravity tipped on its side, Six and Gregory fell through the blue haze, Mono dragging his companions somewhere even the Glitchtrap might not be able to follow... hopefully... Blurry images only Mono could make sense of flashed before the three's eyes; a carnival inhabited by deformed and fat adults unlike anything Gregory had ever seen, cold rain splattering over highly outdated cobblestone streets that no longer existed anywhere the hacker new of, a tall and hideous clown performing with props covered in blood and tiny bones, then a very clear vision of a bottle with lighter fluid Six barely recognized the label of.

That place had burned to the ground by the time I got there...

--- 👁 ---

Cassie quickly found herself surrounded by slimy black tentacles with bright white stripes. She scooted away from the writhing masses as they slithered from under piles of debris and the bin she'd hidden behind. The Puppet's arm flew backward, human-arm-bone-like upper arms curving and coiling while her lengthy fingers ripped a loose chunk of stone right out of the floor, flinging it at the creature as it recovered. Its clown-side's arms bent in reverse, anyone caught in the suit in its stomach would've had their elbows and wrists brutally inverted, and the Lolbit-half rose a clawed hand. The tendrils sprouting from its forearm smashed the stone to bits as it flew through the air and announced the beast's charge. It barreled through the Marionette, pinning her to the ground and sending shards of rock at Cassie as she yelped like a kicked puppy. Charlie's legs curved and folded in front of her, barely holding back the molten fox's snapping jaws.

The Kraken's many talons dug through the building's foundation as it pulled itself closer to its biggest nuisance's magenta tear and stygian Agony-stained mask. She quickly lashed her arm out like a whip, humanoid-forearm-like upper arms coiling and bending as the lengthy fingers latched onto the debris bin. She lifted the trash-tub and smashed it into the Kraken's side. The Bon-Bon puppet was quickly crushed between the side of the staircase and Lolbit's head, dislocating his tiny jaw and sending a web of cracks over his face as his pink sensor rotated like a lazy eye. Charlotte's legs unfurled from over her, launching the demon back out of the space between the stairs. Meanwhile, Cassie gathered herself enough to notice the striped tendrils stabbing into the wall and wrapping over the guard rails above her, forming an oily ladder up to the elevators. It has to be too heavy for the lifts to carry it upward, I can go to the Atrium!

Panicking and only somewhat managing to stop shivering enough to grab the cold, shadowy limbs, Cassie muttered a series of shaky 'ew!'s as she climbed. Dark grease coated her palms and the soles of her sneakers. The clown mask peeked over the debris container, lifting it over its head while the rear end slid between its legs, the hip rotating until the back was right-side-up. Ground rock flew through the air as it launched the bin at Cassie, only for the object to be swatted out of the sky by the Puppet's ribs and fingers. She took her turn to steal the cart, spilling more rock as she threw it at the monster. Multiple of its blackened pipes swung down on a single point on the object, splitting it cleanly in half.

Now lacking a massive yellow construction container to throw at their opponent's masks, the Puppet and Kraken took turns collecting the rocks it dropped with their dark tendrils and wires, slinging them at their enemy, stabbing them into millions of pieces with their pointed appendages, and repeating until Cassie had hopped the railing. She desperately ran for the elevators as her impromptu guardian swept up the Pat-Pat bots and shot them at the hunter, only for the pair to be cut and smashed into scattered mechanical parts. The Puppet dissolved into a cloud of black, reappearing next to Cassie as the elevator opened with a suffocating green light. She tripped into the lift with the Prize Counter Attendant behind her. Metallic clanks and the hissing of muscle-like pipes rapidly grew closer, the intruder smashing through the glass planes beneath the railing. Wires and greasy tubes cleaved clean through the steel rods as the clown face glared at them with its angry, brightly burning violet eye.

Its four faceplates spread apart in a deeply disturbed roar, the animatronic's long teeth chattered and its human skull gasped for stale air in a tortured shriek. From the lower floor the Marionette's tentacles held onto the Bonnie hand puppets with the force of a trash compactor, refusing to let the invader go until the lift was well on its way. Shadows twirled in Charlie's long hands, one coalescing into a gray and burnt Chica head, more like a charred version of the fluffy bird from the first game than the shining Glamrock Cassie loved. It soared through the air, turning into a demented incarnation of the chicken made of the ravenous nightmares happy to haunt frightened and confused children for weeks on end.

The bottom of its beak was missing, dangling striped tendrils and dripping oil from the Forgotten Chica's mouth. Her right hand had rotted away, being replaced by five slimy tentacles curved to look like claws pouring from beneath the gray casing. Her bib had completely burned away and her pink eyes were gone, instead having a vantablack void with two pinprick pupils watching her target. The only splash of color in the entire phantom was the bright pink cupcake in her remaining hand, smudged with ash and crying black tears. In a sickly green flash she vanished before the rabid predator's dozens of starving eyes. A hiss echoed throughout the Lobby like a popped tire. The animal's many black tubes seemed to deflate, twitching on the ground and spraying their toxic sludge. Although the machine had always lacked the air pressure the Funtime series should've needed to move, it only now felt the effects of its empty compressed air canisters being shut off and drained.

Fueled only by murderous instinct and its strange control over the thick mud flowing through its endoskeletons, the aberration continued to crawl to the pair, noticeably slower than before the phantasmal Chica tackled it. Whatever supernatural mist spun around the Puppet's hand summoned a withered and old Foxy head, then threw it at the fiend as well. It turned into a scorched gray fox missing its lower arm and hook. More striped tentacles swirled around the severed limb, forming the shape of a large sickle. Many writhing appendages draped out of the broken suit around his thighs and the ripped-off bottom half of his torso, swaying by his sides like the swishy flaps of a trench coat. Foxy's tail lacked the casing around its top half; sloshing, striped, sludge-covered limbs took up the mantle of a bushy tail that trailed behind him like the arms of a squid. The only color in his vile gray form was the few golden teeth snapping as he stood against his target, chomping on some of the tentacles draping out from under his eyepatch.

The Forgotten Foxy, too, jumped at the amalgamation of lunatic endos, blinking out of existence in an emerald burst. Its swarm of eyes lost their light, once again plunging the Lobby into darkness. Blindly, the thing fumbled around, swiping at nothing with its talons and pipes and wires. The shine of its sabotaged cameras peered at them, the Bidibab in its hip and buttons strapped between its shoulders like a backpack twitched and flashed with green arcs as its energy was pulled out of its liquified power cells. Faster than even the Glamrocks, Daycare Attendant, or the DJ, the clown's lone purple eye rebooted in time to see Cassie repeatedly mashing the second-floor button as though her life could be saved. Almost the second it resumed its attack, the Marionette seemingly slammed the door in its path with only a wave of her hand.

Despite the terrified little girl nearly breaking the button to take her to the Atrium, the elevator descended deeper into the Mega Pizzaplex that she adored, soon to become her tomb.

Chapter Text

"I know you wanted to go upstairs, but you'll really need a tetanus shot after that and I know of a nearby medical station this way."

The Puppet's strangled voice rang through Cassie's mind, 'talking' directly into her psyche with muted speakers and no apparent mouth other than the unmoving smile of her mask. She looked very different from the creature that just saved her from a robotic clown demon. Her mask was sparkly clean, save for black blood leaking from a crack in the porcelain, but even that was somehow fixed by a whirling bandage of black mist as if it were never there. This animatronic's body was much more kid-friendly, lacking the pointed, striped ribs that impaled the monstrosity growling above them. Three pristine white buttons lined the top part of her body, much more compact than that of the Security Puppet Cassie was familiar with. Her upper arms had lost the human-arm-like rods, now looking and functioning like a black elephant's trunk. The legs awkwardly curving and compressing under weight they didn't feel, shaking with an uncoordinated unease despite clearly feeling no gravity, an obviously floating creature poorly pretending she was standing for the sake of seeming normal. She looked exactly like the Puppet from the games her dad would play with her.

Future Cassie would probably think the Marionette fighting a corpse in a robot was a lot like something she'd expect from a FNAF 3 spinoff or fangame, present Cassie was trying not to vomit again.

"D-d-do you know h-how to use a n-needle?" She barely managed to ask. I hate needles.

"...Kinda..." The Puppet responded.

"T-that shouldn't be a vague answer!" Cassie yelped, smacking her hand over her mouth as soon as she spoke against the girl who could throw around a box of solid rock with one hand.

Thankfully, all she got in return was a hearty, cough-like chuckle.

"Don't worry... I cannot tend to you, but I can borrow the medical code from the Glamrocks to do it for me... I'll essentially be backseat-driving, for you it'll be like a visit from a nurse..." The Marionette explained.

--- 👁 ---

Cassie was an adorable kid, so with Charlie's luck, she was about to get ripped to shreds.

She was a little pale, as to be expected, and was terrible at hiding her abundant terror, also easily anticipated from a child, but on the outside, she was in surprisingly good condition for someone who just got attacked by an actual, living Daemon.

Her shoes were bright white with deep purple laces and details, though the soles were covered in a mix of bile and concentrated Agony in the aftermath of their confrontation with Ennard. She had a pair of black leggings, and some spots of Agony on her injured right foot and calf where the monster grabbed her. A cute red skirt with black triangles around the bottom pooled around her as she sat on a med station, the same as the one Mono snatched from the Prize Counter this same night. Her bright red jacket had rich violet and neon green stars sewn over her heart and many yellow flowers embroidered above its hem. A cute Roxanne backpack weighed on her shoulders, framing the white collar of her undershirt. Some beady bracelets dangled around her wrists, both the color of rainbows. Her fingernails were painted the same purple and green as the stars of her jacket and Roxy herself, the digits trying not to tamper with the broken pieces of a springlock impaling her palm. Beady hair ties, similar to her bracelets, held her auburn hair in two buns, now frayed and drenched in sweat.

Her earthy brown eyes immediately reminded her not of the bitter and paranoid child who haunted every soul she tried to save, but of the intelligent little boy who broke into the Pizzaplex and stole Bonnie's and the former Daycare Attendant's mechanical hearts. A nasty scratch covered her right cheek, but the Marionette could already tell they were shallower than the streams of blood implied. A tinge of pale green still coated her face, but in general, her skin was devoid of the abundant scars and old bruises that the other two sported. In her not-springlocked hand, she tightly clutched her phone, its purple case bearing the wolf's face beneath the camera hole, but it wouldn't have any reception by now. Charlotte sat the girl on a med station and gave her a detailed scan, something she always forgot this new-age vessel could do on a whim; there were bruises and smears of Agony around her neck, stomach, and limbs, the three broken springlock spines were wedged pretty deep in her crimson hand, along with some hairline fractures on three of her ribs and plenty more bruising on the rest.

"How did you get in here?" Charlie asked, working to quickly remove the trio of rusty spines around Cassie's thumb.

"...G-G... T-T-That thing called me... I-It was pretending to be o-one of..." The girl winced as each spike was removed, her eyes getting watery.

"You lost someone here, didn't you? Poor thing..." The Puppet scanned for any stray metal in the wound, then wiped disinfectant over the searing hot cuts.

"W-W-Who a-are you? You're n-not the P-Puppet I know." She asked as the machine(?) tightly wrapped a bandage around her arm.

"You can call me Charlie, it's best that's all you know... What did it say to you?" Charlotte asked. The Security Puppet was alerted by the front doors opening, but why was this kid here in the first place?

"I-It said h-he needed h-help... said h-he was t-trapped." She shivered as the Puppet prepared the needle.

"Who was it pretending to be?" The Puppet asked.

"I-I don't think y-you'd know him... H-He was... l-like a big brother? My parents didn't like h-him... b-but he l-looked out for me... I-I miss h-him..." They were done with the needle before she knew it.

Who's lives have you two ruined now, Siren? Gregory?

"Do you want to talk about him?" Charlie offered while applying a green band-aid to the shot. Maybe he never came to the Pizzaplex? He could be alive, unlikely as it was.

"Well, he was a huge nerd... h-he really liked to code... I'm pretty sure he only smiled when he was talking about all the stuff he wanted to make... He was pretty sad the rest of the time, my parents never really paid attention to anyone but me... h-he got sick of it and left... B-But I know I saw him h-here! I don't know where he went, but I know he was here at some point."

Cassie was clearly doing her best to stay smiling as the Puppet wiped away the blood on her cheek and sorted through the booth for a large enough band-aid to cover the scratches, even if talking about her brother figure did genuinely lift her spirit. Charlie quickly found some painkillers and bruise ointment for the girl, not missing the small sniffles as she fought back tears. The Puppet turned her around to check her spine. Her spine seemed okay aside from a pretty bad electrical burn. Cassie's jacket seemed to take the brunt of the damage, the many ceramic tiles that broke in their fight sent large clay daggers into her, leaving the red fabric frayed and torn around a charred spot where the wires connected. Only some of the finer shards of scattered glass and the torn metal of the stairs had penetrated deep enough to cut into her back, and most of the injuries were fairly superficial. With the Mega Pizzaplex's and Glitchtrap's current record, Cassie was already a statistic in everyone but Charlotte's eyes, but in the event she did get out alive, the Marionette would prefer she didn't immediately get bedridden by an infection and got back to work.

...I'm going to be the one to explain her friend is dead, aren't I?

Cassie kicked her feet as the Puppet, or more accurately, Chica's extra medicinal files, operated on the cuts and debris still lodged in her skin. The painkillers wouldn't last her long, but they'd give the kind child plenty of time to adjust and get a handle on her situation before she was on her own again. In the end, eight slivers of metal ripped up from the stairs by the beast's pipes were pulled from the little girl's back, along with seven glass blades, not counting the nineteen scrapes and slices over her battered flesh that lacked anything buried within.

A myriad of colorful bandages decorated the girl and a large white one covered her cut cheek by the time Charlie was finished, though the med-station didn't have any lollipops she could give the frightened kid. It may or may not be in her best interest to find Mono and Six; their own injuries were that of cutthroats living every day like it was their last, Six especially being incredibly thin and likely on the lookout for food for Mono, far worse scars than what Cassie would have ordained their sickly pale skin, no telling what their strange abilities might entail, either. Unfortunately, there'd been no reason to believe they'd care for anyone but each other.

"What was your friend's name?" The Puppet eventually asked, knowing every victim's name and story. She deserves to know what happened.

"His name was Gregory." Cassie answered like it was nothing.

...

...

...

FUCK

--- 👁 ---

Gregory's entire body stung like he'd, not for the first time, been soaked in battery acid. Dirty scrapes covered his knees, arms, and chin. A maroon line dripped down the side of his head and stained the shoulder of his torn shirt, the front of his collar had split from the rest of the material with worn strings loosely keeping the stretched-out hem in place. His vision still blurred in and out of focus as he shakily stood, his head spinning no matter how carefully he got up. It didn't take long for him to check over his duffle bag. As it landed on top of him, nothing was out of place or overly damaged other than his stomach.

In front of him, Six walked forward to grab Mono's hand. Neither of them seemed to notice she was the one to start it, and GGY was more preoccupied with his tech than the virtually indestructible duo, but he'd assumed the boy was always the one to grab his companion's hand. The three looked around the area they'd found themselves in, not even Mono fully understanding where exactly he'd brought them. Despite the fuzz in his brain, Gregory blinked away the tiredness in his eyes, making sure what he was seeing was real. He'd never seen a tree beyond the few small ones planted across the city or the distant woods on longer drives between foster houses, but he was very sure they weren't supposed to be this big.

They began to walk away from a ring of glowing, flickering blue mushrooms they'd landed within; their mycelium never growing inside the circlet, the millions of fabric-like strands dispersing into the soil around them, leaving them in the center of a small patch of grass and a few tiny flowers. The overcast sky drooled very light rain onto them, a soothing cold that eased his many aches. Overhead the leaves barely swayed, and the calming light that filtered through them danced in the tiny breeze. No birds chirped or animals scurried as they wandered, only the satisfying crunches of decaying leaves and absurdly tall grass echoed through the woods.

A short dirt path guided them through a maze of traps; beartraps covered in wet leaves and set off by the pair throwing sticks and rocks, hanging cages with painfully obvious tripwires, snares strangely baited by candy and similar treats much smaller in scale than the surrounding forest. The woodsy smell filling his nose would've normally been appalling, the worlds of computers and the digital era have always been his element, but Gregory found himself oddly indifferent to the rocks he kicked and the twigs snapping under his shoes. Six, weirdly enough, only reacted to Mono's powers when they cut out, more disappointed than unfazed. Maybe this place had more to do with Mono, than his personal perceptions? Not remotely the most far-fetched thing to happen tonight, not like anything to do with these two ever made sense.

Are we... inside him?

The three came upon an unusually large cabin a short distance off the trail, the creaky planks of the balcony and walls riddled with gaps, some of them nearly big enough for one of them to squeeze inside like it was built for people significantly bigger than anyone Gregory had ever seen. A massive locked door barred any entry, the curtains within almost beckoning them. Gregory paused as the other two continued to walk hand-in-hand, putting on his AR mask. Maybe it could reveal something he couldn't see?

Every inch of ground and all the trees were covered in blue lines like circuit boards, the eye-like symbol Mono apparently made his and his friend's insignia staring down at him. The little raincoated girl in the center even appeared lower than the original icon, like Six herself was its pupil. His Helpi assistant spouted some generic error message about a foreign entity being detected, and to ask it to leave, but that remained at the back of the hacker's mind as an arctic blue, low-poly version of the eye manifested in front of the wooden door. According to a quick inspection with Helpi's aid, it seemed to be something between a virus and a standard program, parts of it even seeming like a Security Node.

Just as Gregory reached for his Fazwrench, a force yanked his hand away from his bag. His companions suddenly stood behind him, the signal child's irises expanded over his eyes and pupils burst into writhing tentacles across his eye.

Whatever was behind that door... it was very intentionally hidden away long before they arrived.

--- 👁 ---

Cassie wasn't an idiot.

Ever since that disaster of a 'birthday', she'd learned to pay attention, especially to those she was once naïve enough to call 'friends' and the rest of her classmates. She never allowed that bitter second-guessing to apply to her parents or Gregory, even if they didn't always deserve the benefit of the doubt. At least it had some uses, it'd stopped her from letting her guard down around kids her age, made her watch closer than she would've before the party, and taught her not to be vulnerable. It's also part of what drove her to constantly stick a hand out to the kids in and out of her apartment, most of them tired of pretending they were alright, but what little energy they had left to put into appearing like the perfect permanent addition to the family couldn't fool the young girl, not anymore. Maybe it wasn't healthy, maybe it would come back to bite her, maybe it wouldn't, she only cared about what could've happened to Gregory. Even without a real face to express herself, Charlie was an animated person, plenty of trial and error let Cassie know something was off by the shift in her head and the green dots of her eyes.

She'd like to think she was a really cool lie detector, but in reality, the Puppet probably didn't care about hiding things from a girl she likely wouldn't see again.

"Do you know him? Is he here? Did he really try to call me? Is he okay? What happened to him?"

Cassie asked quickly, trying and failing to withhold a million other questions running through her mind. The Puppet didn't answer any of them, staring at her with an emerald gaze, a mix of pity and what looked like disappointment. Her wobbly legs swayed over the concrete as she floated a short distance away. She didn't seem likely to attack, her floppy arms wiggled and stayed by her side throughout every question, but the bright green pupils and darker irises within pitch black sclera piercing through her soul weren't exactly soothing. Eventually, the painted white mask tilted downward, only slightly, but it was more than enough to give the spiteful illusion of an angry glare that sent and painful shiver down Cassandra's aching spine. Soon enough, she needed a short moment to catch her thin breath, that's when the Marionette finally cut in.

"...Whatever Gregory once meant to you... Whoever you thought he was... For your own survival, forget him... Terrible things have happened here, almost all because of him... You should focus only on yourself until you're beyond those doors at 6 AM, or you'll become one of his marks as well..."

...No...

...NO...

"That's not Gregory!" Cassie refuted louder than she meant.

"I am sorry..." The Puppet put plainly.

"He's not like that! He took care of me, he's my best friend! Y-You're talking about someone else!" She insisted. Gregory isn't a rare name, there must be someone else here.

Charlie simply hovered in place, neither believing the other would see reason.

"If you are willing to stretch a hand to him, he will send you to your grave-"

"No, he wouldn't! That's not him!"

"Perhaps not when you knew him, but he is very different now..." Charlie warned again.

"How would you know that? Did you ever give him a chance? Because I was around him a lot." Cassie challenged, blissfully unaware of Foxy's fate.

"According to your profile, the last major time you're known to have interacted with him was your tenth birthday..." The Marionette pointed out.

"U-Uh... It w-was a lot of time in spirit!" She tried to counter.

"...I'm afraid you know little of what spirits do... Hear me, Cassie, the Gregory wandering this hell would shove you in an elevator and cut the cord the minute it suited him, he is no longer the brother you believed you could count on..." Charlotte stated, her patience with the boy in question thinning fast. He already has her around his finger, I have to fix this.

Before Cassie could respond, her guardian's head snapped upward. 'The System', she almost heard Charlie whisper. No metallic clacking or slimy slithering echoed through the vents, no black grease dripped from the ceiling, the long wait for a gurgling breath or roar went on and on. The stench of mildew mixed with toxic gas didn't waft around them like a plague, the air Cassie inhaled lacked the weight of the monster's crushing grip. No clawed hands burst out of the ducts to grab her, she wasn't stuffed into a killer cream jester suit surrounded by yellow bones. A shame that Cassie was convinced that wouldn't be the case for long. She quickly found herself choking on her own saliva, despite her mouth running completely dry. Her pupils shrunk to the size of a mouse in the face of a cat and her heart beat as fast as its little feet scurrying to its burrow in vain. She tried to get to her feet and run, but nearly fell as she touched the ground and got scooped up by a single tentacle-like arm.

Over the course of a second, Charlie went from callous and stern back to the impossible entity that saved her life from a vile, sadistic monster. She was slowly shifted to sit on the Marionette's legs as they levitated, like she was sitting on her dad's lap. Of course, Cassie would have to address... everything eventually; this Puppet's abilities, the creature that attacked her, almost dying, whatever Gregory might've done to be thought so little of by this animatronic, how she'll explain this to her parents. I also still have to get candy for the other three, maybe something for Bailey and her friends. For now, however, she had a second to enjoy the three-clawed hand gently squeezing her into the soft fabric of the mechanical torso, strangely warm and lacking the oily coating she'd expected, despite the slimy shine her makeshift pillow had.

--- 👁 ---

A dense, cold, gray mist descended on them like a swarm of locusts. The desaturated greens of the overcast woods were steadily and violently crushed by the sudden fog, rolling in from nowhere almost the second they'd moved on from the disproportionate cabin. Tiny clouds swirled around the three's feet as they treaded the gaps in the giant tree, only the pair of survivors having any idea where they were walking. While they stayed hidden, the pebbles beneath them were kicked and scattered with every step, twigs snapped under Gregory's shoes, leaves lightly crunched and mud uncomfortably squelched as they treaded a small marsh.

Six and Mono, of course, were almost completely silent compared to him, the former poorly hiding the desire to turn and glare at his every step. Just outside another small building, absolutely massive compared to the children, lay a subtle mound within the gray, a slight shimmer of glowing blue mushrooms peeking through the beige blanket. The well-structured hut was the only reason the hacker noticed it at all, the parallel planks barely making it easier to spot the height difference between the ground and that out-of-place spot with its well-hidden luminescent fungus.

Many splinters and nails poked out of the hut's doorframe, nearly the entire entrance having been broken in some way. Aside from cleaning up a body, Gregory was far from a forensics specialist, but he knew there was rot, and then there was this. Its frame and front walls were dented like metal, something had crashed into the front door many times. The handle was bent out of place, something hadn't been carefully trying to get inside. A pair of gaping holes were left in the planks, one around where someone's head might be if this place was normal sized, another where the gut and chest would've stood.

The top end's wood pointed into the building, something forced its way through, many split boards pointed outward from the lower opening, something crashed through it. In the end, only a lone plank remained, dividing the holes and surrounded by the remains of the decaying shattered planks. Gregory took a second to reequip his AR mask, finding a blue static barrier protected by the duo's icon. Not willing to irritate the boy again, he simply returned the mask to his bag. He's so nice, I don't want to be pushed away.

Six wound up slipping from Mono's grasp as she noticed the fog-covered pile as well. She only stared at the bump in the low cloud, lost in thought with no apparent feeling other than a disturbing satisfaction the programmer wasn't sure he wanted to know the origin of. Darker gray mist gathered around her like a coming storm. Perhaps the effect was new, perhaps he was too distracted by the environment to notice. Her dirty, scarred, cut, bruised and bone-thin legs were invisible to the naked eye. Her filthy yellow raincoat almost seemed to blend into the tornado of fog, her hands fading into the clouds around her like she was a wraith.

The signal child let out a small 'hey!' to the girl, his voice oddly smooth and lively, knowing how rough and raw it was just before they entered. Six visibly perked like a dog whose name had been called, her pupils widened beneath her hood and red eyes twinkled through her greasy hair. She didn't appear to walk or stand, silently walking or just drifting between whatever obstacles he and Mono had clumsily or expertly maneuvered around. With all that had already happened tonight, both options sounded pretty likely.

A large part of Gregory wholeheartedly hoped and expected to hear a muffled 'good puppy' as her hand re-entwined with Mono's.

Like crossing another threshold, the world changed. The dark gray mist of the towering forest gave way to a massive carnival masked by pale white fog. The only of the woods' haze that followed them was what still coiled around Six, the rest of the landscape fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces, not a single splotch of white or gray crossing into either area. Through the split-open toe of his shoes he could barely feel they were now walking on a dirt street covered in planks. Like the cabin and hut, the entire place was much larger than what would make sense for them. Red and white striped tents loomed, riddled with blackened holes and spewing the pleasant scent of charcoal.

Strings of lights dangled over them, all either burst or burnt out. Gregory liked this place much more than the forest; the charred smell smoothly swam down his nose, charcoal meant warmth, warmth meant slightly fewer painful shivers, warmth meant there might be something edible, or even cooked, nearby. The plank road was even compared to the alleys he wandered; it didn't seem to be crawling with yellow-toothed rats, what little scurrying shadows that dashed through the mist and between hiding places were far enough away for him to ignore them, no shards of glass pierced his soles and sliced his feet, no pebbles or bits of garbage wedged themselves under his torn socks.

He resisted the urge to search the nearby food stands for hotdogs or cotton candy, they'd probably be rotten or fake, anyway. Many dispersed mounds covered in mist surrounded them, though Mono refused to guide them closer or explain what might be inside. A ring of glowing, arctic blue mushrooms dispersed some of the fog in the center of an especially large, seared, torn tent, ember-like sparks rising around them as they hummed with static and CRTV lines. Their mycelium ate through the wooden floorboards and dispersed through the chilly white blanket. Like a rippling barrier, the fog rose high above what Gregory presumed to be rows of seats; as the closest he'd ever been to a real festival was when Fazbear Entertainment LLC. set up a massive carnival-themed event around the Pizzaplex, complete with colossal renovations, redecorating that almost exposed his favorite Kid's Cove hideaway, and a paint job for all the animatronics to steal customers from celebrate the arrival of a traveling circus, Gregory didn't recognize most of the games and structures here.

Mono invited them into the ring of mushrooms. Could he see something they couldn't? Was there one of his Security Node-like systems there? Six, ever willing to put her life only in his hands, wandered right into the sparkling circle. The young technician carefully treaded inside the ring. I've heard horror stories that started like this. Mono raised his hand, his body and eyes distorting with his powers. The fungus' mycelium didn't reach inside the ring, leaving the wood floor uncovered as it faded into a pale blue haze. White fog twirled upward like a twister or water spout, but only Gregory looked to be affected by the winds. The air condensed outside the ring, suffocating and oppressive like constrictor snakes around his throat. His heart raced and eyes watered, his chest tightening and short of breath, gravity loosened and the dozens of structures shook, then the ground gave out right from under him.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory's eyes opened to find himself in Mono's arms, the taller boy giving him a soft hug as he helped him regain his balance. Six had stumbled just beside them, but kept her footing far better than the hacker ever could. He glanced around at the room they found themselves in as he contacted Freddy.

They were in Parts and Service.

Chapter Text

"Hello? Freddy? Can you hear me?" Gregory asked through his watch as Mono pulled out their sketchbook.

"Loud and clear, superstar. Is something wrong?" He responded.

"No, but can you come to Parts and Service? We need you for something." The hacker stated, the bear paused on the other line.

"Parts and Service? Are you not in Roxy Raceway? Did I miss you?" Freddy questioned.

"Uhh... you could say Mono 'found' a shortcut here." Gregory explained vaguely.

"Oh, you must have found more of the maintenance tunnels! I am already on my way, I will be there shortly, stay safe."

The programmer looked at him and Six. They were already on the ground with a couple sheets torn from their book, both drawing Roxanne. Her eyes sat on the concrete beside the two, one angled just right to stare at the boy who helped orchestrate their violent acquisition, the other at the perpetrator. Mono found himself especially grateful for the minute of rest. He needed a second to draw out his thoughts; what happened to Roxy, what Freddy might think, the part he played, the extent of his abilities.

He eagerly awaited the day he could draw something without the toll of whatever monster they'd faced weighing on him, as did his friend, no matter how much she denied it. He tried to make something upbeat, a remorseful reminder of what she might've been like if she wasn't hunting them like their big bear. He struggled with drawing her hair, too many soft lines for him to sketch without her looking like a hedgehog, but it gave him the space he needed to think, to process what he'd done.

Six tried to hide her reservations, but they'd both grown accustomed to reading each other's needs. Something was eating at her, something neither of them understood, something she hated. Her confused frustration made its way onto her page, the jagged edges of the shattered wolf's limbs and the wrecked go-kart taking form before them. Two circles, soon to represent her missing eyes, sat beside the bulk of the drawing, the 'big prize' they were no longer sure was worth it. What am I thinking? Of course, it's worth it! Mono reassured himself. It must be worth it, it's a step toward getting out alive.

Stealing her sight may not have stopped her permanently, but it made getting away from her in the future easier. They did far worse to the Hunter, Doctor, and the inhabitants of the Maw just in the time they'd been together, let alone what might've happened before meeting outside the City. It was all for the sake of seeing the next day, they didn't have the luxury of worrying about anything more, dreams and wishes of otherwise wouldn't change anything. Why would this be any different? Why did this time feel different? The animatronics were after them, they defended themselves, and that was that.

He continued his drawing, already feeling a little better. Nothing's changed, this is the most normal tonight's been.

Even though it doesn't feel like it.

--- 👁 ---

The Marionette gently set Cassie on the ground. Now that she'd had a chance to gather herself, she couldn't help but giggle at how noodly Charlie's arms were. She wanted to draw her! Maybe she could be in the background of her newest Roxanne picture? I should look for Roxy! Maybe she can help?

"I'm sorry for that, something else got my attention... While I haven't seen that creature up close until tonight, I know it would've already attacked if it was here, it hasn't pursued you... It looks like you may be of low priority to it..." Charlie explained.

"What were you looking at?" Cassie hesitantly asked.

"Something is hidden in the Main Systems, nothing you should concern yourself with... Just know it's a vile beast. The monster that drew you here might be a greater threat to you at the moment, but what haunts this hell is going to repeat this process long after you've escaped, both you and anyone after you will be doomed if I allow it to grow too strong.

