Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somehow, it always came back to the taste of pizza for Michael.  Given his history and choices in employment, it was bound to happen, but as it stood the cloying taste of tomato and cheese grease clung to the back of his rotting throat as the temperature rose ever higher, reminding him of simpler if not equally as terrible times.

He couldn't even tell if the grease on his tongue was from his last, shitty meal or simply from the fire cooking him alive.

[When Officer Vanessa had asked the Glamrock Animatronics for help clearing out a sinkhole discovered under the indoor go kart tracks, Freddy was uncertain about her request.  Upon being actually lead there and traversing down carefully, however, he knew immediately why the animatronics were called down.]

He briefly wondered what exactly had led him to being here, but the answer was fairly obvious.  He'd seen a help wanted advertisement about the Fazbear Entertainment's franchising scheme and had applied, immediately getting it.  From there, he'd heard Uncle Henry on the tapes for the past week, and had been guided by a small assistant animatronic dubbed Helpy who also watched over him in his tiny vent-exposed office and assisted with testing out all the games.  Michael had been fairly certain he was the one and only franchisee  and that assumption had been more than confirmed at the end of the week, when Uncle Henry finally spoke up as the fires started.

This is where your story ends , he'd said.  And Michael was honestly alright with that.  He was tired .

Whatever the case may be, it wouldn't matter soon.  He'd made the absolutely bright decision to clamp the small figure of Helpy on top of the computer to his chest where the metal and plastic warped and melted to fuse with his already mutilated flesh.  He couldn't stop the tears from boiling tracks into his face as the roaring barely missed drowning out the pained and enraged howling of the animatronics trapped with him.  He pressed his lips into a thin line, enough that he might never open his mouth again from his decaying adipose tissue and muscle melting and melding shut, not that he would otherwise anyways.

The heat, the pain, the volume, it all reached such a cacophonous crescendo that it was genuinely difficult to parse when it all just... stopped.

[The pizzeria below the sinkhole was far beyond repair, according to Freddy's assessments.  Mold on top of scorch marks on top of general food debris made him almost wish he had a stomach with which to retch at the stench.

He supposed that was why Officer Vanessa asked them to help clean up some. He didn't know why they were cleaning the abandoned and long buried place, but when asked all Vanessa would tell him was that they were 'salvaging'. For some reason that word made him feel uneasy, as if they were robbing a grave.]

Michael took a solid thirty seconds to register the fact that things had gone deathly silent and the pain had passed.  It took him another thirty for his grilled grey matter to process where exactly he'd been dumped.

He found himself somewhere completely black with some strange, fuzzy lines to sect reality into what resembled television scan lines, granted even more prominence with the odd red trees trimming his line of sight short.  He looked around the area a bit, brow knitting in confusion as he realized he had no idea where he was.

[He had picked his way around the debris carefully, melted wires fused into broken fractals as he maneuvered his way down into the oddly spacious vent system beneath the main building. The room he'd entered into seemed like it was full of debris. He shook his head and moved chunks of metal out of the way, gritting his plastic teeth with the effort as he excavated what looked like a strange, small office.  Freddy froze at what he found.]

"Michael."

The sound of someone calling his name made him jump as he whirled to look behind himself.  There sat a bleedingly red lake, and a darker red figure seemingly fishing in it.  The figure was vaguely humanoid, if not a bit fuzzy at the edges, and Michael couldn't help but be a bit on edge.

"Come have a seat."

The figure seemed to be wearing a long duster and a massive, wide-brimmed hat not unlike the Spanish La Catrina was often depicted with.  They turned their head, revealing a long, flat snout and jaw characteristic of cartoony alligators, and a piercing white pupil shone out of the otherwise pitch black eye from behind a pair of circular glasses.  Whatever this thing was, it wasn't human.

Michael was getting quite a bit sick of things that looked human enough to throw him off.  Incredibly so.

[It looked like someone had been in the office when the old pizza place had burnt down, unfortunately so.  All that remained was a mummified, torched corpse with its face trapped in the rictus of a fearful scream, some kind of melted mass of metal and burnt plastic practically hugged to its chest.  It seemed to sit in front of what at a glance resembled a desk with an ancient CRT computer monitor that must have run MS-DOS at the most up to date.  The chair under it was warped and drooping, but not fused to the flesh of the body at the very least.

It looked utterly gruesome.]

"We have much to discuss."

Not quite knowing how to respond, he tucked some hair behind his ear as a reenacting of a long-dead habit.  "I'm... sorry, what ?  W-who-?" he cut himself off as he realized he's in the state he'd been in right before he got scooped.  Small mercies, he supposed, but it was enough to stun him into silence. He fought the urge to double check himself over to confirm this, keeping his eyes trained on the unknown variable instead.  Ignoring such urges was what kept him sort-of-alive, after all.

The gator person chuckled, and something about the sound was familiar as the figure in front of him turned fully towards Michael, looming yet sheepish.  "I guess you wouldn't recognize me like this."  The face seemed to warp and contort, as if a glitch had chased its way to reality, and Michael couldn't hold back his gasp that interrupted the next sentence he hadn't caught.

"Uncle Henry?" Michael hated how small his voice sounded, despite the sad yet warm smile that crossed the other man's face.

"It's nice to see you again, Michael." the engineer greeted with a mournful smile.

[For a brief moment, Freddy scanned the computer for anything useful, but it was beyond salvaging.  It was a wonder it was recognizable at all.  There was a flicker of  red on the screen for a brief moment, but Freddy discarded the idea as simply a glitch.]

The Afton recoiled a few steps.  "What is this?!" he snapped despite himself.  Henry's smile dropped, as if too tired for the facade.

"Most have a choice, to roam the earth for atonement or sit with the old man of Consequences Lake - with me - for a time until they're ready to brave either the forest or the lake alone.  The just are guided through the woods to greener pastures, the wicked are dragged into the lake, and the lost are trapped like the ones neither evil nor pure.  And yet you, Michael, are all and none of these."

"And how-how did you end up as the... the old man Consequences ?" Michael challenged, confused and scared.  The look Henry leveled him with was far more chilling than any haunted animatronic could dare recreate.

[Freddy hesitated, taking in the peculiar sight beneath him.  It could have been just the lighting or scorch marks, but was the person... literally purple?...

It really should have been impossible, yet here he was staring down at what looked like exactly that.]

"I always have been.  Always would have been.  Would have always destined to be."  Henry pinched the bridge of his nose.  "Which is... confusing, I know.  But imagine if the boatman of the underworld hired a substitute to learn what it felt like to be human.  Only to have that human life ruined by a man becoming a self-made monster.  That's the long and short of... well, me."

His eyes softened at Michael.  "I hadn't even known until being back here brought me back to myself.  If I had known, I'd have told you much sooner."

Michael swayed on his feet, rocked by the knowledge that his father's former best friend had secretly been a ferryman of death in the afterlife this whole time living life as a human as a vacation trip.

Michael had seen and felt his fair share of strange things - being a ghost haunting his own corpse would do that to a person - but this felt like almost too much .

"Then this is it.  I'm really dead for good." Michael thinly mumbled.  "And my father is too, finally.  And I'm going crazy and imagining that death is my honorary Uncle and has been all along."

Henry nodded slowly, a small smile perking the corners of his lips.  "Yes.  Now, you can finally rest as you deserve to, Michael.  Sound of mind, may I add, as I very much am your Uncle Henry despite the apparent secret double life not even I knew about."

[For a moment, Freddy's curiosity almost won out over his directives as he reached down for the strange corpse, but was halted by a ping by the guard, freezing as if trapped between two warring sides of himself and unsure which set of orders to follow.]

Michael bit his lip.  "Do I really deserve it?" he asked.  "With the blood and ashes on my hands, am I really deserving of a peaceful rest?"

Henry ambled closer to Michael, looming over him in a way he had never done before.  "Does a single act of cruelty in a long lived life doom a soul eternally, Michael?" he asked softly.  "Does the mistake of a child permanently condemn the old man he becomes later?  Or is life too complex a tapestry for one single action or moment to define a whole life?"

"But-"

"What happened to your brother was by all intents and purposes an accident.  The mechanisms of the animatronic were far too strong for their intended purpose, and they should not have been capable of doing that.  And I know I wouldn't have overkilled the hydraulics like that."

[Freddy conducted a scan, looking for any reason to stay that Vanessa would approve of.

There was still some usable circutboards and data in the lump of mangled material pressed into the corpse's chest, miraculously.  Perhaps that can be used in the Pizzaplex or for Vanessa's side project!

Ignoring the more insistent pinging, he pushed aside the metal to move it out of his way and approached the corpse with intent, still scanning to satiate his curiosity.]

"I know." Michael basically whispered.  "I just... I ignored the way he begged, I ignored his fear and tears and just wanted to make him struggle .  And he died because of that negligence."  His vision blurred with tears.  "I've done my best to atone for it and fix my mistakes for the rest of my life, but can any atonement outweigh my guilt?"

"What will you do now, though, with your father gone?" Henry probed.  "With no clear purpose in mind?"

"I don't know." Michael whispered in admission.  "I've spent so much of myself on fixing my mistakes and my father's sins, I don't know what's left of me.  I thought I was ready to move on, but-but faced with having to make a choice about it, I don't know if I feel like I can take it without feeling like something's left behind."

Henry seemed to appraise Michael, expression grim and searching.  "You got such a rotten hand dealt to you, Michael," he eventually sighed.  "Cosmologically, you've done enough good to earn yourself a fresh new life to lead from scratch.  You've freed so many trapped children's souls, including your siblings, and brought your father to justice."

"There-there's a difference between doing good and being forgiven." Michael responded, voice getting wetter and more wretched by the moment.  He sniffled and wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Your brother forgives you." Henry quietly responded, words weighty as if he knew the emotional load of his very diction.  "He's seen how hard you've worked, how much you've given up to try fixing your mistakes.  How much you suffered at your father's hand."

Michael couldn't stop the increase in his tears, fully descending into a blubbering mess while subconsciously hugging himself and curling to double over and drop to his knees as if gravity had become too much for him to bear.  Henry knelt down and pulled him into a hug into which Michael let himself break down fully for the first time in who knew how long.

[On the more in-depth scans, Freddy found himself noticing even more metal interlaced throughout the human's body as if several surgeries had been performed, and a complete lack of bones or organs, and hadn't had any for so long that the whole body was completely gangrenous.

How had this person survived that long enough to die here?]

"You can't let yourself rest, can you Michael?" Henry asked mournfully.  "No matter how much you do, you'll never feel worthy enough to rest like the others?"

Michael simply whimpered back, half wanting to sink into the lake as he substituted that with his uncle's comforting embrace.  Henry pulled back a little to look Michael in the eye.

"If you cannot rest yet, then..." Henry cut himself off with a sigh, a sad twinkle in his eye.  "Charlie, um..." the older man's voice noticeably cracked, and he cleared his throat.

"Charlie had a gift for you.  For a scenario like this.  Where she wouldn't be able to help." He smiled fondly for a moment.  "She'll be apprenticing with me soon, actually.  But that's besides the point.  She gave me the task of offering it to you."

Henry pulled a large if still pocket-sized present out of his coat to hand it to Michael.  "It's as small as it is because she didn't need to also call your ghost.  It's just meant to guide you where you need to go."

Inside innocently sat... something, clearly a plush toy of some kind that frazzled and changed shape now and again.  Rabbit, bear, canine, gator, like it couldn't decide.  A roulette wheel of animatronics.

Henry matched Michael's curious if wary gaze.

[Freddy gently cradled the corpse in his arms, easily prying it from the remains of  the drooping office chair.  He pinged Vanessa back with the signal that he'd found something interesting, and she finally relented.  He didn't notice the wires in the corpse's head and neck slowly drawing the corpse's face up slightly, or the release of the slightest final exhalation.]

"It's your choice, Michael."

Michael grimaced.  "But is it the right choice?"

Henry's eyes crinkled fondly.  "Hell if I know."

Michael hesitated a moment longer.

He reached into the box, grabbing the plush as it spasmed for a moment and froze on the sunny orange bear marked with bright cyan lightning bolts.  He lifted the doll to stare at it with a squint, utterly baffled by the character choice Charlie had made for him.

"... Freddy ?"

[Freddy froze.  Did someone say his name?  He could have sworn, somewhere in the back of his head where his code didn't quite reach, he felt a sort of strange sensation.]

"Freddy Fazbear ."

[He looked around in confusion.  Who was calling for him?  What sat in the back of his head was an odd pulling sensation, trying to draw his attention to something and away from the programming guiding his actions.]

"Uncle Henry, I-I don't-" he looked up to the reaper only to feel a sudden sensation of vertigo as the color bled out of the world.

[Freddy stumbled backward a few steps when he'd turned completely back towards the office as his sense of balance suddenly bucked as if his internal gyros had done a backflip, his vision glitching out suddenly with bright streaks of red.  He ended up hugging the corpse tightly to his chest, almost as if to swallow it into his body.  All at once,

He

knew

something

was

very,

very ,

wrong.

Chapter Text

Freddy had no idea what happened to him.  His systems suddenly crashed like a satellite from orbit, leaving him reeling and confused as to what was going on in his programming.  He could practically feel his AI scrambling to rewrite itself around something , but what he couldn't tell.  He was too preoccupied with his vision flickering in shades of red and black and giving the sudden appearance of an oddly familiar treeline, which by all accounts should have been impossible.  His simulated haptics were going mad around his midsection for some reason, and his fans whined from the sudden stress and RAM usage increase.  His audio receptors flipped out too, feeling like someone was screaming through a fan directly into them.  The clearest view he could get was by looking down at himself, and that was basically staring into a void with a dozen  purple eyes staring right back into him.  Not really much of an option, doubly so as he needed to see .

He needed to get a grip.

He stumbled a bit, gyros just barely functioning and positional systems telling him he was staggering around like a drunken buffoon.  He couldn't help the way he was quietly panicking, fans working overdrive and not feeling like enough to help.  He started systematically rebooting his systems one by one, forcing everything to shut down fully at least once no matter how it affected his other systems.  Pain simulation went first, but nothing seemed to work no matter what he did.

Freddy warily set down what he was holding - it was that corpse, right?  It had to be - in order to not drop it roughly while rebooting.  Warily, he forced the shutdown command through his system.

For some reason, he found himself still a bit aware despite being shut down.  He felt every moment of the BIOS starting him back up.  Thankfully, a full reset seemed to do the trick.  Perhaps he needed to purge a nasty sensory bug. Part of him wondered what would have even caused such a violent bug.  Static still haunted the edges of his audio until he realized that part of his code was trying to push air through his voice box.  It took a concerted effort to make himself stop, and he wondered what the hell even happened to cause that sort of behavior.  He didn't even need to breathe! That didn't even go into the odd blue tinge reduction in his optics, one he hadn't even noticed until it was gone.

He'd only had a few blissful moments of peace before a process in his system ticked on, making his joints seize up and his pain simulators ramping themselves up to twenty on a scale of ten again.  He ran a quick scan as his systems fought off the sudden attack.  Purple chased around his vision, glitching out his UI and sending his coolant system into overdrive.

The culprits seemed to be two different processes seemingly warring for priority, an oddly familiar program named MimicAft and an indecipherable string of letters and numbers that matched nothing on Freddy's serial number logs.

He didn't dare shut himself down again, in case it gave the warring programs extra purchase while starting back up.  Especially so if one of them was a virus.

It seemed like the not-quite-serialed program won out, squashing the Mimic-whatever almost as soon as it started up, and everything in his programming seemed to relax.

He marked a flag for the techs there.  That could not be a good sign, honestly.

When he was well and certain of the fact that the program conflict would not be rearing its ugly head for the next little while at least, he took a moment to reassess the situation.  

He was at the bottom of a sinkhole, in the burnt remains of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, sitting on the grimy floor as a result of his internal code throwing a hissy fit for some reason.  He had found a burnt corpse - an impossible corpse due to the lack of organs - in an office in the basement of the basement.  He had been intending to bring the corpse to Vanessa for assessment due to the man having circutboards and endoskeleton material she might be able to work with.

Ah yes, Vanessa!  He opened up his log for a moment to take a look at the ping history, only to see about eighty from Vanessa alone from at least the past 15 minutes.  Had his glitching really taken that long?

He was about to respond to the pings, realizing it was strangely weak at the moment for some reason, when he felt a tapping on his back.  He didn't do much to hide his yelp of surprise and whirling on a very upset Vanessa, just barely stopping himself from reacting by punching her, which shouldn't have even been an option.  What was going on with him?!  

"Freddy, where have you been?! " Vanessa demanded, green eyes looking unsettlingly purple in the dim light.  "I've been trying to get in touch with you for twenty minutes, and I find you here slacking off on me!  What the hell is going on here?"

Freddy imitated the sound of clearing his throat, chastised into sheepishness.  "Ah, Officer Vanessa.  I had a catastrophic bug crash my system during the time you were looking for me.  But I did find something useful to hopefully make up for the lost time!" he attempted to amend, gesturing towards the nearly mummified corpse.  "On a scan, I discovered that this body contains endoskeleton material and has some usable motherboards and circuitry we could salvage!  Perhaps he can be of help to us."

Vanessa appraised the corpse critically before glaring at Freddy again.  "You seem fine now despite a catastrophic crash ," she accused, and Freddy felt sheepish again.  

"Ah, yes.  It took approximately fifteen minutes to clear up, admittedly.  I had to force a reboot at least once."

Vanessa groaned at that.  "Will you need to see the techs?"

"Hopefully not, but I did flag a potential virus or two for my next routine inspection."

That assessment seemed to make Vanessa relax.  "As long as nothing happens tonight to interrupt this all.  We really need all we can get here."

"I will do what I can, Officer Vanessa," Freddy promised.

Vanessa didn't respond to that, deciding to turn on the dead man and start desecr- disassembling him.  For some reason, watching her tear apart the corpse so roughly made Freddy feel a bit uneasy, so he turned away before he could think too hard about how the hole in the chest was too old to be a result of the excursion here (he must have noted the schism on the scans and not noted it due to everything else) or the lump of plastic melted into the actual body.  He instead dedicated his time to inspecting this room further.  There were thick, half-melted cables mottled black strewn across the room and scattering their way back up the makeshift staircase made of debris Freddy had climbed earlier.  There had been a mass of melted animatronics there earlier, he remembered.  It had nearly taken his head off to approach, so he'd instead erred on the side of caution to get down here safely.

Had it been... guarding these tunnels?  It felt almost unfathomable, honestly, such an uncoordinated mass having a goal like that, but the corpse shed things in a slightly different light now.  Perhaps it had been protecting his final resting place for some reason, perhaps it was simply territorial.  Part of him was tempted to approach again, to get a better look and try getting a solid answer of some sort.

Something clonked against the back of his head, making him jump again.