For that reason, I'm afraid I must leave you now, else its hold on this place grows stronger... I'm sorry... You must stay away from the other animatronics, they aren't themselves...

I should let you know there are two others in your position, they've fared better than anyone else who's been trapped after the doors locked... I cannot say for certain that they'd be willing to lend you a hand, but I recommend you seek them out as a last resort. One of them has a trench coat and a Faz-a-pult strapped to his arm, the other has a raincoat, be careful..."

The lights flickered before Cassie could ask any questions, stinging her eyes as they became brighter than they should've been able to, then plunging her into darkness. Without any of the strange mist or explanations, the Puppet had vanished. Now alone, much to Charlie's dismay, the girl pocketed her phone and started wandering blindly and aimlessly through the black halls. She'd neglected to check how her phone's battery was doing before she left home, only noting it had an alright charge when she unplugged the cord, and her flashlight got left behind in the encounter with that oily aberration.

She'd have to be careful what she used power on. As far as she knew only Roxy could see in the dark very well, one of her dad's offhand comments about the Glamrocks' intricacies he probably didn't think she listened to. Fortunately, Gregory had inspired her to be more grateful for the intriguing world of robotics that practically fell into her hands from birth, she already knew her other friends weren't as equipped as her favorite.

Still, that abomination's words continued bugging her. How much of what she heard came from the tentacle thingie? Was everything she'd been hearing since her Fazwatch woke her come from its clown-masked lips? Or was there an element of truth yet to be gleaned from the mess? She had to see for herself! What if Gregory really had tried to contact her? What if he was still in danger?! The only way for the slimy animal to have known about what happened on her birthday was for it to have witnessed it, right?

Maybe, if it had access to the Main Systems, it could've stalked her through the cameras; but that seemed a bit of a stretch when Charlotte spoke of it like it was separate from what was hiding inside the network. The message about my birthday. Anyone but Gregory knowing what happened would be very unlikely, that must've been the real him! He wanted her to come to the Raceway! It would be too big a risk not to check, he might still need her help.

Sure, there was the possibility the monster really did know all about her birthday, but Cassie felt the odds would have to be absurdly stacked against her for that to be the case, so off to the Raceway she went.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory remembered his seventh foster residence well, too well. The Andersons were more of the same, a couple without kids of their own who tolerated him long enough to get the big payout. They'd been sickly sweet in front of his agent, then a particularly nasty bunch when the doors closed. Every little thing was an excuse to shout or throw something at him. Mr. Anderson's favorite was yelling at him. Ask for a small snack to tide him over until dinner? Yelled at and sent to bed without a meal. Getting tired and starting to fall asleep?

Woken up with a shout and forced to do meaningless chores that had already been done anyway. Trying to code or create something that might look good on an application? Yelled at for spending so much time on the computer and thrown outside. No matter what, he was never good enough; it never mattered how hard he tried to stay awake, it never mattered how much work he put into chores that Mrs. Anderson had already done, it never mattered how he tried to make something impressive, he'd already failed before he even started.

Mrs. Anderson was... interesting... in her own right. A neat freak who needed to be in control of everything, no exceptions. Any questions or comments were met with a wooden spoon he'd never seen her use for anything else. Anytime he spilled something he'd be backhanded before he could start cleaning it up, assuming the spoon wasn't convenient. Accidentally breaking something he knew for a fact was worthless and had no special stories attached would get something else tossed at his spine along with a string of insults, all leading him to have to pick it up with his unprotected hands.

Even having his elbows on the dinner table for a second would be met with a swift smack on the head. Her husband couldn't care less, only better because he didn't directly participate. As long as they both did their jobs they never had too many issues with each other, no public outbursts or arguments to raise eyebrows, and even when something wasn't done right or on time they'd pin it on him. All of that just to tell the system 'They're a little sweetheart, but we'll definitely need those extra finances to keep housing them!' and never sent so much as a penny their newest slave's way.

Having been through so many people like them, all he could muster was an unsatisfied 'about time' when the news reported on them getting arrested for sending one of their 'little sweethearts' to the ER. To this day he couldn't help but find poor Cassie's reaction a morbid sort of hilarious.

He'd been hiding out in Foxy's room overseeing the Daycare for just under a week, only now had the vulpine pirate caught onto him stealing from guests during the day. The fox paced back and forth in front of the same little fort he met Bonnie in as the boy munched on a pickpocketed granola bar. Granted, 'pickpocket' was a strong word, it was taken from an unattended bag in the Daycare check-in, the kid it belonged to had already taken the slide down to play with Foxy and their mom was busy being a Karen about a discount program that ended months ago.

For his own protection, he'd tense up whenever the machine would move past him. I'd rather not know what that hook can do. He'd raise an arm or two slightly, not enough for the captain to notice them, but enough to be prepared for the second he needed to protect his face. The boy couldn't realistically defend himself from the hydraulics, but that wouldn't stop him from trying, those claws could easily kill him. The fox never seemed to notice him stiffen and curl in on himself whenever he passed by, just shaking his head while pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Listen, lad, I know yeh got hungry, but 'cha can't snatch loot offa' tha guests. Yer gonna get caught an' thrown ta tha wind!" Foxy lectured.

"You're a pirate! What's your problem with someone losing a few snacks?" Gregory countered. He was dead in the water, anyway, might as well call him out.

"Messin' with tha freaks up top be one thing, but those landlubbers be tha ones keepin' this place alive. I'll be tha one ta getcha treasure if ya need, ya gotta stay away from tha others 'fore someone starts noticin' some of tha booty be missin' every time they turn their backs."

"It's not like they would've missed them. The lady probably would've stopped by a vending machine whether I took shit or not." He huffed.

"Tha banshee gettin' 'er rations somewhere else ain't tha point. Tha point be tha ya shoulda come ta me instead, laddie! Yer not alone anymore, ya got a crew!" Foxy insisted.

"I'm not gonna be here forever! I can't just stop, I'll have to get back to relying on myself when the Winter's over. You'll never even see me again, I barely have friends, certainly not a crew."

"But it don't gotta be tha way, Gregory. Yee gotta learn when ta reign yerself in from time ta time."

Before either of them could continue, a knock came from the door. A bright red light shone down on the many props and toys littered about the Daycare.

"What'd I miss?" Bonnie asked the pair.

"Tha lad snatched some food off a guest this mornin'. I be tryin' ta tell 'im why he can't do tha without soundin' like a hypocrite, but now we jus' be goin' in circles." Foxy stated.

"Nobody would've seen me anyway, I get rid of the camera footage all the time." Gregory revealed.

"Whoa whoa whoa, you what?" Bonnie asked as Foxy whipped around, dislocating his eyepatch.

"Ya at least need a Fazwrench ta get in tha service panels ta do tha'." Foxy pointed out.

"Gregory, how'd you get into the system?" Bonnie asked, Gregory only shrunk into himself.

"...Cottontail, did you steal a Fazwrench?" The rabbit pressed as non-threateningly as he could.

"I-I-It was just from s-some random jerk t-that wasn't paying a-attention! I s-swear!" He trembled.

"Lad, who'd ya snatch from?" Foxy questioned. Even if they were a nasty lil sea serpent, they'll need tha wrench back.

"I-I think his n-name was C-Carlton?" Gregory stammered out.

"Hm... On second thought-" the pirate started, swiftly interrupted by his blue companion.

"Bud, you are not thinking what I think you're thinking." Bonnie huffed.

'I know yee be forced ta listen ta his jokes! THA MAN BE A WALKIN', TALKIN', YAMMERIN' STAIN ON ALL THINGS TOMFOOLERY!"

His hooked hand cut through the air as he stopped to chat with the massive rabbit, unaware of the painfully obvious flinch. Even though the fox was at least a few yards away from him, Gregory shot his arms vertically in front of his face, he'd learned the position covered the most area the fastest during Mrs. Gertrude's drunken episodes. He tucked his knees close to his chest, the stolen granola bar bouncing off his torn shoe as it slipped from his cold fingers. Bonnie noticed long before he could force himself to relax, he refused to meet the rabbit's lively ruby gaze and kept his eyes pinned to the foamy floor. He knows something's off, he's gonna say something weird about me being 'broken'.

The bunny kept talking to his friend for a few more seconds but couldn't help casting another couple glances at Gregory as the freezing, constantly exhausted, small, and thin boy fought the urge to protect himself from the lethal strikes of claws and hooks that weren't there. The tiny hacker didn't think the blades were coming for his face, Foxy was always just a very expressive person, but he wasn't sure despite the vast distance currently between them, and failing to cover himself at the wrong time could get him killed.

That mistake almost put him down several times.

--- 👁 ---

Private Chat - Glamrock Series (B), Glamrock Series (Daycare Attendant)

Moderation - Bonnie (Set Own Name: Cinnamon Bun)

Cinnamon Bun: Hey, except my invite.

User - Foxy [Accepted]

User - Foxy (Set Own Name: Foxy Tha Pirate)

- Foxy Tha Pirate: Whatcha makin' this fer?

- Cinnamon Bun: Stop waving your arms.

- Foxy Tha Pirate: Is somethin' wrong?

- Cinnamon Bun: I think you're scaring Gregory, it looks like your claws are doing it but I'm not sure.

- Hold on, I'll send you a recording, let me know what you think of it.

- [Video File Received].

- Foxy Tha Pirate: That'll be me hook, mostly, thanks fer mentionin' it.

--- 👁 ---

Foxy, without any apparent prompt, lowered his hook and kept it behind his back as he quickly turned around, getting another large flinch from the child. The pirate approached slowly, his spring-loaded canine legs bouncing slightly with every careful step. Shivers shook him with every inch the toothy machine grew closer. Gregory covered his face once Foxy was right in front of him, ready for the worst. With a quiet whir, usually comforting to the boy, the hooked hand swerved out of its place behind the captain's back. Maybe it'll be quick?

The pointed end of the long hook never slashed across his hands as they guarded his head, it didn't reach around his palms to rip apart his face or peel off his cheek, the hook didn't pierce his thin flesh like a dagger, nothing dragged down his sickly pale skin until the padded flooring was forever stained crimson. The black, plastic-gem-encrusted base of the fox's hand swiveled to point the blunt end at Gregory. It didn't swipe across his body until he cried or got a hold of himself. Foxy slipped his hooked arm underneath Gregory and lifted him up. He sat on the red-suited forearm, the hook turning again to point the tip away from his bony legs.

Though his legs had mostly unfurled as he was pressed against the animatronic's chest, he didn't move his arms away from his face, instead opening his hands to cover the top of his head and awkwardly trying to bring his elbows between the big brown trench coat and his ribcage. It wasn't exactly stable, but he'd rather fall on his back than take a claw to the eye, just because the hook wasn't convenient didn't mean the fox couldn't scratch him. No long nails wedged themselves into his spine, the talons didn't dig between his vertebrae or cut open his back.

Just as when the fox caught his head when they first met, his fingers bent slightly backward, pointing the ends away from him as the plastic palm gently rubbed circles over his shoulders. Gregory's heavy eyes cautiously opened and looked through the gap in his arms. Right, this is Foxy, I SHOULD be okay. He slowly brought himself to move his hands and wrap them around his friend's shoulders. Another aching shiver ran through him as he timidly and tiredly forced himself to relax, the fox whispering assurances and promises into his ears with his gruff but familiar voice.

The little boy didn't really take any of his words in, being in contact with... anyone... for any reason, was so weird and uncomfortable. This time he could tolerate it, distantly understanding what the fox was trying to do for him, but being manhandled was a confusing mix of stressful and calming.

The scruffy but soft fur on Foxy's shoulder ticked his nose as he inhaled and brushed his cheeks as he sighed, the hair on the elbow of his clawed arm slid over his worn shirt, and the fluff of the hooked arm's joint poked the back of his knee. From a hole in the rear of Foxy's coat his long, bushy tail curled around him like an unorthodox seatbelt. A tiny hiss sounded from some tiny holes in the fox's torso casing, a line of four gaps next to the shoulder joints where Gregory rested his head.

All the animatronics had special smells relating to their themes, Foxy tended to smell like the sea during morning hours, another trick to improve immersion; he'd liked the orange and banana the fox would frequently switch between after being cleaned, it was supposed to encourage kids to eat their fruits and masked the burn of the disinfectant, but the light scent now filling his nose was a clear and pleasant lavender he hadn't known the machine was installed with. Whatever internal system that let him use the incents warmed the robot's plating and the synthetic hair the hacker rested his head on. The puffy tail coiled around him like a tight, weighted blanket.

As his nerves began to calm, Bonnie's huge paw ruffled his hair. He distantly registered something the hare muttering something about 'Cottontail's bedtime' as his breathing evened out and eyes blinked slowly.

Despite how hard he tried to stop himself from melting into the soft, ruby fur, he slowly drifted off.

--- 👁 ---

-Foxy Tha Pirate: Remind me ta talk to 'im tomorrow mornin'.

- Cinnamon Bun: Can't you just make an alarm?

- Foxy Tha Pirate: Ya get tha point!

- Cinnamon Bun: Yeah, I gotcha.

- One second, I'll get him a blanket and we can talk somewhere else.

--- 👁 ---

"'Aight, Vanessa's waiting for me in Monty golf right now, I'll need to make this quick. She found something in one of the maintenance tunnels and she thinks it's where the Kraken keeps crawling in." Bonnie explained.

"Where's tha beastie at?" Foxy asked.

"I dunno, but Mari said she lost track of it in the greenroom museum not long ago. We have a chance to figure out what makes it tick, maybe we can find a way to get rid of it!"

"Well then, how much time we got, matey? Ya ready ta put tha tangled monster down fer good?" Foxy cackled quietly as he could, even though Gregory had been tucked in with his trench coat in one of the padded play-forts, he wasn't that far away.

"No, you've gotta keep Gregory safe, I just stopped by to let you know what's happening, I'm going in." Bonnie clarified, earning a burning scowl from the outlaw as he drew his flintlock from his belt.

"If yee be thinkin' yer gonna wander inta Davy's locker alone, yee bettarrg be ready fer a long night in tha brig." With a sharp 'click' the gun was ready, its barrel honed in between Bonnie's eyes.

"I won't be alone, Vanny's gonna be right beside me the whole time." He carefully swatted the toy weapon away from his nose.

"Admiral Vanessa be a fraction yer size, how's she s'posed ta keep yer lil vest from gettin' torn up? Yer bass from getting split apart? Or yer dumb sunglasses from gettin' shattered?" Foxy bombarded.

"Those glasses were a gift from Freddy! Monty and Chica are keeping them and my bass safe in her greenroom, anyway." The rabbit waved off.

"Tha doesn't answer tha question, furball." He prodded.

"You're worrying to much! Vanessa... Kinda..."

"Spit it out, sea-slug! What'd tha lass do this time?" The fox asked.

"Okay, she may or may not have... brought something?"

"Tha madwoman got 'erself a taser, didn't she?" He finished for the bassist.

"That, and a tactical axe."

"A BLOODY AXE?! HOW'D SHE GET IT PAST THA WATCH?!" He whisper-yelled.

"She is the watch." Bonnie deadpanned.

"YA KNOW WHAT I MEANT YA MOLDY BAG OF FAKE DUBLOONS!" He snarled, getting a chuckle from the overly laidback bunny.

"Yeah, I get it. Anyway, she can take down about anything with that, we'll be okay. We won't even be down there long, we'll just take a few minutes to look around and hop right back out. She even got these special contacts with a UV filter." He added.

"Honestly, though, I think she just got them 'cuz they're purple!" Bonnie winked.

"Really? I'd think she be lookin' fer a pink pair." Foxy thought aloud.

"Why pink?" The rabbit asked.

"It be her favorite color." The fox told him.

"Really? Could've sworn she told me it was purple." Bonnie pondered.

"Thas not what tha lass told me an tha Sun. Ask 'er, assumin' ya come back alive without ole me fer damage control." The rogue challenged.

"Relaaaaax, we'll be okay, and I'll be expecting a turn in a Fazer Blaster fight with the Cottontail if I turn out to be right!"

Bonnie walked out of the dark Daycare with a bright wave and a shiny peace sign, wandering through a couple of other establishments on his way to Monty Golf, just in case the Kraken was nearby.

Foxy would never get around to getting on Gregory's case for his theft of snacks, nor would the Fazwrench ever be returned, he was too preoccupied with searching for Bonnie the next morning.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory was snapped from his thoughts by a beep of the Maintenance chamber, the eyes were cleaned and sat comfortably in Freddy's endoskeleton. The paternal machine was still in maintenance mode and the misaligned sensors desperately needed calibrating, he wasn't out of harm's way yet, and the boy wandered to one of the many surrounding side panels. Lining the reinforced cylinder was a ring of consoles covered in buttons, few of which the company's standard, poorly trained technicians knew the purposes of and were forced to wait for the AR masks or speakers to instruct them what to do. GGY, however, through his worn-down shambling, knew exactly which UI he had to walk up to and what switches he had to flick to finish the installation way before the guidance system even registered he was ready to move on.

The annoying voiceover, only ever able to help the newest recruits with working on low-complexity, individual modifications or repairs, could never hope to keep up with the sleep-deprived eleven-year-old who could practically build an entire Glamrock from the spare parts too outright dangerous for even the experienced mechanics to handle properly. Fazbear Entertainment LLC. had nothing on Gregory, and sometimes that was all that kept him going when his every project for Mr. Burrows amounted to barely getting the job done.

Just before he began getting to work on the final steps to activate Roxy's eyes, a pair of purple flashes caught his attention.

Chapter Text

A lovely, violet light blinked from the replacement eyes. That was impossible, though, wasn't it? Its eyes were supposed to be golden. Gregory glossed over the console he stood beside. Multiple times he used a nearby switch to cut and return power to Freddy's head, and with each soft reset the unaligned eyes would reactivate with the pulsing magenta hue. He wandered closer to the glow. Although his favorite color easily had to be red, the purple shine had a certain allure to it, despite the pretty sparkle being more of Cassie's color.

It almost seemed to pull him closer. Something was off, obviously, but he had to make sure there wasn't a problem. He uncomfortably tiptoed over to the bear's massive head, he didn't get far without an apparent cause of the phenomena, but removing the eyes seemed to do the trick for a few seconds each. Nothing was lodged in the eye sockets, it didn't seem to be a reflection, there shouldn't be LEDs of the intruding color present in the hardware. What's going on? It must be some sort of glitch It doesn't appear overtly malicious. Maybe getting a closer look would reveal something he hadn't noticed before?

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

The hacker almost thought he heard a deep, slow voice calling to him as he tried to make sense of the glow, but the twinkling purple light was the center of his attention. The sting of his cuts and scrapes started to fade as he honed in on the irises, their calming rhythm of small flashes and gentle surges engraving themselves into his heavy eyes. Gregory's vision blurred and clarified, focusing only on the light as his distracting headache faded, his thin, cramped muscles relaxed, and a light fog settled over his mind. It was rapidly growing hard to think straight, something strange, unnatural, along with great exhaustion clouded his thoughts like his face was steadily being covered in a woolen blanket.

How easy would it be, to stop and take a small nap? Freddy wasn't really waiting on him, neither were Mono and Six. The vampiric girl might be a little ticked with him, but the INTERLOPER taller boy would have his back, Mono must've dealt with a tired and grouchy Six plenty of times by now. When was the last time he'd properly slept, rather than a few scattered naps when he physically couldn't keep going? A week or so, at the very least.

"Listen to the sound of my voice."

A tiny spark of dim light ignited in Gregory's rich, dark, violet eyes as he slowly blinked and swayed where he stood.

--- 👁 ---

Mono launched himself from where he lay and thrust a hand in the maintenance tube's direction, startling Six as she touched up her drawing of the wrecked wolf. His pupils burst into black tendrils within his eyes and his arctic blue irises expanded with pale light. The glitching, constantly shifting form of the black and purple rabbit stood within the tube. Its oily base flickered between its melted-together legs and genie-like stand as it hovered next to the sickly technician. A vile pair of moldy green and conniving purple spirals curled around their companion like leeches draining a terrified child dry as its claw swapped between a pixelated talon and sleek, humanoid hand.

The coils spinning within its blocky form's eyes twirled faster and faster as Gregory began falling limp, every part of him beginning to fall except for the arm he raised to rub his tainted eye. I have to save him. Whatever the digital demon was planning with his newest friend, he couldn't bring himself to care as his body glowed with blue static and dark lines. He could barely feel Six's incredibly confused gaze on his back as he dueled the Malhare through the thick glass. While the reinforced shield dampened their conflicting connection to each other, neither signal would allow the other's hold on the boy to persist.

Six, ever the quick thinker, lunged for Mono's side to grab one of his outstretched hands and began coming up with a plan as the attacker was revealed to her. A mass of twisting violet lines connected the beast to Freddy's eyes, which then created a much weaker wire that jumped into Gregory's head. They could try disabling the bear for a moment, but it looked like only Mono could access the inside of the container, and they needed the Rabbit out of their hair for him to get the chance. She focused her abilities, attempting and failing to draw Agony from their opponent, the sealed door and bright lights within blocked off her black smoke. I have to be careful, there's still no telling how long that silver stuff will last me before another attack.

Unbeknownst to the girl, her cursed magic already crawled through her partner's wavering arm, the gentle blue light pouring from his palm flashed an angry red that forcefully shoved the Bunny away. A painful buzz of crimson static ran up her fingers and pierced her chest. Air was thrown out of her lungs and fire coursed over her bones like a poisonous coating. In a distorted burst of bright ruby sparks and a loud bang she was thrown from Mono's side. As much as the signal child wanted to go to her, be there for her, as they always were for each other, he had to stop what was happening to Gregory.

He was sent to the ground, but so was Glitchtrap, he flung his now free hands to the heart of Freddy's inactive endoskeleton, quickly shaking the indirect hold the reeling monster had on the boy as his ears rang. He was eventually forced to go back to combating the abyssal entity as it reached for the tall boy. Behind him, Six got to her feet and rushed to him again as Gregory absentmindedly shambled to a nearby panel. His best friend sent another burning rush of red through his arm as the programmer flicked a switch, making one of the many overhead arms unfold and turn to his face.

Red shocks ran through him and Six again, setting back the revolting creature again so he could tamper with its vice-like grip. Their target burst into black squares, swiftly reforming itself as Mono struck the connection to Freddy again. He could hear the whirring of the Entertainer's fans and coolant pumps as GGY shook his head, the child's weary and unstable stance shivering as he blinked away the mass of purple lines that coiled like they surrounded an invisible cord, buying them critical time. The mechanic turned around, groggily wondering what his wards were doing.

Mono and the Entity engaged again, vying for control while Six stumbled forward. That thing's gonna earn the bruises it's giving me. She placed a hand on Mono's once again. Her arm stung like it was being seared before her very eyes, but she kept her grip, her heart raced like it was about to explode, but she kept her grip, her lungs boiled and struggled for air, but she kept her grip. Gregory's shimmering magenta eyes slowly shut, then eerily opened before he clumsily turned to the steel arm hanging in front of him, five multicolored buttons popping out of the metal square it held with a small 'click'.

The top was yellow, the left blue, bottom green, right red, and the center white. The loud speakers within the chamber said something about pressing the buttons, but it was far from the pair's concern as they sent a third, painful frequency into the rabbit. Though their attachment became far less stable in this form, it certainly got the job done. Certainly not holding his hand when it's already blue. At last, the being again burst into many black cubes with purple outlines. Mono focused both hands on the lines gathering in Freddy, finally bursting them apart as the speaker in the tube finished and the white light in the center of the panel blinked.

What the purpose of the system was, they didn't know, but Gregory's hand hovered over a different button than what was asked by the announcer.

--- 👁 ---

For the fifth or sixth time in the last few minutes, Cassie tripped and nearly faceplanted. She repeatedly cursed her phone's battery while blindly wandering the long halls and wide rooms. A giant mall was not a fun place to hang out in after hours, much less so with a greasy freak of nature potentially lurking around every corner. She couldn't see Roxy's salon, but she'd been there so many times it was burned directly into her mind. The wolf was there constantly, having her hair tended to by the many Staff Bots, her nails painted, her casing scrubbed down and polished relentlessly. She was so cool!

Sure, the Puppet said she should stay away from the animatronics, but if she stayed out of sight, maybe she could see if Roxanne was different? With her fingers crossed Cassie pressed against the dark, finding the cold handle of the large doors and pushing through, barely seeing the glint of the massive sign and neon rods in the shape of scissors. 'The Famous Glamrock Beauty Salon!' she giddily wriggled in place, she could practically hear the blaring welcome message in her head as she wandered aimlessly. Having the entire place to herself should've been awesome, but she didn't exactly expect to be lured by an evil machine with her best friend's voice.

A light sobbing echoed around the room in tune with her footsteps. It was slightly distorted, garbled and glitching as she approached, like it was mechanical in nature. It almost sounded like the malfunctioning voice box of that mass of tubes and wires, but it was too uneven, lively compared to that abomination. Besides, unless it was super good at crawling through vents or pipes, which she doubted with how large it was, that thing should've still been far behind her. Something else was crying out in the silence, not meant to be heard by anyone.

Quite reluctantly, she fished her phone out of her pocket and flicked through the settings, not using its flashlight, but toggling the brightness as far as it would go. She didn't need to flood the room with the small but powerful light and announce her presence to anyone and everyone, she just needed to see enough not to run into something for the seventh time tonight. What sounded like a broom brushing over the tile floor bounced across the walls as Cassie slowly peeked around a haircutting station.

She wasn't met with a late-night Staff Bot finishing its rounds, but her favorite idol herself.

Roxy's fur was painfully matted and riddled with split ends, the remains of torn strands, nasty clumps of dirt, and tangles holding blackened bolts and screws. Her tail swept across the tiles, scattering various fallen nuts and thin fur as her shattered body shook. The casing around her hands had fallen away, revealing the pointed tips of her endoskeleton fingers, sharp and covered in wet, neon-green paint. On her forearms, the fractured cylinders of her purple and black striped suit were barely hanging on for dear life while the rest of her gray costume was covered in dark cracks and scuffs like she'd been run over.

Through the dark Cassie could barely see the wolf's reflection in the mirror before her, Roxy's bright gold eyes had fallen out of their damaged sockets, leaving a pair of dark voids like singularities that a streak of frayed, bright, green hair dangled in front of. Dark lines wrapped around her face and pieces of her head bent and slid out of place. Her massive pearly teeth snapped as she wept and inhaled, some of them broken at the tips, leaving long splinters like dirty needles. Wires and sharp bits of metal poked through the seams and ends of her costume, ruthlessly snapped apart and tossed out of their positions, it was a miracle she could even move like that, it must've taken a lot of time and eyeless fumbling to rip the ruined parts away from her joints.

Poor Roxy.

Her phone quietly dinged.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory shook his head and tried to focus on what he was doing. For some reason, his hand was barely an inch away from the red button, pressing it could get him killed. The boy frantically came to his senses and ripped his arm away from the red dot. Why was I here? He was looking for... something wrong with the eyes, wasn't he? Why was he standing in front of one of the calibration panels? When did I get here? Did I zone out again? His mind almost always wanders as he works, but he didn't remember anything this time.

He took a moment to inspect his immediate surroundings, nothing seemed to be misplaced or tampered with, nothing was jumping out at him, Freddy was still lying on the operating table, and the eyes looked like they were functioning as intended. Had he already fixed it? Through his exhausted gaze he didn't notice the air rippling beside him, Mono pressing his glowing blue hands against the glass, or Six tumbling over the concrete covered in black mist. The programmer fought to stay awake as he strained his hearing, once the annoying voiceover was finished with its repetitive explanation of the reset system he could get to work activating the bear.

...

...Where's the announcer?

The boy's heart began to race and beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. What happened? How long was I out of it? He had no idea what the pattern was or any obvious way to deduce it, all it took was a single system or diagnostic to be triggered incorrectly, for the wrong surge of information to be sent to the wrong part of the orange Entertainer's body, and he would be ripped apart. A loud whirring echoed from within the parental robot's case, the noisy spinning of his internal fans and the quieter pump of his cooling fluid as his interconnected CPUs went into overdrive. RAM was quickly being used up and his safety protocols were rapidly overwhelmed by a surge of virus-infected code.

Infectious files that weren't meant to be on a children's amusement machine blighted his programming in the lethal absence of Safe Mode. Then there were the eyes. One of the ocular sensors was still misaligned, pointing downward and to the right at Freddy's nose, but found the other was more difficult to tell whether it was centered or not. How long has he been lying there? How much time do I have until he jumps me? Gregory looked to the top of the metal panel, a tiny switch was pointed left, toward the massively lopsided eye. The white button.

He tapped the center of the plate with bated breath, getting a small 'beep' as it completed its function; resetting the eye's positioning.

Gregory breathed a heavy sigh as the animatronic's internals calmed down, many tiny ticks and the spinning of motors announcing the eye being adjusted. A drawn-out hiss filled the service chamber as hot air was expelled from the artificial grizzly. He wasn't out of danger yet, Freddy was a threat as long as he was in anything but Maintenance Mode, so despite how badly he suddenly needed to lie down, Gregory persisted. The tiring wear of his many cuts and scrapes gradually returned and his splitting, energy-draining, restlessness-induced headache slammed into him at full force, but he fought back the urge to nod off and memorized the patterns the flashing lights made, each blink pertaining to a signal to be sent through the advanced wires and circuitry.

Red-Blue-Green-Yellow, don't think about how easy it would be to pass out. The left eye was complete, next was to flick the switch at the top to the far right and work on the other scanner. Yellow-Green-Green-Red-Blue, stay on track, don't think about the soreness. He turned the switch to its middle position, it was time to pair the sensors together. Blue-Blue-Green-Red-Yellow-Red, don't think about how hard it is to focus and move.

A jingle resounded through the tube and the door opened.

--- 👁 ---

Freddy's loud stomps shook the floor as he rose from the operating table. Gregory stood before the external computer while Mono and Six stayed behind him, the former holding the young technician's hand as the monitor powered down. He gave a small wave to Six, her own hand wrapped in Mono's, as he inspected them. The two were... off... somehow. When he activated the new AR Helpi vision, all of their standard features vanished. Six's body was wrapped in rippling black waves whenever he toggled the AR filter, even her raincoat appeared as an elegantly flowing shadow.

Wisps of darkness flared from her body like vantablack flames. From the sides of her head, where her raincoat formed a triangular shape around the deathly pale skin pulled tight around her face, a set of pitch-black antlers stabbed above her, both framing a spiked, crown-like silhouette. In the center of her head floated a glowing red insignia, the same that appeared over the iPads Mono infected with something he couldn't hope to understand.

Speaking of the taller boy, his entire form was masked by an arctic blue haze with constantly shifting CRTV lines. Mono's outline was much harder to discern than the bone-thin girl's, repeatedly being broken up by large distortions like glitches, long lines breaking his shape and stretching around him, and pale blue sparks fluttering around him. He was, in only the most literal sense, extremely hard to look at. The only notable sight on the boy's hidden body was the same, familiar white icon of a stylized Six standing in a partially-closed eye, like she'd become its pupil. It was nearly impossible to find any sort of depth in either of them, their monochromatic shrouds giving the illusion of being completely flat.