"Stop spacing out and scan these chips for me, or I'll throw another finger at you," Vanessa threatened, making Freddy shiver at the mental image.  He opened his chest compartment, reminding himself of the motherboard scanners temporarily installed inside and starting them up before taking the chips with twice the care Vanessa seemed to have and slotting them into the reader.

They were still in pristine condition, miraculously.  Perhaps the corpse had unwittingly protected it?  Whatever the case, while the drivers worked agonizingly slowly he took the time to run a facial recognition scan on the corpse, just to get some idea of who he used to be while Vanessa kept rummaging disrespectfully.

According to the internet, several different databases pinged at the general facial structure.  The first alarmed him a bit, a couple of criminal database profiles from Hurricane, Utah for two different Aftons, one released due to a lack of evidence and the other being a short duration in Juvenile Detention during a criminal negligence case on the part of Fazbear Entertainment in its earliest stages.  Later ones soothed his nerves a bit, employee histories across the company as well as a missing person's report.

Part of Freddy felt a bit bad for poor Michael Afton.  Involved in a case regarding the death of his brother at the age of 14 and disappearing himself only four years later, during the interim his father would be accused of child murder and his sister also going missing.  He couldn't imagine how that poor boy must have felt.  The guilt at his siblings' fates must have been all-consuming.

Unseeing eyes tracked what Vanessa was doing, subliminally cataloging the information for review while Freddy was distracted, and part of his system fritzed out at the sight of a frankly ancient-looking pair of dolls haphazardly tossed out of the chest cavity.  Freddy blinked back to himself at the sudden glitching and found himself pointing them out to ask, "Where did those two come from?  They seem rather old, do they not?  This is not a safe place for such old toys."

"Dude had them in his chest hole," Vanessa shrugged.  "Not like I'm psychic with the dead, y'know?"

Freddy quietly scanned the dolls, barely acknowledging Vanessa with his sudden confusing fixation on the dolls.  

One was a plush toy of Fredbear, the lack of a tag being a marker that it must have been part of the very first line of plush toys made based on the franchise.  It was once a bright golden color, but evidently turned a dirty almost-brown due to dirt and age.  It was well-loved, visible threadbear sections just barely visible under the nearly black stains that were unsettlingly close to the color red for Freddy's tastes.  Its tophat and bowtie still held a slight satin sheen, and black beady eyes still glinted as brightly as ever under all the layers of muck and grime.  It looked as if it could have used a good washing or repair, but was too old to really patch up or clean, but was too precious to simply discard.  The idea made Freddy's chest cavity clench painfully.  There were signs of it being used as some form of comfort toy, based on the wear, but was at some point handled like glass.

The other toy of the two that Vanessa tossed aside resembled the old line of Raggedy Ann dolls that were popular once upon a time, yarn hair pulled up into a pair of pigtails and a red ribbon tourniquet tied around one arm with one end frayed as if pulled through a door jamb.  It was remarkably untouched, as if the original owner had simply set it down one day and never picked it back up afterwards.  He got a sinking feeling in his false stomach at the idea behind why.

He slowly crept towards them, ignored by Vanessa and ignor ing the ping from the finished scan.  Gingerly, he picked up the Fredbear doll, scarcely wanting to in case his plastic claws accidentally ripped into the cloth and stuffing flesh of the much smaller bear.  Idly he wondered why Michael - if the corpse really was Michael - still had these ancient dolls.  They were at least forty years old apiece, if not older.  He knew based on old family photos that they likely belonged to Michaels long-dead or long-missing siblings, but Michael himself was missing for at least thirty-six years himself... before mysteriously turning up as a withering corpse in the shell of a long-dead restaurant.  Freddy did a quick Trajillion Search for Michael for any insight as to his whereabouts from the time he went missing to the semi-recent burning down of the Pizza Place.

Not much was forthcoming.  Some conspiracy theory boards speculating about the disappearances surrounding Freddy's in general, some unsavory accusations about the death of his brother, but there was... one result that caught his eye.

It was an ancient home video, trained on a blurry purple figure.  

Freddy picked that option and watched the video closely, not wanting to miss a moment.  The resolution was terrible, low-quality, but that was to be expected in - Freddy checked the date in the corner - 1987.  The purple figure was nearly identical to the one on the ground, just less burnt and a bit fresher.  He lurched his way down the street from what was almost certainly the old Afton house, looking as if he were being puppeteered from the inside with every bruised inch of skin looking about ready to fall off.  He took himself to the storm drain before collapsing on the ground.  The blurry video zoomed in to watch keenly as what looked like a formless mass of cables, eyes, and silver metal violently ripped itself from Michael's mouth and retreated down the nearest street drain.  The abandoned corpse seemed to lay there for several moments before shakily drawing itself back up and staring right into the camera with vibrant white dots before it cut itself off hastily.

That was the last purported sighting of Michael Afton anywhere.  It was perplexing.

Vanessa interrupted Freddy's contemplation by grabbing and twisting one of his mechanical ears.  "Pay fucking attention you stupid bear."

Freddy took a moment to internally curse his internal pain receptors before sighing.  "Sorry, Vanessa.  This place has a lot to pick through," he attempted to excuse, finally digging into the files on the motherboard chips, subconsciously guarding the Fredbear plush closely as he did so.  

He found, first and foremost, incredibly rudimentary AI base programs.  Not too complex, just for running a specific signal, some basic game testing, and (by far the most complex processes) legal paperwork filing .  It was truly bizarre.

"These chips seem to belong to... what was the original Helpy model from what I can glean.  Game testing, lawsuit balancing... even some basic disability accommodations." Freddy explained.  He spotted some of the audio files and spotted a perfect opportunity for some petty vengeance.  Freddy was not normally the type for mischief, but he figured now was the perfect time for a good joke.  "I am also seeing an audio file here.  The name is rather nonindicative, however, simply win dot o-g-g ."

As expected, Vanessa glared at him.  "I don't-"

Freddy played it before she could finish, drowning her out with an airhorn recording so loud it nearly blew out the speakers on Freddy's voicebox from the sheer force of the sound.  It made Freddy's jaw ache from how it was forced open in sync, and he mocked sheepishness while massaging his jaw as Vanessa glared at him because of the noise.  

"Like I was trying to say, I don't think you should play that. "

Freddy considered himself very convincing at pretending to be apologetic.  He had to fake apologize for the terrible prizes children would occasionally get all the time.  Even so, it was a physical struggle to not laugh at Vanessa's expression.  He made sure to back up all of the Helpy files to a folder he'd found earlier that day that he didn't entirely recall having but figured he might as well use to backup the events of the day regardless.  It was admin-locked with a password Freddy was fairly certain he would need to change soon.

"Well, your mystery corpse was a bust," Vanessa scoffed in distaste, kicking the dead man at her feet.  "You better find something else to make this all worth my while before I get upset."

Vanessa already seemed fairly upset in Freddy's opinion, but he knew not to push his luck much more as far as retorts went.  He simply nodded in response as his attention returned to the old toys.

A black wire tangle offered him the old Raggedy Ann plush with the clumsy care of a young child.  Gingerly, he took it alongside the Fredbear and hastily hid them in his stomach hatch while Vanessa had her back turned, hoping to find them a better hiding spot later.  He didn't think he could forgive himself if he let them get left behind or forgotten.  

For some reason, he got the sinking suspicion that he was the only one left that cared what happened to them.

Chapter Text

Sander sighed as he stared at the shut down robot laying on the metal examination table.  Freddy had discovered a strange glitch where he wouldn't really respond properly to his name or its diminutives earlier that day.  He'd noticed himself responding to another name just fine, but was unable to pinpoint which name exactly.  Utterly baffling.  At least he'd suggested repairs himself, unlike SOME bots.

Sander was running the initial diagnostics on the flat version of the VANNI network while waiting on the head technician to come in.  Everything was looking fine on an initial runthrough, which made everything equal parts easier and harder.  He wasn't allowed to touch any of the actual program files, which was fine by him.  The file structures, however, were fair game.  So Sander was being a nosy bitch.  The Glamrock programming structures were fascinating to inspect up close, and it was always a treat to get a close look.  He'd looked at them before in the past on previous inspections. and he enjoyed seeing ways the self-learning software would improve itself.

It looked much of the same compared to the last few times he'd seen a Glamrock's files.  There was one folder he'd never seen before inside one of the backups, the title some Wingdings schlock.  He took a few moments to translate it to 'FWQMAVE', which.  Okay.  Sure.  Tell him nothing, king.  He tried a few unscrambling methods to no avail.

Eh, whatever.  It probably wasn't even that important anyways.  Sander discarded the idea of the folder and kept snooping around Freddy's files out of curiosity, peeping through file structures.  It looked like Freddy had started keeping his own copies of backups, apparently, and the folder containing them was password locked.  This normally wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the master admin password didn't work whatsoever.  

"What the fuck, Fredbear." Sander muttered, missing the way Freddy's eyelids fluttered at his name.

Instead, he kept on rooting.  The nonsense name file was also password protected, and the encoded letters weren't the password in secret.  Bullshit.  He did find a stray file that wasn't behind the password protection lock that was missing its name.  Not even a punctuation mark as a placeholder.  Sander was immediately intrigued and opened to investigate.  It definitely wasn't a system file, so it was under that 'free reign' umbrella he'd been wielding like a cudgel.

The file was... strange.  It was a long string of letters and numbers that seemed largely incomprehensible until he realized he could pick out words and phrases.

arthurmay forgiveme but icannot

... Pardon?  Sander reskimmed the file slowly to try deciphering the text only to realize it read out like a long stream of consciousness text.  Even as he watched, he saw more letters type themselves into the document, seeming to directly observe and reference what Sander was doing.

"Bro, that is creepy ." the tech remarked, only for the text to promptly respond with iveseenworse .

"... Stop flexing on me."

"Who are you talking to?" a second voice piped up, causing Sander to shriek and recoil violently.

"Jerebear!" the technician whined as he recovered quickly.  "You scared me!"

The man in his mid-fifties deadpanned at his equal.  "You're older than me, Sandy, act like it."

The older man pouted.

Jeremy leaned to the side and raised a brow at the self-updating text document, side eyeing Sander.

"Everything looked fine except for some weird files and folders that were out of place," Sander explained.  "A good chunk of them were admin-locked in a way that we couldn't use the master password, but that file wasn't.  No name, but it looks like a self updating stream of consciousness text."

Now Jeremy looked skeptical, at which Sander gestured for the other man to take a look.  Jeremy investigated the file for a few moments, skepticism converting into confusion.

"Wait, this is directly responding to what we're saying," Jeremy began.  "Did you boot him into maintenance mode?"

Sander shook his head.  "Completely shut him down.  Freddy should be dead to the world."

Jeremy scrolled through the document for a few more moments before closing it and making a note of which folder it lived in.  He navigated around, writing down the directories of the unusual folders and files as a whole before opening up the gibberish wingdings folder Sander had found earlier.

Up popped the password screen.  Jeremy tried a couple passwords Freddy would have chosen to no avail.  Both men's brows crinkled in thought and confusion.  

Jeremy huffed and navigated to the program file that dictated Freddy's behavior and slowly scrolled through it.

"There's your problem," Sander pointed out.  "The program is referencing the weirdly named folder for basic information instead of the main repositories."

Jeremy nodded in agreement, attempting to edit the file, but it reverted after saving.  "Ugh, I dont want to have to do a program recovery.  What's even in that folder?..."

He returned to it and attempted to open it, being barred by the password window again.

After a few thoughtful moments, Jeremy opened a second file exploration window to reopen the unnamed text document and scrolled through it, typing in words or names that seemed to have importance in varying different combinations.

It was the name Arthur in all caps that unlocked it.  

Freddy's head twitched violently in response as he started letting out a quiet, pulsing drone of static, and the two techs jumped in surprise.  Was it just Sander, or did it sound like Freddy was... trying to breathe ?  He stepped back just a bit from the bear warily, uncertain.  Jeremy dug into the folder investigatively, thoroughly distracted from the task at hand.  There were various text documents named randomly, including one labeled 'too far' and another a string of seemingly random numbers that looked like binary.  There were several folders too, named after years and incidents collectively.  Several were simply captioned with 'father', but there were a few standouts.

1983 - the Bite.  1987 - Ennard.  2016 - Henry.  

One forwent a year altogether, simply labeled my y with the name of a popular soap opera that seemed out of place entirely.

The names were bizarre, almost reminders for certain events.  Jeremy darted in and out of various folders to take notes on the contents and naming from there.  The Bite folder had a single video in it, at least 20 minutes long, and the thumbnail a solid red rectangle.  The Ennard one had several images and videos seeming to span across a week, curiously enough.  That vampire soap opera folder just had wholesale pirated episodes of the show.    Several of the files captioned with 'father' looked like several incidents recorded in the first person cataloging a bad home life.

The one from 2016 looked like another week at an establishment, one Sander realized with a start was Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place.  He abruptly took the mouse to Jeremy's chagrin and opened up the sole audio file titled 'connection terminated'.

The voice of one of Freddy's co-founders beginning the recording with the name of the file made them both freeze up.  Neither of them could move as they heard Henry Emily's voice drift throughout the room.

" I'm sorry Elizabeth, if you still even remember that name, but I'm afraid you've been misinformed. "

Sander and Jeremy slowly turned to share a look as Henry's voice intensely spoke on, describing an apparent plan to gather things into one place and hold them in a labyrinth.  Of how he planned to stay there and die nearby.

Of his regrets to his daughter, at being unable to save her.

Neither of the men knew everything that Henry was talking about, a lot of it went over their heads, but the condemnation of his old friend had to mean only one thing.

The fire of the last location had been no accident.  It had been arson on the part of the owner.

And they had built their own right on top of an apparent mass burial site.

The audio file ended and closed itself.  With shaky hands, Jeremy navigated back to the Ennard folder, and Sander realized he recognized the name.  Weren't they going to use that character in that canceled VR game?  He had no idea where it came from, only that Fazbear Entertainment started using it randomly.

Jeremy opened the video file from the end of the week, before the odd long gaps between video dates.  It started in an industrial elevator, the robotic voice the two men recognized as the automatic announcer of the Pizzaplex talking to what seemed like the point of view person, describing some kind of end of the week bonus.  The hands shakily tried typing in a response to the 'bot, which autocorrected to something seemingly random that made Sander chuckle thinly.  He took mental note of the strip of masking tape with the name Mike written on it at the top of the rudimentary tablet as it folded away.  

'Mike' (Sander assumed) crawled through the vent, and the announcer walked the person through on checking the animatronics.  Shining the light on the show stages as directed revealed a chilling sight.

Suspended over the stage, the figure of a human dangled limply from what looked like a metal cable.  The shadows cast over the face didn't reveal much, and the person was too far away to make out many details, but the bright orange hair stood out in the otherwise dark room.  The point of view person stumbled back, and there was a quiet gasp.

" M-Mr. Kennedy?... " The voice was soft, dogged with a light English accent, which was weird since most Freddy's locations lived and died in the middle of Utah.  

The speaker scrambles to the other side of the room before the robotic voice can prompt him, and there's another hanging body in the auditorium, dangling lifelessly in the dim light.  Distinct floral patterns snake up the partially lit arms of the dead technician, discernible even from the viewer's distance.

" A-and Dave too.. ." mournful horror mumbled its way out through the speakers.

Freddy let out another staticked wheeze, and Sander slowly turned to stare with wide eyes.

" Great!  It looks like everything is as it should be in Ballora Gallery- Funtime Auditorium- gr-gr-gr- " the robotic voice stuttered before resuming its droning as if nothing had happened.  It briefly described something being wrong with Circus Baby, and just like that, 'Mike' was through the vent and scurrying blindly through complete darkness, with the occasional flash from a whining device to briefly reveal the room.  

Nothing stopped him.  If the animatronics weren't on stage, where were they?  'Mike's' hands scrambled blindly at the door to Parts & Service before he pulled out a flashlight as he finally let himself in.  He glanced around before entering, as if expecting opposition.  The silver beam of light glanced off of stark white and candy red of an animatronic shell.  This must have been Circus Baby.  A soft, sweet voice crooned to 'Mike'.

"C an you hear me? "

The vision bobbed as 'Mike' nodded, vision trailing up to look the animatronic in the missing eyes.

" I'm pretending.  Remember how I said I could pretend? "

Sander glanced at Jeremy, sensing the focused man shivering.

The two techs watched the video in absolute silence, listening to Circus Baby quietly instruct 'Mike' on how to safely traverse through the dark to avoid Ballora.  Sander couldn't understand how 'Mike' trusted Baby with his life like this.  There was a point where it seemed like Ballora got in his way but was... suspiciously easy to convince to move.

The announcer warned 'Mike' about the dangerous area he was entering, but Circus Baby cut the warning off.

" You are in the scooping room now. "

Dim lights glinted from a window cordoning the room off from a control panel, a tall silhouette behind the dark glass staring at 'Mike' with pinprick eyes.  The struggling light cast its cold white glow across the room, covered in sleek metal and sporting a massive, wicked hydraulic machine of some sort.  The metal casings of the Funtime line of animatronics scattered across the floor of the room carelessly, as if shed like dead carapaces.

"Wait a second..." Jeremy muttered, squinting at the glass in the background.

" Funtime Foxy has already been here today. " There was a quiet clicking noise as the door locked behind the viewer.  

" Funtime Freddy has already been here today. "  Wires snaked across the room, grabbing and pinning 'Mike' to the door.  'Mike' struggled against his bindings.

" Ballora has already been here today. " Freddy made another drone of static, rattling himself against his restraints as if mirroring the point of view's actions.

" Circus Baby has already been here today. "

Sander turned to look at Freddy again, noting the very much open eyes exposing a pair of black pits rather than the animatronic eyes that should have been there.

He ignored the soft waxing voice of Baby and the video as he watched Freddy freak out unnaturally behind the two techs.  Even so, one particular line got his attention.

" The scooper only hurts for a moment. "

Sander didn't dare look as the tinny blaring of an alarm blew out the laptop's speakers, quickly followed by the sound of metal scraping against metal over the ripping and squelching of meat and bone.  As he watched, he say Freddy arch his back and practically howl a horrendous, metallic sound that made his ears hurt as if the bear were directly reacting to what the video was playing.  

Sander returned his gaze to the video, figuring the worst was over.  He was treated to the viewer's body dragging itself oddly up using an emergency sink with a mirror.  A face shrouded in shadow but still barely visible stared into the 'camera', small hooks at the corners of the mouth pulling the limp lips into a taut mockery of a smile.  Sander felt sick as he realized he could see bundles of squirming cables and blinking eyes stare out of the hole in the bloodied midsection in the video's reflection.  A pair of glassy purple eyes rolled in a slightly walleyed manner in excitement.  " You won't die, " the girlish voice prompted ill-fittingly as a hand robotically reached up to tousle the dark curls that were made up entirely of flyaways.  " But we need this more than you. "

The video faded out at that, as if passing out.