He flicked off the AR filter and did a detailed scan of the three, his new eyes filled to the brim with incredible technology. They still had the plethora of injuries he'd detected when he first met them, as well as new ones, but Six and Gregory were in especially rough condition. The little shadow had a decent handful of new bruises and scrapes, but he found a concerning abundance of aches all around the hacker, a heavy chest, upset stomach, signs of minor heart disease, impaired breathing, and generally tight muscles. As the bear still lacked his avian companion's far greater store of medical information, he turned again to the internet to identify the most likely source.

"You appear to be suffering from high levels of stress and fatigue, superstar." He brought up to the mechanic as he swayed where he stood.

"I'm always stressed." Gregory snarked, either out of normal sass or exhausted grouchiness and earning a gentle elbow from the signal child, followed by a chuckle from the tiny Wendigo. 'Be nice.'

"More than usual, I mean. I believe you should try to rest before we attempt to find somewhere else to hide." Freddy explained.

"We don't have time, let's go to the bakery next, Chica's easy to avoid and there's plenty of food to snatch before we leave." The boy attempted to brush him off.

"Gregory, for your own health I must insist you try to relax. I am willing to carry you to Chica's bakery myself, but you are bringing too much harm to your body." Freddy affirmed as he picked the thin child up.

His ward writhed for a moment, not seeming used to being carried, but gradually settled as the bear adjusted him. Freddy was again reminded just how small such a brave, overworked, underpaid, and stubbornly determined child Gregory was, even compared to the other boy under his care.

"How are your new eyes?" Gregory asked as he fought unconsciousness.

"I am having a hard time adjusting. You all look different to me." Freddy admitted, somewhat thankful all he saw in Gregory was a digital outline of his bones and major injuries.

"I can see movement through the walls!" He quickly realized, along with finding blips of many gift boxes littered throughout the Pizzaplex.

Including six golden tracking points.

The golden plushies.

They almost have what they need to leave.

I will miss them.

"Roxy can see through walls?" Mono's raspy voice wondered aloud.

What?

"These are Roxy's eyes?!"

"T-There was an accident in the Raceway!" Gregory cut in.

"Is she ok?" He asked.

"Well... nothing seems to stop her." The boy answered.

"That is... That will have to do, shall we begin heading for Chica's bakery?"

--- 👁 ---

'Honey, if you're reading this right now, go back to bed, if you're reading this in the morning I'm going to be home late from work for the next few days and your mother is going to be on her trip for an extra week.'

He promised he'd be back early tomorrow and we could play some games.

"WHO'S THERE?!" Roxanne roared.

Oh, right...

OH CRAP!

Cassie scrambled to lock her phone's screen and stuff it in her pocket as she ducked behind the barber station. Her favorite animatronic shambled nearer, snarling and biting the cold air as parts of her feet trailed behind her. The girl scrambled inside one of the cabinets, sending the small handful of equipment to the ground and slamming the door louder than she meant to. She's gonna find me like this! In terrified desperation Cassie scooted to the other side of the cabinet, pressing her Roxy backpack to the corner behind the other door and crushing the handful of snacks still inside. The door she entered through was swiftly ripped off its hinges and thrown somewhere into the open room.

A large claw swiped at the space she sat in just a few seconds ago, spraying green nail polish, coolant, and hydraulic fluids into the wooden planks. Cassie struggled to keep her breathing quiet and legs close to her chest as the talons tore splinters into the cabinet and grabbed whatever hairdryers or brushes or combs remained inside. Violently clamping down on the top of the barber station was the wolf's lower jaw, her teeth tearing into the tops of the drawers and ripping them out one by one as if anyone could be hiding there.

A whimper escaped the girl's mouth.

"I STILL HAVE EARS! YOU CAN'T HIDE!"

Another metal hand bent uncomfortably around the wood support between the doors, viciously grabbing Cassie's already injured foot and pulling her out of the spot. She gripped anything that wasn't loose as her legs were swept out from under her, vainly trying to yank herself away from the Pizzaplex's best animatronic. Heavy stomps crushed the tile floors as Roxanne dragged Cassie out, banging the back of the girl's head on the edge of the cabinet as she crushed her ankle, drawing a scream from the cub.

--- 👁 ---

'Cassie!'

console.Log("Are we having fun?");

'Ya know, wise a***, she and her folks are here a LOT. So their guest profiles have PLENTY of data on them. Ya know how much?'

console.Log("ERR.");

'I'd bet my racing jacket it's enough to crash any Glamrock that loaded the whole thing all at once!'

console.Log("You Can't...");

funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Cassandra Lopez", "All Data");

Warning: Large File Size. Are you sure you'd like to load?

'Override code: R0Xann3-W01f_Th3-B35t'

Continuing: funcLoadFile. Please be patient...

console.Log("You Can't...");

'Watch me, b****!'

System message - Profanity Filter: Please refrain from using strong language.

'P*** off!'

funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "Amelia Lopez", "No Security Access", "All Data");

Warning: Large File Size. Previous override code accepted. Please be patient.

funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Technician", intTechLevel = 7, "Samuel Afton", "All Data");

Warning: Large File Size. Previous override code accepted. Please be patient.

console.Log("ERR - You Can't...");

'What can I say? I'm just the best.'

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Cassandra Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Amelia Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Technician", intTechLevel = 7, "Samuel Afton", "All Data");

Please choose a program to pause/force close...

'Profanity Filter.'

ERR: Force close rejected, reason - Access Denied.

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Cassandra Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Amelia Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Technician", intTechLvl = 7, "Samuel Afton", "All Data");

ERR: funcProfanityFilter("Passive", var boolTechLvl9);

'F*** F*** F*** F*** F*** F*** F*** F*** F*** F***'

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Cassandra Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Amelia Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Technician", intTechLvl = 7, "Samuel Afton", "All Data");

ERR: funcProfanityFilter("Passive", var boolTechLvl9);

Please choose a program to pause/ force close...

'Profanity Filter.'

ERR: Force close rejected, reason - Access Denied.

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Cassandra Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Guest", "No Security Access", "Amelia Lopez", "All Data");

ERR: funcLoadFile("Personnel", "Technician", intTechLevel = 7, "Samuel Afton", "All Data");

ERR: funcProfanityFilter("Passive", var boolTechLvl9);

ERR: High CPU Temperature...

ERR: Cooling Matrix Malfunction(s) Detected...

ERR: Critical Cooling Matrix Failure...

ERR: Critical CPU Failure...

ERR

ErR

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--- 👁 ---

Roxy's claws released the child's foot, seizing in place and wobbling as her internal systems fried themselves.

The girl was on her feet running before the wolf could tell her to get out, blitzing through the dark as the Entity triggered a reset cycle.

Chapter Text

"H-Hey Freddy... I never checked what incents you have..." Gregory tiredly and awkwardly mentioned.

"I am equipped with Honey, Birthday Cake, Wildflower, and Lavender incents. Additionally, my Aromatic Systems have not been damaged during the course of the night, would you like me to activate one?" Freddy offered.

"Could you do lavender, please?" The boy quietly and shyly asked.

With a click and a hiss, the lovely smell began to fill the air, the one feature all the Glamrocks and Daycare Attendant shared for handling particularly restless kids. Nearly immediately after the warm mist surrounded them, Gregory started to nod off, his baggy eyes fighting harder than ever to stay open. His head bobbed up and down, up and down, an amusing rhythm as he refused to rest, having only wanted the flower for the memories. The animatronic bear could almost hear his child muttering something about Foxy, a bittersweet reminder of the eccentric pirate that once happily cared for the youngest guests before Sun took up the mantle.

A thrumming noise came from behind them, Mono having placed a hand on the maintenance tube's external terminal. Blue static consumed the screen and sent cracks across the concrete floor, one of many things the bear had learned to simply accept about the boy. This time, however, the breaks in the stone were noticeably smaller and the strange process was slightly shorter. As the world around the tall boy returned to normal, the fractures he stood atop vanished like they were never there, and Gregory finally lost the struggle to keep fighting. Freddy could genuinely feel the tension leaving the programmer as the boy sank into his massive arms.

--- 👁 ---

'You're doing great.' Six gave her friend a patient smile, as comforting as she could manage, though she couldn't actually see what he was doing.

The pair's white icon slowly took form next to a polygonal imitation of the Marionette's mask with four cones surrounding it like arrows. It distorted and split apart into a chromatic aberration of blue and red, then recombined into a pale collection of triangles and squares. A cone appeared next to it, pointing to the glowing green Puppet mask. Whatever he did, it seemed to help, hopefully the Malhare wouldn't be able to repeat what it did to Gregory.

Mono had done his best to create something of wall or barrier inside the computer, but be no good way to test it without the monster attacking With any that happen for some time. By attaching his signal to he could try to bolster the defense already put in place without having to waste time figuring out how to do it The problem resided in what might happen if the Entity already had a connection within the tube; it shouldn't be able to access anything inside, but he couldn't help against any commands or 'programs' that were already in.

Gitchtrap would be locked out of the cell and he'd be made aware of all attempts to break in, but everyone who entered the chamber would be on their own.

--- 👁 ---

Six gave her companion a thumbs up. Was she the one who told him to infect the computer in their silent conversations? Whatever happened, Mono smiled at her through his Roxy mask, his eyes very clearly lighting up as he returned a small wave. The girl turned to Freddy, rubbing her eyes as she prepared to set off for the bakery. While he would've liked to take the three of them to the nearby medical stand, a quick diagnostic showed replacing his eyes took a little bit longer than he'd expected from the tiny technician in his arms, there's no way of guaranteeing Vanny wasn't on her way. He must have been dead on his feet. How could that monster drain such a little boy?

He glanced around the room, sweeping the area with and without the AR system in his eyes; there was a signal that couldn't correlate with anything but Vanessa's jammer, but the scrambling was very effective and distant, harder to locate than the very obvious pinging of his friends. The mechanic's incredible device was preventing him from locating the Nightguard's exact position, but it thankfully wasn't infallible. Freddy could probably see her if he got closer, but at the moment he could only gather that the madwoman he called a friend was currently above them, not much help when they were in the basement.

"Superstars, with Roxy's eyes I am now able to locate the golden plushies needed to open the fire escape, but most of them are out of my reach. There is one with us in the basement and another in Bonnie Bowl.

If you would like, I would be willing to drop you off at the bakery, since Chica is the only one able to chase you there, and collect the two toys for you."

Six and Mono nodded, the boy nearly skipping over to hold Six's hand as she stifled a yawn.

"Perhaps you would like to rest as well, Six?" Freddy asked.

'No.' She shook her head and pulled a drawing from her coat.

Mono did the same, unfolding a piece of paper from his trench coat. Six's drawing... wasn't the most concerning thing he'd seen tonight; an image of Roxanne under a wrecked go-kart, her eyes sitting next to her. Her color pallet was all off, it seemed she'd given up on trying to read the colored pencils' labels and went by what little her eyes could see. Her leg and arm warmer designs were a dark blue and the green streak of her hair was a mustard yellow, the rest of the drawing remaining uncolored either due to lack of time or that being how she perceived the wolf. She'd clearly struggled with the hard edges of the breaks in Roxy's casing, but did well on the lycan's hair.

Mono had made an intact Roxy, the colors all correct and carefully filled in. Roxy's sharp teeth poked out of her jaw and her mane stood on end like that of a hedgehog. He'd obviously had difficulty sketching her keytar from memory, but the duo's creations would be no less special to him and the canine. Freddy happily shifted Gregory to one arm so he could open his chest cavity, tucking the papers inside for safekeeping. Once she got her eyes back, the racer would undoubtedly adore Mono's art, what she'd think of Six's was up to anyone's guess, but if nothing else Monty and Vanessa would get a laugh out of it.

Right... Vanessa...

Did you enjoy your time, as we enjoyed you? Or did nothing here mean anything to you all along?

"I will hang on to these, but I must still ask you to try to gather yourself for the night ahead." Freddy reiterated. It was only 3:45, there were still a couple terrible hours ahead of them.

"Can't sleep." Her raspy voice stated before she tried to continue.

"Then maybe I could at least carry you as well?" He pressed.

Six stopped, looking back to him with an unreadable ruby, 'totally not tired' glare through her dark hair. Is that a yes? A no? She'd been so casually indifferent and scrutinizing since she hopped out of his torso, there truly couldn't be a way for anyone but Mono to tell what was actually going through her mind. Her bare, bruised feet turned heel to face him fully, and bone-thin hands turned to tiny fists. Was it out of spite? Nerves? Stress? Nothing she was willing to communicate, which certainly wouldn't come back to bite her later in life. The skin pulled tight over her face twitched as she inspected him.

Is this normal for her? Tired maroon eyes stared silently into his golden replacements. Should I say something? It is not exactly a good time to give a lecture on voicing her feelings. Mono, the wonderfully patient little soul he was, brushed the back of her hand with his thumb. They looked at each other and shared a mute talk, consisting of many nods and subtle gestures. Their hands released and Six wrapped herself in black mist. The freezing cold fog completely hid her, swirling like a twister and rising above him. When Freddy looked down she was gone, the smoke gathered around him and pressed an unnatural weight onto his shoulders.

Six eventually reappeared on his shoulders, soaked in black oil that dripped down her smudged raincoat like toxic sludge. Before he could be worried about what it might do to her health, it vanished, seeping into her body as if it were normal. Her mass of coiling shadows retreated into her, lifting the strain on his back as the stray specks of darkness faded away. Freddy looked to the boy for an explanation, only getting a snicker behind the plastic mask as the girl 'solidified' atop him. Maybe it was a recent development?

No matter what had happened in his absence, he couldn't draw his attention away from how horrifically light the child was. All three of them were swiftly associated with that red flag, but Six's impossible ability to move at all made it easier to overlook in favor of keeping them all alive. Freddy almost thought something was damaging his chest as he processed... everything about her... but nothing was even touching his plates or endoskeleton; Six's legs were crossed around his neck and Gregory was limp in his arm. Recollecting himself, he tampered with his incent system, directing more of the lavender smell up to the exhausts at the base of his black top hat.

The girl took a deep breath of the light steam, noticeably relaxing as the bear held a hand out to the signal child. While Mono seemed tempted, conflict also painted his face, even through the wolf's eye holes, convinced something was bound to go wrong just by holding anyone but Six's hand. They both wanted the pair atop Freddy to calm down, but a shiver visibly crawled up the boy's spine as she moved away. The Entertainer couldn't just leave him like that, but didn't want to risk overstepping, so he instead pointed his pinkie claw.

His tiny hand reluctantly grabbed on, shaking and clammy, and gripped tight. His little 'claws' dug into Freddy's casing and his head was on a swivel, waiting for something to go terribly wrong. Every second he would change where he was looking, supposedly deciding there wasn't an immediate threat in the area before casting his arctic blue eyes across the room again, no matter how many times he'd already inspected their surroundings. His free hand curled into a fist and scratched his palm with every step he took, just barely moving ahead of the orange bear. All it took was having Six out of arms reach to set him off?

Gregory passed out in his arm, being cradled like the child he deserved to be. Six riding his shoulders and resting her chin atop his hat, light as a feather like she was nothing but bone. Mono on the verge of full-blown panic beside him, so uncharacteristically confident, if it could be called 'confidence', that the world was about to crumble around him.

Unfortunately, it was the best the animatronic could do. Hopefully, he'd be alright until they got to the bakery.

--- 👁 ---

Her foot felt like it was being burned from the inside out, the wind was forced out of her aching body so fast she couldn't keep it in her lungs long enough to stop herself from choking, her eyes stung with unshed tears like she'd been duped again. But that couldn't be true! Roxy couldn't have stopped for no reason! Robots don't just... do stuff... they aren't programmed to! She must've been looking out for her! Then why is she still chasing me?! The monstrous wolf's thundering footsteps were right on Cassandra's tail, a deafening pause between some of the angry stomps like she was limping.

Claws screeched across the walls like nails on a chalkboard, joined by the rabid snaps of long fangs within a hydraulic press of a jaw. Cassie tripped and fumbled over stray tools and debris left over from the daytime renovation crew, scraping her hands and knees as she scrambled to escape her favorite star. A thrown wrench flew right past her head, so close to smashing her skull it made a gust of wind across her cheek and caught the tip of her ear. Behind her, Roxy was fast approaching, hungrily chasing the girl through the dark Atrium, both blindly weaving through the tables and photo booths. Metallic sniffles would occasionally echo through the huge room, both from sobbing and hunting the child.

Cassie eventually threw herself up a deactivated escalator, found an open vent, and practically dove straight inside, not caring how the top of her head collided with a corner of the duct. Her purple Roxy backpack squished against the top of the tiny tunnel as she crawled through the painfully tight space. Every second, the vent seemed to get smaller and smaller, a little more cramped around her limbs and spinning head than she thought it was when she entered. A long, sharp endoskeleton claw grazed the bottom of her shoe as she clattered around the thin metal, leaving a line of wet green nail polish along the well-worn sole.

She rounded the corner and kicked against the other side, pushing herself further away from the racer as she bent down to reach deeper into the tunnel. Like a beartrap had been set outside, Roxanne's maw bit at the opening, the pointed fangs and snapped, splintered edges of broken teeth tore into the sides of the entrance as Cassie caught her breath. She awkwardly adjusted herself, sitting up with her neck uncomfortably craned down to fit, and looked back to the shattered hound. The small, black nose poked at and smelled the area, her odor sensors refusing to lose track of the hysteric girl as the frigid AC dragged her scent right to the animatronic's missing face.

A barely noticeable blip of usually lovely, but currently twisted, magenta light shone out of Roxanne's metal skull, right under where her eyes would've been like there was something pressed far within on the roof of her ravenous mouth. Cassie frantically turned and started dashing through the vent. She couldn't see an inch in front of her face, obviously there were no lights in the vents, but she was too busy fleeing her favorite character to fish her phone out of her pockets, not a split second was dedicated to shedding some light through the pitch black cave echoing her plentiful panic.

The floor seemed to disappear from right under her hand as she continued to fling herself forward with reckless abandon, like she'd missed a step going down a staircase. Her own scream left her ears ringing as she plummeted down the column. She flung her arms below her, breaking her fall with her wrists, scraping her elbows on the dusty metal, bruising her ribs, and knocking the wind out of her as she collided with the lower part of the narrow vent.

The child's lungs were on fire, refusing to hold any of the air she heaved. The cold aluminum shaft felt so small all of a sudden. She couldn't move without pressing the shallow cuts over her arms against the smooth prison cell she found herself in, she couldn't see the red dribbling from the side of her face she landed on, her vision swirled every time she tried to focus on something in the suffocating dark, her aching foot throbbed as she tried to force herself to keep moving. Searing hot tears stained her brown eyes and burned her cheeks down to her chin, mucus clogged her nostrils, her breathing came out as stinging chokes, trembling coughs, and shallow huffs.

The back of her throat quickly dried out to the gentle gusts of the air conditioning unit. How far had she fallen? She didn't break her phone, did she? Was there somewhere she could try calling someone? Could she still get the police? There must be a way out of this. Charlotte mentioned something in the Main Systems had 'repeated this process' before, how many people had gotten trapped in the mall? They had to have tried calling someone, next to nobody was without their phones, nowadays, there had to be a jammer or a cut wire somewhere.

Meaning she was stuck here...

In one of the greatest, most comforting and bright places she'd ever been to...

Where she could unwind and destress with some games and treats after the nightmare that was school and her 'friends' in class...

I want Gregory...

I want Charlie...

I want someone...

Just get me out of here...

She needed to keep going. The Atrium had a few levels to it and she'd run up the escalator to get here, she must be just above the maintenance tunnels. This place was big and dark, but at least she was familiar with it. Cassandra had only been to the basement because her dad clocked in there, the second they were in the main building he sent her off; usually that entailed being brought to the Daycare, if she saved some spare change she'd be allowed to go to the West Arcade, and she'd get a party pass for a real attraction if she was good the whole week.

If she could just remember where she got in the vent, she might be able to figure out the nearest character-dedicated area, then she'd only have to deal with one of the animatronics. Cassie stuffed a hand in her jacket's pocket, finding her phone was intact, but predictably had no signal. Her bag thudded against the sides of the vents as Cassie shakily maneuvered through the crawlspace, its top repeatedly getting caught on the edges where the metal segments attached to each other like something was pulling her away by the shoulder straps. The girl blindly rounded several corners, finding Roxanne waiting for her at the few vent openings she was able to locate, the maze of fans blowing her sweat and perfume into a trail for the wolf to hunt on.

"Why do you hide inside your walls? When there is music in my halls?"

A smooth voice bounced around every part of the clattering labyrinth, unnervingly soothing and motherly for something that clearly not coming from the stage outside. Something was hiding in the vents with her. Cassie picked up the pace; she'd heard a little in passing about the discontinued Glamrock Ballora, Happs, and their maze activities. Both were removed from the Pizzaplex due to the risk of the robots harming the guests trying to aid them in getting out of the complex paths. She did not want to have a limb dislocated because a malfunctioning Guide Bot was trying to 'help' her out of the tunnels.

"All I see is an empty room. No more joy, an empty tomb."

That voice's sing-song manner made it hard to tell if it was getting closer or further. It raised and fell to different notes in a manner that sounded like it was getting both near and far at the same time. She couldn't tell what direction it was coming from, the song she didn't recognize only clearly being in with her, as opposed to Roxy. She could try to leave, but without eyes the wolf started dedicating a lot of RAM to her sensitive nose, while if she stayed she'd probably soon be learning what was singing around her.

"It's so good to sing all day. To dance, to spin, to fly away."

The ground seemed to give out from under her again, sending her sprawling under the Atrium's ground floor. Her arm was pushed into her shoulder as she landed on her elbow, the back of her neck bruised with the impact, her bag jammed into the electrical burn on her back, and her heel slipped out of her shoe as it got stuck on the lip of the hole she'd toppled from. Cassie didn't waste time trying to correct her shoe, scrambling to find another exit to the tunnels. She was making way too much sound, whatever was following her had to be closing in. Every twist and turn looked the same, completely masked in darkness, was she going in circles?

"Is someone there? I can hear someone creeping through my room..."

Cassandra pulled her phone from her jacket and flicked on the bright light. The voice was close. Her light hardly helped, only showing her the square shafts she was crawling through, but it might let her see the difference between another corner and a path out of here. So I fell again, I should come out somewhere around Parts and Service... Assuming I don't shine a flashlight in a Xenomorph's face, first. As if on cue, something big thudded behind her and started tapping along the metal. Against her better judgment, the little girl cast her light and sight behind her.

Five metal cones attached to long tubes, sharp at the tips like claws, scraped over the bottom of the aluminum crawlspace, descending from another vertical opening like cobras. Several long tendrils slithered around the walls, tipped in jade-green copper wires tightly coiled into sharp points. The appendages were slick and shiny with oil, smearing the sludge over their mutual confines. Some of the black tentacles writhed and created a tiny opening where an orb of wires peered through. The ball of wires rolled open like eyelids, shining a muddy orange light from an old optic on her.

That thing could fit in the vents.

Disgusting, wet squelches chased Cassie as she army-crawled for her life, the top two pieces of the clown's mask and the purple light of its main eye manifesting out of the swirling mass of slimy pipes. She could hear it slowly clattering forward, using the teeth of its scrappy Freddy face and stolen human ribs as the legs of a giant centipede. Worm-like wires supported its head, loose and wriggly. The cords left long gaps between them that Cassie could see the colorful lights of more eyes through, more like the barely solid head was floating or being held by incredibly strong ropes.

Its melted white face stretched closer and closer, the white, long, humanoid teeth and bleached skull snapping at her ankles. Cassie blindly flickered her phone's light behind her until she heard the monster stutter, but it didn't slow down, already knowing where she was and following relentlessly. Sharp tendrils swirled all around her, extending just beyond the reach of the head and only a few inches too far behind to grab her injured foot and pin her down.

They passed a small intersection, a vent splitting off the one they raced through to the right. Cassie stepped on the corner, inadvertently fixing her displaced shoe as she launched herself ahead. The first five tipped tubes that fell at the start of their confrontation coiled together, reforming the vague shape of its hand without the burnt bones inside. It didn't even need those remains to keep any structure, were they just a mockery of their original owner the whole time? A ball joint burst from within the mass of wires and inverted, lacking the stops on the elbow that should've prevented it from angling the withered hand from grabbing the edge of the intersection and pulling itself forward.

Cassie shined her light in every direction as she rushed to stay out of its grasp. They discovered another intersection, this one turning left as her light revealed a discarded toolbox at the end. AN EXIT! She kicked off the vent wall and threw herself as deep into the new path as she could. A pool of dark sludge flowed around the corner, as burning hot as it was painfully frigid, and turning away from the tunnel she flung herself out of like it had a sentient river.

The creature again pulled together a temporary arm to haul its huge body faster, its magenta glare locked onto her as the stream of shadows swelled at her scraped knees. She shoved the toolbox out of the way as she flopped to the cold concrete of a maintenance tunnel she wouldn't recognize even if the lights were on, but it didn't matter, she just needed to run. Like a swarm of scattering ants, the black liquid dripped off her legs and retreated deep into the vent, rejoining the colossal form of the Gregory-copying Daemon.

Cassie desperately speed-limped as the hollow arms gripped the sides of the exit and its masked face slithered out, turning to stalk her as she tripped over multiple surrounding tools. Its many pieces slowly oozed and surged back into place, the bottom plates of its jaw snapping in position under the rest of its clown mask and the human arm bones rapidly emerging from the dark like spikes or spears, filling the insides of its top limbs and stuffing the tiny steel cones it used for talons. The creature's body seemed to inflate as the countless tubes and wires unfurled, clipping together behind the cracked red button in the middle of its chest and sprouting its white-plastic-coated hands to push itself upright as its oily pipes splattered on the stone floor.

"Admit it, you wanted to let me in."

Chapter Text

"Hello? Can you hear me?" A distorted voice asked from his Foxy Fazwatch.

Gregory sat alone in Foxy's private room, trying to sleep as he listened to the fox playing with all the youngest visitors to the Mega Pizzaplex. It'd only been two days since Bonnie's disappearance and neither of them were holding up great. My last talk with him was about how I stole from people. He'd taken a raincheck on many of the activities he normally would've been happy to engage in. Playing pirates, crushing his peers' high scores, catching up on the Staff's gossip from the vents, going on rides, everything but stalking unattended food lost some of its spark knowing the rabbit still hadn't turned up.

Foxy was still in high hopes, 'Tha slugger's gonna punch his way back ta us soon enough, laddie!' he'd say every chance he got. Since the boy was always tired, hungry, and didn't feel like doing anything recently, the captain would often leave to check on Freddy. The hacker thought feeling so 'blah' about everything might at least render him empty enough to sleep, but every little squeak of metal, shriek of an especially annoying toddler, or muffled conversation behind Foxy's private room door would make his eyes snap open.

And now there was what sounded like some random tween guy trying to talk to him through the Fazwatch the Puppet gave him.

"How the hell did you find this watch?" He asked, finding his ruby watch's screen was coated in purple glitches.

"Not important right now, I don't have much time. You can't trust them. Bonnie didn't vanish for no reason, you aren't any safer with Foxy!" The boy warned.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Gregory groggily pressed.

"Have you ever talked to the other animatronics? Have you ever gone near them at all? Have you ever been given a reason to believe they were after you? Because I don't think you have. You need to get away from him! Just ask him about what's under the Pizzaplex! If someone finds my body, they did it!"

The voice cut out, a surge of sickly emerald static covering the screen with the Prize Puppet's smiling face. He'd never truly liked that creepy thing, she only sat in her little box, tucked back in the corner of the Prize Counter, and always... thinking... preoccupied... dead to the world around her until Foxy dragged her out of the store. The one and only time she visited Gregory in the Daycare was a night or two after he broke in. She'd walked in on wobbly, tentacle-like legs that were never meant to operate away from her strings, gifted him his Foxy Fazwatch, had a small chat, and returned to the Atrium.

He swore up and down to the fox that she looked different on the cameras than she did when he met her, but the rogue constantly and awkwardly dodged the entire topic. What could she be doing in that dark crate? It seemed likely it was something to do with the Main Systems, but his only basis for that was the fact all computers in the building were connected to that network. Whatever her deal was, he usually tried to keep his distance until their mutual friend inevitably placed them together again. The one thing they never failed to agree on was to play some simple, short game or two until the pirate or bunny returned and told them they had a good time.

Maybe she had something to do with what happened to Bonnie? But why? Weren't they friends? What was different about all the other animatronics? At first he thought it might be Safe Mode, as the Daycare Attendant was pre-programmed to always favor that system to Stage Mode or standard guest interactions, but if that were the case, why was Bonnie so nice to him? Sure, the robots were supposed to interact with kids, but they were also parts of the Nightguard's toolkit for throwing out people who weren't meant to be there after hours. Why was he the exception? What made him so special?

Nothing did, he was just another nobody in a sea of forgotten kids, even undesirable to the other rats. He was nobody. He was nothing. I'm nobody. I'm nothing. But that's fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. So why did Foxy bother with him? What was under the Pizzaplex? He should've seen this coming; everyone had an agenda, everyone just wanted to use everyone else for whatever goal they had this week, even Cassie had art school and potential robotics aspirations. A part of him thought the animatronics would be different, purely programmed to put on a show, but this call couldn't have come from nowhere.

Like he'd been summoned by the message blocked by the Marionette, the pirate ascended the rope ladder to their hideaway.

"Ah, lad, I was hopin' yee were able ta sleep. It be lookin' like tha only treasure ya can't reach be in tha deep Zeeee!" The pirate chuckled to himself.

Gregory did not giggle under his breath, for the record.

"Is there something under the building?" He asked. Might as well rip just the band-aid off quickly.

"...Yer gonna hafta get a little more specific, matey..." His golden eye cast to the side.

"Anything, really. Sometimes I overheard you and Bonnie talking about things crawling up from the basement. I just wanna know if there's something you're not telling me." Gregory reiterated to his supposed friend.

"Nothin' ya gotta worry yerself 'bout, lad. It be better fer everyone if yeh don' get caught between a rocky shore an' a beastie's claws. Tha adults will take care of everythin' fer ya, tha's what we're meant ta do!" The pirate tried to ease him, getting a small glare in return.

"How is that supposed to help if you won't tell me anything? If it's nothing big, and everything's fine, why won't you just tell me?"

"I don' got all tha details, Gregory. I be afraid only tha first mate's got any idea wha's goin' on. Nobody be askin' anythin' of ya, anyway, ya don' gotta get yerself in trouble."

Some kids yelped as the lights began to flicker, followed by something plastic toppling over.

"I'll come back fer ya later, lad, but I gotta make sure tha rest of tha crew be okay. Please try ta get a nap."