Sander felt sick.

And then the shut-down Freddy started to talk.

"I'm... sorry... you had to see that..." crackled out hauntingly, the head turning to look directly at the techs with black pit eyes and white pinprick dots.  "Please... don't wat...ch the... others."

It was as if Freddy had just learned how to speak again

While shut down.

The two grown men screamed bloody murder and dropped everything to go scrambling out of the room as quickly as feasibly possible.  After a solid five minutes of bolting through the endoskeleton storage, they both stopped to catch their breath.  Sander felt like he couldn't breathe whatsoever.

"What the fuck was that?" Jeremy hissed.

"I do not know," Sander wheezed.  "I do know that he was fucking not designed to talk while functionally dead."

"Yeah, I didn't sign up for some random analogue horror bullshit, Jere," he snapped harsher than he meant to.  "I'm out on this."

He unceremoniously unbuckled his tool belt and let it drop to the floor before stalking out of the room.

Chapter Text

Jeremy fought hard to maintain his professionalism despite his mental turmoil.  What he had seen in Freddy's files and memory banks haunted him like the ghost they should have belonged to.  He was in a meeting with the other technicians - software and hardware and even R&D - had been packed into a box of cranky sardines because Freddy's behavior was giving upper management questions.

Jeremy had answers.  Some, anyways.  Suspicions at worst.  Because for all that ultra-advanced AI was never worth babysitting, there was something more there beyond a simple glitch.  But those answers would have to come from addressing the one person in memory that Jeremy would refuse to acknowledge.

He was not proud of the person he had been when he was friends with Michael Afton.

Behind the Bonnie mask, he was a bully at best and outright cruel at worst.  Blood was on his hands, still, after all of these years, and it took all of his effort to leave that part of himself behind.  And honestly, it hadn't even just been the video that raised his suspicions.  Not the accent in the video, not the death circumstances matching up with Michael's disappearance, not the long rambling text document.

No, it had been the password hiding that all away from the world.

Arthur Afton.  Michael's unfortunate younger brother he had helped to kill.

Michael had never quite been the same since the Bite, as the town had taken to calling it.  Yes, he'd become the town pariah, but he'd made no efforts to contest it.  On the rare occasions Jeremy had been forced to interact with Michael, he'd barely been there, like he was the ghost instead of his brother.  Compared to how he had acted before, it was like seeing a star collapse in person.  It would have hurt to see if it weren't for the circumstances surrounding it.  Michael had always complained about babysitting his siblings - even long before he was of babysitting age himself - but Jeremy doubted that he actually enjoyed getting his wish in the end.

Hah.  Look at them now.  Michael missing and long gone, and Jeremy sticking his nose into a dead man's business.  Michael had barely even been a man.

Part of Jeremy was convinced that Michael had deserved it.

But if that line of thought was any indication, it would have to presuppose that ghosts were, in fact, real, which Jeremy was loathe to even consider because of what it would mean for the other Afton children.  And anyways, how would Michael have ended up anywhere near the Pizzaplex?  Circus Baby's was nowhere near them.  Not the original location, at any rate.  But even so...

The times lined up.  1987 was the last time anyone had seen hide or hair of Michael, and it had taken years before anyone even bothered to file a missing person's report, especially since he had gotten that job at his dad's place.  Hell, Freddy's video file corroborated with that, even.  And while it had scared him in the moment, the way Freddy begged them to not watch other videos, like he knew something worse was waiting beyond a gruesome death.  The folder from 1983 nicknamed as the Bite .

And all of the folders simply captioned with Father .

As much as Jeremy wanted to deny it, the only real possibility was that-

- A Fazbear higher-up walked into the room.  Jeremy perked up, belatedly realizing his scribbling on his notepad was beginning to resemble some long-forgotten nightmare of Fredbear's teeth gnashing in the night.  He quickly crumpled the page to toss it aside as the higher-up walked by.  Fear struck deep in his soul as he recognized the higher up as the current CEO walking into the room with a severe expression on his face.

Samuel Emily was very much his father's child, if the reports were to be believed, though he had been raised by his mother in the wake of a nasty divorce and the following Fazbear tragedies.  He was built short and stocky, but had bright green eyes that burnt into you like an angel on Judgement Day.  He of all people would recognize when history was repeating itself.

"Good day, everyone." he greeted crisply, getting the low murmur of conversation to die instantly.  "I heard that there was an issue in one of our animatronics that mirrored some previous issues animatronics have had." he stated simply.  "If you all have the time, I'd like you all to write down some issues you all had noticed and when you recall them starting." Samuel smiled politely at the room.  "Every detail counts.  I don't want another incident to happen here, after all."

Every technician in the room quickly put their heads to the paper, but Jeremy floundered for a moment, not knowing where else to start and suddenly recalling the old rumors.

... Had all the other animatronics been haunted too?  If so, then by who?  Jeremy tapped the blunt end of his pen against the pad of paper contemplatively as he dimly observed Mr. Emily approach.

"Mister Bonnibel, you aren't writing anything down." Samuel's voice quietly pipes in the silence of the room, dragging all eyes to him.  "Can you really not think of anything?"

Jeremy swallowed dryly.  "I can think of a lot actually.  I'm just trying to think of what order to put them in, especially since I got to take a look at Freddy's files recently."  Whispers chased around the room at that, and Jeremy felt an explanation silently demand itself.  "Freddy had reported a bug where he wasn't responding to his name properly, so Sander and I had tried looking through the files and software, and... there was a folder there that wasn't supposed to be there.  It was password locked against even the master password, and opening it we'd found a ton of files." Sweat beaded on his brow at the thought of it.  "They were organized by nicknames and dates, with all sorts of videos and images and text files.  All of them were in the first person.  And-and I know it sounds crazy, but I think I knew the person that the files from the point of view on.  Because when Sander and I opened a random audio file, it was some kind of speech from... one of the founders." He cast a furtive glance at Mr. Emily at that.  "And in another, the year the last time that person was seen alive, was a first person view of how that person died."

The words chased themselves out in turn.  The eyes bearing in on Jeremy felt unbearable, but he had to continue.  "And Freddy acted oddly the whole time we were looking through them, even though he should have been completely shut down.  Shuddering, making weird static noises, having the weird missing eye thing older animatronics had.  And he asked us to not watch any of the other videos."

He pressed his lips into a thin line as Samuel Emily's ambivalent stare turned sharp and pointed.  "What was the name of the person you recognized?"

"Michael." Was Jeremy's thin response, not wanting the last name to damn the discussion.

It was recognition that sparked in Samuel's eyes.  After all, there weren't too many Michaels relevant to the history of the company.  He knew exactly who Jeremy was talking about.

"So you think it's related to old rumors of hauntings." It wasn't a question.

"I can even show you the exact files Sander and I looked at directly." Jeremy responds.  "I wrote all the file paths."

"Did you find what was causing the name bug?"

"Freddy's AI was referencing the mystery folder instead of the default repositories for a lot of his behaviors.  He still acts mostly normal, which is weird, but it's like someone injected a new data set and made Freddy retrain all his behavior based on that.  I'm not a programmer, though, so I could be wrong."

Jessica Lapins, head of Programming, piped up.  "I wanna see the files too."

Before Jeremy knew it, he was leading the gaggle of technicians through the building to the location of one animatronic bear.  Thankfully, they were closed for maintenance for the day so no one could really stare at them.  Knock, knock, knock on Freddy's window.  The bear turned, surprised at the sudden knock, but still smiled and waved at the group.  "Hello, everyone!" he greeted warmly, before confusion colored his features.  "What brings so many technicians to my room?"

Jeremy rolled his shoulders before sighing.  "Remember when Sander and I were looking at your files?"

Freddy tilted his head.  "Vaguely..."

"Remember you asking us to not look at any more files after one of the videos?"

Alarm splashed across Freddy's plastic face.  "No, I do not.  Was I not shut down for that?"

Jeremy grimaced.  "You were, yeah.  You still asked anyways." Freddy looked at the technicians now with renewed concern.  

"Did you find something that could have caused my name reaction bug?" he asked, voice wary, and Jeremy sighed again.

"We found a lot that could have potentially contributed to a lot of your bugs.  I was going to show everyone else here, as a matter of fact, so we can try thinking of a way to fix it."  It wasn't even strictly a lie, even if the release of tension in Freddy's shoulders made Jeremy feel sick.  

"I see... I can also provide you a directory of bugs I have noticed and logged myself, then, if that would help." Freddy's voice turned oddly serious, and Jeremy found himself impressed again at the complexity of the Glamrock AI.  He wasn't even given that many pre-recorded voice lines, and yet he's making his own vocal tones without even thinking about it.  He hadn't even seen the other Glamrock models doing that.  Jeremy still smiled tiredly at Freddy.  

"I'd appreciate that, Fredbear."

For some reason, Freddy seemed to flinch a bit at the affectionate nickname, but seemed to get a bit confused at his own reaction.  Nonetheless, the bear gingerly wrote the path for his BugReport.FAZ file on Jeremy's list of other filepaths.  He hesitated on giving the pad of paper back for a moment, seeming to read the other directories for a moment.  "Are these the other files you found?" Freddy asked, voice low and halting, reminding Jeremy of the day Sander quit.  Jeremy nodded in response, nonetheless.

"We think that there was a folder of foreign files deposited into your repositories and prompted your programming to start referencing the foreign data for your behaviors.  Can you think of any time that could have caused that to happen?" Jeremy asked.  Figured getting the bear's account would be helpful if he did remember.

The plastic features on the bear's face seemed to pinch a bit in thought before sloping in disappointment.  "I believe that information may have been lost in the first few data wipes that attempted to fix my errors.  I only faintly recall... someone saying my name." His expression pinched a bit again.  "It was a man's voice, I think, though I do not remember much more beyond that.  I believe it was directly before some kind of crash, as the timing in my memories is directly before a catastrophic crash in my logs."  Freddy's ears suddenly perked up in realization.  "If any moment were to be the moment foreign data were to be introduced, I believe that log would be the one to show it.  Crash logs do not get deleted in data wipes, correct?"

And Jeremy was impressed all over again, at the fact that Freddy could remember that much through memory purges and that he even knew he crashed and where the logs generated.  "Erm, yeah, that's exactly right.  Thank you, Freddy." he couldn't help the smile crossing his face, forgetting there was an audience.  "Let's get down to Parts and Service to confirm that, then."

Freddy nodded, expression oddly grave despite Jeremy's reassurance.

It was child's play to go back to the files in question, with a dozen pairs of eyes on him making him sweat as he showed the file paths and explained how he'd figured out the passcode to the locked folders.

"Mr. Bonnibel," Samuel prompted.  "Could we hear the audio file of a founder you'd mentioned?"

It was just as haunting the second time, and Jeremy could so clearly see the expression on thw CEO's face mixed with a whole cocktail of emotions.  

Nobody said anything for a bit before someone asked to see one of the folders.

'83.

Jeremy immediately denied it, and when Julien tried to usurp control of the terminal-

Freddy let out a static scream, bucking against his restraints.  " Don't look there! " the bear practically wailed, despite again definitely triple checked to be turned off completely.

Jeremy had kicked them all out after that.  No meant no , and he refused to dig out forty year old dirty laundry of both a dead man and himself.

Jeremy knew that they'd still be listening, but he didn't care.

"I'm sorry." Freddy wheezed haltingly.  "No one should have to see what happened in 1983."

Jeremy appraised the animatronic bear for a few moments, trying to imagine Michael stuck inside.  Michael the teen, Michael the adult, Michael the corpse.

Somehow, it just didn't fit.  Not completely.

"And yet you do know what happened." the tech lightly pointed out despite the guilt heavy on his tongue.  "Why?"

White pinprick dots locked with Jeremy's eyes.  "I can't remember." Freddy candidly responded.  "I can't remember much.  There's what's in the folder, but..." he drifted off.  "... Something's keeping me from knowing, exactly.  And the angles cut me when I think too hard about it."

Jeremy nodded slowly.  "Why don't you remember what happens when you're in... this state?"

"My memory is not actively recording this interaction.  It self-sustains short term, but it is not committed to long term memory."

Something about that stuck out to Jeremy.  "Then why do you remember it now?"

Freddy faltered.  "I... do not know," he admitted.  "Much of what's happening to me is as much a mystery to you as it is to me."

Jeremy took a deep breath before biting the bullet.

"Does the name Michael mean anything to you?"

Freddy responded with a full body twitch and his head sharply inclined at an angle in its own sort of flinch.  "Under the Pizzaplex." Freddy hoarsely whispered.  "That's where I found me."

Jeremy's brows furrowed.  "Pardon?"

"It's where everything should have burned ." Freddy wheezed.  "Samuel, why couldn't you have let dead dogs rest?"

Jeremy didn't quite know what to say to that.  There was silence for several minutes.

"Jeremy," there was an odd lilt to Freddy's voice now, "Please turn me back on.  I don't think being like this is good for me."

Jeremy wordlessly obliged, seeing the pinprick lights fade back to silver, and the haggard 'breathing' fading away to a simple, staticky drone.

The bear blinked a few times as if disoriented.  "Where is everyone else?" Freddy asked after a moment.  

"I had to ask them to step out.  They were crowding us." Jeremy explained.  Freddy's brows seemed to furrow.

"Did I... talk in my sleep again, for lack of better phrasing?" Jeremy nodded at that.

"Had to kick 'em out since they refused to follow your excellent advice."

Another bewildered blink.  "I see." And another beat of silence.  "Did you get everything you needed from me despite that, then?  I hope the logs I provided will be sufficient enough data to go off of."

Jeremy smiled despite himself.  "We've got plenty of data, big guy," He avoided his usual nickname.  "Thanks for the information."

And Freddy's ears wiggled a bit in pleasure.  "I am happy I could have helped!  If you need anything else to resolve this issue  I will do my best to cooperate."

"You're the only one that does cooperate, Fredster." Jeremy chuckled, unhooking the animatronic again.  "Now go, be free."

"Freedom... the greatest treasure," Freddy joked.  "And thank you again for helping so urgently, Jeremy.  I understand a lot may keep you busy here as it is."

"It's my job to take care of you guys, Freddy.  If you have a problem, I try to listen and do what I can to help." Jeremy found himself smiling.  "Now go treat yourself, maybe teach yourself a swear or two."

The bear's laughter made Jeremy's heart ache in his chest in longing for times long dead and long gone, despite how he hated his behavior during them.  Freddy wandered off, and the rest of the technician's eavesdropping club walked up behind him.

"No bones about it.  He's haunted as hell." Jessica stated flatly from where they all decided to convene.  She eyed Jeremy suspiciously.  "What's in 1983?"

"A tragedy," he stated in response simply.  "One of the first."

Chapter Text

Moon coming back to himself awas an abrupt, sudden affair.

He was... somewhere he didn't recognize.  Cracked concrete and tarnished metal were what he opened his eyes to, dim and echoing ever so faintly with screams just beyond the peripheries of his audio sensors.  He swiveled his head around for a few moments before his scanners detected a humanoid form.

The first thing he noticed about the form were the dozens of severe injury alerts it tossed up.  "W-what?..." he mumbled to himself, crouching down to inspect whoever or whatever it was better.

They had a guest profile.  Moon read through it rapidfire in case it could help.

Booker McCormick, age fourteen.  Masculine-presenting.  Visiting the Pizzaplex as part of a computer science summer camp field trip.  Marked as separated from his group around closing time.

And, according to the alerts he was getting, most likely deceased.

There was static in Moon's ears as he rifled through the disgustingly large amount of injury alerts his ambient scanners picked up.

Fractures and lacerations were uncountable.  Bruises marred the boy's skin, hand-shaped and too large for a human to have made them.  Moon hesitantly held up his own hand to compare, only to feel a peculiar lurch in his abdomen when it matched up perfectly.  

His model had first aid installed once the old theater shut down.  He wasn't equipped for... corpse disposal .  Especially when evidence seemed to point to a murder committed by his own hands.

It was disconcerting, just how fresh the body seemed by the progression of post-mortem decay.  He could almost convince himself that the teen he'd neglected to keep safe was simply asleep.  Slowly, without even realizing he was doing it, he reached a hand out to brush some stray hairs away from Booker's face.

The past several months were a haze.  Had Booker been to the Daycare if he'd been to the Pizzaplex before?  Had he wanted to get into computers or robotics?  How big were the dreams that once lived in that head?  Between switching out with Sun to effectively watch over his shoulder and the strange blur in his memories, Moon doubted he'd even recognize Booker if he had.

And he'd failed the kid.  Worse than that, if the bruises were any indication.

He couldn't be seen with the kid, Moon abruptly realized.  People would assume the worst, and he - and even worse, Sun, whose involvement was even less than Moon's in all this - would get decommissioned.

He didn't want to die.

And how strange was it, for something not truly alive to fear death all the same.

A moment of hesitation stayed Moon's hand before he carefully adjusted Booker into a mimicry of a sleeping position, for peace of mind, before electing to retreat.  He hoped Booker was at least at peace in death.

The strange, old halls Moon found himself in were tight.  He kept hearing things that sent him off in the wrong directions, turning a straight path into a labyrinthine mess of pathing that frustrated the already-stressed animatronic.

He eventually found his way to a little office, partially caved in with a hole in the ceiling leading out of this stars-damned maze.  Finally !

He ignored the soft whispering at the corners of his audio sensors up until something harshly yanked on his ankle and hauled him up ungracefully through the hole.  Moon was glad his hat was attached to his head, because it would otherwise be LONG gone, as he dangled upside-down in the grip of... some big blob .  It was made up of mostly charred and melted wires, with interspersed animatronic shells and hydraulics scattered throughout like cresting sharks.  Many faces Moon recognized in his database, including the seemingly selected 'face' of... Was that Funtime Freddy?   Mostly white face with pink accents dirtied into looking more like an abandoned mauve, made up of connected interlocking plates that could swing on hinges to open and close rather than the solid piece of plastic most other eno shells looked like.  Instead of eyes that, admittedly, wouldn't be there, the eye sockets of the partially melted Funtime Freddy face were dark, lit from within with white spots that stared right through him.  Not into his soul, as he didn't have one of those.  Probably into his hard drive instead.

He stared back silently, too scared to comment or do much more than scream if more than a little jostled.

" that better be the last one now that youre awake, " a girl's voice - a child's voice - whispered directly into Moon's head.  Wires righted him as he tried to parse exactly what they - she? - meant.

"I'm... I'm sorry? "

There was a distinct sense of disdain coming from the molten pile of wires.  " you should be, man in the moon " The head shook almost disappointedly. " im surprised it took so long for one to stick "

"One of what? " he pressed, desire to know more briefly overpowering his fear.  "I have no idea what you're referring to or who you even are !"

" a victim ," was the simple response. " like you. " A brief moment of silence.