Gregory laid back down as the fox slid down the long ladder, the strange signal still bouncing in his head. The animatronics were far more complex than most non-military grade tech, it was far from impossible for one or more of them to have some secret motives. He held onto the idea that Foxy was his friend as long as he could, but couldn't ignore the presence of a missing child article on an abandoned newspaper the next day.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory stirred in his orange arm, a whimper escaping his chapped lips and watery eyes squinting tightly shut. Freddy tried to gently rock the boy back and forth without jostling Six, whatever was quiet and effective enough to calm him from whatever nightmare he might be having. Unfortunately, there'd be plenty of bad dreams he couldn't help them handle when they left. Despite the programmer's obvious distress, Mono turned out to be a much more pressing matter. Maybe it was not knowing exactly how well Six was doing, maybe it was only having one pair of semi-reliable eyes on the black Atrium they walked through, maybe it was his remaining reservations about Freddy, maybe the raincoated girl knew a way to make him relax, but he hadn't stopped casting his gaze to every little thing that made the slightest sound.

The girl resting on his head seemed to know something was wrong, fidgeting and writhing in place on the lead singer's shoulders, but had either managed to fall asleep or wasn't fully aware enough to look to her friend. Part of the bear admittedly wanted to wake her, to get some help with the taller boy's... situation... but decided against it. Her abilities were impossible, of course, but that didn't mean she was without limits, she needed to rest just as badly as Gregory.

That didn't mean the Entertainer enjoyed what was happening, but getting through tonight required a lot of focusing on smaller victories.

They finally came across the entrance to the bakery, quietly climbing the deactivated escalator beside Monty Golf while a broken, barely functioning Roxanne blindly dashed between open vents in the distance, for some reason. While it sent shocks through his personality chip to see her in such a state, accidents happen. Roxy was easily one of the most popular animatronics in the establishment, fourth behind Freddy himself, Bonnie second, and Foxy was their best seller, management would theoretically fix her when it was time to reopen. Chica's primary attraction had a massive plastic cupcake overlooking the Pizzaplex, 'Let's Eat' painted in yellow over the front, and three colorful spirals like swirly pops around the front wall.

Mono released his pinky and jogged ahead, finding the security node and placing his static-covered palm on the white imitation of Chica's face. His pupils burst into tendrils within his eyes and irises expanded their arctic blue glow. Strangely, as Freddy activated his AR filter, he found a second Parent Node to the left of Chica's standard lock. It was a pure black hologram in the shape of the imposter Puppet's weeping mask with bright green pupils, many emerald digital cones connected it to the normal security system and three other nodes somewhere around the Atrium. Streaks of green guided the AR filter to the several Child Nodes as the white bird head flickered with violet light.

To the chicken's right, Mono and Six's light blue icon manifested, a single arrow connecting it to the white bird and a second pointing to the other side, a blue line curving to make a fifth point on the Marionette's firewall. Freddy was unfortunately forced to wake Gregory, as he was the only one with the equipment and knowledge to unlock the doors and access the abundance of treats within. Six shivered and sent a dark wave swirling around his face, disappearing from his shoulders and teleporting by Mono's side.

GGY's movements were still sluggish and labored, taking a little longer to disable the Bakery's blockade than the one on the Raceway. He took the opportunity to scan the three; Gregory's temperature had risen slightly, Six still raised every starvation warning he had, and Mono was clearly bleeding from his hand. There were four shallow cuts over the boy's palm where he repeatedly scratched as they walked. The machine took a knee and gently placed a hand on the signal child's shoulder, startling him for a second before he relaxed and grabbed Six's hand.

"Superstar, since I am unable to enter the Bakery, and I must collect the Golden Plushies, I would like to inform you that there is a Med Station inside. Please tend to your hand and try not to irritate the wound more." He stated.

Mono glanced at the bandage still on his other arm, firmly in place since his old injury slammed against Freddy's internal frame when this nightmare began.

"And I mean that, superstar. You have proven you already have knowledge of how to operate on yourself, take everything you need. I will check on you once you leave the Bakery.

Additionally, before you use the Fire Escape, I would like you and Six to take some stress toys from the Prize Counter. The Security Puppet will be able to guide you to one." He recommended, they'd already taken clothes and a Faz-A-Pult, might as well give them something to prevent more harm.

The glass doors clicked open, giving Freddy a chance to talk with the hacker.

"Superstar, how are you feeling? I have noticed you are not working at your normal speed, is something wrong?" He asked.

"...I'm fine, just a little tired." The boy hesitated, shaking as he stuffed his AR Freddy mask and Fazwrench in his duffle bag.

"Gregory, please do not lie to me, I only want to help." The giant doll insisted.

The mechanic stopped, both preparing to step into the cold, wonderful-smelling structure and tempted to turn around. Maybe he won't be upset? Mr. Burrows always is, but Freddy acts more like Foxy. I don't wanna repeat what happened to him. His sore legs wobbled as he slowly spun around, the bear's golden optics were so soft despite being made of metal and plastic, the lights of the irises dimmed to a kind glow that shone on the rest of his friendly face without hurting the child's eyes. Maybe it was worth the risk of getting on his nerves? He's done a lot more for us tonight than this, he might not be bothered.

"...I-I don't know if I can take much more of this..." He eventually admitted.

"I see... That is alright, I promised I would look after you to the best of my ability, the night is almost over." The animatronic tried to smile, clumsily parting his long, pearly fangs.

It was just enough to get a small grin and relieved sigh from the programmer before they parted ways again.

--- 👁 ---

Cassie landed on her elbow with a stinging thud. She couldn't see anything, but wasting her phone's battery might get her killed later. The creature's long arms stretched and warped as they pulled its unraveled body out of the ventilation shafts, a series of thin purple lights glossing over its masked face like lasers at a party. It stopped, the violet eye staring at something just around the corner, then one of the white hands pointing a clawed, fused-together finger in her direction while the top talon made a throat-slitting motion. Cassandra got to her feet and whipped around, hearing the six-legged clattering of unstable, clumsy, insectoid legs as another machine searched for her.

The corpses of two Security Bots began running toward her, stacked on top of one another with rusty screws and duct tape. Six Staff Bots sat atop them, four in a ring around the upper segment, two more towering over the center of the mass of wires holding them together. The top pair of bots had their heads and arms removed, replaced with the long necks and cameras of Security Drones save for the shoulder joints they were connected by, welded together with steel beams from an endoskeleton's frame.

The Kraken gave a deep, guttural and childish laugh as the scrappy beast resumed recollecting pieces of its makeshift Funtime Freddy face, the torso of the abandoned jester suit sliding back into its stomach area. She scrambled to flee the robotic amalgamation as the creation let out a blaring alarm, its four Staff Bot bodies flailing senselessly with an assortment of weapons. One of the two currently facing her held a steak knife and pair of scissors, the other a grime-coated stick. Countless sharp nails filled one side of the square staff like the end of a mace, being waved to and fro, to and fro, like the machine was sweeping or mopping.

On the other side the dolls were flinging their tools around, trying to curl the items around the rest of its shambling form to rip her apart from several feet away. One Bot was missing an arm; not broken or torn off, but methodically dismantled by skilled hands. Its remaining hand swiped at the freezing tunnels with a massive cleaver while the fourth Staff Bot smashed a sledgehammer on anything in range. The amalgamation of parts bounced between attacking her and trying to perform the ordinary duties its many salvaged workers were programmed to do, cutting and slicing and stabbing like they were cleaning or preparing food.

Cassie managed to find a corner to run around as the writhing mass of tendrils finished reassembling itself into an incredibly speedy and ravenous spider.

--- 👁 ---

In a much-appreciated turn of good luck, the Staff/Security Bot hodgepodge wasn't much brighter than its everyday counterparts.

Whoever programmed it must've taken the existing cooking, cleaning, and maintenance protocols, then dialed them far beyond their safety limits. It continuously sounded the security alert as it chased her, drawing a rough hiss from the green alligator on another floor. Gregory's stolen voice cried for help behind her, yelling her name in faux fear as she fled. Terminals lined the hallway around her as she blitzed around the next corner, one of which had a displaced panel. Cassie dove into the opening and tried to pull the metal flap shut, finding the sheet was firmly stuck in place. Violet lasers grazed over the aluminum as the first robot passed her hiding spot, six gray legs tapped over the concrete flooring like she was never even the main target.

That abomination, however, heavily stomped near; its left leg crushing the stone beneath the pile of corroded tubes acting as its foot, the Minireenas waving their floppy and burnt wooden arms through the air, its right leg pounding the ground with the headless endo melded to its greasy knee, the three hands still attached to the torso's rusted cords scratched the ground with every step and the fourth severed arm stabbed the rock with its sharpened steel support, oily tubes and wires slithered wherever it wandered, droplets of shiny black sludge sprayed around the walls, and the four limbs on its opposite half walked on their slimy palms.

"It seems you couldn't make it to my show, so I brought the show to you!" It called with Funtime Foxy's ringing, announcer-y voice.

Dark tendrils wrapped around every stray object and oxidized copper strands flicked switches and pressed buttons as they slid over the rows of interfaces. Dying shrieks of tearing metal violently pierced her ears as the aberration dragged its talons across the cold covers. It gave a coarse growl while its neck creaked. Tainted pipes expanded and compressed, functioning perfectly fine without the air pressure the rest of the Funtimes needed to move, stale air packing the muscle-like tendrils that angled the head in all directions. Beautifully vile magenta spread across the hallway like a thick fog, filtering through the gap between the panel she hid behind and the tight cavity packed with computer circuitry and mechanisms she'd squeezed into.

Cassie frantically fought to silence her panicked shivering that jostled the disgustingly neatly organized wires and hold her escaping breath, but it was too little and much too late; the animal heard her jump into the small cavity, it already knew she was somewhere nearby. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, STOMP, STOMP! Its right leg, the endo-torso-for-a-shin scuttling to a stop like a huge beetle, planted itself right outside her electrical haven. Like a baby mouse with a tiger beyond its house she bit back a terrified squeak with tears burning and blurring her bloodshot eyes.

The single, dagger-like limb stabbed the ground and shifted its weight, standing like a tripod as one of the foot-mounted hands lifted to bend back the shield before her. She forced down a shout as its sharp tentacles snapped and slashed at everything in its grand reach; shards of glass screens bounced over the floor, bits of frayed and flayed wires flew around the corridor, and slivers of cheap iron took flight. A massive gash opened in the top of her spot and rained pieces of buttons and keyboards on her back. The Daemon's countless eyes swiveled in their filthy sockets as it let out a feral snarl, flaring the plates of its clown mask like a draconic frill in endless hunger.

Icy sweat seeped into her clothes and shaky breaths shivered her to her core. One orange eye bulged out of its side like a mound of amber puss, casting a sickly shine atop her hiding spot. With her options rapidly dwindling, the pup turned down her Roxy Fazwatch's brightness as far as it could go, muted the device, and sent a last-ditch SOS to the Marionette. Cassie prayed to every single god she didn't believe in that the creature wouldn't look down. Please! Just don't look down a little longer.

Just as the orange rays began falling on the terminal she hid in like a rain of fire a nearby camera blinked a forest green light. Ennard's main purple eye turned to glare at the lens while the searing amber glare began to catch sight of Cassie's bright white shoes. In an instant an angry emerald glow burst from the security camera, sending the Kraken reeling. The violet light washed right over Cassie, but Charlotte had disabled the sensor. Another security camera flickered with an unnatural influence and blasted the towering beast again, but it already began adjusting to the assaults. Its head swiveled back around and a claw raised to cover its primary eye.

The monster spread its arms, dispersing the eyeballs littering the structure so far that the lights couldn't strike every one before lurching forward. More cameras exploded with light while Cassie waited for the Lolbit face to pass her. The white fox's warped head oozed dark mud with the blue and pink ears of a distorted Bon-Bon and ailed Bonnet poking out of its shoulders, drowned in the pool of darkness held within the tube muscles. With her held breath burning her lungs and the ache in her foot growing, the girl waited patiently for a light to fry the eyes facing her. One such opening presented itself as the creature started slicing apart the cameras.

Cassie kicked open the sheet in front of her and sprinted down the hall.

--- 👁 ---

The bakery was gigantic!

The incredible aroma of flour, warm bread, sweet syrups, and delicious candies Mono didn't recognize swirled around him with such lovely pungency his head spun and nose ached. To his quiet displeasure he was pulled to a corner of the room by the hand. To his immense joy, Six was the one bringing him to the Med Station. They just needed to take care of his hand for Freddy, then there'd be nothing keeping him chained in one place! He didn't even notice the low sting of the disinfectant being wiped over his palm as he waited antsy in the small seat. Six makes everything okay! Also, she was the only one with a reliable pair of eyes out for the Nightguard and could be counted on to have his back against the Glitchtrap, but she always had his back in general and nobody could take that from them!

She started calmly wrapping his palm in a large bandage, now both of his arms were carefully covered. His chest fluttered as she grabbed his hand again, it felt like it'd been so long! The sensation of safety in knowing she was by his side returned in full force, fuzzy and relaxing in a way neither of them got to experience before mending their relationship throughout the Maw's depths. With his mouth watering he dragged her to the various sources of the wonderous smells that relentlessly assaulted them since they broke in. They came across a large set of chrome doors, unlocked and poorly blocking the strong scent. He happily flung them open and stared inside.

Donuts, donut holes, muffins, cakes, cookies, croissants, fritters, danish, nuts, sugar, vanilla, sprinkles, coconut, sour stuff, wildberry, cinnamon, brownies, mint, strawberry, raspberry, grape, sweets, lemon, blueberry, boba, chocolate!

And they're all so soft! They're all so warm! They all have so many flavors!

--- 👁 ---

...All I did was lean against a wall...

Mono already discovered the backstock of fresh treats. Of course, Gregory fell victim to the smell of fresh (or rather, the closest thing to 'fresh' Fazbear Entertainment was willing to spend money on) pastries on more than a few occasions, but this was already getting a little excessive. None of them were even that good, they were all the leftovers from the day and they'd just be thrown out before the Pizzaplex reopened in a week. He didn't stop a fairly judgmental look at the taller boy as he stuffed his face with treats and precariously carried a pile of desserts in his arms. Six, somewhat surprisingly, didn't even bother to try one. Throughout the night she continued to defy her obvious starvation.

The only thing she consistently did to react to her hunger was the exact opposite of satiating it, turning down clear opportunities for food and vastly preferring to try taking naps. He was almost impressed she hadn't done anything overtly concerning or abnormal in a while, doing nothing more than accepting a small, curious nibble of a soft chocolate chip cookie offered by her friend. The emaciated girl didn't even react to it, just handed it back to her partner as he took several big munches out of his collection. Gregory walked over to them and grabbed a sprinkle-filled sugar cookie from the pantry, his stomach suddenly deciding now was a great time to remind him he was constantly desperate for anything remotely edible. We told Freddy we wanted some food from here anyway.

"Surprised you didn't make a comment about them needing something like blood or a brain." He poorly joked as he bit into his snack.

Six paused, holy fuck she's actually thinking about it, then pulled a crumpled piece of the duo's sketchbook from her smudged raincoat.

'The bread and frosting would kill my gut. Id rather just have some random strong guys arm or ribs, anything with more meat than fat.' She casually scribbled in red pencil.

--- 👁 ---

Six carefully stuffed the paper back in her pocket and looked to her partner in crime.

'I think I broke him.' She silently and quite proudly gestured to the thin hacker. Convenient as the pages and colored pencils she couldn't actually see correctly were, she'd swiftly started to miss her and Mono's muted talks.

Gregory's pupils had shrunk to the size of pinheads like ants crawling across the soil of his brown irises, the blood had completely drained from his face and part of his cookie crumbled to the floor.

'Do you think we can turn him off and on again?' She made a flicking motion with her finger.

'I'll reset him in a minute.' Mono chuckled and shrugged before returning to his treats.

'I think they'd be better if you made a guest into them, though.' The boy winked through his wolf mask.

'I knew you loved my cooking!' She smiled, finally victorious after months of the signal child denying how much he savored the people she'd chopped up and boiled for him.

Chapter Text

Cassie ran for her life through the Atrium, having run into walls, tripped over toolboxes, nearly run into the Staff amalgamation, almost alerted the tentacle monster, and gathered more than her fair share of bruises in the process of finding her way back to the main floors. The skittering of Security Drones and the scrapped bots surrounded her as she tucked and rolled under a party table. Pounding steps and animalistic hissing came from a corrupted Montgomery Gator as he patrolled the massive room joined by the heavy-footed wandering of the star bear as he made his way for the elevators.

She couldn't afford to try going to another floor now, she couldn't tell what direction Freddy was going, the screen above the lift was too far away and with the way the night's been going he'd be waiting for her the moment she tried to leave. Purple and red dots slid over the tile floor beside her, a nearby Security Bot completely ignoring the mass of discarded dolls like it was one (or six) of their own. The nail-covered board swung at her feet as the machine passed, three of its six legs tapping over the cold ceramic like the claws of a raptor. Didn't one of them have a hammer? Cassie rolled out of the way just as the chunk of metal smashed through the board above her, its sledgehammer a couple inches away from caving in her skull.

She didn't hesitate to get to her feet and start running for the escalators. One of the conglomerate's cameras pointed directly at her and sounded its airhorn-like siren. Monty roared from across the stage area and leaped into the air, slamming down with the weight of a car and sending shards of tiles around him, something he was never supposed to be capable of. Whatever hydraulics that allowed him to jump so high and so far seemed to need a reset period, the bassist heavily but slowly chased the girl with his sharp claws outstretched. He was still on the lower floor as she ran up the steps. Two more of the surrounding Security Patrols blasted their digital horns in her ears, but Cassandra couldn't care less, she'd already been spotted by the six-bodied creation and it was time to run.

The clattering of its spidery limbs echoed up the escalator, its knives and scissors scraped the rails as the hammer and nail staff crushed and tore the rubber grips. Like a small earthquake, vibrations shook the metal stairs as the aggressive alligator climbed after her. Clumsy on its unstable feet, the Staff Beast swayed and stumbled while Cassie kept going strong. A cleaver slashed through the rubber rail's belt, scissors and a knife stabbed and scratched the metal beneath, a sledgehammer pounded the stationary steps, the stick with nails shattered the glass, even the cameras acting as its two upper bodies' heads and arms pressed against the rails to keep its balance.

The young and spry girl easily beat the pair of animatronics to the next floor, rapidly deciding where to go next. Roxy Raceway wasn't an option, it was below her and she'd just escaped the wolf. Monty Golf wasn't promising, either, the animatronic would just follow her inside. One of Chica's attractions seemed better and her bakery was right next to the huge mini golf course. An ear-splitting screech tore through the dark room as one of the elevators had its doors forced open. Four massive claws poked through the steel slabs, the bottom two drenched in oil, the top two covered in melted white plastic. Out of the empty elevator shaft, the warped face of the red-nosed clown hung upside-down, staring at her as its legs and back half clung to the woven steel cables.

Like a demented owl, its neck craned around, turning the burnt face and glowing purple eye to face her upright. On the creature's back, the broken endoskeleton with its limbs reinforcing the beast's four arms stuttered, the red and blue buttons in the stand stabbed into the headless neck flickered on and off. Sparks danced and bounced out of the snatched Funtime endo as the wired Bidibab merged into its left leg spasmed with electricity. All four faceplates flared apart with a gargling bellow, the human skull within screaming with suffering as the abomination slowly turned itself around. Four sharp arms bent and twisted over the lift's entrance as it righted itself to crawl after her. The head didn't appear to move, swiveling in perfect tandem opposite to the body as it glared into her.

Then the power cut out.

This muddy aberration continued to look at her with its angry violet eye as the pathetic handful of neon lights still dimly beaming around the Pizzaplex shut off, like innocent little lives snuffed out by the hourly cycle. She ran for the chicken's bakery, loudly sprinting past Ennard in a senseless panic as it finished climbing out of the hollow column. Only the red laser lights of a few Security Drones lit her way, but it was all the light she needed. Cassie was at the Pizzaplex for a large chunk of the week, she knew every part of the building (above the maintenance tunnels, at least) like the back of her hand, she just needed the cones of laser pointers to help keep track of where she was running in the pitch black.

Echoing behind her was the crushing force of its left leg covered in Minireenas and two Bidibabs, the squeaking of its right leg made from a decapitated endo with three hands and a sharpened knife-like forearm, the canine rush of Lolbit's corpse, and the slimy slithering of the Kraken's several tendrils as it slowly gained ground. Her feet ached more and more each time they hit the ground, her heart shook her entire body, her throat seared itself with every horrified breath, but she kept running. The frightened child would've run into a pat-pat and surely tripped to her death if not for the tiny robots' shining yellow eyes. I'm almost there. Her freezing cold run through the dark came to an end with the small number of neon rods returning to life, their poorly illuminating rays framing the entrance to the bakery. There has to be somewhere to hide.

Cassie's already throbbing shoulder, jammed into her body by the fall in the vents, slammed against the bakery doors. Tears stung in her eyes as she collapsed to the tile floor and crawled away, scrambling to get back up as the writhing tubes grew closer. She placed a hand on one of the tables and pushed herself upward, glancing behind her long enough to see the creature wasn't pursuing any longer. A forest green grid coated the doorway like the bars of a cage, arctic blue static blurred the monster's visage as it repeatedly crashed into the analog barrier. A haze of black lines hummed over the translucent wall like the distortions of an old-timey TV.

Chills soared across her spine as she fought to calm herself. Whatever the hell was happening, she eemed safe... safer than she was, more accurately... It released a frustrated hiss as its upper arms scratched down the shield. A lower, molten-white-plastic-coated hand punched the wavering guard with the force of a speeding minivan, sending glitching ripples through the green framework. Countless menacing clicks came from the jester suit trapped in its stomach, pulling back the rusty, greasy, rough gears and crossbeams.

It lunged again, bashing the mechanisms against the strange film. Three symbols flashed over the center of the door as the sharp parts viciously launched back into place; one a yellow Chica face like a Security Node, one a black Puppet mask with purple tear tracks and green pupils, the last an icon Cassie didn't recognize. That last insignia blended in well with the blue fog behind it, a pale blueish-white that floated with an equally unearthly air as Charlie, a simple but eerie and narrow oval eye staring at her with a pupil made of the silhouette of a child wearing some sort of hoodie. Fluttering in a fake breeze was the left tip of the garment, maybe a coat or jacket, while the hood made a triangular outline around the kid's head.

Over the middle of it was a simple cutout to give the small child a hovering diamond for a face. Even as a stationary image she couldn't shake the feeling that this picture, along with the MCI era's Puppet mask, was staring straight into her soul with glossy and uncaring eyes, like the animatronics that now considered the cub nothing but fresh meat. Cassie stepped back from the doorframe, unwilling to be too close to this Daemon clawing after her. Monty and the Staff Blob never followed them, she was this thing's catch and it wouldn't stop trying to tear apart different sections of the computerized ward.

With a final shift of its faceplates, showing off its human skull in all its unfettered anguish, and a spiteful and defiant growl, the monster dragged one last set of talons over the blockade and turned away.

--- 👁 ---

Something's here...

Six got Mono's message loud and clear, despite the absence of a single word. Granted, she didn't actually need him to tell her that, whatever joined them was heavy on its feet and its huffs and puffs were deafening, but it was always appreciated. At the moment the only real tool or weapon they had was Mono's bright orange Faz-A-Pult still strapped to his arm, though it was more a distraction tool than a means of defense. Gregory currently sat in a corner, staring but not looking at an empty spot on the tile with his head in his hands. It would be easy to take his heavy duffle bag from him if they didn't need it. His scrap computer was the only thing connecting them to Freddy through the Nightguard's jammer and it might not survive being thrown at something's face.

What little they'd seen of the other contents weren't nearly as promising; a small handheld box that was better suited for breaking into places and whatever he'd done to Glitchtrap, the mask he needed in order to use that same tool, and the other box that had been stolen anyway. She glanced around the kitchen, filled to the brim with chrome utensils and equipment. Then she saw it; buried in a stained wooden cube with many slits cut into the top were black grips, each one longer than the handle before it. Six covered herself in umbral fog and blew atop one of the shiny counters, grabbing the biggest knife from the block and inspecting the blade, incredibly smooth and refined with a slightly curved point at the top.

The chrome kitchen door slowly swung open.

From the dining room and register came a short girl, much tanner and livelier than the sickly pale trio. She had a slight limp and a pair of annoyingly bright white shoes with light purple accents and laces, not that the raincoated girl could see any of the colors properly. Small splotches of Agony coated her sneakers, black as the kid's torn leggings. The intoxicating scent of blood coated the new child, especially at her joints. Droplets of crimson dripped from her knees and seeped into the ripped dark fabric beneath her ruby red skirt with black spikes coming from the bottom, identical to the one Mono stole. She wore a red jacket or sweater with white flowers along the hem and green and purple star patches sewn over her heart.

Two beady bracelets dangled from her wrists and the collar of a white shirt poked out the top of her jacket, stained at two spots by the black streaks of runny makeup pouring from her bloodshot eyes. Her hair was pulled back in two buns by a pair of dark purple hair ties. Pinkish rashes surrounded her eyes like they'd been rubbed raw, but lacked the heavy bags or sunken appearance Six would've expected from another child. Her earthy brown eyes had a certain 'shimmer' to them, containing a kindly brightness extremely unusual for anyone other than maybe Freddy, certainly not a trait any child should ever have.

All in all, she seemed pretty nice! A shame Six was already acting on pure instinct.

--- 👁 ---

In a split second Cassie was pinned to the cold wall with a long blade pressed against her throat and bony hand over her mouth.

A sticky warmth dribbled down her neck as she struggled to suck in her breath, searching for some nonsensical way to somehow suck in her throat away from the knife. Like claws, a set of pointy nails dug into her cheek. The kid's hand was covered in dried mud, grainy dirt, deep scars, irritated rashes, and large bruises, all of which gave her a painful reminder of Gregory's condition when he first wound up in her home. She could barely look the child up and down; their feet were bare and coated in so many old soil marks that she almost thought they had brown leather shoes.

Even when the kid was holding her at knifepoint she couldn't help but feel her heart sink seeing how impossibly thin this child was, she could see their skeleton through their pale flesh. Some black sweats with striped white drawstrings coated their toothpick legs, their knee painfully pressed under her ribcage, she could feel every part of the joint as it crushed her stomach. The kid's own gut was clearly outlined by the sway of her coat, even some of their ribs and their spine created noticeable ridges in the yellow material as it fluttered around them. Like the child in the symbol over the barrier that protected her from the Kraken, their coat's hood made a triangle over their head and a diamond opening for the kid's face.

As if she was staring down another demon, a pair of shining crimson eyes glared at Cassie. Red light, burning bright onto her frightened face, filtered through their greasy and knotted black hair. It almost looked like there were parts of plants caught in the strands; torn bits of rotting orange leaves, parts of tiny twigs, even tiny pebbles were tangled in their ratty mane. The child's skin was pulled agonizingly tight over their face. They seemed to be a girl? Her chapped lips revealed a set of plaque-ridden teeth within a hungrily watering maw. Cassie almost thought she saw specs of dried gore buried in the girl's canines.

She had an extra set of incisors, longer and sharper than any human teeth she'd seen, like a set of vampiric fangs. Hot breath flowed over Cassie's face, carrying the revolting stench of copper and blood with an unnatural and feral growl. The shivering snarl seemed to descend from infinite eldritch stars and bubble up from the depths of the deepest oceans or darkest pits of hell. She sniffed around Cassandra like a curious animal, her face twitching in displeasure as she inhaled the pup's favorite perfume. Large and dark bags under the girl's eyes twitched as she quickly blinked, keeping her deep and livid maroon eyes on the intruder.

"Cassie?"

Gregory's rough voice called to her, equal parts confused and horrified. Another child came and gently pulled the bone-thin girl off of her. She took a deep sigh as she inspected the boy. He was significantly taller than the others, almost a whole head over her pseudo-brother. His feet and hands were much the same as the girl's, barefoot and covered in muck and several injuries, old and new alike. Baggy black pants pooled around his ankles beneath a Roxy skirt just like Cassie's, both covered in a large brown trench coat decorated in stains and smudges. His broad shoulders lead down to his scarred and bruised and scraped hands, both covered in fresh bandages, one of which now softly grasped the coated girl's palm like she was as precious as a snow-white rabbit.

An out-of-place orange Faz-A-Pult was strapped to his left arm, the string drawn back and currently holding two strawberry muffins and a chocolate donut with rainbow sprinkles. A Roxanne wolf mask was awkwardly pushed up over his forehead, showing off a brutal scar stretching from the top of his nose next to his left eye and slashed over his mouth to the end of his jawline. Yellowed fangs poked out of a hole in his lips, the skin needed to close his mouth forcefully and viciously cut away. Pale pink flesh slithered over his sickly face like an angry snake every time he moved or exhaled.

His sharp teeth were much like the little girl's, long and more than ready to sink into someone's jugular, though the extra pair of inner incisors were slightly duller than the other child's. Piercing arctic blue eyes gave her a much-appreciated apologetic glance, they were tired with bags beneath them, but remained calming and friendly through the day's abundant stress. The rest of his face was covered in frosting and crumbs of stale bread. His hair was a ratty and shiny brown, unwashed and holding some of the same debris the girl's head did. He nervously pulled out one of the warm muffins stuffed in his Faz-A-Pult and handed it to her. Cassie gratefully took the treat, happy to have something small to keep her going through this hellish night of running and crawling for her life.

He proceeded to devour the other two pastries in an instant like a starving animal. He kinda looked like a puppy! Like one of the stray animals she so badly wanted to bring home, desperate for food and kindness, but her apartment complex didn't allow pets. To be fair, he was also pretty concerningly skinny, though still in far better condition than his outright skeletal companion. She shouldn't even be able to stand, let alone grab a knife, throw herself over a table to grab Cassie, pin her to the far wall, and hold the blade to her windpipe with enough strength to keep a target from wriggling out of her clawed grasp. Cassandra timidly stepped away from the two, not having a clue who they were or how to approach them about... everything...

Gregory had been sitting in a corner, presumably reevaluating whatever decisions he made to wind up here, but Cassie didn't care anymore, she just wanted a hug from her big brother.

"Gregory?" She shakily asked, still not fully believing he was right in front of her eyes.

--- 👁 ---

It'd been so long since he came up here.

Every single time the bear tried to spend any amount of time in Bonnie Bowl he found a stinging, crushing sensation build in his chest cavity. From promising to be by each other's side forever to sealing that promise by sharing the bear's earrings, they'd been infinitely closer than the rest, though they both tried their hardest not to play favorites. It took at least a week for him to finally put a name to the strange signals his personality chip sent him after the original bassist vanished. I miss him. How much time had passed? Around a year, according to the incident logs he'd downloaded to his hard drive. What if Gregory knew something about what happened to him?

It might be worth a shot, but he refused to overstep. Tonight had brought more than enough stress to all of them, he refused to risk asking the question that might send the programmer over the edge no matter how much he wanted the answer. Assuming the shorter boy knew anything at all, what was the answer worth, when it might cost a child? No kid deserved to be given the worries of an adult, as Gregory had already been. When he might eat next, when he'd have time to sleep, when he could afford to bathe, how harshly he'd have to ration, how much turmoil he could power through before something gave in, they were problems no child should ever have to consider.

One question that he did think worth asking, however, was what Mono and Six's deal was, if only to distract him from his dearest companion's fate. Granted, he had considered gathering greater intel on their past might give him ideas on how to properly approach them; handling kids was his prime directive, problematic kids needed detailed processing and consideration of situational data to deal with, Mono and Six were extremely problematic, meaning he needed more information to care for them, information he severely lacked. As a result, the odd data packs the boy infected the Main Systems with caught Freddy's attention. Safe Mode didn't lock him out of the heavily compressed files, so they couldn't be any more dangerous to access.