" like michael "

"And who exactly is Michael?!" Moon's arms flung out aggressively in frustration.  "You're just saying words at me and expecting me to understand!"

" you wouldnt understand " she agreed. " youre too new ."

"I'm actually a pretty old model -"

" the model doesnt matter, idiot ," the girl's voice snapped, frustration clearly mounting.  " its what gets put inside "

Moon held his tongue despite the questions he had.

"Uh," 

Except one.

"What's... your name?"

He felt like he was being judged for being too stupid all of a sudden.

" my name doesnt matter, " was the blunt response.  " all that matters is that the yellow rabbit should not have killed me "

Why was the yellow rabbit in specific so familiar to him?...

"... youre not enough like michael ." the girl's voice sniffed at him.  " you havent even done anything to fix what youve done "

Something about that pissed Moon off.

"I'm sorry that I've spent the past however long in a total blurry haze." he shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm.  " I was barely cognizant, I was s neglectful for literally not being able to think."

The blob of melted metal stared Moon down for a few moments. " ... youre too new to get it " she repeated.  " you dont even seem like you want to help now.  youre lucky youre the only one that got attached "

" What does that mean?! " Moon shrieked, fingers immediately going to tear at the seam between the front and back of his face.  "I literally just woke up able to think for the first time in months earlier today!  What did you want me to do ?!  I don't even know what I've done!"

The air started to press in around Moon threateningly.

" you have no idea what youre talking about. " the voice hissed, seeming to layer over itself with rage.

It was only now that it occurred to Moon that he might have been dealing with ghosts.

" and you dont even seem like you care that people are dying "

"Of course I care?!" Moon spluttered.  "I literally woke up with a corpse right in front of me !  I don't want anyone to die!"

" the blood on your hands says otherwise " the Blob bristled at him.  With some frantic squirming, he freed himself.  " if you really cared, youd be trying to fix things "

"Then tell me how ." Moon stressed, staring back into the unnatural eyes of the metallic amalgamation.

He didn't get a response.

"I don't know how to fix things," he reiterated nonetheless.  "And you accusing me of doing nothing is doing nothing but trapping us in a circle of arguing where nothing gets done.  If you want me to do something to make this whole mess of death go away, then tell me where to start at least."

If he could suffocate, he felt like he would from the absolute judgement weighing on his shoulders.

" get out "

Moon paused for a moment before making a noise of confusion.  Visages of golden bears started flashing in the corners of his eyes.

" GET OUT!!! "

Moon froze up for half a second, realizing he'd messed up, before turning tail and bolting before the weight of the ghost's anger could crush him like a hydraulic press fueled by suffering.

Past the bare endos and a sole, barely operational STAFF bot Moon fled.  The screaming just outside his range of hearing had intensified, some of it in his own voice, as it chased him through the caves at the bottom of what looked like a sinkhole.

When his vision cleared and the pressure finally lifted, Moon hazarded a glance back from whence he came.  There were generators scattered all around the place, some chugging away and others sitting dead and quiet.  Emergency lights and some fairy lights hung from the ceiling at seeming random, making the smoke from the running generators faintly glow like clouds in the night.  Red washed down on him faintly from the barely-functional logo of the building he'd emerged from.

Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place .

That was the location that had been established before the Pizzaplex.  Went down in a fire, killing the owner of Fazbear as a whole as well as the manager of the location, legend went.  Disappeared 'through a portal to hell' not long afterwards.  Looks like that portal was just an ill-fated sinkhole.

Moon turned away from the building, getting the distinct feeling of intrusion now with the added context of where he stood, and he set about trying to find a way out of this pit.

It wasn't long before he found a barely functional elevator.  He punched the call button impatiently, his feelings on this place distinctly soured, what with the murders and vengeful ghosts that talked in circles.  And on top of that, he still wasn't able to figure out how he had even gotten down here.

Belatedly, he realized that the elevator would probably be well-lit, and he immediately braced himself for pain.

He spent his time trying to reorganize his files as busywork while waiting on the elevator to finally finish descending.  On a cursory glance of the clock, he realized it was already five in the morning.  Would he be able to get to the Daycare on time?  He anxiously tapped his fingers against his teeth, wondering what his other half would think of the excursion looking back.

What Sun would think of him , knowing what Moon knows.

Moon had heard neither hide nor hair of Sun since he'd come to, and he was beginning to worry from how empty it sounded in his head with just his own thoughts.  Was his program double alright?  He tentatively reached out a mental finger to poke at what he thought was something of Sun.

No response.  Like he was in a deep sleep.  But he was still there.  The purging of whatever caused the haze hadn't deleted the better mind of the two.  That was such a genuine relief, he hadn't even noticed the arrival of the elevator and its wash of light on him for a solid few moments.

Moon blinked back to himself, suddenly blinded by the flickering fluorescent lights of the elevator, and it was with horror that he realized that he wasn't even switching over.  Was it because Sun was temporarily inactive?  He clambered into the elevator and pressed the only other button inside before leaning against one wall, immediately setting about investigating what exactly the issue was with his cycle settings.

An error awaited him, a critical one about the failure to start up the AI changeover process.  As painful as it was, it was kind of important that that function work to begin with.  He used his security permissions to bypass the admin password and started inputting command lines to try forcing the process to reboot or start up manually.  No dice, sadly.  He hesitantly pushed through a forced reboot command, and several minutes later, Moon remained firmly in the driver's seat.

Well this was a problem .

He had to try waking Sun up somehow, so he went about attempting to needle his cohost.

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing .  All he had to show for his efforts were some more error messages and maybe a crashlog by the time he got back to the main atrium again.

Moon made a beeline for an entrance to the employee halls, unwittingly starting a random opener.

"Hi-bye-" he blurted quickly, power walking right by them.  He just barely managed to catch their bewildered expression, which was understandable.

The employee halls of the Pizzaplex may have been a maze also, but they were a familiar maze he knew intimately.  Mostly because it was hard coded in because of his security patrols.  He quickly calculated the fastest route to Parts and Service, as much as he knew Sun hated it there, and took the first turn open to him.  Multiple early-morning employees caught sight of him and either gaped or jumped back in surprise.  He ignored them, mostly, looking for one of a small group of employees.

Maybe Sander.  Sander was cool for an old guy.  Something caught under his feet, and he was sent falling and skittering along the floor.  Moon hissed a bit in disgruntlement before assessing what tipped him.

Someone had pushed a pallet jack in front of him.  What the hell.  He looked up to find himself face to face with the head programmer, and relief flooded Moon a bit.  After all, what was up was a programming issue.

"Hey, uh-" Oh, come on Jessica, what's with the scared face? "- I think I have a problem."

She stared at Moon long and hard, but decided to not say what was on her mind.  "... What is it, Daycare Attendant?"

"There's something funky going on with the AI switching protocol," he explained.  "Sun seems... inactive for some reason.  No clue why.  But because of that, the light sensor protocol is actually acting up and refuses to activate properly.  I tried manually starting it and even rebooting to try reactivating Sun, but it just won't work.  Do... you think you can help?"

Jessica stared at him for a solid minute, during which the time ticked a bit past 5:40 in the morning.  After a bit she just sighed exhaustedly.  "I'll notify them to close the Daycare for today while we investigate this... issue." 

Oh, woops, Jessica sounded tired.

"Preciate it," Moon nodded firmly.

"Let's go diagnose what's causing that dormancy, then.  If it's what I think it is, it can be cleared up by the end of the day."

Moon felt the tension deflate off of him immediately.  "Oh, thank God ."

That got him a weird look.

"What?"

The programmer sighed through her nose.  "Oh, it's... nothing .  Just something I need to take note of later," she waved off.  "Now come on, this way."

And off she led him to begin working on what exactly was happening to Moon.

He thought it would be a good idea to keep the part about the haze to himself, though.

Chapter Text

With everything that had been going on, Chica was distinctly concerned for her friend's wellbeing.  It was only natural to be concerned, between the change in his eye color with none of the promotional material changing to match, his personality suddenly becoming more sad and serious, and his not even remembering his own name briefly.  The bear had spent at least a week in and out of Parts and Service on the discovery of that particular bug.  Not to mention, the subtle melancholy that seemed to hang in the air when it seemed like he thought he wasn't being watched.

He was clearly putting on a bit of an act to try seeming like his old self, and Chica wished she could help him somehow so he didn't have to feel like he had to pretend like that.

It had been about a month since his eyes changed color, and a week since his name error was allegedly resolved.  In that time, he'd been barred from performing, prompting most kids to ask after him.  Everyone seemed to have noticed something was wrong.  He was scheduled to be back at the start of next week, which should ease some concerns about the headliner, and the Pizzaplex was temporarily closed to prepare for that return and make sure everyone was in tip-top shape right alongside Freddy.

So, she spent her time worrying.

Worrying at the food at the food courts, worrying in hushed whispers to the others, worrying silently as she checked in with Freddy.  It's all she felt she could do to help.

She'd kept her metaphorical ear to the ground for any rumors, especially about the bear.  A surprising amount of the techs seemed completely convinced that Freddy was haunted, though by what no one really knew.  There was tale of him talking while shut down, of foreign data in his system making him act odd, of a death from the view of the victim.

That the head technician had been the one to report this all initially.

Chica hadn't wanted to bother the man, but she knew at least one of her other co-stars would take it upon themselves to pester the man.  Especially-

On a fine Saturday evening, Chica had her green room's door kicked in rudely by one rude rabbit animatronic shouting, "CHICA HOLY BUCKET!"

The chord she was in the middle of playing made a dissonant tone as she flinched at the abrupt entrance.  "... You could have just knocked." she stated simply.

"You wouldn't have heard me past your sick riffs," he excused, attempting to walk into the room but being stuck walking in place by Foxy grabbing him by the back of his high collar and just holding him in place.  He barely seemed to notice, gesturing and chattering as if he weren't being held back.  "Foxy and I - well, mostly me - have this theory about what's going on with Freddy!  I wanted your two cents about the data."

Foxy let out a quiet, aggrieved groan.  "Bonnie, I'm tellin' ya, the data you got's bunk ." the Bronx fox contested.

"Well, Chica's gonna be the tiebreaker!" Bonnie shot back with a toothy grin.  He turned back to the robotic hen.  "And you're actually reasonable about this stuff!"

Chica found another thing to worry at in her lip as she regarded the rabbit and the fox.  Both, despite their usual attitudes, seemed mostly serious about this.  And considering that this was Freddy they were talking about, it made sense that they'd be serious.  She closed her eyes, taking a moment to mourn the rest of her free time before recharge, and nodded in response.  "I'm curious about what you've found.  Show me the conspiracy board."

Bonnie gaped at her in theatrical mock offense, going as far as to make an affronted expression.  "That's such a stereotype!   I thought you thought better of me!  Why do you all assume that?!"

Foxy sighed and planted his face squarely in his hand as Chica raised an unamused brow at the bassist.

"It's in my room by the way."

There it was.

Chica's wrist was summarily grabbed as the rabbit hastily dragged her down Rockstar Row to his room, where a sheet was draped over a corkboard stolen from an abandoned staffroom when Bonnie had first started his theories.  With a flourish, he yanked the sheet off the corkboard, and Chica gaped at the sheer density of... stuff pinned to it.  Polaroids of Freddy at various angles including a closeup of his eyes, a few service logs both for freddy and for unmarked purposes, some copies of customer complaint emails, a picture of Head Tech Jeremy, it was a lot .

"I think that Fazbear Entertainment went and replaced the real Freddy with a robotic double." Bonnie stated bluntly.

Chica's brow metaphorically furrowed.  "Why would they do that, though?"

"Because the real Freddy was infected with a virus that couldn't be fixed!" he explained.  He slapped the corkboard to emphasize.  "There's a whole trail of logs about endos being trained up to be shelled up!"

Shock crossed Chica's face. "How long do the logs go back?..."

" Months .  Which is in fact how long it usually takes to train an endo's AI properly."

Slowly, Chica backed her way over to the couch in the green room to sit down hard.

"They couldn't change the eyes of the endo, though!" Bonnie continued.  "Which is why they're silver now!  Probably happened that night our memories were all wiped and we woke up in the Raceway.  They wiped the memories so we wouldn't notice the changeover."

"But... he still acts like Freddy." Chica protested.

"Does he really?" Bonnie asked genuinely.  "Because look at the facts.  Freddy is supposed to be cheerful.  Freddy's supposed to be a little bit too trusting.  He's supposed to be friendly and helpful and just an ordinary guy." he laid out.  "That's how he's supposed to be programmed to act.  But the Freddy of the past month is serious and sad .  He stares into space at random.  He gets sarcastic .  Like it or not, he's out of character ."

"Wouldn't they have done a better job of reprogramming him if they wanted the replacement to be seamless, though?..." Chica prompted.  "If he's supposed to be a replacement Freddy, then they would have made him act... like Freddy ."

"It was a rush job." Bonnie waved off.  "Some leftovers from previous training probably.  But they'll play it off like it was part of another virus or whatever if they end up factory resetting him."

Chica worried her lip again.

"Jeremy's in on it, and he's been spreading rumors of some guy named Mike being a ghost haunting Freddy or something, but I don't buy it." 

"Wasn't Mike the name Freddy was accidentally reactin' to when he forgot his name?" Foxy piped up from where Chica had forgotten he'd leaned against the doorway.  Bonnie raised a finger but paused.

"... Was it?"

"Yeah, that's what's there when you actually read the reports you steal ," the fox drawled.  "And besides, Freddy ain't the only one that's been acting weird.  Remember when security had to restrain and reset the daycare guy cause his night mode tried to strangle a kid?  And then they disabled regular use of the night mode during regular hours?"  

"But that was different.  That was a glitch."

"Apparently the night mode went back to non-aggression the other day, but his personality's different from how it was before the restrictions."

Bonnie tapped a finger to his chin.  "I'll need to investigate."

He stood ramrod straight, eyes wide.  "Wait a sec.  Brain blast."

Chica stood up to approach Bonnie.  

"I think I'm ascending to godhood with this idea, hang on a sec."

He massaged his temples theatrically before aggressively pointing at Foxy.  "Dogman!  We have research to do!"

"About what? "

"What if they're uploading brains to computers to make bug maintenance easier?"

Foxy deadpanned.  "That's a stupid idea."

Bonnie was already off like a shot, but Foxy remained and sighed before turning to Chica.  "I don't think Freddy got replaced." he reassured.  "I think that whatever's up with him, the techs will make sure he goes back to normal.  I recommend you ask Jeremy for more information about what got found in Freddy's head.  It was actually pretty interesting to hear about."

The tension in Chica's shoulders released, and she smiled at the keyboard player of the group.  "Thanks, Foxy.  It's a bit hard to think about Freddy being replaced, y'know?  I think Bonnie just got the idea in his head and wants to just cling to it regardless of what the evidence says."

There was a lull in the conversation for a moment.

"... What about the idea that he's possessed?..." she quietly probed.

Foxy shrugged.  "Honestly, more likely than any theory Bonnie would come up with."

Chica slapped his shoulder playfully.  "Don't be mean! "

"I'm not.  I'm being serious." Foxy defended.  "Whatever's goin' on with Freddy, it's clearly somethin' serious.  You don't stare blankly inta' space cause it's fun .  That's something humans do when they've been hurt bad."

"But animatronics don't-"

" Humans do." Foxy emphasized, a look in his eye.  "Like it or not, Freddy's different from us now, in a way we won't ever understand unless it happens to us too.  And I dunno if I want to understand him."

Chica stared at the board for a few moments, staring right into the photo that's a closeup of Freddy's face.

"...  I do.  Because like us or not, Freddy's having a hard time with things.  He forgot his own name not long ago.  Understanding what's going on isn't all there is to supporting him and making sure he knows we're here for him." she explained.  "He shouldn't have to suffer with this alone."

Foxy stared at her long and hard before smiling a bit and chuckling dryly.  "You're right, of course.  It's still Freddy after all."

The two disregarded the plodding footsteps approaching, figuring it was Bonnie returning for something, until.

"Ah, Chica!  There you are!" Freddy's voice was gentle, and he smiled until he peeked into the room.  "I was wondering why you were not-"

He cut himself off, face dropping as he looked at the corkboard Bonnie had assembled.  "Ah." was the only thing the bear could say.  Chica quickly pushed past Foxy to try guiding Freddy away from the invasion of his privacy, but Freddy stared at it for several moments.

"... What is Bonnie's current theory about what my problems are this time?" Freddy asked eventually, humor faintly coloring his otherwise deadpan tone.

"Well it was that you'd been replaced," Chica explained.  "But Foxy pointed something out that makes him think they've started uploading employee brains to computers, so I'm expecting a revision or two."

Freddy chuckled, shaking his head fondly.  "I hope he does not change.  It is how he cares about us."

"I wish he'd do it in a less invasive way," Chica sighed.  "But what did you need?"

Freddy scratched behind his head for a brief moment.  "I was actually about to assemble you all to convey some news I just received."  There was a peculiar look of mischief on Freddy's face for a moment.  "I suppose Bonnie will have to be the last to learn.  After all, his investigation into my personal problems is incredibly important."

He turned about-face to address both Chica and Foxy.  "I have gotten news that the technicians have completed training endoskeletons and have begun designing shells.  There will be two new animatronics joining the Pizzaplex by the end of the month.  They will not be joining the band, but they will act as the mascots of attractions as well as understudies as needed.  Specifically, the mini-golf course and the race track." he explained.  "They are going to start on the rebranding of the areas at the start of the week."

Chica's hands clasped excitedly.  "Do we know their names or what they will be?" she probed.  "I'd love to have another girl as part of the crew!"

"I do not know, I will admit.  I only just learned myself today, and it was through eavesdropping that I learned it.  I did not want you all to feel as if you were being replaced." Freddy asserted.

"When's Bonnie gonna learn about it?" Foxy asked also.

Freddy shrugged.  "Whenever you two decide to tell him or when the two newcomers are finished and introduced to us.  Whichever you would prefer."

That got a laugh out of the fox.  "Didn't know you had it in ya, Fred!"

The bear tipped his head to the side.  "Had what?"

"A petty bone in your body!"

"Well, I simply do not have any bones, apologies." Freddy's tone suggested he was joking.

The fox clapped Freddy on the back with a big, wolfish grin.  "How you been holding up, by the way?  We've all been worried about you."

Freddy's ears wiggled.  "I am doing much better than I have been.  The service team has been working hard to ensure that I am operational.  Some problems can not be resolved, but they have no overall impact on my ability to perform and interact with the public.  I have been told I am actually operating better than before in those areas, which is strange but not unwelcome!" he explained.  "I do not fully know the extent of... what exactly is going on with me.  But I assure you, I will be fine."

Chica spread her arms a bit.  "Do you mind if I hug you?"

"Go right ahead!"

And Chica gave Freddy her biggest bone-crushing bear hug.  "We're here for you if you ever want to talk about anything.  Be it haunting or digital consciousness transfers or being a clone.  We'll do our best to support you."

"And kick Bonnie's rear if he gets too annoying about it," Foxy contributes.  "You're more than the leader of our band, man.  You're our friend ."

"You do not need to kick Bonnie around," Freddy waved off.  "I know he means well, even if he gets a bit extreme in his methods.  If there is cause for concern, then I will talk to him myself."

Foxy nodded in acknowledgement.

"Is there anything else we need to know?" Chica asked Freddy, checking the time.  "We're getting close to the doors closing for the night, so I want to be prepared for anything that happens tomorrow."

Freddy's eyes squint cheerfully.  "I simply want you two to do your best like any other day.  It is just a return to form, after all, not a complete change of the protocol.  I trust that all three of you will perform well."

"You don't think you'll do a great job too?" Foxy teased.

"We all do great, of course," Freddy poked back.  "But I figured me putting my whole weight into it was going to be a given."

"You try to hard," Foxy shook his head.

Chica chuckled at the two of them.  "I'm sure everyone will think we all did great."

Chapter Text

To be perfectly frank, Sun had no clue what was going on in his head anymore.  A few months ago, some kind of virus had been dropped into their shared system, and though the firewall protecting their programs between the partitions in the drive had kept Sun safe, he'd practically seen the way Moon had started breaking down and getting increasingly violent.  

Nobody had listened when Sun had tried to tell some of the programming team about what was going on.  They'd all thought the aggression was normal .  Moon was programmed to be a rules-stickler and overprotective, granted, but Sun could tell that whatever was happening to Moon was not normal.  It had been terrifying, to feel so fractured from part of himself like that, and see Moon slowly devolve like a rabid dog into constant baying for blood.  He could tell that whatever memories were getting stored were being corrupted on arrival.  And whenever the lights were out, Sun was forced to watch as... as...

It was a blur to him.  And if it was a blur to him , corrupted and unrecoverable, he could only imagine how absolutely unsalvageable Moon's databanks must be.  The only things he could recall with clarity was the face of some kind of white rabbit and their shared hands giving way to blood and bruises.  And faces that could have almost been sleeping.

The day Moon had almost strangled one of the kids was when the team finally did something.

They'd locked the door and thrown away the key.

Kept the lights on, no matter how they started to burn in Sun's mind, and banned public-facing use of Moon, leaving him to fester behind the curtains like an open, untreated sore.  Feeling the other half of his broken mind watching over his shoulder, radiating madness and desperation and desire to hurt made Sun feel nervous (and he'd in turn feel guilty for being nervous, because as scared as he was, Moon was still part of him, just as he was part of Moon in turn) as he tried to paper over the holes in the walls with flowers and clouds like he'd been told to do for the kids.

Sun had been disappointed in the tech team for that.  Normally, he regarded them somewhat fondly, even if he held a bit of a grudge for effectively holding them down and reprogramming them against their wills once the theater closed, but he really thought they would have been better about hearing them out about something going wrong.  It might not be their fault.  It had only been so easy for Sun to see what was wrong because he was effectively living in the same space as the virus.  Only he recognized the signs, and only he had been the canary in the coalmine nobody realized had stopped singing.

He knew the kids were scared of him too, now.  He knew he had been starting to break under all the pressure.  Constantly being turned on wasn't very good for any machinery, least of all the kind that could think, and being on perpetually to try warding off the virus corrupting their shared mind had made him more stressed and less patient.  He knew the kids were scared of him hurting them too.  He'd be scared of him and Moon, too.

Sun didn't know how things snapped back to being... functional .  

It had been a night where he was forced to shut down by the night security guard for reasons unbeknownst to him, and he'd woken up in Parts and Service being poked at by a tech feeling peculiarly as if he had been a bone set back into place after being broken.  Moon had been in the driver's seat, and the first thing that had struck Sun was that Moon was actually talking .  Not saying canned phrases on loop and screeching indignantly, actually holding a conversation.   His voice had changed somehow, yes, but he was coherent .  Apparently, there had been some strange bug that prevented Sun from activating properly, and Moon had brought them to Parts and Service as soon as he'd noticed.  No filing a ticket first to wait several months to get forgotten in lieu of one of the headliners having an emergency.  No strictly playing by the rules and letting it lie.  Just... direct action.

That's when Sun had realized Moon had changed . 

At the time, as if woken up from sleep abruptly, Sun carded through their shared memories to try finding out what had happened.  The corrupted data from the past several months were either unopenable to him or straight up deleted, as there were numerous gaps between file logs.  There were some things he could see, the white rabbit giving orders, the burnt remains of an ancient yellow rabbit animatronic with mummified human bits inside partway through being repaired, the scared faces of children being pulled away in the dark.  Sun knew Moon would never do something like that willingly.  He could only assume whatever virus they'd had had forced his mental roommate to be compliant.  Of that night Moon woke back up, all Sun could see in the memories were glimpses of a tall tangle of wires and animatronic shells, of accusatory whispers he couldn't understand the words for, the distinct sense of something being wrong somehow.

It was only later that Sun had thought to ask if Moon remembered anything.  Considering he remembered nothing as stated in the reports, it felt strange for Sun to be the one to remember more as the person watching from the outside.  And frankly, Sun didn't really care if Moon remembered.  He didn't care if Moon was acting strangely, or if he himself was also beginning to act a little odd.  What he cared about was that his effective roommate was back and sane and no longer murderous .  Oh, yes, he'd egg Sun on to let the kids simply batter one another with pool noodles, or would suggest using a water gun as a means of lighthearted discipline, or even go as far as to try getting Sun to slap the more... aggressive patrons, but they were a far, far cry from what he was doing before.

And, to be honest, Sun had neglected to actually... have a conversation with Moon about what exactly had happened.  He had been too preoccupied in his own head, bustling and working and realizing he had become far too antsy to rest.  Something had changed in them both, Sun realized, when he noticed himself falling into more theatrics he'd thought had been stripped of him, when he found himself becoming more easily distracted.  He'd initially assumed it was a short-term consequence of all the stress he'd been under, but it had only become more and more habitous as time progressed.  

He didn't know much about what was going on outside, but Moon seemed much more aware, helping regale Sun of the news around the 'plex.  Freddy's return to stage, the preparations for two new friends joining them soon, of missing persons cases in the area from that hazy period neither of them remembered much of.

He'd been all too eager to just brush everything from the night of his mental roommate's reawakening under the rug, even if Moon seemed a bit troubled and confused about what was going on.  Moon had seemed determined to keep himself just as busy.  When Sun willingly handed off control to Moon in the brief minutes on the hour at night, he did what he could to make the Daycare safer.  Reworking security protocols, reviewing tapes and logs for flaws, patrolling himself and keeping his sharp eyes out for anything untowards.

If anything, it was these spare moments that made him more diligent than he'd used to be.  Because there was something there, under his actions, fuelling what he did beyond it being his duties.

Of course, Moon wasn't all work now.  No, if anything, he'd become even more playful and capricious in regards to his hobbies, seeming to scrounge up knowledge Sun never knew he had from memories Sun wasn't even sure were in the banks they had shared access to - they should have been, but Sun had yet to find them.  And the yellow animatronic found himself increasingly curious about what, exactly, was going on with Moon.

So, of course, a night when Moon had elected to mess with the computers in the security station - right before upcoming trials on reimplementing him back into the Daycare schedules! - Sun figured it would be the perfect topic of discussion for distracting Moon from apparent hacking attempts.

" So... " Sun attempted to begin.  Moon paused his typing in the text document he had open on the OS default wordpad.

"So?" Moon mumbled back.

" What... happened that night? "

Moon mimicked the sound of a lip smack.  "There's been a lot of those kinda nights, you're gonna have to specify, Sun."

Sun made a valiant effort to bite back his rising irritation.  " The one that woke you back up again!  That changed your voice and personality, that one! "

Moon froze up for a moment.  "... My... personality's the same, isn't it?  And my voice?" His voice was hushed, unsure, and Sun felt a bit bad for pressing the topic now of all times.

" You used to... stick to the rules more, " Sun explained.  " You were supposed to be the serious one.  And your voice, it used to be more... more quiet and less growl-y.  Like mine but less energetic. "

Moon blinked a few times before resuming typing.  "I think the virus ended up corrupting my personality files?  When the techs checked, all that was there were some emergency replacement ones my system generated after a catastrophic wipe based on my behavior and available memories at the time.  It honestly wigged 'em out because I was apparently acting way more complexly than the emergency files would have allowed.  Kinda weird."

" That is weird. " Sun agreed, watching what Moon was doing.

Sun didn't know Moon knew how to code.  To him, it just looked like a spaghetti of words and letters that made no sense in the contexts he was seeing them in right now.  It made him think of hackers in movies.

When had he seen a movie... ever?

" What happened that night, though? " Sun repeated.  " All your memory files are corrupted or wiped.  I can't see what happened to wake you up, exactly, and it's... been bothering me. "

Moon paused again halfway through typing something in about the network.  "... I woke up somewhere weird." he began simply.  "And I think I talked to a ghost haunting a metal blob?  I really have no clue what was going on there."

" What about the white rabbit? "

Moon tensed up.  " What white rabbit?"

" The one in your corrupted memories.  With a knife.  You were working with her, it looked like "

Moon didn't respond for two minutes and forty-eight seconds by Sun's count, simply staring into space.  "I... will have to look into that." Moon deflected.  He quickly saved his code file as sans undertale , which Sun didn't know the meaning of, and ran it.  Sun's nerves were on end, but Moon didn't acknowledge it as he quickly navigated to the internet browser and typed in a seemingly random video website.

" What are you- "

Moon interrupted Sun with a cheer as the page loaded.  Sun watched nervously as Moon typed something in, clicked a few things at seeming random- and some random cat video started to play.  Sun watched it bewilderedly and could practically feel Moon's self-satisfaction.

" What- "

"There's filters on the employee internet connections here," Moon interrupted to explain.  "And some programs that compound on them.  The code I just wrote was a Java applet I wrote to sort of block the blockers," he waved a hand idly.  "It's not very strong, but it basically just hides the browser you use from the blockers as just the same page, like a digital blindfold."

" How do you know how to do that?... "

Moon shrugged.  "I just do."

Sun continued to watch in numb shock as Moon navigated to another site for something called... Stem or Stan or something that was the color blue and ran a download of something off the site.  While that was running, Moon navigated to the internet in their shared mind and populated an email under a random alias with a seemingly popular service.  He plugged the details of the alias and email into the registration panel for the site, as well as repeating the download and registration process for another program on another page and site.

It was surreal to watch this all go down with random cat noises in the background.

When both downloads were complete, Moon ran them both and-

Oh.  That was a game store client .  And the other one was some kind of group chat software.

" Did you really bypass the filters to play video games? " Sun asked bewilderedly.

"Yep!" Moon crowed. "Now nights won't be so boring!"

Sun metaphorically blinked in surprise.

"What did you think I was doing?  Coding and running a virus in front of you and the security cameras apropos of nothing?"

Sun went quiet, not wanting to admit that, yes, that's what he had feared was happening for a moment there.  He hadn't wanted for Moon's return to be an all-too-cruel ruse to compromise the security.  He hadn't wanted proof that Moon was back only for it to get ripped away again.  He hadn't wanted to have his hopes up like that.

"You did, didn't you?" Moon laughed dryly.  There wasn't any sort of malice or judgement there, just plain humor at the situation.  "Yeah, I wouldn't trust me, too."

" Well, I do trust you, I was just... worried. "

Moon paused again.  "... You were worried about me?"

" Because what if you stopped being back? " 

Moon sobered up at that.  "Oh, that's not going to happen."

" How do you know that? "

All humor drained to deathly seriousness and a straight-laced tone.  "I refuse to let it back in."

There was a moment of silence.

"At any rate," Moon's tone went right back to cheery, upbeat dryness, "What kind of games do you wanna play?"

Sun was thrown by the emotional whiplash.  " I??? Don't know???  I don't know games? "

Moon fake-snapped his fingers.  "We need to acquaint you with some, then.  I think you'd like Animal Crossing or something, but that's gonna take getting some emulators..."  Moon descended into mumbling to himself as he made a list of games to try getting on Fazbear's dollar which he proceeded to label as 'papyrus undertale'.

Sun didn't really understand Moon anymore.  He really, really didn't.  But as long as his mental roommate wasn't virused to oblivion and back and seemed in relatively high spirits, as long as Moon was alright and happy and functional, as long as Moon was okay , Sun didn't care if he understood.

He might someday, anyways.  For now, he'd simply let Moon explain if he wanted to and let it wash over him if not.

Moon was okay, and that's all Sun needed.

Chapter Text

Tale told that being the new kid was never quite easy.  Roxanne Wolf would never doubt the old adage, but she refused to let nerves like that get under her freshly-painted plastic skin.  She had to say, she quite liked her design, punk red and black contrasting against cool greys and greens made her feel eye-catching in a way that she knew was how it was meant to be.  Oh, she'd never get the limelight of course, she was a glorified understudy for the main band, but she had a whole multi-part attraction all to herself!

She wasn't the only new face waiting for an introduction to the band proper.  Next to her stood an electric green gator with bright scarlet hair pulled up into a straightlaced mohawk.  His eyes were wide and starry, and his tail was wagging excitedly despite the fact that Roxy was certain gators didn't wag their tails.

"Who do ya think is gonna the one you're the best friend with?" the gator's thick Cajun accent cut through Roxy's introspection.

"Chances are Chica since she'll be the only other girl," she noncommittally shrugged.  The gator tilted his head to the side in confusion.

"Ya don't think you're gonna get along with Foxy, then?"

She deadpanned at the animatronic with her.  "I didn't say that.  I just said Chica's the most likely to get along with me."

The gator straightened his back, making Roxy realize he was hunched over.  "Oh, sorry.  Misunderstood what ya said there."

"... What about you?" she prompted after a moment of awkward silence.  "Which member of the band do you think you'll get along with most?"

"Uh... I dunno!" the green animatronic admitted.  "Foxy's cool, but Bonnie's smart, but Freddy's nice!  But I do think I heard some gossip about somethin' bein' up with Freddy..."

Roxy gave him a long once-over.  "... It's gonna be Bonnie." she declared.

"Ya think so?"

A technician walked over before she could respond to that, effectively killing the semi-stilted conversation.  It was the guy that had booted her up, looking through a notepad on a clipboard.  "Alright, Roxy, Monty" - Monty must have been the gator - "We've got the band gathered up.  Current plan is to have you introduce yourselves to the band before opening, then have you join them on stage for the first show of the day so we can introduce you to the public officially." he explained.  "Any questions?"

"Will we get to play any instruments?" Roxy asked.

"If you want to!  We have a couple spares down here if you want to try harmonizing with any of the other band members.  We did give you a sort of default instrument so the framework was there in general, if you wanted to give that a shot."

Roxy squared her shoulders.  "I'd like to give that a shot." she agreed.  If she wanted in, she'd do it with a bang.  The tech nodded back.

"What about you, Monty?"

Monty shrugged.  "It might make it less awkward."

"This way, then."

The two followed the technician into Parts and Service room, right up to the stand with the spare instruments propped on peg hooks like hardware in a garage.  Roxy assessed the instruments for a moment as the technician spoke up again.

"Okay, your default instrument is based on which band member you'd be most likely to stand in for.  Roxy, that would be keytar for you, and Monty's is guitar."

Monty grabbed the first guitar that was in reach - one of Chica's almost certainly - while Roxy deliberated for a moment on the instruments before just taking one of the spare keytars.

It felt right in her hands.

The technician walked the two over to the lowered stage elevator after that, and nerves made Roxy tighten her grip.  She wondered for half a moment if the way the band acted in front of people was what they were really like for a split moment.  The group of four chatted at the elevator, evidently already ready for the opener of the day.

"Alright guys!" the technician Roxy forgot the name of called, drawing the band's attention.  Something that immediately stood out to her was the fact that Freddy's eyes were the wrong color.  How odd.  "These two are going to be the latest Pizzaplex animatronics.  Roxanne Wolf, who's going to be for the gokart track and its attached salons, and Montgomory Gator, lord of the mini golf course.

The members of the band waved to the two newcomers, and Roxy felt compelled to wave back.  Everyone except Foxy looked really excited to see them, which soothed her nerves some.

"Got space for two more up there?" Monty asked with a grin.  

"We've got space for ten, if you want to bring up a clone army!" Bonnie piped up, which got Foxy to finally crack a smile.  With a whoop, Monty gave a tremendous leap to get on stage.  Roxy rolled her eyes and climbed the stairs like a normal person while Monty vigorously shook Bonnie's hand.

"He just got made and he's already got problems.  Real shame, really," Roxy commented.

"He will fit right in, then." Freddy shook his head.  "Whatever the case, it is nice to finally meet you two.  We have been excited to see how you turned out!"  Something hung in the air near him, Roxy noticed, weighting his voice quietly so the prerecorded messages she'd heard of him sounded... canned and fake almost.  She decided to not think about it too hard, and she flung her mane of hair over her shoulder.  

"It's nice to meet you all.  I'd ask you to call me Roxy, but considering current company, I wouldn't want to cause any confusion.  Roxanne works just as well." she explained.  "Don't want to be a copy-cat after all."

"I think ya mean copy- dog ," Foxy grinned at Roxy.  She regarded him with bland derision, and he waggled his brows at her to try prompting a laugh.

"I think both Roxy and Roxanne suit you for what it's worth!" Bonnie pitched in.  "What do you think, Freddy?"

Freddy's head tilted to the side incrementally, smoother than Roxy thought it should move and making her feel a tad unsettled about the bear.  "Well," he began, voice almost sounding judging or sarcastic if Roxy didn't know better, "You did not want to be a copy-dog.  I personally do not think anyone here will assume intent to copy, so what would you prefer to be called?"

Roxy blinked at the question briefly.  And here she was assuming she'd be defaulting to her full name.  "Like I said, both short and long versions work for me, Mr. Fazbear."

Freddy's ears wiggled in seeming amusement at that.  "Ah, very well Roxy.  Also, you do not need to call me Mr. Fazbear.  For my friends, It is just Freddy.  After all, Mr. Fazbear is John Entertainment Fazbear himself, the owner of the company."

Roxy couldn't help the small snort at the joke.  "Well, let's hope he doesn't sue you for impersonation, then."  

That got a chuckle out of the bear as Chica squeezed in between Roxy and Freddy.  "Can I just say it's so nice to not be the only girl anymore?" she nearly sang.  Roxy smiled at the chicken warmly.  

"I don't doubt it.  Freddy seems like the only one that's not annoying."

The rest of the boys whined in a theatrical, incomprehensive jumble she simply grinned at.  "I just met the gal, and she's already bullyin' us!" Monty play-wailed.  "Yer gonna make me cry!"