Everything about the children suggested they were incredibly unfamiliar with all forms of technology; they very awkwardly fumbled with their Fazwatches and the few computers they tried to handle around the Pizzaplex, even reading simple words took far longer than it should've for kids their age. And all that meant they couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of code. The data stored by Mono's abilities couldn't be of any origin the bear would know of, it might have a deeper connection to the boy than any normal technology would, something much closer to him than what the Entertainer once considered logical.

He distantly detected a newer 'Mono Node' within Roxy Raceway, just barely closer than the one in Parts and Service, slightly more efficient to open.

--- 👁 ---

Tall, beautiful trees on an overcast day. Crunching leaves as a pair of bare feet wandered along the forest floor. Pebbles sticking to the bottom of his feet, but drawing no reaction, like he'd been through this a thousand times before. None of his movements were his own, he felt his hydraulics and motors were currently inactive, but he couldn't be sure, his diagnostics were taking very long to return any information His vision was unusually limited, like he was staring through two narrow holes. A large brown trench coat draped over his arms, dirt and mud-covered sleeves dangling above his scarred, bruised, scraped, and messy human hands.

Was he... seeing through Mono's eyes? It seemed that way at first, but eventually he placed his hands on a crate, moving it to get up a small ledge. His fingernails were wrong, shorter and lacking the sharp points at the ends, they were more of the brown/yellow color than the small blackened claws he'd grown familiar with over the night. Issue was the rest of the child's body was consistent with a less filthy Mono other than the coat, which seemed a little less brown than what he wore now. Everything else looked plausible for a slightly younger Mono.

Beartraps, falling cages, snares, he'd wandered into someone's hunting grounds but...

Why was everything so big?

The boy had taken giant sticks and pinecones to smash and throw into piles of dead leaves. Each beartrap was the perfect size to completely bisect a child, even too big to target an actual bear. There weren't even bears to hunt! They're extinct! Who was making traps this big? They were bound to get someone killed! He would get his answer soon enough; a twisted man in a heavy coat with many pockets like cargo shorts, large boots, thick gloves, and wearing a sac and small cap over his head. Mono crouched down and silently snuck behind the man as he worked on something on a desk placed against a window, the man's labored and disgusting breathing filtering through a potato sack with a hole for one eye and tied loosely around his neck with some simple thatch with a hat placed on top.

This vile Hunter's house was littered with corpses, not decaying or hidden bodies, but taxidermized people sat at his dinner table like a completely normal family. Their insides presumably sat in his fridge, rotten and disgusting flesh soon to be feasted upon. And why was everything so big? Mono, despite how sickly thin he was, was not a small kid. Nothing but bone and muscle lacking in the healthy layer of fat he desperately needed, but still at least a meter and a half tall, nearly looming over Six and Gregory. This man was at least four times his size.

Freddy once thought himself a tall creation, a solid 6'3, the Hunter had to be 20 feet tall.

He watched through Mono's eyes as he maneuvered the Hunter's cabin, wandering past the literal, very noticeable, impossible-to-miss TAXIDERMY PEOPLE, like they were an EVERYDAY OCCURENCE! He'd even gone as far as to accidentally rip one's arm off while taking a key from its hand. At that point, the bear was genuinely expecting the thing to come alive and lunge at the boy. A lovely tune started ringing through the home, three soft notes he'd heard whenever Six used her impossible abilities.

Through Mono's arctic blue eyes he witnessed him collect a hatchet, but it might as well have been a medieval great axe in his arms. Despite the weight Mono pretty easily carried it around, strong for his years even back whenever this took place. Of course, he knew the little boy was remarkably strong despite the lack of obvious muscle, able to carry around Gregory on his back with quite little trouble, but it remained quite easy to underestimate just how much weight the signal child could really pull.

Giving himself quite the introduction, he slashed apart a wooden door blocking him from the source of the music; a vaguely familiar girl with a gray jumper and music box.

Chapter Text

She missed her big brother so, so much...

Despite how clumsily he navigated conversation, he always knew how to make her feel better. He immediately knew she needed a big hug and shot up from where he sat, but didn't get any closer. Her heart stopped as his eyes glazed over, staring at but not seeing Cassie, growing unfocused with immense dizziness as a shock ran up his spine and he began to sway. His limbs turned to jelly and his balance was completely shot. He visibly lurched as his stomach flipped and his knees buckled right out from under him. The programmer let out a disorientated groan as he fell. Before Cassie could call his name in a panic and rush to his side, the boy with the Roxy skirt had caught him.

He was definitely behind me a second ago. Blue static covered his skin and clothes, rippling with dark lines and distorting his outline like a blurry image. Despite being so thin, he practically hefted Gregory over his shoulder with one hand. Cassandra was stumbling over herself to get to them as the taller kid held Gregory upright, his palm on his pounding head as he attempted to reorient himself. The blue haze that coated the new kid dissipated by the time she got to Gregory, whose arm was forcefully wrapped around the looming child's shoulder for stability while he blinked away the dizziness and nausea.

"I-I'm okay! J-Just got up too fast." He tried to soothe her before she bombarded him with hysteric questions.

"That's not normal!" She nearly screamed the obvious, getting an animalistic growl from the two strangers that sent shivers up her spine.

"It is for me... I just g-gotta lie down for a minute." The hacker reassured as he steadily lowered himself to the tile floor.

Unfortunately, other than aged clothing, he didn't actually seem much worse off than when he arrived and left her parents 'care'.

His shoes were a mess; both toes split open and the bright white material was heavily stained by various browns and reds and blacks, red velcro straps barely held the top of the shoes together, both the straps themselves and the spots they attached to were tearing at the seams. They certainly weren't the same as the black sneakers he'd ditched their apartment in. The tips of filthy socks loosely covered his ankles and Achilles tendons, frayed and devoid of their normal white color. Scars, most familiar, some newer, covered his limbs and face. A dirty band-aid covered his left knee, ripped by a nasty scrape. He wore stained and torn khakis held in place by a damaged belt, holes and scattered strings of fabric littered the bottom of the garment.

Gregory somehow still had his favorite navy shirt, but the two white stripes had turned tan. Large rips and holes in the greatly stretched and well-worn shirt revealed the remains of long, deep cuts and massive bruises that made Cassie's heart sink again. The shirt's buttons were ruined; the top one was split in half and dangling by a stretched thread while the bottom was missing. On his wrist sat a bright red Foxy Fazwatch, faded and sporting cracks around the casing. Large bags lay under his eyes, a blackish-gray color she'd never even seen on her dad. Honestly, she didn't actually see him all that much to compare him to the small mechanic. An old bandage poorly covered a long cut on his right cheek, tear-stained and as dirty as his greasy hair. Unlike the other two, he looked and smelled like he'd washed up somewhat recently, but that was far from a compliment.

"What happened to you?" She asked as she bent down to hug him.

She knew Gregory had always been fairly touch-adverse, but she really needed an anchor right now and he was willing to tolerate her. At least she'd thought he was; after his initial shock and discomfort subsided and she pulled away she knew she caught a hint of conflict and disappointment over his face. He didn't seem sure if he disliked it, as they knew he hadn't in the past, or wanted the hug to last a little longer.

"A lot, b-but that's not an issue right now!" He suddenly exclaimed, getting another pair of canine growls from his 'buddies'.

"W-what on earth are you doing here!? Didn't you get the memo!? The Pizzaplex is closed until next week! What happened?" He overwhelmed her, like an overstressed and underpaid parent whose kid just did something really stupid.

Which she had, to his credit, but that was aside the point.

She hated that he was very obviously shoving down his own issues for her, The Owl House taught her how badly that went, but she needed a second to gather herself.

"Where do I begin?" She finally took a seat beside him and sighed.

--- 👁 ---

Six looked very different back then, it took Freddy a moment to recognize her.

She was more lively when the pair first met, if only slightly. Her skin was closer to Mono's, bearing a sliver of vitality to the mostly pale flesh. He slowly started to recognize several cuts and bruises that had scarred over by the time he met the strange girl. One thing that caught his eye in particular was the lack of a mark above her right eye. The very few times he'd seen her in the light he'd noticed what looked like a burn scar over her forehead, too focused to be the result of a campfire or sticking her head too close to a fireplace, not to mention he highly doubted Six would be irresponsible enough to get so close to an open flame.

No, the cause of that injury must've been sudden, like an unexpected gas fire. Maybe she would soon run into a stove? Perhaps he was about to see where that injury had come from, but for now her face was very clear in the gentle light, more so than he had gotten to see before, so he did her best to document her while he had the chance. Her eyes were duller than they were now, a deep maroon with fading tints of a seafoam green around the irises, as opposed to the bright ruby he'd grown familiar with. Six's hair was pitch black, presumably coated in the same dirt and grime that blighted her to this day. A gray jumper, seemingly woolen, swayed around her wounded legs, stained with trickles of blood and dirt that didn't look like they bothered her.

Understandably, her reaction to a then-stranger chopping a hole in her door wasn't great. She dashed under a nearby table, staying in the shadows for a short time as Mono slowly approached, offering his hand. She slapped the arm away and ran straight past him, knocking the boy over in the process. Through his tallest child's eyes the bear watched as the two got off to a shaky start, the girl only working with the younger Mono in order to get out faster while the boy more willingly clung to her hand. She stayed quiet while the tall child only muttered the occasional but memorable 'hey!' joined by hand motions to convey simple commands. Eventually, the Hunter spotted them, following the pair as they ran out a back door and ducked behind scattered crates he'd left unattended.

That vile, demented man, oh, these poor kids, that man shot at them! A large shotgun barrel burst with yellow light, destroying the box they'd taken cover behind. Six sprinted ahead of Mono while he recovered from the blast and the Hunter reloaded. Was the burn scar from a brush with death? Was that man going to catch her and try to blow her head off, but barely miss?! The three fled and chased each other throughout the woods. His kids lost the Hunter, doubling back on him behind a small but steep hill just out of sight, crawling through a burrow beneath a tree, getting shot at through the hole, and crawling through tall grass.

They stopped and started as the sadistic man waved a handheld spotlight over the small clearings, eventually being given away by a murder of crows. They climbed up the side of a building, hiding behind boxes and broken TVs as the spread shots tore open their shields. The two got in through the second-story window while the Hunter bashed right through the weathered and hole-ridden wall beneath them. He shot at them through the floorboards as they ran to the next window, wading through sludge and algae and rotting meat-filled water as they hid under a small dock, moved between old tree stumps, and climbed another ledge.

More birds exposed them as they blitzed into a small hut. Its windows were boarded shut, many worn but well-cared-for saws and a shovel hung on the walls, and a spare shotgun sat on a small stand across from them. Mono moved so fast Freddy almost didn't get to see Six quickly locking the door with a latch near the bottom, just in time to force the Hunter to start bashing his fist through the top of the door. He'd considered Mono the patient and gentle one since meeting him, and that point still stood, but until now he could never picture the boy being so quick to violence. He didn't even try to keep running, pushing a box to the far wall not to climb out of the open window, but instead immediately snatched the gun.

He'd admittedly considered Six to be more of the 'fight' than 'flight' type, but even though it was clearly a survival situation, Mono didn't even remotely hesitate to remove another from this world. They've done this before... They moved on too quickly for this to be their first time taking a life...

In an instant of uncharacteristic violence; he readied the gun, Six aimed it directly at the man's stomach through the bottom half of the door, and they fired.

Even Freddy's microphones rang as they fell to the ground.

--- 👁 ---

I did this...

I should've listened to Mr. Burrows...

Then she never would've come...

Just from the second she entered the Pizzpalex; his little sister-figure was nearly stuffed into what he could only assume was an antique springlock suit by a tentacle monster, got into a mini-argument with the Puppet (who apparently went by Charlie???), was almost ripped apart by Roxanne (who just... stopped? And tried to tell her to run while she was leaving? For some reason?), hunted by the tentacle thing through the vents, encountered his Staff Bot creation that he'd never admit he made, got chased again, and nearly had her throat slit by Six. It's all my fault, she did this trying to save me! It was utterly ridiculous to think he was worth saving, just a rat off the cold streets, not even special to his gang, but for some insane reason she came for him and was going to die for it.

"It wasn't your fault." She interrupted his spiraling thoughts.

What?

"Of course it is..." He deadpanned.

"I didn't have to come here, I just wanted to help, you didn't even know that thing existed."

Not entirely true, I've just never seen it before... besides that night...

"...You shouldn't have come for me..." He scolded.

"Of course I should've! You're family!" She claimed.

"No, I'm not." Gregory pointed out.

"Maybe not to my parents, but you are to me! Come on!" She quickly got up. In the corner of his eye, he saw Mono preparing to catch her on reflex.

"We'll get out of this together!" Cassie smiled and held out a hand.

Gregory almost took it, lifting his hand just to open and close his palm as he tried to decide what to do. He'd begun glaring at Mono and Six when they held hands, hadn't he? The signal child even started slowing down to grab his hand, recently. Wasn't this what he wanted? He hated being touched, it always meant a beating, stabbing, or worse... so much worse... But he was pretty sure Cassie wasn't like that. She only ever wanted to help. GGY eventually decided to get up on his own, wavering with a lead weight in his gut and no sense of balance, then flinching at but not struggling against the girl as she helped support him. Her arm stung in the short time they touched, but eased into something warm, something fuzzy, by the time she pulled away.

"...A-About your h-hugs..." He awkwardly spoke. Talking to people is so hard.

"Oh, sorry." The pup looked down.

"I know you don't like them but I was super out of it and I just needed a break and it won't happen again! I promise!" She blurted.

"NO! No!" He shuddered, followed by the third set of snarls of the last minute.

"I-It's not like that... Just... C-Can you warn me first?" He timidly questioned as if he was asking the world of her.

Cassie paused... This is her Gregory, right?

"Sure!" She answered chipperly, very different from the tone of the night.

Gregory shivered with a heavy sigh of relief and began getting a handle on the situation.

--- 👁 ---

"Okay, you've been living in the Pizzaplex for about a year." Cassie stated aloud.

"I have." Gregory affirmed, not looking up from a complicated, scrappy computer as he typed away next to a locked freezer.

"So Freddy's on our side because he's in a 'Safe Mode' that protects him from a virus in the Main Systems, but right now he's chasing a bunch of Golden Plushies we need to escape early, and if he doesn't we'll have to survive until 6 AM when the doors open on their own."

"Yeah. Safe Mode has a little more to it than that, a bunch of extra security protocols that safe mode on a normal computer doesn't have, so it takes a lot of power out of him."

"Uh-huh... Then these two have magic and... unique names... Mono breaks reality and messes with technology, and Six controls shadows and might eat people if she uses her powers, but she absorbed some stuff from Charlie and the Daycare Attendant and she hasn't tried to murder anyone in a while..."

"Correct."

"And neither of them can talk for too long because their voices will die, but they got a sketchbook they can write to us with."

"You're all caught up."

Gregory never looked up from his ruby red Fazwatch and the stolen laptop atop his customized computer, tapping away at files Cassie couldn't see as they got up to speed. Did the virus get to the DJ as well? I do not wanna have to run from him. Eventually the boy perked up, gaining a depressingly small sparkle in his brown eyes as he reached for an orange duffle bag beside him. He pulled a Freddy AR mask and Fazwrench from the bag, then turned to the freezer and did something to the door with the tool. One tiny click later, the door was open. Cold air wafted out of the walk-in freezer, drawing the programmer inside.

He gestured to the three to follow him as he wandered through the vast back stock of frozen ingredients, weaving through the maze of shelves with a clear purpose, like he was looking for something. They soon came upon a discarded Glamrock endoskeleton, frozen solid and clutching something in its stiff hand. Her big brother grabbed the fingers, trying and failing to force them open. It's not like he could just hack it, if it got stuck in the freezer in the first place its motors and barely functioning hydraulics were hopelessly stuck in place. Six and Mono gave it a try next, both demonstrating incredibly high strength for their size and age, but only barely got the fingers to budge. Mono was clearly the stronger of the two, perhaps the muscle to Six's brain, but the girl was by no means weak nor the boy an idiot, each of them being far too effective compared to what their thin bodies should've been capable of.

"Am I missing something?" Cassie asked. It wasn't hard to tell he hadn't been telling her everything but it was hardly the time to press him, not that she wanted to. This, however, seemed pretty relevant.

"There used to be a Fazwatch system that would allow guests to buy different watch chips to do special things around the Pizzaplex-"

"Being able to talk to the animatronics, get special party and event activities, a bunch of stuff. But the watches were too expensive for most people so they got changed to extra programs for the technicians." Cassie interrupted.

Gregory turned and blinked at her.

"My dad works here." She deadpanned.

"Oh! Right! Uh... anyway. I found an incident report that there was an endo that got stuck in the freezer with a chip that lets you play sounds from the cameras, I just double checked the file. You already know the animatronics can get security info from the Main Systems, I didn't wanna risk getting Chica's attention without knowing the chip was here. You see how much good that did."

'Is there a way to warm this place up?' Six asked with a piece of paper.

"Y-Yeah. It's f-f-freezing in here." Cassie added, the hacker paused.

"The boiler room. I can redirect the temperature to thaw this thing enough for Mono to break the hand open." He explained.

Mono adjusted his grip on Six's hand and prepared to set off for the boiler room, Cassie wasn't so willing.

"Y-You literally almost fainted a minute ago!" She threw her arms to the side as they walked out of the freezer.

"I'll be-" He began.

"Okay? You'll be okay while we're being chased around by killer robots?" The girl argued.

"Look, I get you're worried-" Gregory started again.

"OH DO YA?!" A pair of growls came from behind Cassandra.

"J-Just let me finish... I've been here a long time, I can handle this. It's not the first time I've worked on the boilers, I'll be okay, I can prove it."

--- 👁 ---

Gregory plopped onto the ground and heaved his computer from his bag, gathering some old maintenance data he'd documented and searching the system for Cassie's Guest Profile. It didn't take long, he could recognize her low-quality profile pic anywhere. One thing, however, caught his attention faster than anything else the night had brought; her father's surname. He'd always known her folks as the Lopez family, yet in the system her dad was very clearly labeled 'Afton'. Hadn't the Puppet called him that? He'd figured it would be a thing, like an animal or folklore monster that he didn't have the time to Google, but a family name? What the hell?

"R-Random... really weird question, isn't your dad's last name Lopez?" He asked.

--- 👁 ---

Cassie's head snapped in his direction. Why did he have to be the one to find out about her dad's awful label?

"I-I CAN EXPLAIN!" She whisper-yelled, trying not to have her head ripped off by the Wendigo's bare talons.

"Whoa whoa whoa, what? Is something wrong?" Gregory quickly backpedaled.

...

...Does he... not know about the Missing Children Incident?

...He lives here!

"Y-You... don't know about the murders?" She asked, getting a wide-eyed stare from her brother. Great way to break the ice.

"I-It's not like that!

...S-Soooo... Way back in the seventies, my great-grandma Clara married the founder of Fazbear Entertainment. The old company, not LLC... She told me a ton of stories about him and their kids before she passed away.

They were a picture-perfect family, but one day their oldest kid played a bad prank on their youngest. He and some friends stuffed his head in the mouth of one of the more experimental animatronics, the types that were really easy to trigger."

Surprisingly, Gregory didn't bat an eye at the implication a kid's head got chomped, something she definitely noticed, but overlooked for the sake of getting this over with quickly.

"They all fell apart and my great-grandma left. She remarried my great-grandpa. The next few Freddy's restaurants had some kids go missing in them, someone used a yellow rabbit costume to bring them to a back room and they were never seen again. The police arrested her ex, but there weren't any bodies or evidence besides him knowing how to use the special type of suit the killer wore, and loads of older employees had been trained to use those things. Everyone knew he did it, but that was all they had, so the sheriff had to let him go.

Eventually, an Unsolved Mysteries episode made the whole thing really popular to the point the case reopened..." A shudder ran up her spine. Her parents tried to hide what happened from her, but she already knew Clara's story at that point, and the internet is a powerful thing.

"T-T-They managed to dig up one of his old establishments, 'Circus Baby's Rentals'. The F-Funtime series, the first ones, not the ones from the Funtime Delivery thing, they were murderers.

Will would rent them out to parties and give ridiculous discounts for buying specific sets of them. He'd set prices nobody could beat and the robots would c-capture a kid from the party."

Cassie paused, distracted again by the relatively indifferent face Gregory gave. She'd already started expecting the lack of care or reaction from the other two, but Mono was the only one to give her a sympathetic hand on her shoulder while the mechanic was more stuck for an idea of what to do, rather than reacting to what he'd learned.

"Funtime Chica and Ballora would make a distraction, Funtime Foxy and Lolbit were designed to l-lure kids to Circus Baby or Funtime Freddy, they were extra 'special'...

T-T-They had soundproof cages in their stomachs with big claws stuffed inside...

He gave those massive discounts for renting one of each for a party, the kids they caught would be brought back to the rental facility under his house."

"He built it under his place?" Gregory cut in.

"Y-Yeah... so he could add t-things to it without people knowing... The cops found some journals hidden in the basements. H-He was experimenting on them. He b-built red rooms in that p-place... t-three of them...

He'd lock the kids inside, throw in some endos with claws and teeth, or just put on another costume and chase them himself. After that, he'd start streaming hidden camera footage on the dark web, make people bet on how long the kids would survive, then burn and sell the bits of their corpses to a bunch of sick fucks to get rid of the bodies and make up for how cheap he made the rental service."

A rough palm held Cassie's. Mono's thumb gently rubbed the back of her hand, getting them both a glare from Six. Gregory raised and lowered a hand a couple times, trying to think of how the hell he's supposed to respond to that, before relenting and watching the taller kid do his thing.

"The worst part was that it was all automated. The Funtimes were working even after he died in the nineties. There was never a solid number on how many children he killed, but last time I checked they'd connected 71 missing person cases to him.

H-H-He isn't even related to us! Fazbear Entertainment found out about my great-grandma through a background check. They didn't like having someone associated with Afton in the middle of rebranding, but my dad's really good at his job, so they put the name on his profile and gave him a starting bonus. Dad and management have some stupid deal to remove the label whenever he gets a certain promotion, to make him prove he's trustworthy... I'm gonna be dead if anyone at school figures out about this."

Gregory incredibly awkwardly patted her back. Am I doing this right? He could never tell. Somehow he got a smile out of her, whether what he was doing was working or she just found his attempt amusing, he couldn't tell.

"W-When they searched his house they found a ton of notebooks. Only a few of them had anything that helped i-identify the victims, and my great-grandma was the closest thing he had to a living relative, so the rest went to her after the investigators sorted through them.

That freak went completely insane... He started calling Circus Baby his daughter and 'extracted' something from the kids to inject into his animatronics, got obsessed with the original four robots and the one that killed his kid, and went on rambling about the 'remnants of his little family' like he was some god that could make anything come alive... My dad still has them in an old, locked gray trunk he inherited... none of us really know what to do with them..."

--- 👁 ---

...

...That's one hell of a person to be compared to by a maybe-not-mechanical animatronic...

The programmer did his best to process... all that shit... How much of this puzzle did he really have? What else did the Marionette know that she wasn't telling them? And all for what? Because she didn't want them to get involved more than they were? I think we're way beyond that point, it'd take a lot to get any worse than this...

--- 👁 ---

Why her?

Why was Cassie the one he was willing to spare?

Whatever case, it'd take much more than potentially saving Cassie and assisting a pair of natural survivors to make up for what's happened.

Besides, the night's not over yet and there's no telling when Chica will be on her way to them, he might still double-cross her. Better keep an eye on him.

I hope you're good at judgment calls, Cassie, because I might not be able to reach you in time.

Chapter Text

Gregory tried to get up, moving slowly enough to keep his coordination, but was stopped by Cassie.

"We'll take care of the boiler thing, you take a break." She insisted.

"You've never even been down there, I'm the only one who knows how to mess with the pipes." The mechanic argued through his headache and dizziness.

"Then you're the best person to tell us where to go and what to do!" Cassie smiled. He's hurt, he's tired, and he's probably sick, he won't keep pushing.

She was already looking around for an elevator by the time he started putting together a sentence, quickly finding a small lift where the maintenance crews would descend to the basement. He predictably didn't have the energy to protest and started clattering away on his computer. The elevator was a pretty dirty one, ripe with smudges of oil and whatever else the workers dragged up from the depths of the Pizzaplex, but at least it wasn't completely repulsive. Being tucked in the corner of a staff-only area, it wasn't as cared for as the normal lifts; the lights were dim and the two floor buttons had been pressed so many times they were unrecognizable.

Cassie quickly ran out of random things to look at as Mono and Six entered. How does one even begin to approach these two? Mono seemed the most promising, he'd been so nice! But trying to talk to him meant being closer to the somehow alive girl who just held a knife against her throat. Six tightly held her friend's right hand, her dark face unreadable and emotionless beneath her yellow hood. The signal child's left hand slowly shifted to his side, an offering to her. Cassie grinned and grabbed on, smothering a chuckle as the skeletal child's immediate and threatening growl was stopped by a gentle nudge from the tall child.

"That service elevator will bring you directly down to all the plumbing, electrical wires, and air conditioning. There'll be other ones that bring you up to certain parts of the network, I can guide you to them from my computer." Gregory called as the doors closed.

With little else to do, the youngest girl turned to her impromptu partners.

"...Sooo... Where are you guys from?" She uncomfortably asked, Six pulled a piece of paper from her coat and locked arms with her friend so she could write in a bright red pencil.

'Nowhere.'

Mono only nodded in agreement.

This is gonna be a long night.

--- 👁 ---

"Charlie." Gregory muttered aloud.

It was a common name, but for some reason it felt important. This random 'animatronic' who could fly, hack the entire building and turn into a monster at will, very specifically referred to this 'Afton' character. She knew things she had no right knowing and hid information she didn't consider vital to their survival, that much was obvious, but maybe there was a way to bridge that knowledge gap. The lack of info on what was going on always terrified him; maybe his anxiety was justified, or maybe he was being paranoid (which he knew he was). There was a little time until the three needed any directions, so he turned to the internet to help ease his nerves.

'William Afton Charlie' was not a very clear or detailed thing to throw into a search bar, but it was all he had to work with at the moment. He was quickly met with a 'no results' page, but that was impossible! 72 is a pretty out-of-nowhere number for Cassie to bring up and she said she'd checked the number of victims, he had to be a real person and there should've been press about him everywhere. Maybe she got his first name wrong? What if he was a 'Dave' or 'Steve' or something? But why wouldn't Google recognize his last name? Gregory paused, quickly restarting his makeshift computer in safe mode. How much can this virus really control? He slowly quarantined different parts of his computer connected to the Main Systems and reactivated the vital programs he needed to direct his sister and friends(?) through the basement. He reopened Google and searched again.

'William Afton - The Man Behind The Slaughter - Channel One News'

'The Killer In Purple - A Mad Scientist's Obsession With The Paranormal - CNN'

'H. H. Holmes meets Luis Garavito - The Afton Curse - PBS News'

'Buried In Metal - Proven Body Count Rises to 150, Estimated Count Soars - ABC News'

'The Golden Hare - World's New Deadliest Serial Killer - True Crime Network'

'Spring Bonnie's Star Performance - Currently 170 Confirmed Broken Families - True Crime Daily'

'The Mysterious Disappearance Of Michael Afton - What Happened To William's Son?, "Afton Affected" Charity Stream Archive - GTLive (ft. FuhNaff) - $502,000 Raised'

'Let's Theorize Episode 87 (ft. ID's Fantasy and RyeToast)- Legacy Of The Real-Life FNAF Killer, "Afton Affected" Charity Stream Archive - DMuted - $30,300 Raised'

'Dreams Of A Lunatic Scientist - Reading The Newly Publicized Notes Of William Afton, "Afton Affected" Charity Stream Archive - Pastra (ft. LyraHorrorz) - $350,860 Raised'

'Left In Ruin By The Man In The Rabbit Suit - Interviewing Families Touched By William Afton, "Afton Affected" Charity Stream Archive - NotRealName NotAtAll - $23,550 Raised'

'We Need To Talk - Addressing The Afton Curse, "Afton Affected" Charity Stream Archive - jacksepticeye (ft. Pastra, DMuted, ID's Fantasy, 8-BitRyan, Markiplier, MatPat, Dawko, and others) - $3.8 Million Raised'

Gregory started running all the anti-virus and security protocols he'd ever designed in the background as he searched for a list of victims.

--- 👁 ---

The elevator doors mercifully opened. While Mono had already become something of a calming presence, the air was so thick Six could probably cut it with her claws...and that knife she still had that Cassie wasn't going to get herself killed trying to dispose of. A pitch-black hallway lay before them, the other two were already headed inside while Cassandra struggled to take a step forward. Mono's hand left hers, reaching into his jacket for an oddly pristine flashlight covered in girly stickers and handing it to her. Bright light revealed countless steel pipes and massive rubber cords; some were labeled with pressure warnings, some had various voltage signs surrounding them, others had high-temperature warnings.

She shifted the light to the sides, the walls were covered in tubes and valves and breakers. People and Staff Bots control the entire Pizzaplex from here! They walked down the many turns and intersections, the most fanatic survivor among them keeping an extremely detailed mental map of their path. Cassie couldn't help but flinch at every vent opening and corner, that thing could be anywhere. Thankfully, the tall kid held hers and Six's hands again as they navigated the maze of tunnels, stopping frequently to read the signs above them. She quickly noticed how long they both took just to read simple signs like 'Roxanne Wolf', 'Freddy Fazbear', and 'Montgomery Gator'. The 'Chica Chicken' sign was when she finally stepped in.

"It's this one! I can lead the way from here." She offered.

Six wasn't having it, whether wishing to keep track of where they were going or just not trusting the newcomer. Somehow the pair could see straight through the dark like the lights were on. When the little wolf fan angled the light just right, she could swear she saw blue and red reflections under their mask and hood like cats in the night. Cassie's heart would freeze in her chest every single time a loud hiss of steam would escape the surrounding pipes, and she was almost convinced she saw familiar black tendrils peeking around the blurry edges of her vision. It felt like an eternity, maneuvering through the tunnels and waiting for Six to read the signs for all the bird's attractions.

'Mazercise' had the least connections, just a medium pipe and gigantic wire connecting it to the grid. Then came 'Glamrock Gym' with large piping for the showers and a mess of wires connecting to the small handful of special equipment present. Finally, the corridor leading to the bakery section came into view, filled with pipes and wiring. All the shadows of every rod looked like they might be hiding an oily tendril or a tube covered in rusty casings and sharp, corroded copper wires. It'd be so easy for it to lunge out of a vent at them. She did what she could to control her breathing as they walked through the abyssal, narrow walkway. At last, another large elevator came into view; a tall metal shaft with three square holes outlined in caution stripes. A small breaker was inside as well, attached to the walls.

"Look around that room, there should be a Helpi wrench somewhere. It looks like a bent pipe with a box built-in and a strap." Gregory's voice nearly gave her a heart attack as he spoke through the watch.