Something shifted in Freddy's expression at the declaration, something flashing behind his eyes where Roxy was certain nothing should have lived, and concern crossed his face.  Chica shared a subtle look with Foxy before swivelling to the bear, clamping his jaw shut before he could even try saying anything.  Monty and Roxy stared at Chica in confusion as the playful air dissipated into stone-cold seriousness.

"Freddy." Chica started seriously.  "Roxy isn't really bullying anyone.  We're all just teasing each other and getting to know each other."

Freddy locked eyes intensely with Chica, and Roxy could swear that the air felt heavier.  Foxy wrapped an arm around Roxy's shoulders and beckoned Monty closer to huddle in closer as if to gossip.

"Okay, listen up you two," the scarlet canine stage whispered to the two newcomers.  "There's been some weird stuff goin' on with Freddy."

"Like suddenly thinking playing around is cause for concern?" Monty asked, baffled.

"It has to do with the way Monty called it bullying, right?" Roxy furrowed her brow.  Foxy nodded.  "That's part of it.  It's not as bad now, but he's been havin' weird... glitches pop up.  A bit ago, he forgot his own name.  There's been incidents where he gets stuck staring into space or makes weird comments.  Sometimes his thoughts seem to jump in ways that don't make sense, like misaligned word association.  Once, I could have sworn I heard him crying in the middle of an overnight charging cycle like he'd woken up from a nightmare.  We're not supposed to be able to dream, but..." Foxy sucked a breath in through his teeth.  "... I wouldn't put it past him to be able to at this point."

"What's makin' it happen?" Monty asked, concern in his voice as he glanced over at Chica and Freddy.  Roxy mimicked him, seeing that Chica seemed to have managed to calm Freddy down.

"Techs think the guy's haunted, somehow.  Even the head tech, n' he's actually reasonable about stuff." Foxy scoffed.  "Bonnie's got his own theories, but nobody's really sure about anythin' happenin' with him.  I thought everything was mostly cleared up but... guess not."

"Is he going to be okay?" Roxy found herself asking.  Because she was, admittedly, worried.  Freddy was plenty nice, and seeing his expression shift so suddenly despite nothing on his face actually changing was kind of...  Well, it was scary.

"He will be," Foxy promised.  "I think he jus' heard the word and got overprotective.  I think I've heard him scoldin' kids under his breath for bein' too mean."

"Sounds like he's possessed by a ghost that used ta be bullied," Monty mused in all seriousness.  

"I doubt he's actually possessed," Roxy declined, "But I wouldn't be surprised if he was just being... overprotective."

Foxy scratched his chin for a moment.  "Either way, he's not really supposed to act like that, yknow?"

Roxy glanced over at Freddy and Chica again, and it seemed like he had been calmed down finally and that Bonnie had joined Chica in assuaging the bear.  Chica tossed up a hand signal, and Foxy broke the gossip huddle.

"I sincerely apologize that you had to see that," Freddy grimaced, voice halting as he winced at himself.  "I have not been... entirely myself lately.  It is no excuse, however.  I did not mean to ruin the moment and get so... strangely defensive."

Roxy met his eyes, studying him carefully.  Monty, meanwhile, simply waved him off.  "It was probably bound ta happen eventually, Fred.  Better we know sooner rather'n later, yeah?"

Freddy visibly wilted.  "It was still incredibly rude to almost accuse one of you of something terrible."  He shook his head.  "I do not even know where some of the ideas that went through my head came from."

He looked directly at Roxy.  "I am especially sorry to you, Roxy, as I could have said something that could have not only made you feel unwelcome, but would be incredibly difficult to apologize for.  I am glad that Chica stopped me."

Roxy held an awkward silence in response for a few moments before making a decision.

"We don't know each other so well, and while we're supposed to work together, things can happen that mean personalities clash.  You didn't say things you regret like you could have, and you can feel as bad as you want over your first reactions, but it takes some real maturity to recognize that the knee jerk response isn't the best."  she reasoned out aloud.  "Really, I should be the one apologizing to you.  I didn't mean to set off whatever that was, because something I said clearly upset you a little, even if an accusation of bullying was meant in jest by Monty."  She tried to find her words from there but fell short.  "So, uh.  I'm sorry too."

Freddy's expression became stern.  "You do not need to apologize at all, Roxy." he half-scolded.  "I will accept it, but know that the only fault here is mine for such an irrational reaction to something so mundane."

"Wanna hug it out?" Monty offered awkwardly.  With a weary sigh, Roxy took it, and Freddy followed suit.  "Here's to a hopefully good friendship!  It can only go up from here, yeah?"

"That's a great way to look at it, I think!" Chica grinned.  Bonnie nodded in agreement before tilting his head to the side for a moment. 

"Wow, minor drama really eats up a lot of time, it's getting close to the time for the show to start," he announced.  "We all ready to start the day fresh with two brand new friends?"

The other three of the original band fidgeted a bit - Freddy straightened his bowtie and hat before grabbing his microphone and its stand securely, Chica fluffed out her head feathers and double checked the tuning on her guitar, and Foxy shook his head so his shaggy hairdo rearranged itself and shouldered his keytar - before nodding in agreement.  Monty held up his guitar in anticipation, and Roxy's tail swished in unconfined nerves and rolled her shoulders.

Bonnie played each of the strings on his base before nodding back to everyone holding up a fist with the palm facing down and the knuckles outwards.  "To a better day, and new friends then!"

The other three of the original quartet mimicked the motion so their fists were in some way touching - pressed into the sides of each other or lazily on top of the rest - and did nothing else.  They stared expectantly at Roxy and Monty.

Roxy was the one to act first this time, immediately making her own fist and joining it into the haphazard pileup.  Monty saw her lack of hesitation and followed her lead after a moment, his fist managing to bury itself underneath all the others.

"Even if you do not make it on stage after this," Freddy hummed.  "Welcome to the band, you two."

"Yeah, welcome to the band!" Bonnie agreed.

"We're happy to have you here," Chica pitched in.

"You two seem pretty cool," Foxy smirked and shrugged half-heartedly.

They broke the strange fist pile, and the platform beneath them trembled and began to steadily rise, the purple overtone wash of the neon lights splattering across the group of six.

The automated intercom sprang to life, right on schedule and right on beat as the opening notes of the first song of the day began to peel into the air.

" Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special surprise for you today, so put your hands together for Freddy Fazbear and his friends! "

The limelights were blinding, and the crowd of children and adults alike screamed out in pure enthusiasm as the platform finished its ascent.

" Two brand new friends will be joining us on stage today, so make sure to give a warm Fazbear welcome to Roxanne Wolf and Montgomery Gator! "

She knew it wouldn't last.  She knew it.  But it felt so right to be here, on stage with a crowd screaming her name.

Deep down, her yearning heart burned at her to savor this.

Chapter Text

The Pizzaplex had long closed for the night.  Midnight had sleepily passed with no fanfare, and moonlight snuck in through the skylight to reflect off the freshly-mopped floors to fractal off into the scattered and drying puddles.  The neon lights high above smiled down on the brainless S.T.A.F.F. bots unseeingly staring into the darker corners and missing their blind spots almost deliberately while they trundled along their hard-coded paths.  The night mode of the Daycare Attendant was active as well, tracing along his own paths, though out of sight at the moment.  Along the glittering paths of the saturation-washed mall walked a single person.  The lone nightguard muttered to herself under her breath as she followed along the aborted patrol routes of the S.T.A.F.F. bots, winding out of the way of their tight loops and looking absolutely displeased with everything the night locale had to offer her.  She traced along routes of her own, enshrined not in code but in memory and habit.  Chipped purple nail polish glinted off of her fingers as they white-knuckled her heavy-duty flashlight.

It was crossing the way into Bonnie Bowl that she froze up, standing straighter and tilting her head minutely as if listening to something.  While normally this wouldn't be too terribly odd, it was a moment where the Pizzaplex was silent for but a moment.  In that brief breath of the building, she heard something not quite there.  She whispered something to herself and turned on her heel, completely breaking off from the route she took every night.

Her pace took a beeline, purposeful and clearly with a specific location in mind, the faint jingling of her keys signalling her location to anyone that would care to hear.  Shadows split by multiple lights chased across the floor behind her, though when she glanced back she saw nobody there besides a passing S.T.A.F.F. bot, though the feeling of being watched began to nag at her.  She turned back and hastened her pace, worrying for a moment about being followed, though she knew logically that she was the only one in the building at the moment.

The sounds of the sleeping attractions pinged off the dark walls as she passed by, reverberating the glass of the neon tubes that glowed warmly to spite the darkness of the building and washing the guard in a cascade of dim colors.  She trudged on, standing tall despite her earlier hunched posture, and ignoring the soft telltale jingling from above, knowing that the Daycare Night Mode was likely on a floor above her and relying on him not taking notice of her in his virused state.

Fazerblast was one of the shining jewels in the Pizzaplex' crown, the star attraction of the leading man in all of its space-themed sci-fi glory.  His pre-recorded voice passionlessly echoed an advertisement with false excitement for the attraction over the speakers to an unhearing audience as she traced a long-practiced path through the brightly-colored maze and made her way over to the service stairway for the attraction and swiped her security pass on the card reader built into the pole of the automatic gate at the foot of the stairwell.  She climbed up the stairs and skittering down the long catwalk towards the isolated room, sweat slowly beading on her brow as her eyes darted around nervously as if expecting to see someone following her.

No one was in view, however, just the corkscrewing attraction bots on their automated paths and running into the odd security bot inside the attraction itself below her.  She huffed to herself and entered the long-forgotten and long-abandoned security office and stared down her own name emblazoned on the wall in bright violet paint.  Silence hung in the air as the guard stared at it for a long, impatient moment as it glittered as if fresh despite the dust all over the rest of the wrecked room.

"Yes," she hummed, voice changing tone completely as her shoulders went slack; to her left was a desk that had once been home to a series of keyboards, monitors, and security feed controls but now only housed a single monitor and keyboard patched into the Pizzaplex network, which she walked past towards the mattress in the corner under her blazoned name.  This had once been the highest-level security office, but she'd long since taken the badge for its maximum-level clearance.  She turned off her flashlight, shrouding the room in darkness lined almost shyly in the colors of the neons from the attraction below her.  She squatted down and reached under the mattress, fishing for something, and pulled out a mask that looked like it had belonged to the tech team once with the equipment inside but had been changed and outfitted to look more like a rabbit than the clinical wire frame it had once simply been.

She pulled off her security baseball cap that was part of the dress code; the mask pressed easily to her face as if molded for her despite its patchwork external appearance, and she looked up at something only she could see inside its virtual reality lenses.  She clasped her hands together and dropped to her knees with a clattering of keys that rang like church bells, supplicating herself in a mockery of prayer as she stared into space trapped inside the mask.

"No, there's no misunderstanding," she cooed into the air quietly, voice light and airy, nearly a faint falsetto of her usual tone.  "We're getting closer to bringing you back, sir.  And finishing the project that'll bring him back."

She paused, an unsaid question hanging itself on the dust bunnies fluttering around as the Princess Quest 3 arcade machine sat dead in the corner, turned at an odd angle as if looking away from the guard in disgust at what she had done to get to this point.  The cold, dark walls loomed over it in the grim colors of tombstones, as if boxing her in with it and she never even noticed their encroaching weight and coldness.

"We don't have enough," she lamented at her invisible conversation partner.  "The last one was too old, and you told me that the younger they are, the stronger it is-"

She cut herself off and winced away as if scolded.  "I'm sorry," she begged breathily after a moment of silence, shifting her position minutely to be more comfortable.  "If I had known, I wouldn't have let him go to waste.  It won't happen again.  I promise.  You know I don't break my promises."

Another pause that seemed to make the bare mattress under the emblazoned name sigh and settle deeper onto the concrete floor sleepily.

"I disposed of it properly, of course.  In the burning rooms deep below like you told me to do and with the last animatronic that had it also walking through just to be safe.  There's no way that remnant survived.  There's no danger of lingering spirits."

More silence under the dim neon lights, the guard's rabbit-shaped shadow seeming to leer down at her from the angle of the lights below casting it upon the wall.  It seemed to twitch and shift in the flashing and blinking of the colorful attraction lights, and the distant sound of the laser tag's sound effects just barely obscuring the nearby gentle jingling of half-smothered bells.  The guard didn't seem to take notice, and neither did her silent visitor as the conversation carried on.

"I think we have most of what's required.  Do you have anything else you need that I can get for you?"  Her head tipped to the side slightly, red bulbous eyes glittering in the lowlight as her unseeing gaze stared into her long, stretched out and fractured shadow.  "Of course.  He must be foremost useful and obedient, and your return must be perfect in every aspect." She nodded slowly.  "No corners can be afforded to be cut here.  I may get caught stealing parts again, however, so please forgive me if it becomes time-consuming to wait for the completion of things."

The air was punctuated with a question only the entranced guard could hear, fluttering out of reach of anyone else that may have been observing had there been anyone there to observe.

There was a scowl in her voice as she shook her head.  "No, some of them have stopped listening to me.  The last time we went down, Freddy was acting... strangely and I had to work harder than usual to get his compliance.  And the night mode of the Daycare Attendant has stopped responding to my commands too.  I don't know what's gone wrong with either of them.  It can't be a virus because the two have never interacted since Freddy started acting odd.  They seem like isolated incidents, I'm afraid.  It's frustrating, though, since those two were the most obedient of them all.  I may need to find a new favorite."

She bowed her head for a moment.  "Yes, that one should be easy to turn to our side.  And the other, well, you always loved the rabbits too.  I'll look at their Trojan infection rates to see what I can do and what strings I'd be able to pull with them."

She unclasped her hands and reached into the air, grabbing something only she could see with both of her hands and nodding up at nothing.  "Yes, I should look into the disobedience problem, too.  I don't want it to escalate into something we can't recover from, especially since I had Freddy excavating out the old pizza place for you.  If something has decided to catch a ride, what should I do?"

The silence felt a little harsher.  "Isn't decommissioning him a little... rash?  The company will notice, and if they find out about us then it all falls apart!"

She winced again, this time as if she had been struck.  "I'm sorry!" she wailed breathily before freezing and holding her breath, as if acutely aware of the feeling of eyes on her back.  "... I'm sorry," she repeated.  "I don't mean to question you.  I just want to make sure nothing more goes to waste and that no one suspects a thing."

The missing response was less oppressive this time, and her shoulders relaxed as she righted herself.  "I'll do what I can.  If the Pizzaplex needs to rebuild Freddy, it will be a rather large blow."

She twisted her head to the side, as if hearing something behind her.  "I'll do that right after we're done here.  I have a couple of avenues to look at to see where it started, though it may be hard to locate for Freddy.  I haven't had to clear any security footage in a while, so I'll check there first.  Is there anything else you need from me?"

More silence to all but the guard, who bowed her head again.  "I'm a good girl..." she crooned softly, more to herself than her invisible witness.  "I'll be sure to let you know if I learn anything.  Especially anything dire."

One final moment of unfilled, expectant silence.  Even the attraction below seemed to dim its sound with the lull in the world around the woman and her phantasmic benefactor or malefactor.

"I won't." she resolutely whispered, nodding firmly.

With that, she pulled off her mask and blinked dazedly as if to reorient herself with reality.  Sweat and faint red marks from the inside of the mask lingered like a ghost of her one-sided conversation, and she quickly shoved the mask back under the mattress before rubbing at her face vigorously to wipe off the sweat and make her whole face red to disguise the distinct markings of the mask.  She pulled a compact with a mirror out of her pocket to make sure she looked no worse for wear to, at the least, the security cameras as none of the S.T.A.F.F. bots would really notice or care what she looked like.  Nonetheless, she used the compact to quickly touch up her face to further disguise the red lines and pulled out a stick of her bright red lipstick to reapply it as the mask seemed to have smeared it across her face a small bit.  She nodded to herself and closed the compact, shoving the makeup into one pocket and bringing herself back to her feet with the nearby arcade machine, rolling her shoulders and popping her back as she put her hat back on casually.  With that, she confidently exited the room the way she came in, through the one heavy duty security door to its name, and went about her business to resume her patrolling route as she was now a few minutes behind.

She didn't care to look behind or below her, however, where something hid out of her sight and moving oh-so slowly and deliberately to avoid making noise.

Moon had only followed Vanessa out of idle curiosity, admittedly.  Seeing her abruptly change path from her usual route while on his way to a different attraction when she was normally so deliberate about keeping to her route was particularly odd to him.  So he had followed her.  At a distance, initially, and from the air on his wire as he hadn't wanted to alert her with his bells.

He'd been daring enough to steer closer in Fazerblast, but at a higher altitude so he wasn't immediately visible.  He'd almost stumbled into the old security room only about two or three minutes after she had herself, and for a solid thirty seconds he had been worried that she had caught him and the jig was up, but instead found himself watching her as she talked to herself while wearing a strange mask.  He'd done his best to muffle the sound of his bells and hoped to whatever god that saw over the machines that the sound of his stumble had been covered up by the sounds of Fazerblast below them and whatever she had been talking to.

Vanessa's side of the conversation that he'd heard was... intriguing to say the least.  While he wouldn't be winning any reading comprehension awards anytime soon, what he did pick up was concerning.  There had been discussion of a body he'd picked up as he was walking up to the door.  And disposal.  And lingering spirits.  There was also something she apparently needed.  Something that required her to steal parts for - though for what and whichever him they were meant for, Moon didn't really  have enough context clues to guess.

And apparently she had been trying to give him orders.  Whatever kept him disobeying them must have been very very good at what it did, as he hadn't even noticed that she had been trying to give him orders, remotely or otherwise.  He'd barely spoken to her face to face at all, really.  And the fact that that was brought up in the same breath as Freddy's laundry list of a track record with glitches and errors spoke to him that there might be a similar source.  He narrowed his eyes at the space Vanessa had stood while he was still under the catwalk, pensively rolling the information over again.

He'd have to keep an eye on Freddy, probably.  Especially if they followed through on the idea of decommissioning the bear.

He had no idea who that one that Vanessa planned to work in Moon and Freddy's apparent stead, though the mention of rabbits gave him enough of a clue to infer that whatever Trojan virus was in the Glamrocks' systems would be causing some form of forced compliance.

He didn't have enough tools or skills to investigate the situation more thoroughly, but he knew someone that did.  Between that and the implicit threat towards the Glamrock animatronics, and he had a fairly solid case for an excuse to finally visit Rockstar Row.

He didn't even know why he'd been avoiding it up til now.

Chapter Text

Sander wasn't doing very well after quitting his job.  It had been an impulse decision after an absolute nightmare of a day, yes, but he hadn't been able to find other work and he wasn't quite willing to explain that, yes, he had quit from a highly lucrative opportunity with a company highly regarded in the technology market because he had gotten the heebie jeebies, so he was still out of work at the moment.

His only saving grace was that he lived alone so nobody else really saw his squalor or bad attitude in the aftermath aside from the occasional glance from his neighbors on the scant occasions he'd left.  The only upside to quitting aside from getting away from the technology Sander was thoroughly convinced was cursed had been the large severance pay the company had compensated him with.  It had helped with some last-minute bills while he had spent about a week just sitting around his apartment replaying what he had seen on loop and forgetting how to be a person; ultimately, he had been busting his ass over the last few days and tried to get back to work as soon as he could.

He even briefly contemplated if he should just go back to Freddy's and beg for his job back.  The benefits were absolutely stellar, and he'd loved working there before Freddy had started acting up.  Hell, even after that, Freddy had been an absolute delight to talk to and was even pretty damn polite while acting like he was trying out for the next Freddy's themed horror movie.  Despite what he had seen, he did miss it.  Fuck, the more he thought about it, the more he was genuinely considering that option.  He knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself from trying it if he didn't distract himself immediately.  

Trying to avoid that line of thought further, Sander pulled out his phone and started scrolling Twitter at random, listlessly staring through his phone instead of at the screen until a video caught his eye.  He recognized it as being in Roxy Raceway, but there were people in the middle of the racetrack.  Notably, Freddy himself, being held back by Roxy with his eyes doing the creepy blacked-out thing.  Sander's mouth immediately went dry at the sight.

Hesitantly, he ultimately pressed play as morbid curiosity took hold.  

It started innocently enough, the video seeming to be an amateur phone video keeping track of the race right up until a scrawny kid was seemingly pushed over the barriers into the currently-empty racetrack.  A moment of surprised horror crossed the kid's face as a gokart whizzed by dangerously close.  He shouted something the camera couldn't pick up over the shouting of the crowd as an increasing number of people's conversations started to turn as more and more people noticed the kid in the track.  It got to the point that Freddy himself hopped the barrier and deliberately put himself between the child and oncoming traffic, pulling the boy out of the way of a second speeding gokart and just barely missing the boy.  The kid latched onto Freddy, eyes wide and wet with abject terror, and the way Freddy caged the boy gently in his arms looked like an old, forgotten habit.  

" SIGNAL AN EMERGENCY STOP! " Freddy shouted over the din at the attraction operator, who jumped out of definitely being distracted and scrambled over the emergency stop button to slap it with a hand.  The sounds of the karts quieted down and murmurs danced through the crowds.  The poor kid was bawling his eyes out and clinging to Freddy's neck, to which Freddy knelt down and started attempting to comfort the sobbing boy with quiet platitudes.  The boy said something to Freddy, and something in his expression shifted.

Freddy muttered something the phone camera couldn't entirely pick up as the bear slowly stood up from comforting the child that had almost gotten flattened by the gokarts.  He smiled pleasantly at the crowd, if a bit tense.  He rolled his shoulders and shook himself out to loosen up, Sander had seen him do so in his green room before the first show of the day many times, and adjusted his stance to something less aggressive.

"Pardon me, is there an Andrew here?" he asked lightly, voice edged in something dark as he raised a hand to the crowd behind him.  "Jake here needs your help."  

The kid whimpered something and latched onto Freddy's leg, which caused Freddy to go back to comforting him quietly.  Roxy finally rushed over after presumably running across the entire track to see what the issue was, also kneeling down to check on the kid.  He clung harder to Freddy, who seemed to explain something to the boy, and the child reluctantly let go of him to take Roxy's hand.  With that, Freddy stood up and paced forward a few steps.

"Andrew." he repeated, voice firmer and less lenient-sounding.  A preteen boy was shoved to the front of the crowd by what looked to be two other preteens giggling at his disgruntlement; the preteen glared back for a moment before hanging his head in resignation and clambering over the barrier to face the animatronic bear. 

"Yeah?" the preteen asked sulkily, clearly putting on a front of annoyance to mask his fear.  Freddy folded his arms, expression unamused.

"Jake here said that you pushed him onto the track.  Is that correct?"

Whispers that had been chasing around the crowd went dead silent, waiting for Andrew's response.  The preteen balked a bit before putting on an obvious front, rolling his eyes theatrically.  "Yeah, he can be overdramatic about things.  I didn't shove him onto the track, you stupid bear."

Sander sucked a sharp breath in as he noticed something dark glint behind Freddy's eyes as the animatronic's expression harshened.  "That's not what I saw."  He pointed a claw at Andrew's hands as something dangerous lined his voice.  "I haven't seen anyone else with a Monty Golf wristband and a Foxy novelty ring on their left hand as well as a Fazerblast sticker on the back of their right.  And I saw you at the head of the table at the party room not half an hour ago.  Your mother needed to stop you from pushing your brother's face into the cake.  I know who you are and what you did, both from your guest profile and from keeping an eye out for things like this.  I keep things like the detail that you played pranks on your brother in mind, just in case of something like this."

Andrew's face paled as the camera zoomed in on the scene, quickly turning back to a deeply unhappy Freddy as he continued to stare in disappointment and bobbing back down to Andrew as the kid began to speak up in response.  "W-well, uh, he likes to lie about stuff like that!" the kid blustered, slapping on an obviously fake smile.  "He wants to make it sound like he's always the good guy to get me in trouble!  Just ask my friends!"

Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say because for the first time ever, Sander heard Freddy snap angrily at someone - doubly so a child .  "What is wrong with you?" the bear asked in disgust, and Andrew's fake smile fell.  "Seriously, what would possess someone to do something so reckless that could kill their sibling like that?"  It sounded more like he was asking that question to himself more than for Andrew to actually answer.

"Woah-woah-woah, who said anything about killing him?!" Andrew spluttered.  "I just wanted to play a little prank on him!  Something harmless that we'd laugh at later!" He'd stopped denying that he had been the one to push him at least, even outright admitting it almost in his haste to soften Freddy's accusations.

"Pushing someone onto an active motorway is the opposite of a harmless prank ." Freddy damn near growled at the kid. 

"But I-"

" Listen. " Andrew winced away at the hard look Freddy gave him.  There was a moment of silence from Andrew, making absolute certain he was paying attention, before Freddy nearly forced himself to soften his expression - Freddy's shoulders were still tense, though.  "I know you don't want to admit it, because you know what you did was wrong.  But whatever you're going through, don't take it out on your brother like that." The gentleness had returned to Freddy's voice, even if he'd started using contractions.  Andrew scoffed at him.

"What do you know?" the dark-haired preteen spat as he bristled visibly.  "You're just a stupid robot for babies!  You don't know anything about this, so butt out!  It's between me and him, and Jake loves my pranks!"

"It doesn't sound like it." Freddy frowned, expression serious again.  "It sounds to me like Jake is terrified of you."  The bear's frown deepened as he spoke.  "Fear or terror like that comes from something like bad pranks happening for a long time," he explained.  "It doesn't just appear one day."  Freddy seemed to grit his teeth and close his eyes before continuing, unfolding his arms.  His eyes were those pinprick white dots in empty black space.  Sander could almost hear the tremor in his voice.  

"And I've seen situations like this before.  Cruel pranks escalating and escalating until one day, you come up with the greatest prank you think you'd ever come up with.  Scare your little brother half to death!  Then you'd laugh about it afterwords like it never happened."  Freddy's voice darkened again, slowly getting louder as his lecture seemed to turn into something of a rant.  "But what if something went wrong?  What if Jake wasn't pulled out of the way in time?" he challenged.  "Could you live with yourself if he got hurt?  If you killed him?  All over something you'll later think was petty?  Sure, it seems worth it now, but what about a year from now?  Five?  Ten ?  What if it isn't enough for whatever attention you're crying out for?  What then, Andrew?"

Andrew stumbled back a few steps, gaping like a slapped fish.  "I-I, uh.  I-" the kid stammered out, at an obvious lack of words as Freddy's pointed questions had become more of a tirade.  To Sander, it sounded more like Freddy wasn't completely directing his questions at Andrew.   Something about the tone, it was... odd , as if Freddy were caught up in a memory even with how frighteningly present he was.

Freddy leaned forward as if to follow him, but was yanked back harshly as Roxy grabbed him across the chest diagonally.  Freddy seemed to barely acknowledge he was being held back, only twisting a bit against Roxy's grip and little else to fight the restraint.  "And if he'd died from a stupid prank like that, could you live with the guilt of that?" Freddy practically shouted, voice breaking a bit.  "With being known as the evil kid that killed his own brother?  Because you'd regret it your whole damn life!"

Roxy had to practically haul Freddy back with the strength he was using to pull himself closer to the scared-looking preteen.  "It'd be even worse for Jake!" Freddy yowled.  "Because he'd be dead , and it would have been your fault!   And the grief and regret would swallow your whole #$%@ing life because being a murderer by accident lives with you until you die!   Do you want that, Andrew?!  Do you want to ruin both of your lives over something so petty and small?!  For all the attention it would get you?!"  

Sander nearly jumped in surprise as the built in vocal censors activated.  He'd forgotten about those, since the Glamrocks only had those as a last means of defense due to their not being programmed to swear.  Or shout at kids.  Or have a hysteria-driven meltdown in front of a crowd on camera.  The attraction operator said something Sander knew immediately was a request for a Fazbear technician in the background as the camera trained in on Freddy's dark-eyed face lined with so many emotions that Sander had no idea how he read them so well on a static plastic face.  It eventually turned to pure grief , so palpable that Sander could almost taste it.  "It's not worth it, believe me!" he kept ranting.

"Freddy, let it go," Roxy attempted to encourage, but the bear half-bucked his shoulders against her grip to try and get out of it.

" DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR LIVES LIKE THAT! " Freddy outright screamed, causing Roxy's ears to mimic being pinned back like a real wolf's and many of the lookers-on covering their ears from the sheer volume.  Even Sander's hurt, and the volume of the shouting was separated by both distance and digital distortion and the volume of Sander's phone.  " NOT WHILE YOU HAVE YOUR WHOLE LIVES AHEAD OF YOU STILL!  YOU HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO LIVE FOR, AND A WHOLE LIFETIME OF REGRETS TO MAKE UP FOR!  DO YOU WANT TO WASTE THAT?!  DO YOU EVEN CARE ?! " 

Andrew had backed away from Freddy once he'd been held back by Roxy, and now he had bolted through the crowd, looking panicked right before.  

" PLEASE, DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES HE DID! " Freddy almost wailed after him, leaking what looked like oil out of the empty sockets of those hollow black eyes.  " YOU KNOW YOU'D NEVER FORGIVE YOURSELF!  DON'T LET HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF! " He was now actively fighting against Roxy's grip, trying to reach towards Andrew in his frenzied hysteria.  " PLEASE! "

After what had to be at least a couple minutes of shouting, a Fazbear technician ran into the room, right up towards Freddy with a Fazwrench in hand.  Sander did not miss those things.  The technician - some mousey looking lady Sander hadn't seen before - waited a few moments while watching Freddy's erratic movements before pushing his head forward and inserting the wrench in the reset port at the base of Freddy's neck for an emergency reboot.  With an almost clinical, harsh twist, Freddy froze up as if tensing all over before falling completely limp.  "Roxy, get him to parts and service." she ordered before turning to the crowd, to which the filmer swore under their breath and the video blurred before stopping on a black screen.

Sander stared at his phone for a moment before hastily pausing the video as it automatically looped back to the start.  He hastily locked his screen and stared into space out the window, contemplating his options.  He had never seen Freddy get angry before, and he'd been working at the Pizzaplex since it had opened for business in 2020.  In all those five years, he'd never seen Freddy so much as get upset.  Something was seriously wrong with that bear.  

As he laid back in his chair, Sander mentally cursed himself for succumbing to the urge to simply doomscroll.  Now he had something else to haunt his nightmares.  At least no one died. Sander found himself wondering if going back to the Pizzaplex was such a good idea after all.  It didn't even occur to him to ask how Freddy knew all of that.

Sander figured as much.

Chapter Text

The back room of Bonnie Bowl felt more like home to the titular rabbit than his green room ever did. It wasn't a manicured image of him for the public to enjoy, it was his own private space he could hide away in. He had no idea if the other Glamrocks had that sort of space for themselves, but he was almost certain they did. They all had their own attractions, after all. His back room was barren, sparsely decorated with drab concrete walls and flourescent lights that hurt his head despite his being an animatronic that shouldn't be capable of headaches, but he had some things he'd snuck back here. A spare vanity with lights, a poster Freddy had signed, a stand for his personal bowling ball. It was barely anything after five years of 'living' in here, but it was a monumental secret for him. Under current management, he'd be certain it would be downright vitrified away to force him into his green room at all times.

His eyes lingered on the poster from Freddy, on the heartfelt signature. He didn't know if Freddy was aware of just how much the poster meant to him. He doubted it. Bonnie pressed his forehead into the corkboard he'd dragged in here and sighed. He had a lot of work to do to formulate this theory, and he'd already dug up a lot of information he hadn't considered before.

Alongside evidence he'd used for his theory about Freddy being replaced, he'd gotten a copy of the Daycare Attendant's warning and memory of what he'd witnessed, security log records and expungments dating back as far as possible up to the current head guard being hired, employment history for Vanessa Asmonia and the recommenation from the Pizzaplex manager Annabella Knighton to promote her to head guard immediately, new copies of the latest service logs for Freddy alongside theft reports for various parts and equipment, a sadly redacted report on the data that had been found in Freddy's head, notes from head technician Jeremy Bonnibel regarding said contents, testimonies from everyone about the Deleted Day and what everyone remembered, Bonnie had even gone so far as to make copies of old and new newspaper clippings he'd found online regarding various incidents on the FazMap that were even remotely similar to the situation at hand, as well as old blueprints for previous animatronic models. None of it painted a pretty picture. Oh no, what he was staring into was a hideous abyss he didn't know if he could step back from.

For one, he could draw a clear line between certain historical incidents in Fazbear's old days and certain events in the data in Freddy's head. Disappearances and deaths, especially. But he needed more. The bones of his theory still had gaps, and he needed a clearer picture if he wanted to help Freddy at all.

He ignored the telltale loping gait of an animatronic behind him as he kept organizing his notes and evidence, pinning up a candid of Vanessa as the steps approached. They paused, and there was the polite clacking of plastic on concrete that made Bonnie pause in turn.

"Hey Foxy," he greeted blandly, pinning up more candids - the Daycare Attendant's night mode and Freddy - and binding them to Vanessa's with red string.

"How'd you know it was me?"

"You and Freddy are the only ones that know about my secret room, and Freddy's indisposed right now. You hear any news from Parts and Service by the way?"

"You miss him that bad, huh?" Bonnie practically heard the wry head shake as Foxy slowly meandered into the room. "Nah, nothin' yet. He's still in observation. Ghost stories say he's still wiggin' out down there despite being turned off."

Bonnie suppressed a shudder. "I've got notes about Freddy being active despite being shut down in here somewhere."

The rabbit glanced at the fox briefly, who picked up the copy of the redacted records on what Freddy had hidden on his hard drive. "Didn't think that was possible."

"It shouldn't be."

Foxy flipped through the packet slowly, reading deliberately in contrast to the fast skim Bonnie had done to make sure it was all there while printing it off the stolen printer he had hidden away in here somewhere. "Oh, that's weird."

"The soap opera, right? Yeah, I didn't take Freddy for the type-" Bonnie was summarily bopped with the thick packet.

"No, you dope. There's a video description in here that's completely redacted." Foxy corrected. "It's got the thumbnail, folder path, video name, associated date, and general overview for it, but the details are all just… blacked out."

Bonnie yoinked the packet from Foxy to investigate, to Foxy's chagrin. "What's the date on that again?"

"July 1983."

"Shoulda known," Bonnie tutted, flipping to the associated page. "It's always the simple thumbnails. Must have missed it when I skimmed." His ears perked up. "… But I've got a news clipping from that timeframe." Before he could find the appropriate page, he tossed the packet right back at Foxy and dug through his evidence pile again.

Foxy fumbled with the packet of paper before gripping it ginerly and watching Bonnie for a few moments. "… Hey, uh…"

Bonnie paused again. "Yeah?"

"… Do you really think this is helpful?" Foxy asked hesitantly. "For Freddy? I mean…"

"It's what I can do." Bonnie interrupted, voice a little clipped from offense. "I'm not an emotions guy. Or a strong and silent cry-on-my-shoulder-bro type. I'm the smart one, and the smart one gets results."

"You don't have to put stock in archetypes to adhere to, you know. You can just… do whatever you want."

"Don't I?" Bonnie challenged. "It's coded in. It's who I'm supposed to be. If I'm not smart, then who am I compared to every other Bonnie before me?"

"You're our friend, first and foremost," Foxy assured.

"Then why do I get treated as a joke?" The rabbit wasn't sure why he was yelling. Foxy looked just as surprised, but Bonnie didn't care about yelling suddenly because he was pissed. "All you ever do is poke holes in my theories and give them zero props, Foxy! All I ever get to be is the butt of the gag! Haha, laugh laugh, Bonnie's making craaaazy theories again!"

Foxy looked a bit freaked out suddenly. "… If it bothered you that much, you could have just asked me to stop." Foxy explained, sounding a bit hurt. "I thought it was part of our running bit."

Suddenly, Bonnie felt like a bit of a jackass. "Augh, sorry. It's, uh. It's fine. Dunno what came over me there." he tried to brush off, even if annoyance still bubbled under the surface. "You don't have to change anything."

"You sure, man?" Foxy checked, and Bonnie nodded in reassurance.

"You're fine, you're fine! I'm just getting all worked up because I'm so worried, I souldn't be taking it out on you."

Foxy still looked a bit like he had emotional whiplash, but faked a smile nonetheless. "So, what's the theory behind all this?"

"Still working on it," Bonnie admitted. "But I've got some good bones."

"Show me the bones of your theory, brother."

Bonnie hesitated a moment, uncertain if Foxy was just teasing or being genuine. The fox was rarely so open and willing to listen to his theories, so maybe this was another joke at his expense. Cruel if so.

"I'll listen to what you have to tell me, Bonnie." Foxy promised. "No judgement. You can share what you're thinking with me, I promise."

"Well…" Bonnie hummed hesitantly, trying to put his thoughts in order. "Lemme start at the veeeery beginning." He pinned a news report to the board, robotic hands shaking despite the fact that they shouldn't be capable of that from emotions. "July twenty-third, 1983. A group of four young teenagers gang up on the younger brother of one of the perps, shoving him into the mouth of the animatronic Fredbear. One catastrophic hydraulic failure inside the mouth later, and the kid makes a one-way trip to the hospital. Poor guy goes home in a Chicago overcoat and sends the family reeling pretty badly. Near as I can tell, this is the very first death I can associate with Fazbear as a whole, alongside the accompanying criminal lawsuits levied at the company itself by the safety board."

"What does this have to do with what we learned on Friday?"