Her shoes noisily thudded around the concrete as she looked around. Toolboxes and ventilation tubes lined the ground and wall-mounted shelves, but Mono was the one to discover a very specific tool. It was a long gray pipe with a bent end. The box in the center had a blue lightning bolt painted over a tiny door covering a high-capacity battery and spring-loaded brace. Two dull copper nodes peeked out of the top, it'd be easy to shock someone with it once it was charged. In the direction the pipe bent toward was a short rod poking out of the box, the other side had a rubbery shield. On the bottom of the pipe was a cap he twisted off to find a flathead screwdriver and a small cylinder filled with some nails and screws.

A dark gray strip of fabric connected to the top and bottom of the item. It was nearly his size, almost stretching from his toes to his shoulders when it touched the ground, and very heavy, yet the signal child hefted it around with little issue. He removed the Faz-A-Pult from his arm and handed it to Six along with a box of projectiles, swinging the pipe over his shoulder like a gun and walking into the lift. They all crammed into the space and Cassie pressed a flashing yellow button. Slowly the lift started descending, bringing them up to a small space with several switches.

"There's gonna be a few steps to redirecting the heat. First, you'll have to do some regular maintenance on the inside of some cramped rooms, there'll be different tasks for each section, and then you'll need to tamper with a bunch of pipes to overheat the boiler that'll be at the lowest section. Its automatic emergency release will let us thaw the endoskeleton. It should be a mostly direct shot to the heaters, just let me know when the elevator stops.

The first one's just gonna be flipping some switches to reset the AC units. I'll guide you through the entire process, but whatever you do, don't-"

His voice glitched out, the dim lights flickered off, and one of the doors opened.

--- 👁 ---

"-take your eyes off the vents, get out if you hear anything inside. Mono's powers might attract unwanted attention, keep your heads down and stay quiet..."

...

"Guys?"

...

"FFFFFFFFFUCK!"

--- 👁 ---

Gentle blue static slowly filled the room with a calm light. It was low, barely illuminating anything, and accompanied by a distracting buzz, but it was light and Cassie seemed happy with that.

At least she would, if he could see her face. The girl started glancing all over the elevator, frantically looking between every opening except the one that actually opened. While Cassie started looking up and down between the grate they stood on and the large fan above them. Nestled deep into the opening was a yellow box mounted to the side of a duct and an odd contraption on the bottom. It had a hole for him to insert the pipe and a pair of rings inside lined up with the copper nodes coming from the battery box, but nothing happened when he tried to activate it. Six patted his side and gestured to the breaker.

It had the same contraption with a starter cord like a chainsaw. The mechanism filled three yellow lights along the side of the pipe's box and he tried the strange lock again. With a humming shock, the system rebooted so he could reach a switch inside with a blinking red light. Mono hesitated to reach inside, putting my arm in that thing is asking for it to get torn off. Instead, he used the tip of his new weapon to push the lever upward, activating a green light. Cassie haphazardly flashed her light over the open vent; revealing a molten, smudged white, six-piece canine head with only silver dots for eyes, purple cheeks and lips, and tan accents around the face. The small girl shrieked and dropped the light, but there was still enough for the duo's night vision to expose the intruder.

He turned the end of the pipe in his hand, pointing the curved end at the creature so he could jam the copper nodes into it. The monster hissed and retreated into the black as it convulsed with shocks and Six ripped streaks of cold, black air from its greasy black wires.

Cassie was still catching her breath and shakily snatching up his flashlight when another vent opened. She had the beam pointed straight into the vent the creature nearly climbed out of, pinning down the entrance as Six kept an eye on the new opening for Mono. A red light gave away a sliding switch on the top of the vent that opened another yellow box, he flicked both with the end of the Helpi wrench. Two pipes around them started blowing warm steam into the elevator how did I already break something?!, but none of them could reach the handles. It didn't take him long to try turning the valves with the opening in the bent end of the pipe, but it didn't fit.

Six started draining something in the dark It's gonna break through and eat us!, getting Cassie to whip around and turn the light on and off. The beast shuddered and fell through the column as Mono pulled out the rod coming from the side of the battery Six would calm down and improvise. It had two openings; one looked like the end of a tire iron, the other a smaller-sized wrench. At a click, the tire-iron end snapped into the curved tip of the pipe and the small wrench slotted perfectly into the valve. He turned the flow of hot air to a panel above them, a panel flicked open to protect a yellow button from a big hiss of humid wind. The button's clear cover shut after he pressed it and they lowered again.

A third door led to a long, cold hall with a dead end lined by noisy machines. He activated a pipe-insert next to him, sending power to the devices. They cut off and turned back on, but one of them had a flashing light above it. Mono's heart raced as he reluctantly stepped into the room, Six in tow. He found a square with four colored buttons on the inactive cooler, the same colors as the light above it. Green, red, blue, yellow. I'm gonna screw this up! He typed in the matching lights, sending clicks through the machine as Cassie fended off whatever had followed them. A new yellow panel opened and he flicked the switch.

They stepped back into the elevator and pressed a flashing yellow button to keep going down. All three doors shut, allowing them a moment to catch their breaths as they wondered what the creature was and when it might come back to them. I'm gonna get us all killed! Cassie held the light under her chin, shivering where she stood. Six brushed her thumb over the back of his hand as he hesitantly pat the new kid's shoulder, she practically jumped out of her skin I didn't even do anything and I already messed everything up. No, Six says things are just as likely to go right as they are to go wrong, it'll be okay. He narrowly prevented his friend from hissing at their equally frightened companion.

"S-Sorry..." Cassie muttered.

Before either of them could respond, one more door opened.

--- 👁 ---

'Gregory, superstar, I have collected the Golden Me plush from Bonnie Bowl, I am currently searching for the next toy in the Basement. I will return for you three once I have collected it. Stay safe, and be kind!'

BEING NICE IS THE LEAST OF OUR WORRIES DAD-BOT!

There must be a jammer near the three currently trapped in the maintenance shaft. Mono hadn't seemed to react to it, Cassie didn't mention anything going on with him before they cut out, so it didn't sound like the device he made for not-Burrows. He tried and failed to suppress the tiny bit of pride swelling in his chest; whatever was blocking him from accessing their watches couldn't hope to compare to his creation. Unfortunately, it still prevented him from seeing their side of the problem, all he could do was run some more code in the background (which is really eating up RAM) testing for loopholes and trying to reconnect while he keeps researching this 'Afton' character Glitchtrap doesn't want him to know about...

Also, he didn't exactly feel like envisioning his only friend/sister being torn apart by a tentacle monster. Of course, Charlie was a common name, so there was a lot of them on William's kill list, and that was just what had been confirmed by police all over the country. In a turn of good luck, all those YouTubers and the 'Afton Affected' charity had assembled a system with all their names, causes of death, tidbits of information, and various sort and search functions to commemorate the missing children.

Control-F and the alphabetical filter didn't help much, he'd typed various ways of inputting the same name; 'Charlie', 'Charlotte', 'Charley', and whatever other nonsensical spellings he could come up with. There was nothing left he could do to get through to the others, so he kept bashing his head against this problem until Cassie would magically appear completely okay beside him. Then he tried it; the button to sort every single victim in the order they were killed.

If I'm gonna throw myself at this until my head falls off, I might as well do it right. And I don't even know what I'm looking for! Why does the Puppet's Charlie feel so important? All he knew was he was looking for a Charlie with a deeper connection to William than any other kid.

With a single click, the programmer prepared to run down hundreds of names one by one, yet found the answer was already right in front of him.

Charlotte "Charlie" Emily - 3 - Daughter of Fazbear Entertainment co-founder Henry Emily.

Charlotte was family to William in all but blood, known to call him 'Uncle Will' at every opportunity. One terrible night in 1983, around 8:15 PM, two months after Evan Afton's death (see: The Bite Of '83) she was locked outside the first 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizza' by some bullies who used prop gift boxes to stop the Security Puppet. William, in a drunken rage, lured her to the back alley, beat her with a wrench from his car, then finished the hit by strangling her with his bare hands. The disappearance of the establishment's Security Puppet animatronic led to a short investigation by the guard, leading to her being found outside. The Security Puppet had short-circuited in the rain after breaking out of its box and trying to rescue Charlotte, the animatronic broke down on top of her corpse.

Her death was the first of hundreds, written off as a random act of violence because the facility didn't have an outdoor camera and William's car's model and license plate were obscured by the dark and the rain.

--- 👁 ---

A small room lay before them something's gonna jump out at me! with a few breakers and another lock-like mechanism for the last of three charges in his new tool. He turned the electrical lock and started recharging the pipe as a red light flickered on over one of the boxes. Small white lights turned on over the breakers a shadow's going to go over it the second I stick my hand in there, and he traced some scattered wires that led to four yellow buttons. He pressed the light that correlated to the red breaker, turning it green and activating another red light. Cassie's lent flashlight bounced between the fan above and the grate below as he rebooted the remaining breaker boxes.

The door slowly closed and another opened. Six sniffed the stale air inside as he looked around a deep hallway no way in hecc I'm going inside. With his abilities, he pulled four dangling yellow buttons close enough for him to press with the Helpi wrench and activated the reboot with the electrical lock. His friend flicked on her dim lighter as he got Cassie to turn off his flashlight, letting his incredible eyes adjust to see the breakers hidden in the room.

Again, he traced the wires to the buttons and reset the lit breakers. The door closed with no issue and another opened. It was an even bigger room with damaged lights it'll appear between the flashes! and four breakers. Mono immediately pulled whatever buttons he could see between the painfully bright lights and started the reset cycle. It took longer to figure out what buttons connected to what breakers needed fixing, the bright lights burning his eyes right when he almost figured out what wires led where, but he managed to figure it out while Six recharged his tool for him.

Just as the door was closing, a pair of sharp claws gripped the edge of the metal sheet and forced it open with the strength of the Thin Man. This time the face that met and shrieked at them was that of a clown mask; four molten white plates flared as it roared, a dull red nose and burnt green party hat flailed, and a purple eye sat within a yellowed human skull that shouted in anguish. The little wolf's scream rang in his ears as he slammed the pipe into its long neck and Six pulled dark matter from its oily body. It lurched back and the door slammed shut. All four doors opened as they descended, revealing massive gears and pipes as they lowered deeper.

They stopped at an area where some cogs had clearly and purposefully been removed, Six quickly found a bright yellow one coated in black fluid it'll grab her!. She drained the small amount of Agony and replaced the gear, turning the machine back on. Cassie began freaking out as the creature appeared in one of the rooms. With no other ideas, Mono grabbed a random gear and stuck it in one of the open slots. The motors reactivated, but the monster was getting nearer.

Mono swung back the heavy tool and brought the hammer side down on the upside-down being's nose, clipping the top of the doorway as it slammed into the four white panels. Six removed the small gear from the other machine and stuffed it into another slot. A large grate unfurled in its path it'll break it down! as a drawer slid under, giving them a third gear. His friend drew power from the abomination until it fled as he plugged all the gears into the final network. A beep echoed throughout the lift and they started falling further.

Countless pipes started passing them, some of the intersections had glowing green or red circles over them. This time they were forced to exit the elevator shaft and investigate the huge room. Brown and red pipes coiled around them like a brass mech. Cassie shook so much she could barely hold her borrowed flashlight, not helped by her leg brushing against one of the tubes. 'OW! OW! HOT!' She jumped as Mono laid eyes on a colossal canister in the dark. He couldn't afford to waste the immense amount of time he needed just to read the short sign on it, but that had to be the bakery boiler I'm gonna get it wrong and we'll die down here for nothing!.

He wandered over to one of the twisting pipes. It was supported by a thin stand holding it by the other side of the red circle on its face. After seeing the underside of the plate he removed the wrench and tire iron segment from the end of the tool and returned it to its place on the battery box. The open, curved tip of his weapon fit snugly into a bolt under the red light and allowed him to twist around the t-shaped intersection with a deafening squeak. The light turned green and a puff of flame burst out of the open end, an automatic system sealed the flare and heat ran through the tube toward the boiler. One turn at a time, he changed the direction of the pipes to get closer to the boiler, his breathing picking up and heart skipping each time the loud metal screeched and echoed through the huge room it's getting closer! There's no way it doesn't hear this!. All the while the quiet clicks of a rusty springlock suit carefully and quietly followed them.

Chapter Text

Freddy just had to look again.

Mono still had that other data package stored in the Parts and Service area; it also wasn't locked out by Safe Mode, and searching for the next Golden Plush was taking longer than expected. The bear looked again through his tallest kid's eyes, staring through the dark rings of a mask's eyes. At least he'd assumed it was a mask this whole time, for a short but lovely minute as he 'spawned in' he saw that the thing on his head was a paper bag with holes poked through it. The signal child had taken it off for only a few seconds, he'd been looking up at a dark gray sky with distant thunder. A light sprinkle of water fell from swirling clouds, he could feel the minuscule droplets wash over Mono's face as he closed his eyes, leaving Freddy in darkness as he took a deep breath of fresh air. His brown trench coat was unusually black with spots of dirt, had he washed it after this event?

The inviting smell of cotton candy filled the nostrils the bear didn't have and the sound of circus music enveloped the tall boy. Through his bare feet came the rumble of distant, though massive, footsteps. Mono's eyes reopened as a pair of pale, blue-gray-tinted hands pulled the paper bag back over his head. Before him was a large carnival, a strange mix of brightly lit long strings of yellow lights and the dark, gloomy gray of winding cobblestone streets. Freddy couldn't think of a place that still uses cobblestone other than historical sights around England and Ireland.

Sure, Six had a barely noticeable sliver of an accent in her Os, but that was all either of them had. It was more likely she just happened to pick up on a random European's speech when she was still learning to talk, but he couldn't imagine why Mono would be there or how they might get across the sea. Stowing away on a boat might explain why they do not have immigration papers, but they should have had birth certificates and sneaking aboard a ship is not as easy as it would have been a decade ago.

The signal child turned around, standing next to a pair of other children on a small hill with tall grass next to a cobble road. Both were barefoot and wielding improvised weapons, the first appeared to be a girl in a green onesie or imitation of a bomb suit. Her clothing's joints had visible seams and a line of stitches running from between her legs to the neck where it became a collar so tall it covered her mouth and nose. Something akin to old-timey pilot gear covered the rest of her face, a gray helm with large, round brass goggles.

Two holes, whether they were built-in or carved out, Freddy couldn't tell, allowed two messy ginger pigtails to poke out of the equipment. Like a sash, a large belt wrapped around her thin torso, securing a wrench to her back. The tool had clearly been broken at some point, the head was too disproportionate to the handle for something not to have happened, but it was still easily her size and weight. Despite this, she didn't look like she had any trouble carrying the item, bearing a similarly unusual strength as his own child. A long strip of fabric had been fashioned into a tan grip around the base of the snapped tool and the wrench's head was wider than her body.

The other kid was a young boy a little shorter than Mono with dark, more lively skin. His hands were lighter than the rest of his tan and sunburnt flesh, coated in a thin layer of dirt and what looked like sawdust. His tattered short-sleeved shirt and very short shorts were made from one piece of torn light brown fabric, although he still wore a belt made of rope tied into a basic knot like a shoelace. What looked like a whiteish-gray bedsheet was loosely tied around his neck like a cape. Around his left forearm was a dirty bandage, but it seemed to be for protecting his arm rather than covering a wound based on the smooth wooden bow in his hand, it even looked like it'd been sanded and cleaned recently.

A messy bird's nest of brown/black dreadlocks sat on his head, some of the strands drooped over a smudged white plague doctor mask that perfectly concealed his eyes. All three of the starving children ran down the hill they stood on and into the carnival. They ducked behind stone buildings and between red and white striped tents. It looked like they were coming in after a storm, several adults were rolling up cloth covers in the small amount of remaining rain. A line of massive people ignored them as they snuck through undetected, every one of them incredibly tall and overweight. They all passed by a pair of sheets the three kids ducked into. Freddy didn't get to see what the tent's sign said before Mono was faced with lines of dust and cobweb-covered chairs arranged in a ring around an open stage.

Not one of the three bat an eye at the few child corpses propped up on some of the chairs, held in place by thick strings tying their remains to equipment like empty fire-breathing bottles and juggling pins.

Click, click, click.

The tapping of wood on wood resounded through the arena, announcing the arrival of another especially tall figure. A clown with a magenta suit walked on stilts through the rows of seats. A cartoonishly long set of legs walked in with dark purple pants and a pair of brown sticks poked through the foot holes. The man wore a light baggy purple shirt with pink stars around the torso and pick stripes along the long sleeves. A frilly, dark purple neck brace coiled around his neck, and a white pom-pom poked from the center of his chest. Bright white hands held a dull red balloon as he took the stage. His droopy white face with purple hair and a swollen red nose would release discomforting laughs as he looked around, the yellow teeth behind his wide frown and practically melting lower lip snapped open and shut.

The kids hid behind the empty chairs and circus platforms as the clown wandered through the rows, waving and making terrible faces to entertain a crowd that wasn't there. The girl either tripped or was too slow to reach a hiding spot, getting seen by the disturbed clown. All three were immediately chased into a back room of the tent with the strange man close behind, hopefully just over-excited to finally have a real audience to perform for. Mono dashed into a smaller tent filled with mirrors, getting an odd shudder from the other boy and girl as they were surrounded by reflections. The small archer quickly began standing in just the right spots to trick the clown into running straight into a mirror, shattering it and reeling as shards scattered. All three of them, still very barefoot, ran right over the sharp pieces to escape.

In frustration the man left, reluctantly being followed by the kids as they looked for a way out, all four winding up in a dressing room. Freddy watched through Mono's eyes as the man held his face, a painted mask, in his hand. Before he could get a good look at the person under the gross rubber the clown returned it to his head, practicing the ridiculous and vile faces he'd made for the empty crowd. As they left the room, one of the other kids tripped on a costume covered in brass bells. The stool the man sat on clattered on the ground as he followed them to the next area, a large storage room. Taking advantage of their head start they swiftly climbed up some shelves while the man tripped and stumbled after them, finding some fire-breathing tools.

Mono, without a moment's hesitation, grabbed one of the glass bottles of flammable fluid and threw it off, leaving bits of glass in the clown's scalp and drenching him in lighter fluid. Also without missing a beat, he snatched up a stray lighter. Strangely, it stayed on after he flicked the wheel, lacking the very necessary failsafe of a button that needed to be held down for it to continue working, like it was a very old model. But all modern lighters had that function, it was just bad design for them not to. Lighters that required their flames to be suffocated by a lid were antiques by now, why would a circus have one? Without a second thought, the signal child tossed the item onto the towering performer. His pursuer's clothing and fake hair ignited. Hot air and orange waves reached the top of the tent nearly as fast as the man's agonizing screams.

In a terrible turn of fate, the clown slammed into the unsteady shelving unit. The girl immediately dove to the rotting wooden plank they stood on, rolling slightly as the furniture shook. Mono grabbed onto the side of the decayed shelf. A single, tiny hand clung to the ledge for dear life as fire swirled below. The archer wasn't so lucky, having flopped onto a wet and worn-out section with a painful thud, slid over some large splinters, and barely grabbed the bottom of the stand before the wood fell away. Blurry blue static grew in the edges of Mono's vision as he desperately flung a distorting hand in his companion's direction.

The falling child froze in mid-air, then flew back up into his friend's arms as Mono returned his palm to the moldy wood. He swung a leg up to the plank and hauled himself up as the shelving unit started to tilt. All three ran to the other side as the shelves fell into the flames, jumping to and riding another shelf as the stands fell like dominoes. They ran out of the tent coughing, the clown ran between other nearby tents as he tried to flee the searing inferno. Nobody around him attempted to help, every other giant hobbled deeper into the maze of attractions like he wasn't even there, not caring a smidge for him or the tents he burned down on the edge of the carnival. Mono pulled off his paper bag to take a deep breath while the girl pulled her wrench from her leather 'sash' and pulled the archer's hand, dragging him behind her.

Mono tumbled out of the way as she swung the broken tool at him, crawling further back as she pulled the weapon back for another strike. Her partner grabbed her arm as she started tugging the huge wrench through the mud and cobblestone, slowly shambling closer to his child while he clambered to regain his shaky footing. Even though the silent archer's eyes were obscured by his mask Freddy could clearly see the pleading stare bearing into the back of the girl's head, she seemed well aware of it as well. Then came that word; a random, not-at-all special word that wouldn't have bothered him at all before his talk with Six... it.

"It's dangerous..." The little girl quietly warned in a raspy and trembling voice.

It...

After all that, and who knows how much happened before this...

He is just an 'it'...

Mono stumbled back as if he'd been struck. He might as well have been punched, it might've stung less. All it took was a glimpse at his abilities, to show them he was a 'Little Nightmare' despite the risk he took to save another, to get them to turn on him like he was a monster out of legend. In all fairness they genuinely thought he was; the girl had a subtle shake running up her spine, sweat mixed with the rain and dripped down her palm, her hand grasped her wrench much too tightly, and her chest heaved with heavy, panicked breaths.

The archer was in much the same state, clutching his bow to his side throughout his terrified and half-hearted intervention. He uncertainly grabbed a pointy stick off the ground and loaded it into the drawstring, then pointed it at Mono without pulling the thread back with his shaky hands. His child placed his bag back over his face, put his hands up, and slowly backed away. Freddy couldn't stop the sinking feeling that the shivers wracking Mono's body weren't from the cold.

--- 👁 ---

In a glitching haze, the illusion ended, leaving the bear back in the basement.

--- 👁 ---

Another set of pipes slotted into place with a painfully loud squeak that shivered the three children to their cores, almost as harsh as the ever-present approach of the creature hiding in the mess of pipes. Not even Six could quite discern between the oily monstrosity and dirty tubes. Mono could hear the boiler bubbling in his ear as he finished cracking another valve, there were still a couple more connections to make. His eyes were then drawn to a set of three other switches, each labeled with a rotation symbol. He activated one of them with the pipe, finding it turned a massive wheel above them with multiple pipes connected to it, meaning there were now even more connections to make with the boiler. Sorting through every possible orientation would take time they didn't have, he could already see the gears turning in Six's head. We need another way to push that thing back.

His companion took her eyes off the room for a split second, motioning for Mono to turn the pipes again. As the lines separated and reconnected jets of flames or hot air burst from sections of the tubes. Hadn't Gregory mentioned something about emergency releases? Cassie screamed behind them, a clawed hand slowly reaching through the mess of plumbing. The new girl stumbled away while Mono ran full sprint closer, despite a 'Hey!' of protest from Six. This'll get me killed! He slammed the Helpi wrench in place and pulled. A T-shaped segment shifted around, the release on the third end opening as it pointed at a molten white fox face. A stream of heat blew over its face. The creature reeled and sank into the wall of tubes.

Mono continued running back and forth between pipes, solving the correct routes to the boiler through a mix of problem-solving and brute force. Cassie swung her borrowed light back and forth, barely spotting the monster in time for him to get to a nearby pipe. Sometimes its arm would get caught in the blast as it reached for him, others he was able to create an angle where fire would spread over its chest, occasionally he had enough time to shoot the empty air ahead of it, deterring the attacker before it got the chance to lunge for them. Another two connections were finished by the time their friend spotted the creature high above them. The new girl let out a choked and terrified yelp like a dog as she dove out of the way.

It crashed to the ground on a dozen feet. Its left leg was entwined with countless wooden dolls and its foot was a mess of stiff wires and rusty tubes, the other broke into many cords around the knee and attached to the back an endoskeleton unlike anything they'd seen that night. Four arms sprouted from its front and back bodies, all tipped with claws in the form of metal cones attached to its fingertips or steel supports poking out from under the coiling, greasy black wires.

With two charges left on his tool, he smashed the hammer side onto a red button on its torso, luring the abomination into bending down to bite him so he could press the copper nodes into its hungrily gargling throat. Shocks rippled through the intruder as massive streaks of dark air were violently ripped from its huge body. An abyssal whirlwind started swirling around the clown-faced entity and, with immense effort, threw it back into the wall of pipes. He gratefully took the opportunity to check on their newest partner.

--- 👁 ---

Elizabeth Afton - 9 - Daughter of William Afton.

Elizabeth was William's middle child and the girl he modeled Circus Baby after. According to unreleased journals, Circus Baby was originally meant to be a solo-performing animatronic built primarily for his daughter, but was converted into the murderous leader of the first Funtime series. Like her siblings, she was constantly left to the care of her mother, Clara Afton (before they divorced), as a result of her father's packed schedule as founder of Afton Robotics and the upcoming Circus Baby's Pizza World, but she never stopped trying to make her dad proud of/pay attention to her. Before the establishment of William's new, self-made hunting ground, she would constantly beg her dad to let her play with Circus Baby. Of course, he never let her nor said why.

On the restaurant's opening day, she managed to get too close to Circus Baby and the animatronic did what she was programmed to; remotely command her team (mainly Ballora, who was loosely modeled after William's ex-wife) to create a distraction, isolate a target, and capture her. As this was the Funtimes' first field test, Elizabeth suffocated in the stomach hatch, which was highly experimental and wasn't supposed to kill the victim. William immediately shut down the attraction under the cover of a gas leak, replaced Circus Baby's blue eyes with green ones (though for unknown reasons he didn't leave a maintenance record of this change), and instead created the infamous Circus Baby's Rentals.

Gregory's head spun. Cassie had mentioned he called the machine his daughter, but it had to be the ramblings of a grieving father who'd lost his mind. However, the Puppet went by Charlie, who died in very close proximity to the original robot, and Elizabeth was killed inside the doll William became obsessed with. Then there was still the matter of the red rooms; they were an afterthought. They were only created out of necessity for him to chase down his victims, even though he could've just let the Funtimes kill them for him.

What's the difference? Why go through so much trouble and create so much evidence right inside a bunker with employees going in and out constantly?

The animatronics...

He killed them with less-advanced animatronics...

The murder bots didn't need to be approachable or special, only the Funtimes did, the machines hidden in the facility only needed to fulfill their one purpose...

But what was that purpose? It couldn't have been killing, he and the Funtimes could've done that without the extra expenses of an entire endo...

What else does Cassie know about them?

Cassie...

Please be okay... You're the last person who deserves this...

I deserve all of this

--- 👁 ---

Only a couple of connections left.

Mono dashed between and across the hall of tubes and valves for anything he could still be missing. Cassie let out a shriek as the beast lurched out of a metal barrier, compressing its wire-mesh body to squeeze through the tubes faster than Mono could react. He ran as fast as he could, a fraction of his friend's speed, to get between the aberration and the cub. Six tried to grab his coat and pull him back but her hand was swept away as he tugged his weapon off of his shoulder, smashing the hammer onto its four-panel face and spinning with the momentum. Before the Nightmare or Daemon even registered what happened he leaned into the twirl and jammed the copper prods into its side, pinning it in place before it could fully reassemble its body outside the web of searing hot rods it pounced through.

Ennard swiftly righted itself, standing on its relatively normal left leg and slithering upward with the dismantled parts of its right leg and rear body. An echo of many small clicks filled the room like white noise as its back inflated. A ruined endoskeleton on its back, merged with a broken stand holding blue and red buttons, would rise and fall as its wires bulged and deformed like it was puking something up. Part of a yellow-white joint revealed itself within the writhing tendrils it called legs, slowly joined by a dirty cream-colored torso. many sharp gears and corroded crossbeams gradually tucked themselves into the tightest corners of the stolen torso.

He wound up for another hit, only to find one of the white, plastic-tipped hands reformed to catch the blunt end of his pipe. A third piece of the mechanized costume was wrapped in the cords of the new limb, followed by a fourth as the Kraken's next arm started taking shape. The Kraken's arm compressed and gave up ground as the unnatural force of Mono's raw, disproportionate strength impacted its metallic and Agony-drenched palm. Though both were mighty in their own rights, the swirling mass of distilled human Agony had a clear advantage in pure size. Both of Mono's thin arms pressed the tool against his target while the clown barely held him back with only one limb. How do I get out of this?! He stood his ground and stepped closer, his opponent's elbow bent uncomfortably with the increased pressure but refused to give in.

Its two upper arms dug their claws deep into the concrete floor. They both snarled and hissed through their masks, a pair of arctic blue eyes narrowing beneath the wolf's plastic face while a screaming human skull snapped at the signal child as the four warped faceplates flared like a metal frill. The fourth arm finished rebuilding itself and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him so the giant magenta eye could stare straight at him, then started bringing him into the cavity of its stomach. Mono kicked against the sides of the open grave, forcing himself out and getting the monster to place another oily hand on his back. Even then he still managed a moment to kick its mocking face, it dropped him and he was quickly and awkwardly dragged away by Cassie as she flashed the light in its many scattered eyes. Her efforts were only enough to slow it down before the white talons reached again, getting blocked by a cold fog.

--- 👁 ---

Six wrapped herself in freezing cold mist and evaporated, dashing to Mono's side... Cassie's there too, I guess... She'd promised never to let him go again, and she would hold herself to that. He made surviving worth something more, something worthwhile, she couldn't go back to the times before him, so she shoved Mono out of the Kraken's path and gladly took his place in its vice grip. Just like her friend, she pressed her bare feet against the sides of its gut and pushed herself away. It was strong, but its greatest strength was also its biggest weakness, it was made of Agony. Streams of frigid air viciously tore free of its body as she stuck a hand into the stomach.

Obviously, stuffing an appendage into something's belly was a terrible idea, so she dispersed her hand into a sub-zero black cloud with specs of umbral embers floating around it. Just as she expected, she nearly lost a hand to the beast, though not in the way she expected. Instead of the crashing waves of stomach acid she'd anticipated from experience carving adults for herself and Mono, a series of sharp, sawblade-like gears and support beams flooded the animal's intestines. One of the melted plastic dolls on its leg began to twitch, its blue eyes flashing and buzzing with too much electricity to handle.

"It's gonna shock you!" Cassie shouted.

--- 👁 ---

A thick black haze surrounded her, ripping Six from the creature's arms just as it tried to plunge a charged claw into her spine, sending the shock directly into its torso instead. Mono looked at his flashlight in Cassandra's hands, the cone of light could cover more area than the narrow beams his hands made. He waited only a second for his friend to get clear of his target while his irises expanded across his eyes and pupils unfurled into tendrils.

His hand flung at the large eye on its chest, the orange light flickering purple and humming with energy. The bulb exploded in blue static and sent the beast stumbling back into the mess of pipes. Tears of shadows poured from the shattered sensor and flowed into Six's freezing tornado as she reformed. Mono took back the light from Cassie's hand and funneled power through it. Nothing happened it's all going wrong!. The Thin Man couldn't affect items in this way, but he had his own Signal! Maybe he could still have a limited influence on it? There wasn't anything in the item to hold his transmission, but maybe he could manipulate it enough to broadcast a violent enough message?

The rays of light slowly turned a pale blue as he focused his Signal, directing the bulb at the many eyes covering the intruder.

Chapter Text

Mono's body and flashlight were enveloped in blue static and dark CRTV lines. He angled the cone of light to shed over a few of the creature's eyes at once this isn't gonna work!, the many spots of oranges and greens and yellows glitching and looking in all directions. Every single eye swirled in their sockets as they were overloaded and burst apart. One of its top arms, a doll in its thigh, and part of the mass of tubes behind it spasmed and shook as the sensors were destroyed, sending blood splatter of black liquid all over the ground and pipes like broken fountains. Ennard slammed a white hand to the stone floor, struggling to maintain its balance with one of its most relied-upon limbs disabled.