"I'm getting there." Bonnie sharply shot back before clearing his throat. "So in March 1987, we see Circus Baby's Rental, yeah? And how Afton Robotics was making a lot of humanoid robots?" Foxy nodded wordlessly this time, thouroughly distracted from his hurt feelings in favor of curiosity. "Well these humanoid robots allegedly used a guy as a meat suit, according to the records we see in Freddy's repositories."

Bonnie pinned the theft logs in Parts and Service to the board. "Well, a lot of complex parts have been going missing. Entire endos, even."

There went the lightbulb in Foxy's head. "You think that someone's trying to build the kid?"

Bonnie nodded vigorously. "We've got a copycat killer on the case," he elaborated. He pinned up one of the blueprints for one of the Afton Robotics creations. "And looking at Afton's old work, he was trying to in some way to replicate actual people. So, someone trying to copycat his work might also try to build a person."

Foxy shrugged, mimicking a nose wrinkle. "But why try to make Afton's kid?"

"The kid wasn't one of Afton's victims!" Bonnie declared. "He was a result of a freak accident! So Afton must have wanted to rebuild him! And the copycat would try to build him to… succeed where Afton failed. But she's been using the Glamrocks to steal the parts for her as well as help with her copycat kills, which would in part explain the Deleted Day."

There was a brief pause.

"… Yeah, no, this theory completely sucks. I need to rework it."

Foxy sighed. "I know I said no judgement."

"You did." Bonnie confirmed, eyeing the fox.

"But this all seems a bit… far-fetched," Foxy admitted. "I'm not seeing the motive as clearly, and I'm questioning why she'd be building Afton's kid instead of Afton himself."

Bonnie sighed a little. "Yeah, I'm not totally sold on that myself. I need more data for a more solid conclusion."

"But… it's a good start." Foxy admitted. "There's something there about the humanoid robots and that copycat killer. It's just missing the connective tissue."

Bonnie sagged a bit in on himself. "Agreed. There's something there, I can feel it. I can almost confirm with certainty that Freddy's haunted. Too much just adds up if so for that to not be the case. It just makes too much sense."

Foxy perked up a bit at that. "Y'think? Who by?"

Bonnie squinted a bit. "I know Jeremy thinks it's his friend Mike… I have to say that the evidence suggests either one of the dumb teenagers, or one of the founders."

Foxy barked out a laugh. "You really think William Afton would make a good Freddy?!"

"You never know!" Bonnie squawked out defensively. "He was notably a good enough actor to literally get away with murder!"

"I think that's the wrong tree you're barking up, Bon."

"Well, what do you think?" Bonnie probed the fox, who read through the log again. Foxy flipped through the redacted catalogue again, visibly pensive. Silence hung for a few moments as Foxy read before he responded.

"Well, duh, Freddy's showing textbook haunting signs." the fox agreed. "Man, you even got old service logs from the 80s about the original animatronics wiggin' out." he whistled lowly. "Gotta commend you for that, it can't have been easy."

"You have no idea how hard that was to get." Bonnie groaned theatrically. "Thankfully, Fazbear legitimately hoards information about itself, it's kind of crazy how much they keep honestly. I saw stuff dating all the way back to the 30s. I didn't grab any of it, but it was wild seeing the immigration reports of the Emily family."

"You'd better worry about them changing passwords, or else you'd lose half of what you can use in your theories," Foxy joked idly. "Also… I'm seeing something here that sticks out to me."

"Yeah?"

"Wellllll…" Foxy drawled, turning the packet of paper to show Bonnie. "In the March '87 entry, we see our intrepid protaganist die, yet he still keeps on going despite that all the way to 2016 where all further information stops. I don't know how surviving a fatal incident is even possible. If it is, is it possible he's still alive somewhere? Is he secretly Jeremy living in the basement?"

"Evidence suggests he burned down with the old Pizza Place." Bonnie paused, thinking about it. "… Which the Pizzaplex is, presumably, built on top of."

"Wasn't it eaten up by a sinkhole?…" Foxy mused right back, and the two made brief eye contact.

"Later."

"Later."

"Yeah, no, we'll look at it later."

Foxy snapped the report shut. "I think Freddy's possessed by the kid that got bit. He seems to freak out the most about bullying. And he's got weird ghost survivor's guilt about it. Plus, it was a Freddy that bit the kid, so transferring between incarnations woukd make sense. Or not, I'm not a paranormal whatever."

Bonnie nodded back slowly. "That would track, though it doesn't explain everything else. Not to mention, going by that logic, Afton's victims could haunt any version of their animatronics, and I don't see any screaming vengance in the night."

"Well, duh, Afton's dead. Also, it's a working theory."

"I just feel like we're still missing something, some crucial lynchpin that'll blow this whole story wide open."

"We could ask the Daycare Attendant or something." Foxy shrugged.

"You think he's got a theorist bone in him?"

"He might!" Foxy grinned. "He changed, remember?"

Bonnie pondered over that. "Yeah. I don't know if I trust it yet, but he's definitely different. Something about the quality of his voice… well, it reminds me of Freddy."

"How so?" Foxy probed, tipping his head to the side and eyes sharp.

"Well, it'll sound stupid, but I think… his voice sounds less fake? If that makes sense." the rabbit described. "Like it's more organic in how it's synthesized. And the tone's weird too."

"More personalized than prerecorded?" Foxy interjected, and Bonnie snapped his fingers in response.

"Exactly!"

"Heh, maybe he's haunted, too."

Bonnie flapped a hand. "Bah, not possible. There's zero evidence for that. There was probably a catastrophic crash that lead to a factory reset or something there."

Foxy shrugged. "Suit yourself. Sounds less fun to me."

"It's not about fun, though. It's about the truth."

Bonnie's friend laughed heartily at that declaration. Seeing Foxy smile again was nice. Bonnie still felt bad about blowing up on him.

He wondered what was up with that, but immediately discarded the idea. It wasn't important. He had bigger fish to fry here than his own temperament.

Chapter Text

Freddy was alone.  He didn't know what the Parts and Service team was waiting for, exactly, but it kept him in observation for a long time, chained to a worktable to make sure he couldn't move.  He knew it was because of his outburst.  He knew he should have controlled himself, but he had just been so angry, even if he didn't know why.  Even thinking about it now, it made him see red all over again.  (Never again.  Never again.)  He'd broken his voicebox with that little stunt, so all that came out was poorly-legible garble.

He was alone, and it was driving him mad.

Nothing had happened for so long, he was barely aware.  The isolation and lack of stimulation had put him into a dreamlike state where nothing felt quite real anymore.  One would think the first new thing happening would be an eye-catcher, but he was stuck staring at the ceiling and too preoccupied to notice anything new until it broke into his line of sight.  

"Hello, Freddy." hummed the red-haired middle-aged woman practically leering down at him.  He took a few moments to recognize her before registering that it was the location manager of the Pizzaplex.  Freddy locked eyes with her, not knowing why she was here, and she smiled at him with more teeth than she needed to, though it doesn't reach the rest of her face.  She rose a hand and started tracing shapes on Freddy's shell meanderingly.  "You've been giving me a lot of trouble and costing me a lot of money." she remarked, smile tightening.  "You should be grateful we just don't scrap you and start over."

Freddy tried to apologize, but his broken voicebox made her scowl and hold his jaw shut.  "Quiet.  Your voice always annoyed me."

His eyes widen.  It… did?  He didn't mean for it to!  He was sorry!  He had so much he needed to apologize for, just give him the chance!

"I have half a mind to factory reset you."  She leans in a bit more, close to his ear, and smiles more broadly.  "But I know that would be a lost cause."

Freddy wasn't given time to react, as she pried his stomach hatch open in a manner that stressed his servos almost to the point of physical pain - as if an animatronic could feel that - and she grabbed the spine of his endoskeleton firmly, causing him to lock up.

This feeling… he knew it.  He knew it, something intimately familiar.  He didn't know from where, but it was making him freak out.

"Yeah, there's something in here you recognize, isn't there Fred?" she hissed at him.  He stared a her in confusion and horror.  She started feeling around the insides of his chest cavity, causing him to shiver and try to pull away from the feeling of her fingers spidering around inside him.  "Don't give me that.  I know you're hiding them in here.  So close to your heart," she scoffed, sounding downright mocking, "when they're just pieces of junk."  

Was she talking about… the toys?!  He gritted his teeth and tried to glare at the woman, who only laughed at him.  "Oh, you think you're so big and scary just because you're haunted by some kid!  Newsflash, asshole, you're a hunk of junk!"

Freddy 'yelled' at her with a loud, metallic screech that forced the woman to retreat in order to cover her ears.  "What the fuck did I say?!" she asked loudly.  "Shut the hell up!  I know Arthur Afton is in there!  I need those toys!"

Freddy tried to shove out the feeling of crawling, dragging, slender shapes on his insides like a twisted caress and caught the sound of approaching footsteps.  He let himself go slack, hoping they're coming to get him away from this madwoman.  She stopped yelling at him at least, muttering and continuing to skate the insides of his chest cavity with her hands, even among the parts of his machinery that moved.  He did his best to ignore it, to stare into space and forget again because that was so much easier than experiencing it.

The door to the room swung open.

There stood Officer Vanessa and Technician Jeremy alongside a stranger Freddy didn't recognize.  "M-miss Knighton?" Vanessa asked, gobsmacked.  "What are you doing here?!"

Anne Knighton, the location manager, paused before drawing herself up and laughing lightly, fakely.  "Well, I wanted to check on Freddy here, but I thought I heard gears grinding!"

Freddy locked eyes with Jeremy for a moment and quietly shook his head.  Jeremy's eyes widened back at him, glancing at the open stomach hatch before Freddy detected some horror in his expression.  The technician's face hardened at Freddy's silent plea.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid shoving your entire hand inside Freddy's cake hatch while he's still on is only good if you desire to lose your arm.  You're very lucky you're still intact.  Why didn't you tell any of the techs to investigate?" he scolded her firmly.

Anne waved Jeremy off.  "Oh, they've been completely avoiding coming to check in on him.  Especially after you fired the new girl after she was quote-unquote "too rough on him", I thought you knew?"

Jeremy scowled, glancing at Freddy again.  Freddy attempted to speak up, only for his voice to screech.  "Oh, that's not ideal." the man dully remarked as the others reacted - Ms Knighton scowling, Vanessa wincing away, and the stranger covering their ears with a grimace - going over to unchain Freddy while Ms. Knighton stared Vanessa down and Freddy watched.

"Is this that paranormal investigator I called for?" the older woman asked, looking towards the stranger, who jumped nervously at being addressed.

"Yes!  Alvis Conway at your service, ma'am!" the dirty blond beanpole of a person mock saluted, various bags hanging off of them like layers of heavy, sagging bat wings. 

"Wonderful!" Ms. Knighton genuinely cheered, shaking Alvis' hand.  "Miss Knighton, I'm the location manager.  I'm fairly convinced that our animatronic Freddy here is haunted, but the owner doesn't believe in ghosts so please keep this on the down-low to corporate." 

Alvis stared at her for a moment before bobbing their head, fedora with floral patterns falling into their face before they huff and resituate it and clean their red-tinted glasses.  "Yeah, I can already tell by the temperature and weight of the air.  Need anything from me before I get to work?"

"Nope!  Just defer to Jeremy or Vanessa if they tell you something!"

"Yes'm!"

With a pair of silent nods to the employees, Miss Knighton left.  Jeremy sighed and let himself droop while Alvis stared after her with a pensive look on their face.  They shrugged after a moment and turned to the animatronic bear.  "So this is Freddy Fazbear himself?"

"Yep.  He can't talk right now, needs his voicebox speaker replaced." Jeremy explained, pulling tools and parts out of boxes looking for the right ones.  "If you have questions, he might not be able to answer them until I'm done fixing him."

"Damn.  That's like half the process!" Alvis grinned.  "Love a challenge!"

"That's, uh, the spirit." Vanessa drawled at them.  "You gonna get to work?"

"Oh, yeah!" they seem to remind themselves as they begin shucking their bags and removing various pieces of equipment and seemingly random doodads from their depths.  "Just gotta set up my doohickeys and whatevers!"

"You do that then." the guard drawled, leaning back against the wall of the veritable concrete box the three of them were in.  Jeremy moved in to work on Freddy's voicebox, blocking the bear's view of the ghost hunter, which oddly made him feel safer than Vanessa's vote of confidence did.

The technician didn't trigger Freddy nearly as badly for some reason.  He probably just trusted the technician to know what he was doing.  The man carefully peeled the shell protecting the animatronic undercarriage to access the speaker and paused.

"Huh." he remarked quietly, staring at the two plush toys, a bit squashed and shoved inside the shell of the most relaively spatious area of the endo.  Freddy stared at Jeremy pleadingly, to which the man nodded and simply nudged the dolls aside to work.  Freddy's heart eased some.  Jeremy seemed to know how important those were to him, though the bear didn't really know how he knew.  He decided to not question it.

"Alrighty, let's get you mic'd up." Jeremy muttered, watching Freddy as the animatronic perked up at hearing the word 'mic' and briefly getting confused about what caught his attention.  Jeremy only took a couple minutes to swap out the speaker.  "Okay, test that."

"Is this better?" Freddy squawked, voice much clearer but still off.

"Bahhh, lemme calibrate that." and within moments, Freddy had his voice back again.

"Thank you, Jeremy." Freddy rumbled quietly, not wanting to draw the attention of the other two just yet.

"I've told you before, it's no problem.  It's literally my job." Jeremy smiled tiredly.

"Not for that," Freddy shook his head.  "For… coming in when you did."

The technician's eyes met with the bear's for a moment.  They shared another silent conversation, just staring at one another quietly.

"Okay, my boondoggles are calibrated!" Alvis chirps, breaking the tension.  "Let's investigate this ghost!"

Jeremy let his eyes linger on Freddy for a moment longer before backing off, patting the bear's shoulder as he made space.  "His voice is fixed.  Just be careful.  The death looked violent in the files."

"Oh, I read about that." Alvis nodded, holding up a mysterious black box.  "The un-dying and re-dying confused me, but we stay silly."  The scrawny investigator approached Freddy, who sat up now that he was free.  "Alrighty, I'd looked a bunch into the history of Fazbear," Alvis rambled as they set up the boxlike device, "But none of the deaths or disappearances matched the descriptions of your remembered death whatever."

… His death?  He supposed that his memories seemed to tell him he died, despite the oddness of the idea.  "It was not a whatever." Freddy attempted to correct in spite of the odd heady feeling starting to leech in and permute his feelings.  He didn't really want to talk to a ghost hunter or paranormal investigator or whatever, but he felt like he needed to for the sake of the Pizzaplex.  Maybe he could learn what was wrong with him and why he acted so oddly now.

"Yeah, I know, I'm just bad at words when I go too fast." Alvis smiled before resuming their work.  "Regardless of the who and how, I'm looking for the why."

Freddy nodded slowly, folding his hands.  The investigator scruitinized him for a moment, in a way that made him feel strange.  Not bad, just strange.  "I'm sure you have heard about the eyes." Freddy remarked.

"I have." Alvis confirms.  "They just changed one day?  Did something happen?"

"I… do not know." Freddy admitted.  "That is data that has been lost."

"Body could forget while spirit remembers…" the investigator mumbled as they took a quick note.  Their little black box is now letting out spurts of chopped-up static.  "Okay, Fredbear-" Freddy twitched "- let's get a closer look while my spirit box picks up any ghostly messages."

They stare at him, having noticed his movement.  "Tell me why you twitched," they asked him.  

"Fredbear is… already an established character." Freddy explained despite not knowing why that name made him twitch.  

"Did he do something?" 

Twitch.  He had a pit of dread beginning to grow in his abdomen.

"I do not know." he admitted, feeling like a liar.

Alvis pursed their lips pensively.  Without warning, they grabbed Freddy's face and forced his jaw open to shove their head inside.  Freddy froze so intensely, his mechanical joints began to jitter as the oh-so fragile skull between his plastic teeth waited, the very idea of letting his jaw close making him want to rip it off before that could happen.  Breathy static wheezed out of the freshly repaired voice box, and Alvis held firm despite the awkward angle.  Jeremy stiffened up and Vanessa took a step forward before Alvis stopped her.  "Gotta test his stress responses," they explained before addressing Freddy again. "Now, tell me what the thought of biting me tells you, Freddy."

"I…" Freddy choked out before freezing again.  The mere idea of shifting his jaws filled him with an overwhelming, crushing guilt, which began to make his voicebox's static worsen.  Some kind of leak seemed to spring in one of his eyes, causing Alvis to recoil from the drip of black onto their face.  

"Oh, that is… you're crying." they remark guiltily.  "I'm so sorry!"

"It's probably just oil," Vanessa excused.  "Leaks happen all the time."

"Not from the eyes," Jeremy corrected.  "We should stop before-"

"No," Freddy interrupted.  "I… want to keep going.  Don't let this stop you, Investigator Alvis." he invited.  He wanted to know what was wrong with him for sure.  There were only so many undiagnosable incidents he could handle.

Alvis nodded.  "If you're sure," they accepted.  "I gotta say, I've never seen a possession of an object this thorough."

"I'm a person." Freddy remarked, unimpressed.  Alvis waved him off, seemingly getting distracted by note taking.  They probably didn't mean it, but it was still upsetting to be brushed off like that.  "I am a person," he repeated, wanting it acknowledged.  Alvis blinked.

"Well, yeah, but you're also a mass-produced technology.  Both can be true."

Freddy didn't want to think about being mass produced.  That was its own kind of dread.

"Sorry, sorry, rude thing to say to you," they quickly apologized.  "I'm just trying to make sure I'm able to talk to the spririt properly, so poking you is the best option."

That heady feeling was back, like Freddy wasn't entirely in control of himself suddenly.  "I hear ouiji is reliable.  It wouldn't work, though."

Alvis cocked their head curiously.  "Oh yeah?  Why?"

He stood up suddenly, letting the shadow of his height dwarf the much shorter human that only came up to his cake hatch at eye-level.  "Because you already have my attention."

Alvis froze up and stared up at the bear.  "… I should leave."

"Probably." Freddy agreed.  "The dead aren't meant to be the dancing monkeys of the living."

Alvis paled.  "Y-yeah, I-I'm gonna go." They started packing up their stuff haphazardly as Freddy stared them down the whole time.  "It was nice to meet you," they remark hurriedly before scampering away.

Freddy scowled after them.  "Please let Ms. Knighton know that I never want to see another ghost researcher again."

"Y-yeah, I'll let her know." Vanessa squeaked, eyes wide.

For some reason, he wasn't sorry for catching her in the crossfire.

Jeremy stared at him.  "… Why did you drive them away immediately after saying you wanted to talk to them?"

Freddy shifted uncomfortably on the spot.  He didn't know why.  He responded anyways, the words coming unbidden.  "I was no longer comfortable talking to them." he explained.  What was going on with him?

Was this… what it meant to be haunted?  He wasn't sure he liked this