The vomiting geysers of chilled slime arced in mid-air and seeped directly into Six's body as she pounced. Her small but sharp and strong claws dug into the sides of the mask and pulled. Four worn metal rods held onto the four white plates as she hungrily and angrily tore ripened, decades-old Agony from the writhing and walking corpse. The sludge around its broken limbs started to fade away, then swelled and expanded like a landslide of goo was refilling them. Some of the long cords in the shapeless mass behind it shrank and shriveled up as his friend drained it. Mono couldn't tell what exactly it was transferring its concentrated suffering from, the tentacles spiraled and clenched together to the point not a fraction of its second body was at all recognizable, having folded and stretched itself apart to fit through the mess of grimy metal plumbing.

He witnessed Six coming face-to-face with the aged skull of one of the unusually small adults they'd grown accustomed to, the four faceplates splitting apart at the jaw and down the length of the face. A piercing roar burst from the peeled-back face and blasted right into her scarred and dirty face. Mono shone his light around the monster's body, finding the right position to cast the blue glow over its main purple eye and a blue sensor on its far arm. Their enemy lurched and swayed as the orbs burst with spiderwebs of cracks, blindly fumbling around for a victim as the fractures slowly faded. A white hand scratched at Six's midsection, leaving three lines of deep cuts that swiftly began to fade into dark storm clouds.

Both of the monsters snarled with rage and backpedaled in pain but the Kraken recovered faster. It's going to kill her! I won't let it. Mono ran to his companion's side as the monster's arms unfurled into a mass of tendrils, revealing a second white fox face and more human bones buried within the slimy tubes. The jade-green ends of the copper wiring wrapped around each other into tough points. In a quick blink of static like changing a channel he ripped himself and Six through space, barely dodging a flurry of spear-like strikes. Shards of concrete flew across the room as Six gathered herself. Mono recklessly and angrily sprinted back to the creature, dragging his tool on the stone behind him before striking its leg.

The Helpi wrench's nodes happened to bury themselves within the babyish doll trapped in its knee, its regenerating eyes and umbilical cord flared with electricity, accidentally fully charging his weapon as the other claw reared back to swipe at him. Why did I think this was a good idea? I'll get ripped apart! The Wendigo threw both of her arms in the creature's direction, grabbing onto its greasy limb with cold, black winds and yanking it away from her companion before it got the chance to eviscerate him. Shadows whirled around her hands and the beast's many-jointed wrist. The two wrestled for control of the slippery arm as Mono pulled the pipe free of the knee, flipped it to the hammer side, and bludgeoned the attacker across the four-part face.

It tried to cut him open with another limb, but Six's constant tugging on its arm prevented it from getting any leverage as he once again jammed the copper nodes into its pulsating neck. Mono teleported to Cassie and grabbed the colorful flashlight again, filling it with power until more of the monster's eyes broke apart. Agony still flowed freely from a point behind the creature as it slowly relented its attacks, only to burst upright again in a senseless rage of flinging tendrils. With its immense frustration quelled it looked around, remaining upright with what few limbs were still operational before finally deciding to leave and make another plan.

Mono ran to one final pipe, turning the valve and rotating the apparatus. Finally, six Six! Yay! complicated connections of heat and water were locked in place around the massive bakery boiler. A claw reached out to snatch him by his favorite coat and pull him into the searing hot beams but was stopped again by all the strength Six could muster. This time the creature didn't bother trying to wrestle her to maintain its balance, it tied together its other three arms to pull its trapped limb back and dissolved into the web of pipes, but Six refused to let it get away again she's in way over her head!. Just because this not-so-little Nightmare had an abundance of Agony protecting it from being immediately drained of all life didn't mean it was immortal.

She spread her arms and condensed an icy cloud around the mostly empty pipes and crushed them into a cage around the monster's formless body of tainted wires with no beginning or end. Every emergency release tangled within the cell of greasy and poorly cared for pipes set off at once, bathing Ennard in a torrent of flames that completely washed away the portion of its body it directed power from. Rusted metal casings and parts of hopelessly corroded copper wires clattered to the concrete floor, falling from the vague shape of an unfamiliar endoskeleton attached to the back of the white fox's corpse behind the main clown's torso. A pair of golden eyes blinked in all directions, unusually symmetrical compared to the rest of the attacker's body.

The skinless endo's stomach poured open and ripped apart, the remains of its legs collapsed under their own weight; one limb completely vanishing into dripping oil and frayed cords, the other barely hanging onto the lower arm it was reinforcing until there was nothing but a knee left. Ribbon-like coils of tendrils making up the repurposed endo's hips speedily lost their shape as the jets of flames blasted their metal apart and their Agony straight into Six's core. The melting tubes creating the mesh chest peeled apart to unleash a massive, solid, rapidly unfolding claw. The arm had two ball joints and no stops limiting its movement, the 'hand' consisted of only two steel crescents like the pincer of a crab, both having their dull edges coated in molten rubber, rusted wires, and liquid Agony.

In the center of the extending claw were two rows of small ridges, spikes dulled with age but never meant to kill in the first place, only grabbing onto a potential victim. Another pincer burst from behind the general area behind the clown side's back, each arm grabbing onto a random pipe and forcefully yanking itself out of the crumpled iron bars. Like a pack of snakes, the Kraken squeezed and slithered out of Six's prison and lodged itself atop the overloading boiler. Mono grabbed her hand and teleported over to Cassie, frozen terrified in place and tightly clutching the loaned flashlight, and grabbed her arm as well. His and his friend's bare feet were relatively quiet, even as they ran for their lives, meanwhile every step of the newcomer's bright and heavy shoes sent loud slams through the long hall of pipes and raised every red flag the pair of survivors had built up over the years.

--- 👁 ---

Ennard didn't waste valuable time and Agony untangling itself from its perch and chasing them, instead sprouting tentacles and stabbing the many empty connections. Its Lolbit end continued to break apart, one of the elbows of its backpack-endo crumbled to pieces of oxidized tin casing and the jade green strings of decades-old copper snapped into twigs until there was nothing left but the forearm attached to the fox's main limb, the other end was no better, the shoulder popping out of place without the black sludge giving it evil life.

Each stray tube of stale air and cold oil broken up by multicolored eyes chose a nearby intersection to seep into; one black tendril would bury into a T or plus-shaped intersection of worn plumbing and sprout extra, increasingly slimy, thrashing protrusions to swing at the fleeing children. As if it were a spider descending from the top of its web, the clown's mask oozed down the threads of necrotic energy. A wave of sharp, serpentine flails cracked at the kids' feet like countless whips as the yellow girl persisted in ripping away the resentful slime at the edges of its mass. It maneuvered the decayed and bleached Afton child's bones around the spindly strands of grease that hadn't been ejected from its upper arms.

Michael's arms were made to push his skull upward so the coiling tendrils that once snatched his skin and muscle could keep a close eye on its prey, his ribs and the plates and teeth of the scrap Freddy face walked over the burning hot water canister like the legs of a toxic scorpion or a python preparing to strike.

"GET READY FOR A SURPRISE!!!" Funtime Freddy's rough voice warned as a second surge of energy ran through the innermost tubes.

--- 👁 ---

A familiar hunger itched at the back of Six's mind. Even though she didn't know just how much energy the Agony stolen from that Nightmare gave her, she knew it had to have been significant. I can't be hungry already! I'm still draining it! Her speed stayed consistent, always right at her favorite and only companion's side, but her mind began to slow no matter how hard she tried to stay focused. If not for her seeing Mono jump in the corner of her eye she would've been tripped up by a tendril swiping at their feet like a blade. Something inside the creature was calling to her; something powerful, something different, something strange, something related to her curse.

Something delicious.

That same, impossibly enticing force that infested the equipment beneath Vanny's costume, was gifted to her by Charlotte, was forcefully taken from the corpse of the Daycare Attendant, and was noticeably absent from Roxanne was again calling to the deepest, darkest depths of her psyche. Instincts she'd been stained by from birth ate away at her sentience as the silver-white aura that screamed her name flowed freely through the center of the Kraken's core like beautifully tasteful blood, fresher and more nourishing than anything else she'd had in her life.

The ethereal essence tugged at her core like a good smell, a wonderous taste, a gorgeous song, or a delightful sight, yet touched none of those senses. Instead, it reached for a deeper, less 'real' part of her that demanded power and survival above all else. She craned her neck enough to look at, but not see, the smiling four-paneled face. Its button nose did nothing to draw her eye as the mask split apart and screamed with its human skull. A cone of dark purple light shone over the dark pathway to the escape elevator like a guiding beacon as Six fought to hone in on their escape.

She'd already lost control.

--- 👁 ---

Cassie was the first inside the maintenance shaft, spinning around in time to see and hear the tentacle monster roar across the boiler room. Six was still holding the much slower Mono's hand, though the girl herself had started to slow and partially turned to look at the monster as well, fully enraptured by the Daemon like it was the most incredible thing in the world. Granted, Cassie thought it was fascinating as well, but that didn't make it a good thing. Its entire body had unfurled into a spiderweb of old tubes filled with the dying screams of lost children, still screaming for their parents within the claustrophobic confines of their soundproof coffins.

Every point where the copper dagger of a sludge-coated air tube would enter a cross-section of the empty water pipes, two or three more tendrils of green spikes and tattered tin casings would sprout with disgustingly wet squelches, slithering through the suffocatingly stale and grossly warm air like soaring snakes. The four-part face shifted around the encapsulated skull, the buried bones being the only thing keeping any semblance of structure. Like a cobra about to strike, the line of vertebrae bent into an upside-down arc, lifting the rotten cranium upward as revolting chunks of black mud spewed out of where the organs should've been. Thick strands of the dark material stuck to the sides of the skeleton as the ribcage opened wide like a gaping maw.

Like a swelling cancer, a bulb of the black mold grew. The tumor burst like a poisonous sac and white light sprouted as if it were a toxic bloom of nauseating spores. Whatever it was, it had a dim glow that just barely made it impossible for Cassie to tell what the source was. At first she assumed it must've been another eye or a simple lightbulb, but it spread across the gigantic water canister like angelic vines or ribbons of white fire that brushed across the tips of the ribs, then clipping through them like they weren't even real. The backbone started to extend to them. A pillar of slime running through the bones like a spine stretched to bring the pointed ribs and slowly gathering parts of the scrap Freddy face nearer.

Its teeth didn't hinge at any point, unlike when it attacked her at the front doors. Rather, they lined up along the sides of the spine and within the spread ribcage like it was a bed of nails, only stopping when the dead human's hip slotted beneath, capping off the end of the line where it simply didn't have any more spikes to add. The remaining bits of scrap metal and the orange-red light slid over the hip like a shield as the vibrant eye returned to a sickly violet.

Ballora and Funtime Foxy's warped faces crawled up the shoulder bones and locked in at the sides of the sternum. Their lower jaws flowed and shifted out from the metal plates covering them along with the elongated, barely humanoid teeth that waited behind the clown's favored face. Its stolen mandible sunk into the depths of its trap and the three Funtime-series' jaws flipped over, their sharp fangs layering over the yellowed remains of the deceased person's teeth and shoulders to complete the monster's ginormous iron maiden.

An iron maiden that was currently open wide for Six.

Cassie barely managed a glimpse under her smudged raincoat; the starving girl's pupils expanded like they were made from black tentacles, her irises expanded across the whites of her eyes like bright crimson explosions, and their glow intensified into small and eerie red flashlights in their own right. The bright ruby hue coated the concrete floor like a steadily growing pool of blood as if they were watching someone bleed to death after an encounter with their pursuer. Six's eyes glazed over and lost focus like she was about to faint. She turned around before Cassandra could worry about her falling like Gregory, about to move toward Ennard until Mono's tight grasp of her hand held her back.

He immediately started tugging her in the direction of the elevator, just a few more steps away, but her footing was shockingly stable. Her bone-thin hands twitched as she stared at the monster in a deep trance. The Kraken's mandible squeezed the ball of budding light hidden in its chest, sending dimly glowing, white, translucent streaks around the area again as the slimy and stained skeleton approached. Each rib would sway and flop as the muddy remains shivered, making the rusty teeth wedged into their sides hungrily clank together. She flashed the light on and off at the skull but the cone wasn't wide enough to bug out all three of the purple and orange-brown eyes at once, the other two sensors would reboot by the time she blinked the rays at the final eyeball. Ballora's melted eyelid would even shut tight when Cassie took aim.

The signal child took barely a second to wrap his arms around his friend's waist and swing her behind him, shoving her into the cramped lift with one hand while the other sent blue static into the dead body. Cassie tried to grab the emaciated girl and drag her into the elevator as well but quickly got an elbow into her side. With only an unearthly strong and small arm, Six shoved her into the far side of the metal coffin. Mono's hand bounced between the many eyes coating the tendrils that burst from pipes and sliced the open air around their escape.

He struggled to hold his companion back as she clawed at the space outside the haven, triggering the safety sensor that prevented the door from closing when someone was blocking it no matter how many times Cassie slammed the glowing yellow button. Six was frothing at the mouth while the skeleton was only a few yards away. The tall kid's hand attacked the beast, holding the bone puppet back as he struggled to manage the rouge Wendigo issue.

Funtime Foxy and the clown's faces would duck and tilt to avoid the shimmering blue distortions while Ballora shut her eye, quickly discovering the boy's abilities weren't held back by the thin layer of old plastic like the light was. Lolbit and the pair of Bonnies poked their heads out from behind the deceased person's shoulder blades. The wolf pup shook and frantically flashed the boy's stolen light on and off.

An arctic blue aura gradually grew. Mono continued exerting himself. Blue and black waves crept over his body and his outline wavered like she was trying to look at him through rippling water. A lovely blue haze coated the inside of the elevator and flowed over Cassie's skin and body like a cold bath. The flashlight flickered with the same blue light, blending into the pale fog if not for the comforting brightness. Cassie pointed the newly and strangely enhanced light at the eyes again, they glitched and spasmed in their sockets and she could destroy more of them at once than Mono could, if only because of the magic holy frick REAL MAGIC! and light he lent her.

With Six trying to barrel through him, the thin boy focused his abilities on the enshrouded mass in the center of the ribcage while Cassie slowly pointed her strangely enhanced light at all the eyes she could fit in the small area. Funtime Foxy's orange sensor, the white-dotted eyes of Lolbit, and the pink lights of Bon-Bon went first. Bonnet's green-yellow eyes, the main purple orb, and Ballora's vainly hidden eye shattered behind her purple eyelid came next.

With the wolf duo's combined attacks the Daemon was forced back, giving Mono enough time to finally force Six back into the lift. Cassie scraped her knuckles as she desperately punched the glowing yellow button, closing the metal doors as a guttural and disturbed scream tore through the boiler room. That giant heater's emergency releases hissed like the whistle of a train and unleashed several torrents of flames and steam directly into the Kraken's web of blackened wires.

Behind the confines of the trio's escape shaft, parts of the old Foxy and Lolbit tails connected to the now-ruined Funtime Freddy endoskeleton fell away. Ennard recollected its Excess Agony and searched for another vent to reform and slither through.

--- 👁 ---

Cassie returned the flashlight to her partner-by-necessity while she caught her breath, allowing her to notice the series of three notes that jingled through the freezing cold, abyssal winds swirling around the skeletal girl like a simple music box. Its gentle melody turned into more, faster, piano-like keys that sang both sad and discomforting throughout the three ears they graced. That freak's creepy hold on the raincoated kid began to fade; Six clutched her burning chest, her stomach rumbled, she coughed up puffs of dark embers, and spat out slimy oil.

Cassandra let slip another startled yelp as the elevator stuttered and the annoyingly humming light failed. Both problems quickly resolved themselves when Six gathered herself, though it didn't help the newcomer's racing heart. Their one reprieve from the devouring abomination in the basement squeaked to a halt, the doors parted to a pale and exhausted Gregory sitting on the floor with his customized computer. Cassie was tripping over herself the second she saw her big brother waiting for her with sweaty, shaking hands. GGY scrambled to his feet again, immediately regretting his actions once his eyes turned unfocused and his head spun. The room around him spun and his balance vanished, but in a blink, Mono was helping him sit down. Cassie rushed over and wrapped him in a hug before her mind could catch up to her.

His little sister released him with a small and rushed 'sorry' I've got to stop doing that, he's in even worse condition than me and he's not comfortable with this and gently put the back of her hand on his forehead. He's burning up. She took a seat next to the programmer and watched as he repeatedly raised and lowered his hand. He was clearly trying to be subtle, and failing hilariously, while deciding what to do. In the corner of her eye, Cassie soon noticed how he'd frequently glance between her and the pair across from them, always going stiff and looking away when she tried to look at him.

She offered him her hand and he eventually gave in. The pup lightly brushed her thumb over the hacker's hand while taking a peek at what he was doing on his computer. She always learned so much from him! Much to her surprise he didn't have any big and complex programs or file editors blaring blue light in his face. Instead, he was running through a massive list of her Great-Grandma's ex-husband's victims. Gregory's grip tightened and loosened like he was holding a stress ball, he painfully obviously avoided looking at her and tightly gripped the hem of his navy shirt, so torn and riddled with holes he might as well have not had it.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Cassie leaned against him, one of her hair buns brushed against the dirty band-aid on his cut cheek.

"It's nothing." He answered far too quickly.

"You clearly wanna ask something." She pointed out, careful not to make him think she was irritated or mad at him.

'Bright minds tend to overthink.' Her dad had texted her when she was worried about her classmates liking her... It didn't do much good when the party came around but his point stands.

"...The endoskeletons he used to kill kids... They've been bugging me..." He slowly came out of his shell.

"What about them?" She asked.

"...Did they have... a special feature? Like the Funtimes? I-It just doesn't make sense why he needed a whole separate system for... you know..." Gregory trailed off.

Cassie needed a deep breath, I kinda asked for this. Yes, she'd put together how those things were designed from that madman's notes. Wasn't Gregory one of the only people she might be able to trust with this?

"Alright, but it's messed up. Ready?"

Chapter Text

"Okay, basically they were just ordinary, copy-pasted endoskeletons with claws and teeth welded onto them."

"Mhm." Gregory mumbled.

"All the red rooms looked like children's bedrooms with a bunch of toys and clothes everywhere, he used them to hide little vents he would fill the rooms with a psychedelic gas, then he'd dress the animatronics with scrappy mascot costumes." Cassie paused, Gregory and the two strangers stayed silent and listened.

"He had these little disks, they were just tiny speakers with stickers on the back. He randomly stuck a bunch around the rooms and on the robots, they were made to play horror sounds and creepy music. The speakers would put the kids on edge, the gas would make them suggestible, and the costumes would make them see the robots as demonic versions of the original four.

He got more money that way, people would give more to see how terrified his victims were so he put cameras in their eyes.

William called them 'the Nightmare series', he'd melt down the endos to extract something from them at the end of each hit, some weird magical metal he made up and inject it into the Funtimes. Then they'd get another victim, he'd replace the endoskeleton that killed the kid before them, and repeat."

She hugged her knees tight to her chest with her free arm and tightened her grasp on her big brother's hand. Beside her, though she didn't notice, Mono winced at the word 'nightmare', even Six's indifferent and spiteful face fell. Gregory was the only one looking in their direction, so he nudged his sister's side.

"Maybe don't say nightmare around them?" He awkwardly suggested.

Cassandra looked over to the pair, Mono's head was down while Six mustered a red-eyed glare from inside the completely black shadow under her dirty yellow hood.

--- 👁 ---

'Were Nightmares to.' Mono wrote in blue pencil, Six nodded beside him.

"...But you're kids..." The newcomer eventually stated.

'Thats why were Little Nightmares.' His friend added.

Cassie's heart visibly sank in her chest while Gregory only looked away. She glanced between them and the hacker like she was waiting for him to cut in or respond, he kept silent. GGY's face barely contorted in pain but nothing was attacking or noticeably stinging him, his eyes burned with hot water and he formed a knuckle with his empty palm. The new girl clutched his hand and looked back to the pair.

"You're not to me." She claimed. Why do people keep saying that?

'Sure.' Six sassed through the page, Mono himself only elbowed her for being mean.

"What happened to you?" Cassie muttered under her breath, only picked up by his and his companion's sensitive ears.

'If you tell a rock its not a rock to you, it wont stop being a rock.' Mono wrote.

"You aren't rocks!" She exclaimed a little too loud, getting a reflexive growl from Mono and an intentional one from Six.

"You're people, nobody deserves to be put down like that." Cassie protested.

'Were not people.' Six clarified for the second time tonight, the stranger's blood drained from her face.

"Of course you are. Don't you feel? Don't you hurt? Don't you have dreams? You're a little... out there... compared to everyone else, but that doesn't mean you're monsters." She argued, Gregory winced again.

'I wish I didnt, yes we do, and no we dont. Dreams will get you killed.' Mono countered, watching Cassie curl in on herself as her eyes watered. She haphazardly glanced at Gregory.

"Don't you have anything to back me up here?" She asked.

"...Cassie... My biggest dream is to have a crappy apartment, a basic IT job, and a dog... If you're really looking for me to disagree with them, you'll just be disappointed..." He never looked her in the eyes.

"Fine, dream thing aside, you're not gonna say anything about them calling themselves monsters!?" She pressed.

...

"Nothing?" She pushed again.

"...You don't know what I've done here, I'm the last one who should talk about this..." He relented.

"Then why won't you just tell me?" Cassie asked.

"You think it's that easy?" Gregory couldn't help but chuckle. She has no idea... it's better to keep it that way... She doesn't deserve to be part of this hell...

Cassandra gave her brother a frustrated huff but kept holding the mechanic's hand and turned back to him and Six.

"Well... I don't know who told you you're monsters, but they're wrong and I won't take any objections!" She blurted while they bit back another pair of snarls.

Why is she so nice? Why does she wanna stay so bad? Nobody's supposed to stay with us. Nobody's supposed to want to be near us...

Cassie got up, finally releasing their fourth partner's hand, and approached the survivors.

"You were awesome! You smacked that thing across the face with a pipe I probably can't even lift! And you're a really good handyman, I wouldn't have had a clue what I was doing." Cassie smiled at Mono.

He backed himself against the chrome drawers he leaned against as if he'd been stabbed. An uncharacteristically lively pink brushed over his cheeks, hidden well beneath his Roxy mask. The slight brightening glows of his arctic blue irises, however, weren't protected from the new girl's sight as his pupils widened like a cat seeing their favorite toy. Mono let go of the Wendigo's hand for only a second, got to his feet far faster than Gregory could ever hope to, and to all four's surprise, he wrapped the pup in a massive hug that swept her off her feet.

His unusual strength crushed her bruised bones and made breathing a challenge, but she grinned wider and returned the gesture. Mono's hugs were great! Probably better if she wasn't so beaten up but Gregory was never this good with contact, so this was quite a welcome change. Not that there was anything wrong with her brother, he was an awkward type of cool. The signal child quickly realized what he was doing and gently let her down to the tile floor, then gave his best friend a similar embrace and sat beside her. He was already holding her hand again before he was on the ground.

"Your powers are so cool! You were like a mini necromancer eating its soul! Even Charlie couldn't break it apart like you!" She bombarded Six.

His companion's entire body stiffened, her pupils widened much the same as his and their searing crimson shine glowed an incredibly embarrassed ruby, like when Freddy apologized to them at the beginning of the night. An equally burning red grew over her pale face, filling her normally sickly cheeks with a wonderful vitality while her thawing heart and bottomless stomach fluttered and soared with countless beautiful butterflies. Her expression turned an adorably precious and amusing mix of anger and confusion that Mono wished he could burn into his mind forever... wait... I can do that now! I need a screen soon!

Six pressed against the silvery cabinet but contorted to keep her shoulders square with Cassie's, pushing herself slightly upward to look bigger as she bared her long fangs. Although the cub took a cautious step back she refused to completely turn away, partially because the skeletal cannibal might pounce if given an opening. She raised a hand and lightly pat the top of Six's raincoat. His best friend leaned into the scratches for a split second, fighting back a soft smirk, and swiftly tugged the edge of her hood completely over her head, her scarred and dirty face rapidly turning a brighter and brighter rose that made his heart soar again and a giggle bubbled up from his painfully rough throat.

--- 👁 ---

In another short second after the tall boy caught his breath, his sister dragged Mono back to the pastry case for all the treats and plastic bags they could stuff into her Roxanne backpack, fully intent on taking advantage of the short wait for the endoskeleton's hand to thaw. Six remained across from him, slowly coming out of her yellow-coated shell and pulling a messy piece of paper from inside her coat. She flipped it over to write on the back with her red pencil.

'What can she do?' Six asked.

"Cassie?" Gregory confirmed. She only leered at him.

'Clearly.'

"Well, she's super creative, she's a really good with makeup. She loved to brush my hair when we lived together, she kept trying to figure out 'my perfect foundation' without me knowing. There's probably a lot of clothing designs around her place as well but she doesn't know how to sew."

A fond smile grew over his face while he continued the fight not to sleep. He wanted to just lie down, have a nap, and dream about a better time with his sister. No stressing about money, no rationing their food, no estimating how long his clothes would last before he had to get new ones, no worrying about the next time they'd be able to sleep, no calculating the next time they'd get some showers, no more being so damn cold. For a second he could pretend the worst thing he'd ever seen was a particularly bad horror movie, rather than a dead body.

It became easy to overlook how he found the most horrific thing about cleaning up a child's corpse was when his maroon mop bucket tipped over or dropped gore on a carpet, as opposed to the deceased toddlers or teens he'd started getting assigned to dispose of in the last couple months. He just wanted a family. He just wanted his sister. He just wanted to rest. And if he couldn't have that he just wanted to be alone.

Why was that so much to ask? Tears stung his eyes with every fantasy adventure he'd bring his little sister along, maybe with Foxy as their captain. Gregory's daydream got more and more fictional while he rambled about his unofficial sibling's average interests and many talents. They could go on a boat ride, play computer games, read, make blanket forts, and get tucked into bed. They could just be kids! When was the last time he got to have that? Did I get to have that?

'You know thats not what I ment.' Six eventually waved her paper in his face, snapping out of his overly optimistic wondering. Right, now's not the time for pipe dreams.

"She's..."

...What can Cassie do?

"She's smart, she's fast, and she can actually talk..." He listed anything to get her off Cassie's back, Six was already scribbling away.

'Anything that can help us?' The raincoated Nightmare clarified.

...

'Can she tell whats safe for Mono to eat?'

"...No... She's lived in the city her whole life..."

'Can she fite?'

"If she has to!" He answered too quickly.

'She froze when me and Mono delt with the monster in the boiler.' The Wendigo brought up.

Dammit! You're making it hard to defend you, Cassie!

"...Maybe not..."

'If she cant help us, shell have to be bait.'

"NO!" He was quickly met by a deep, unearthly snarl.

"N-No... She doesn't deserve that... She has to get out alive..."

'We dont have to like it, but it may have to happen. You should have learned that before you met us.'

The creaking of a door resounded throughout the bakery.

--- 👁 ---

"...I didn't leave that unlocked..." Chica's echoing voice pondered aloud.

Mono had grabbed her hand before the kind girl beside him even noticed the tall shadow of the white chicken approaching the entrance. Though he lacked the speed of his impossibly skinny partner, he wasn't necessarily slow, they were already hiding behind an oven when the animatronic's squeaky skates started rolling through the narrow aisles. Every shiny corner and counter and table was a surface for her to push off of, launching her comparatively light body around the kitchen and dining area with ease at speeds only Six could hope to match.

The hungry bird slid closer to the pantry they'd run from, rolled past it like she was floating, and promptly got too close to the pair's hiding spot for Mono's comfort. He swung the Helpi wrench off his shoulder and spun around the corner, slamming the hammer end into the performer's shin with all his might. Her tough casing was dented and a long, thin crack spread between her ankle and knee. Their newest problem crashed to the tile with a weighty and disorientating thud. Though she knew they were here, Mono was sure to snatch Cassie's hand again and blink far away from the scene of the crime.

The chase was on.

--- 👁 ---

Gregory scrambled to find Cassie on the bakery cameras, finding her and Mono in time to watch the boy shatter Chica's shin with his stolen pipe. He allowed himself a sigh of relief when the nicer Nightmare teleported his little sister out of sight, but didn't let his guard down. She It's here, no telling how long they have until it finds them again. GGY didn't bother wasting time relocating the two. Six had the using his lil sis as bait talk with him, not the signal child, he'd protect her while they made a plan. In a flash of black smoke, she was gone.

A cloud of umbral fog and abyssal embers rushed straight through and flowed around the chrome obstacles like polluted water. Streaks of black flew above the utensils and machinery until they surrounded the white and pink bird, condensing into many shadowy children who calmly ran between cramped openings at every opportunity. Wherever his sister and Mono had warped off to, now nobody knew, keeping Chica confused and keeping her it from discovering them was more important than finding them himself. The programmer steadily got up and found a donut fryer to duck behind while he slowly made his way to the freezer.

There happened to be a trash compactor with a camera pointed at it, a camera that would take much less time to access with a staff chip than it would take to break the security node and hack the speaker, time that his sister needed. Cassie's all that matters right now. He tiredly and unevenly dashed for the cooler as the dark mist closed in around the giant doll. Ribbons of shadows swirled around the bakery's front and orbited Chica's core like she it was an atom, clipping and fazing through her its limbs as she it swatted the vantablack specks that had begun to wrap around her it like she it was caught within the eye of a hurricane.

Encircled by a whirlwind of the purest black imaginable, the drone started stuttering and twitching in place. Her Its uneven movements made her it slip and roll on her its unmaintained pink skates, Chica slowly and carefully leaned into the movement to place a plastic hand on a silver food prep table covered in a scratched white cutting board. She It succeeded in regaining her its balance but quickly found she it couldn't disperse the freezing haze no matter how much she it tried to push the floating spots and streamers back.

Arches of black burst out of the bird's chest like solar flares from a singularity as Six tore Agony out of her its endo and casing, then settled into a dark film over the ground. Like a plague surging across a defenseless town Six's oily fog seeped into every crack, every slightly ajar door, underneath every oven or pantry, beneath Chica's skates, and pooled overtop Mono and Cassie's feet. Diseased puffs of disorientating smog ascended all around the kitchen.

After only a second for Six to think up a way to keep the Entertainer from catching up to her friend a toxic grease grew around the machine's wheels, gradually forming a grimy mud that halted the avian toy's advance. Even louder squeaks and creaks bounced through the establishment as she it struggled to skate around the attraction, still faster than she it could walk but now limited to a point his sister and her new, unnervingly tall friend. Spots of negative energy clouded everyone's vision and broke up their outlines as they dodged the rouge animatronic's shrunken field of view.

GGY brought himself to power through the suffocating, soul-crushing, life-eating, and bone-freezing clouds to get to the cooler. Its aching chill was thankfully a fraction as discomforting as the raincoated girl's abilities, though his own breath still sabotaged his eyes and coordination as he fought to stay conscious. He'd barely run at all, yet he almost fell over as he rapidly muffled his exhausted coughing with the flayed and stringy remains of his oldest shirt. The programmer scrambled for the far corner of the freezer as fast as he could without passing out.

He could hear the mechanical chicken's garbled clucks as she it searched for his sister, he had to stay awake, he had to keep his baggy gray eyes peeled, he had to keep going, he had to save Cassie the same way she (for some reason) wanted to save him, all for her. That trapped endoskeleton seemed to mock him as he limped to its shut fist and desperately attempted to pry open its three icy fingers to save his innocent sibling's soul.

Tears stung Gregory's earthy eyes with an irritating, burning hot red while his bony thin hands couldn't get a grip and the tips of his frail fingernails split on the metal points until a tiny splatter of maroon dribbled over his withered shoes. His chest thrummed with his fast heartbeat, his headache blurred his thoughts, all of them already having to break through his dizziness to form something coherent. Another violent and throat-tearing cough shook his constantly sore body, he barely stuffed his face in the pit of his elbow in time to dampen the noise. Gregory's vision doubled as he clawed at the cold steel anew, still stirred onward by the possibility the wolf fan was almost in the drone's grasp. All he accomplished was further scraping his palms and fingers.

I can't do it...

I couldn't even be there for her...

I'm worthless...

He fought back the urge to vomit as the black fog burst from the vents. Gregory painfully fell to his bruised and scratched knees as the dark air spewed from the grate like the fumes of a forest fire. Six appeared in a wisp with a hand on the concrete as she coordinated herself. Oil rained off her body and stained her coat as she grabbed the closed hand, dug her short talons into the appendages, and shattered the remaining frost jamming the fist shut. She was disappearing into the shadows of the ventilation once again by the time Gregory got up and took the service chip from the outstretched palm. The second he clicked the chip into his Foxy Fazwatch he got to work.

Mono was easy to locate, his magic subtly buzzed black lines and a faint blue tint over his clothes and skin. Seeing Cassie still by his side got Gregory's heart to ease for only a second before flicking through the other cameras. Chica was getting too close for comfort; its wheels were still stuck but it was still able to launch itself from the countertops a decent distance, their few hiding spots were no longer obscured by the cloud their resident wildcard dispersed into. Every passing moment the yellow, three-toed feet glided across the checkered tiles was precious, misusing that time could get someone killed. It should've been me. The feverish technician plotted a short path through the cameras, activated the chip's audio function, and started luring the bird to a very particular corner of the room.

'Do you see that pile of garbage in the far wall?' He messaged Six and Mono.

--- 👁 ---

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

Gregory's voice whispered through the camera's speakers above her and Mono. Chica's head spun around like an owl's, facing far in the other direction and leaving the pair an opening to flee. A large, cold, dark gust swished around them out of nowhere. It whistled inside the bird's shell, and lines of shadow sliced the air in front of Chica's eyes, leaving her in the dark where she was going while she scoured the kitchen for her targets. Gregory continued playing the audio clip over the intercoms, looping the clip over and over instead of risking giving his hiding spot away. Fortunately, it was enough to keep stringing the Entertainer along, dragging her further and further as Six's chilling tornado of ashes stopped her from seeing when Cassie and Mono ran.

The tall boy wound up following close behind the pink guitarist, careful to cling to the sides and corners of the ovens and fryers they passed in case the gymnast's head swiveled around again. Her purple-pink eyes stayed pinned to the vague directions Cassie's brother called from, slowly wandering to the jammed trash compactor in the far wall. A long metal rod had pinned the top hydraulic press in place above disgusting piles of garbage bags and loose trash. How is this a passing inspection rating? The machine noticeably perked up where she stood still, only slightly rolling forward with momentum as her uncared-for skates creaked. Rough scraping of old and corroded metal on metal stung Cassie and Mono's ears as the avian retracted her skates and stomped toward the compactor.

"I smell pizzaaaaa!" She trailed off.

Despite not having a proper stomach, Chica began inhaling whatever was small enough to sit in her dainty palm and shove down her narrow beak and neck. Her small mouth overflowed with parts of discarded donuts, abandoned muffins, old wrappers, and slices of stale pizzas haphazardly thrown wherever there was space to pack them in. Cassandra was pretty sure she saw a roach scuttling and getting crushed by the tiny square teeth in the bird's yellow mouth. A quiet beep came from beside her, Mono crouched behind cover with the Freddy-shaped button to the compactor in his bandaged claws. Cassie's jaw dropped as the top hydraulics lowered, just to be halted by the strong rod firmly lodged in the corner of the cramped area.

What was she supposed to do? Warn Chica? She was hunting them like a military sentinel! But just because she didn't have any strong feelings for or against the guitarist didn't mean she could let one of Roxy's friends get smashed to bits! While the Entertainer stopped and looked up at the jam in the compactor, Cassie frantically motioned to Mono to push the button. Maybe pressing it again will stop it? Or reset it?

However, she wasn't Six, he didn't have a clue what she was trying to convey by waving her hands 'stop it!' when he wasn't doing anything. In a sudden flash freeze that knocked the breath out of her, a coiling mass of translucent black streaks and frigid, dark steam flew by her head and formed into a few shadow versions of the skeleton girl. Their long limbs and triangular silhouettes of her hood rippled as they levitated behind the upbeat performer, fading in and out of existence.

One at a time the copies burst and merged into one imitation of the perpetually starving child. Barely seen spots of smudged yellow emerged from the mass of smoke and ash, steadily growing as droplets of stygian oil plinked onto the tile beneath her. Viral slime leaked from under her sleeves and the bottom of her coat, drenching her bare legs and hands like waterfalls, then seeped into her body like they were never there. Six dashed into Chica's side. She violently bashed her elbow into the doll's back and put a hand on her shoulder. With strange strength Cassandra had yet to get used to, Six pushed the massive animatronic into the compactor, sending one of her metal arms into the side of the pole stopping the first segment of the crusher.

Chica whipped around and lunged for the deathly child, only able to grab a handful of necrotic mist as her body scattered. The top press finally snapped the disrupting rod, its inertia quickly being released onto Chica's back. Cracks and grime spread over her formerly pristine suit, her beak bent out of place as it was forced into the floor, and her joints audibly popped and twisted in ways they weren't designed to. Only the ends of her forearms barely reached beyond the range of the press, her pink nails scratched the tiles as she tried to pull herself out of the way. A revolting snap filled Cassie's ears when the headpiece shattered and Chica went limp. Now that the first step of the disposal process was complete the vertical crusher raised. The little wolf fan shuddered as the dark lines over the machine's costume were slowly revealed.

Chica lurched up, reaching for an escape from the compactor with a ruined arm and crawling on wrecked legs as the side hydraulics went into action. She screeched and tried in vain to push back the wall of steel pressing her into the garbage shaft, her face peered out of the small gap between the crusher and the opposite wall's corner. Again, her left arm was forcefully stuffed against her body and cracks echoed from the tight chamber as her casing fell apart like glass.

A second pop followed as her right shoulder gave in to the immense pressure, parts of her cheeks and the edges of her beak toppled to the ground, the protection of her left arm split and slipped through the opening between her collapsing chest and endoskeleton limb, and her eyes bulged out of their sockets. The crusher retreated once more, leaving its victim to fall to her side. Its protocol complete, the final door to the compactor slotted open, allowing the mechanical corpse to be shoved down the filthy tunnel to the bottom of the Mega Pizzaplex.

Chapter Text

"W-W-WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?" Cassie shouted from the kitchen, her voice shaking and eyes watering before Mono answered her with an instinctive snarl.

Six reappeared with a soul-piercing glare by her partner's side while Gregory hobbled out of the freezer. He grabbed his weighty duffle bag and dragged himself toward his little sister, debating whether to motion to her to quiet down or let her get it out of her system. It's not like anything else can get to us right now, she deserves a moment to process... all this. He glanced at the open disposal shaft Chica must've slid down, it was coated in a thick layer of brown muck built up over the years. The compactor itself also caught his eye, so easily able to destroy an entire Glamrock by itself.

Maybe I should've put a hand in it, it's the least I deserve. Chica's beak was buried down there somewhere, they'd have to go down to retrieve it, their lives might hang in the balance. How long until they encountered a situation they couldn't weasel their way out of? How long until he couldn't keep moving? How long until Cassie was in danger again? It was too risky to abandon the chicken's voice box, being able to disable animatronics was too valuable an advantage. He returned to his duffle bag, stuffed his computer inside, and hefted it over his shoulder.

Moving anywhere hurt, the strap dug into his shoulder, his computer felt like it was a ton of bricks, and his legs were ready to buckle beneath his own weight alone, but he managed to stay standing. A large part of him still wanted to lie down and close his eyes, to just give up, but he had to get Cassie out of here first. He wandered near the opening in the compactor and shifted around his bag to make it easier to slide down.

"NOW WHAT'RE YOU DOING?!" His sister shrieked.

"Chica's voice disables the other animatronics. They smashed her, anyway, we have to make the most of it." Gregory explained.

"She's not just some dumb robot!" Cassandra protested.

...Maybe not...

...Maybe she's-

IT...

It's just a toy...

"Y-You can't just... t-t-take her apart!"

"We don't have a choice... I'm not asking you to like this, but I need you to get out safe... This isn't a game, this is about survival now..." He affirmed.

--- 👁 ---

"What about after this? What do you think's gonna happen to her? They didn't put Foxy or Bonnie back together and she's half as popular as they were! The company won't waste the money on her!"

Cassie waited patiently as she could for something in her brother to change, a twitch in his brow or a frown. Almost nothing shifted or changed, almost nothing. He just stood still in thought, but his brown and bloodshot eyes were overly focused on looking at her, trying not to glance away. While she couldn't tell exactly what was on his mind, most wouldn't be able to tell how hard he was fighting to keep his composure, to hide the minuscule changes in his demeanor as his mind wandered.

"...They abandoned Foxy and Bonnie because they couldn't find them. Some random Staff-Bot will find Chica when they do their rounds in the morning, it'll be okay..." He tried to reassure her.

"THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT OKAY!!!" She shouted, throwing her hands out beside her.

Gregory's feverish but resilient façade immediately shattered where he stood. His bag swayed as he shrunk away from his little sister and brought his hands in front of his face. He hunched over and his shoulders scrunched up to cover his neck and make himself a shorter target. The starving programmer's legs shook so much they looked ready to snap, though barely kept the mechanic from falling to the cold tile and down the trash shute. A few coarse coughs escaped his chapped lips. Cassie froze where she stood, save for some small shivers as her blood ran cold and drained from her face. He thought I'd...

"I-I-I'm s-sorry! I s-swear I-... I w-wouldn't..." The little wolf pup scrambled for what to say.

He thought I'd...

"I would never, I-I promise." She eventually tried to soothe him.

The sickly hacker slowly came out of his shell, his tiny pupils peeked through his fingers, though he didn't quite lower his hands from in front of his face yet. Gregory's breathing turned uneven, broken up by chokes like his chest was on fire, for all Cassie knew, it was. Each second he tried to stand taller his legs would almost fail or push him further away from her. Her big brother seemed so small now, the perfect opposite to her image of the sad but brilliant and unstoppable boy that was thrown into her life through no volition of his own, but rather tossed aside by the system like many others before him.

But he was special, not just to her! And that was a fact! Yet he shuddered and retreated like a stray dog or a rat on the subway, either kicked or passed by so many times it didn't know anything else. Had she ever seen anyone that small? She could imagine that was how she might've looked when he found her on her birthday, but it was just so wrong on him. Gregory was supposed to go against everything all on his own, wasn't he? Wasn't he the only one who'd dropped everything to be by her side when she needed someone the most? Even when her parents had gone off for work, hadn't he pulled her back to her feet? Even though he didn't have the time, money, or energy to spare on her, hadn't stretched himself thin for her? Wasn't he greater than this? Of course not, she reminded herself. He's not invincible... but still...

What happened to you?

"I'm so sorry..." She repeated, partially to calm herself.

"I-It's okay." Gregory brushed it off.

"No, it's not!" Cassie insisted, suddenly very self-conscious about what her arms were doing.

The technician didn't respond, his few movements were stiff and uncomfortable, very noticeably trying to act natural. Cassandra could tell it was just for her sake. Is this something recent? Or did his foster families do this? She did vaguely remember his reaction to the Andersons' arrest, how horrifically indifferent he was to awful people sending a child to the emergency room, awful people who housed him as well. How many more of his caretakers were like that? How many houses and apartments had he been bounced between before he met her family?

"C-Can I... Can I give you a hug?" She nearly pleaded.

Her not-so-big-anymore brother paused, his entire body snapping to attention like he'd been shocked. Gregory stifled another abnormal and agonizing cough and opened his arms. As inviting as he tried to look, the new disguise couldn't trick his little sis, even with how long it'd been since they'd seen each other. His shoulders were especially tense, twitching like they'd never been outstretched for a proper hug before. Maybe they hadn't, the Andersons were the only part of his life she knew about before he got transferred to her parents.

She'd always been the one to initiate hugs, maybe he's really never received or given one beyond her. Plastered over his face was the single fakest smile she'd ever seen in her life; it completely failed to reach his eyes, his brows didn't furrow the way her parents did when she drew them a picture, there wasn't a single spark behind his glossy and dead pupils, he even clearly put a lot of conscious effort into showing his pale yellow teeth. Greg knows how to smile, right? His cracked lips and cheeks trembled, the thin muscles unused to being pulled up over his dirty and wounded face. His fingers tiredly twitched with pain and lack of use, like he'd rarely fully extended them, only partially unfurling his hands to type or write.

"Are you sure." She pushed, refusing to get closer.

"O-Of course I am!" He answered with his smile faltering.

"I won't be upset if you don't." Cassie reassured him, stop doing this to yourself.

"I-It's okay, you're fine!" Gregory's voice squeaked. STOP DOING THAT!

"You're not listening to me!" She exclaimed a little louder than she meant to, not missing another painful flinch from her brother. He almost brought his arms in front of his face again, but kept them unnaturally outstretched. PLEASE just think about yourself.

"...Do you... Do YOU... want a hug? Or just... to be touched at all?" Cassandra asked.

"...Not right now..." GGY shook his head and slowly lowered his arms, grateful to drop the forced smile.

"It's okay to say no if you're not okay with something, it's not gonna hurt anyone." She reminded him.

"...Yeah..."

Before she could respond, a rippling surge of blue static and black lines flowed through the bakery. Mono stood before a Staff iPad, his hand coated in an alien shimmer as it pressed against the cold glass. The hiking image of Helpy glitched and faded into a light blue screen. The wall and tiles became riddled with cracks like they had the durability of tin foil, knives and spatulas and countless other utensils began to float as if gravity itself was bending to his every whim. Even the cub herself found she felt lighter. The illusion of strong arms wrapping around her and a scarred hand holding hers covered her as the arctic blue waves reached her, followed by the only pretty bad smell and low ache of his tight hug.

Six was beside him, holding his hand and laying her head on his shoulder. She didn't seem to mind that her body was fully covered in the blue fog, more like she was bathing in the magical field. As quick as it started, the anti-gravity event ceased, getting an annoyed and disappointed groan from the skeletal child. That weird, unsettling symbol that appeared to protect her from the tentacle monster when she sprinted into the restaurant now buzzed in the small computer. With Six in the center of the flickering eye as its pupil, it stared into the vacant kitchen as blue embers fluttered up and around the machine. A small picture of the raincoated girl came into being over the pale eye; her face was largely obscured by her black hair and filthy hood but covered in a deep and adorable blush, presumably her friend's perspective of her animalistic reaction to the friendly pup.

The signal child gave a hearty, if somewhat muffled, laugh as she punched his arm with bright pink growing over her cheeks and nose. Her red eyes shone under her raincoat with no malice but maintained an embarrassed frustration with her friend. Well... "friend"... There has to be something more there, even if they don't realize it. I should draw them some time, since they don't have lockets of each other to dramatically stare into. They turned around and casually walked over to the trash compactor. Six dissolved into a dark, plague-ridden mist, and soared down the disposal hatch. I'm gonna start calling her the Black Death, I think she'd like it.

Mono sat down and slid after her. Cassie offered her brother a hand, just in case he was ready to try again. Part of her honestly wanted to throw caution to the wind, to just grab his hand and tell him everything would be okay, that they could make a giant blanket fort and watch movies on her phone until the battery was dead, then she'd make sure he got all the sleep he needed if she had to steal some Moondrop candies to do it.

She begrudgingly held herself back, keeping her hand outstretched for him to come to her whenever he was ready. He's not in a good place, just let him gather himself, and then I can smother him with blankets and candy and The Nightmare Before Christmas. He lifted a hand but stopped before he extended it to her. Upsettingly but understandably, he retracted, looking her in the eye for anything resembling anger. It was too late to stop her shoulders from sagging but she made sure to give her brother a soft smile when she lowered her arm. Gregory breathed a heavy sigh that deflated his entire sore chest, a mix of relief and disappointment painting his pale and marginally green face.

The programmer readjusted his heavy duffle bag and slid down the disgusting, grimy brown shaft. Cassie gave him a moment to land and get his bearings while she hyped herself up to go down the revolting shute.

--- 👁 ---

I did this...

Gregory's tired, earthy eyes were locked onto their latest mark's disheveled corpse, surrounded by walls of loose trash and garbage bags emitting a nauseating stench that definitely should've gotten the Pizzaplex shut down. Chica clearly tried to get up and wander off again, a set of three-toed footprints led away from where the tunnel dropped her and tread the wet, grimy, muddy brown-green concrete floor. She'd It'd tread between the colossal piles of broken brick walls, massive rocks, other trash-water-soaked construction debris, greasy pizza boxes holding moldy slices, scuttling cockroaches, and even some destroyed computer parts just to break down in the center of the room.

The bird fell next to a smaller pile of trash bags that propped her it up so it looked like she it was sitting. Every one of her its joints were completely destroyed, the colorful casing barely had anything to hang onto. Her Its hip had two especially large cracks in it that slithered up from her its left thigh and down from the right of her its main swivel where it connected to the belly and left a lengthy black line that chipped the bottom of her its chest. A long gash spread webs of nasty black cracks over the other side of her its small chest and made a sharp turn over her collar area like someone cut her it.

Of course I would know what that's like. Some of the more ruthless people on the streets would bleed others for dominance and resources, he and Bailey had both been on either side of the blade before. GGY couldn't help but see a part of himself and his old partner in crime in the totaled machine. No matter how hard he tried to focus on the blatantly inhuman copper cords dangling from its her body and the leaking hydraulics spraying fluid from within its her limbs, he couldn't get the image of brutal scars and exposed arteries out of his mind.

Not even Cassie sliding down the disgusting shute and landing behind him broke his trance. 'Ew ew ew!' she muttered as his exhausted eyes saw the pooling hydraulic liquids and coolant as slowly spreading puddles of crimson. Cassandra scrambled away as a small swarm of roaches scattered from where she tumbled to the ground, still not drawing her brother's attention from the left arm; its her upper and lower arms had their shells completely removed, the formerly snow-white cylinders with black wrist bands were likely lost forever in the mounds of filth around them, all that remained of its her limb's costume was the hand.

Parts of the lower arm casing poked out of the appendage like spikes coming out of a green fingerless glove. The lime palm was hardly holding itself together enough to support the four white fingers. Its Her beak had completely dislocated from its her small mouth, it swung around its her chin with quickly fading momentum, attached to the dislodged voice box by the short black wire. Huge parts of its her maw had come off, leaving a wide gap in the general shape of a twisted grin with a long, thin crack reaching between its her unaligned eyes and small black brows.

Chica's pink bow was soaked in the vile trash water and covered in dirt, as were its her green and violet earrings and the three plastic 'feathers' atop its her head. Walking through the spewing hydraulic and cooling fluids shouldn't have bothered him half as much as the squelch of children's blood and gore, but this was his doing, not just cleaning up after Mr. Burrows' latest hit. He'd thought he'd been fully desensitized to the aftermath of a murder 'situation', though finally realizing such gruesome deaths didn't bother him anymore sent a painful shiver through his spine, now seeing himself in the oversized doll felt like being doused in ice water.

What have I done?

...I have to keep going...

...I have to save Cassie...

...I have to save Mono...

...I have to save Six...

...It doesn't matter how much it hurts...

...I don't matter...

...But they do...

...I don't matter...

...I've never mattered...

...And that's okay...

...I'm okay...

...I have to keep going...

He reached his scratched and scraped and scarred and bruised hand into the hole in its her jaw. While the voice box's frame had been bent out of shape in the crusher, through the lack of light he could tell the device itself was still in working condition. It just needed some basic cleaning and internal repairs before he could enhance Freddy with another piece of his wrecked bandmates. Gregory detached the swinging yellow beak and stuffed the mechanism into his bag. Mono had moved to another nearby Staff iPad and repeated the process of infecting it with his creepy Signal, quickly getting Six to reform next to him, both to enjoy his surge of magic and hold his hand.

A door opened to a short sewage tunnel completely clogged by trash, even sporting some wooden planks so Staff-Bots, and the four locked-in kids, could maneuver the foul channel. It further opened up to a small room leading to a series of corridors filled with more garbage and debris. Gregory and Cassie shuddered at the remains of a thrown-out Staff-Bot trapped in one of the bigger piles that reached the ceiling. Its face was missing the gray lines under the eyes and the orange circles for its cheeks, instead bearing a set of greasy black tears.

Its wept oil streamed into a wide, disturbing black smile. The grin had two rows of tiny spaces not covered in the slime-like scribbled-on lines of tiny, pointy teeth. The colors of the eyes were inverted; glowing white camera lenses that shouldn't have been operational were decorated by a thick border of umbral sludge, as opposed to the standard, cartoonish eyes painted on the helmet. Part of the chest was barely visible, thoroughly covered in grime with 'In Your Dreams' written in Agony. Cold and dark ribbons flew out of the abandoned machine as Six walked by, rounding the next corner with her best friend like it was no big deal.

A wide open room surrounded by catwalks greeted them next; the floor was coated in dirt and walls of trash climbed up the walls. Gross as the basement was, it was still part of the building, there was a way out. A simple mesh gate had blocked their path, but it was locked by the lack of power. Their companions could absolutely be able to hop the fence again, but Cassie wasn't that dexterous compared to them and Gregory would fall and get himself killed. Fortunately, he recognized this as one of the areas where the bodies would finish being chopped up, stuffed into separate bags, and stuffed deep inside the other towers of waste, he distantly remembered there was a generator nearby.

Just like in the Daycare, a purple machine with a red light and orange switch awaited them, just behind a gray debris crate. Almost the instant the mechanic flipped the lever the noisy device attracted a loud, grating metal screech from the hallway they came from, the very same hall they needed to go down to get out of this place. Chica shrieked as it she stumbled into the large room. Gregory dove into the gray bin beside him before it she spotted him, Mono grabbed Cassie's hand and blinked somewhere behind a random pile of trash, and Six stood still. She waved at the broken bird, the sling of the Faz-a-pult strapped to her arm flopped around her wrist and loudly bounced off her dull yellow sleeve, bringing all its her attention on herself as her friend and his sister found better places to hide. Cassandra hopped into another gray bin while the masked kid snuck up a nearby catwalk that wrapped around a massive mound of bags.

Right when the ruined animatronic unsteadily lunged for the Wendigo, she burst into a dark cloud of cold fog and ran circles around the bird. Chica passed right by Gregory's hiding spot, one of its her lopsided eyes even looked at him while it she investigated the noisy generator. He waited a few seconds after it she turned around and hobbled away, then jumped out of his spot and carefully moved between gray bins and piles of debris. Mono met him at the exit, having quietly run around a catwalk to double back on the machine, shortly joined by Cassie. In a cloud of smoke, Six levitated high above the ground.

She was poorly balanced and awkwardly shifted side-to-side as she floated, clearly experimenting with independent flight for the first time, and readied the slingshot. From her raincoat, she pulled a small package of bouncy balls and loaded a Monty-themed orb into the toy's pouch. Although her aim was somewhat sabotaged by her inability to hover, she easily shot the ball into the distance. Chica stomped after the various objects it plinked between as the cannibalistic girl dissipated again, though its her zombie-like shuffle was hardly the center of the technician's attention.

For some reason, the bird didn't have the flashing purple light buried deep in its her endoskeleton skull, meaning it she didn't have the same chip in the depths of its her circuitry that Roxanne did. Now that he thought about it, Freddy didn't have that little chip forcefully bent and shoved in the back of his throat, either, he'd been able to see the roof of the bear's mouth when fixing his head. All suggesting Monty also didn't have the strange chip he knew he never installed. Something was different about Roxy, something about the wolf's design warranted an extra precaution he couldn't make sense of without sticking his hand in her jaws well deserved and pulling the tiny thing out. And that's assuming he was stupid enough to open files he didn't understand on his computer.

What could be so special about the wolf, that someone needed to add some nondescript extra measure to her?

A small beep from his side broke him from his thoughts, a shadowy copy of Six had pressed the Freddy-shaped button on the fence. The gate clicked open and the misty, rippling duplicate held Mono's hand as he pressed onward. A long channel filled with trashed Staff-Bots lay before them, all parading 'In Your Dreams' and 'Sweet Dreams' messages over their crushed torsos, their glowing white eyes glared ravenously and vengefully at Gregory, a series of hands subtly emerging from the sea of mechanical corpses with their casing missing and exposing their sharp endo fingers.

All of them were ready and waiting for one of them to fall in, but the signal child was the first up to the precariously placed wooden planks stretching over the death pit. He held his arms out like a professional trapeze artist, his friend's ever-swirling shadow still holding his hand and gliding over the ocean of clawed robots. It almost looked like the Helpi wrench-wielding handyman was the one emitting the black hurricane of concentrated anguish and malevolence that rushed through the river, gathering excess power, though the real Six was self-contained in the tornado itself.

Mono crossed the terrible bridge with unparalleled grace and precision as he'd done so a million times before, not a shred of doubt in his confident mind that he'd reach the other side in no time at all.

--- 👁 ---

'SIX HELP I'M GONNA FALL I'M GONNA FALL I'M GONNA FALL I'M GONNA FALL I'M GONNA FALL-'

'Just breathe, you're not gonna fall.'

'SIX YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I'M GONNA FALL!'

Chapter Text

He had Cassie go before him. These things reminded him of the Marionette, of "Charlie", whom GGY wasn't ever on easy footing with aside from them agreeing to tell Foxy and Bonnie they spent time and had fun together before wandering off to do their own thing. He wanted to make sure his sister was safe on the other side in case the rouge mannequins somehow managed to collapse the bridge. Cassie walked a few strides ahead of him with little issue. She was much more coordinated than her big brother and the only thing weighing her down was the handful of snacks and water bottles stuffed in her backpack.

Gregory's heart froze in his chest when he noticed she had a slight limp and plentiful bruising over one of her ankles. Her leggings had some expected tearing around her scraped knees, but a large hole in the garment had exposed a decent chunk of her greatly bruised right leg. The top of the opening had a barely noticeable red stain and a set of slashes like massive claws had dug into her shin and a heavy palm pressed over her heel. For now, he did his best to push his worries down, at least until they were across the shallow chasm.

Mono got across the shaky planks with no problem and turned around, both to check on the siblings and prevent Six from going ahead. Cassie was slow but steady; watching her calmly take her time and making sure she was crossing as safely as she could, rather than rushing and plummeting into the pit of claws and rust, helped ease Gregory's nerves. She's gonna be alright, I'm just being paranoid again. There were three major platforms set up across the channel, two supported sets of thin and worn planks across the hole, a third attached to the other side. I should just be able to jump the rest of the way if I get there.

Just before he put a shaky foot on the first platform and Cassie was in the middle of the next set of old boards, a fingerless fist violently punched the wooden supports buried in the pool of trash. Gregory instinctively lunged for the oak square holding him above the abandoned Staff Bots, grabbing the edges of the other side with aching fingers while his feet dangled off the other end. Several corroded claws tore into the rotting stands as he got to his knees as fast as he could. His head spun for a second, but he managed to stand without losing his footing. One of the crossbeams below him was viciously ripped out of place, making the rickety structure sway as a mass of merged-together drones started to rise from the pit.

Their lower arms had dark stripes of Agony along their dirty white arms, each limb clawing at the supports and slowly dragging the platform down. It shifted to the side as a second cross-beam was ripped off, the rest of the supporting boards creaked and splintered. Ahead of him, he saw Cassie was in a slightly better position, not that it was reassuring. The shaking and tilting of the platform he was on had displaced the bridge between the first and second stands.

She wobbled where she stood but kept her balance far better than her older brother could. His little sister spun around before she was even safe, letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding once she knew he was okay. Some browned nails in the wood began to squeak out of place as GGY started following his sibling again. Cassandra successfully made it to the next platform and fell to her knees, grateful for a minute on some solid ground before she had to walk the plank again.

The programmer's duffle bag sang back and forth around his neck no matter how much he tried to keep it secure without tipping himself over the ledge. A flailing and towering group of robots reached for him like a metal and plastic hydra as he crossed the next gap. As he carefully walked, three of the machines swatted at the planks and craned their backs to follow him. Their heads bent backward, in the corner of his eye he could see the upside-down grins taunting him as he passed the mannequins. The three's fused-together backs continued to arc further as he walked away, their ruined gloves and endo claws swiping at nothing once he was farther away from their iron grasp. His legs were swept out from under him and he threw himself down on the plank, painfully smashing his chin on the wet, moldy wood to stop from descending into the bloody sea.

Gregory glanced backward; the first platform was slowly being pulled deeper into the pile of bags by multiple conglomerates of combined Staff Bots forcefully held together by liquified anguish. Every jittering and sudden inch the oily dolls yanked down on the first platform worsened the slope he had to walk up to the next safe point to rest; not a problem for his sister or the signal child, and certainly not for the dissolved Six, but an extremely pressing issue for someone in Greg's terrible state. His bag dangled off the side of the planks, almost strangling him as the weight pinned the mechanic to the smelly and disgusting board. The technician crawled and climbed the plank to the next platform. Again his bag got in his way, getting caught on the edge of the stand. He strained all his energy to pull it up before the robots started grabbing the new checkpoint again.

"Gregory!" Cassie panicked. She'd nearly gotten to the other side of the trash canyon, but stopped to go back for him.

"Keep going! I'm right behind you!" Gregory shouted.

The nails barely securing the pathways began bending and slipping out of their sockets, the hacker recollected himself as fast as possible and started crossing the second of three bridges. Behind Gregory, the varied and suffering golems were swimming through the field of garbage; those on the bottom of the piles were being pushed down and suffocated in the black bags and loose debris, forced to crawl until their heads and limbs snapped off, those on the top continued to stretch and swing their vulture-like talons at the starving boy and the pathway he raced across. In front of him, Cassie fought the urge to turn back and find a way to personally drag her big brother the rest of the distance, meanwhile Mono reached a blueish hand to the wolf pup.

It's okay, he has her, she'll be okay. Shortly before Cassandra was safely to the other side of the gap, her Roxy backpack and bits of trash started to rise. Her sweater and hair fluttered, her and Mono's red skirts billowed, even Six's plague-ridden gas suddenly rushed upward as gravity suddenly and unexpectedly inverted around her. An arctic blue haze gathered around his little sister, the Signal shone out of the wolf mask's eye holes like dim lighthouses and the tall boy's pupils unfurled into black tendrils across his rapidly expanding irises.