Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For the first few moments of his wakefulness, Michael Afton expected to open his eyes to the familiar walls and monitors of the bunker he called his home. Instead what he saw was the dimly lit ruin of some sort of locker room, with broken-down racks and shelves lining the walls. Indistinct shapes slumped in the shadows, animatronics, or maybe just the suits. Michael stared off into space as he tried to force an explanation as to why he was here out of his memories. He could remember the bunker, that much was crystal clear. He could remember his friend, his only friend, and their bright laughter. He remembered… the ad, the position, the trap. He remembered luring his wayward family, one by one to their doom. He remembered finding the true plans for his pizzeria and his decision to follow through with it. And then… nothing. He couldn’t remember leaving for his last night, couldn’t remember what happened then. Did he succeed? If so then why was he here? Did he fail? He couldn’t remember, he couldn’t even remember if he said goodbye to Helpy or Lolbit. Maybe this was hell, maybe he failed and was punished for it, maybe he succeeded but was dragged down too, maybe-

Michael was broken out of his spiraling thoughts at the sound of metal tapping against metal right next to him. He looked down to see a familiar white bear tapping away at a metal leg, HIS leg, he realized. Michael took stock of himself for the first time since awakening, knowledge born of decades with only machines for company flooded his mind almost unbidden. His new body was metal, obviously, but it wasn’t the makeshift endoskeleton that filled his hollow corpse for thirty years. This new body was taller, but lanky. Made up of what appeared to be random levers and pistons cobbled together, with mismatched arms and legs and wires skewen about. Some of the parts were visibly higher quality than others, with a noticeable imbalance in how technically advanced the bits were. Funnily enough, the newest pieces seemed to not be metal, instead being some sort of cheap plasticky material. His study revealed a plethora of more minute details that almost formed a story of sorts. Such as how the oldest parts of his torso and arms had poorly repaired dents, but none on the legs. He could also tell from the way his new body was constructed, most of the more recent repairs were done by the body itself. Which meant that, spirit or AI, he wasn’t this body’s first inhabitant.

Another, more aggressive set of taps rang out, pulling him out of his second wrecked train of thought and back towards the small animatronic that was currently glaring up at him. The bear was rather dirty, with obvious cracks and faults in his shell. He was standing next to a light that looked like it was pulled from a wall, with two bare wires sparking at one end. Strapped to his back was an odd, two-pronged orange remote.

“H-Helpy?” Michael frowned, or the best equivalent of one, at the familiar hollow rasp of his voice. He pushed the line of questions forming in his mind aside though, unwilling to further anger his small companion. “W-what happened? Where are we? What… What did you put me in” Michael’s mind still reeled from the sheer mystery of his predicament, he tried his best to follow along with the game of charades his robotic assistant attempted. Michael never got around to finding a voice synthesizer for Helpy, and he was sure regretting it now.

“We’re… underground?” Michael tried as Helpy pantomimed digging with a shovel. He then twisted his hands above his head for a bit, before opening some sort of drawer and putting something inside.

“We’re… under a pizzeria?” A nod.

“Our pizzeria?” A headshake. 

“Ok, so we’re under some sort of pizzeria, It’s still Freddy’s?” Michael nodded slowly to himself as he received another positive before violently shaking his head to try and get himself to focus. “Never mind, What about Father? Charlie? Lizzie? I can’t remember what happened that final night, did we fail? Is that why I’m still here?” Helpy went to shake his head again, but stopped himself and instead held one hand horizontally, shaking it back and forth. What followed after was a series of motions Michael barely understood: Helpy held his fingers up to his eyes like some kind of goggles, a guitar, a finger twirling near his head, a creeping motion, It was only the final pantomime that Michael truly got, A pair of fingers Helpy held above his head.

Rabbit ears.

“Father.” Of course it was, of course Michael wasn’t able to finish his job. “Father has something to do with this.” Another so-so motion, so William had some connection to why he was back. That still didn’t explain where he was or whose body he was in, but Michael expected that it was all he was going to get from the mute bear while sitting there in the dark.

Michael stood carefully, mindful of his new proportions. He was always tall, having overtaken his Uncle Henry when he was still a teen, but this hodgepodge body was even taller than the animatronics were. Not to mention how much narrower his balance is now. At least whoever, or whatever made it got the legs even length. He bent over to pick up the light, lifting it up to illuminate his surroundings. The slumped figures he had taken notice of before turned out to not be animatronics after all, looking more like mascots than anything. Rather low-quality ones at that, with visible seams and eyeholes. One of the decrepit walls was damaged, cracked just enough that he would be able to squeeze through. Behind it was a barren dirt tunnel with more lights like the one he was holding up attached to the wall.

“What… is this place?” Michael wondered momentarily before his musings were once again disrupted as he felt the small bear next to him begin to grab at his leg, clawing his way up the uneven metal and exposed wires before plopping himself onto one of Mike’s shoulders. Michael made sure he was secure before slowly making his way down the tunnel. The rough-hewn tunnel looked more like one of the abandoned mines Father took them to for vacation rather than something belonging to a restaurant. He was forced to duck and twist through the cramped passage, coming up to multiple forks that Helpy had to point him down. That was, of course, until the two found another hole in a brick wall. One that led to a grimy, dilapidated, and very familiar hallway.

“What the hell…” Mike felt the urge to rub his eyes, just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, or glitching, considering his current state. But the proof was in the pudding, he had walked down this same hallway countless times. Times that felt to him like just yesterday, but from the state of it must have been years ago. “Helpy… How long was I out?”

Mike watched as his companion flashed his stubbly little fingers. Eleven years, eleven years since he was running this place, setting the trap. It was nothing compared to the thirty he spent waiting, but it was still quite the shock.

“That long, huh? Damn. Then why bring me back now?” Helpy broke out in a wild attempt at charades, but for the life of him (or unlife of him) Michael couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “Ok, that’s not gonna work, I’m sure I’ll find out before long anyways.” The door to their left was locked, the one he remembered led to the main showroom. Surprisingly, Helpy urged him past the door and towards the door leading to the tiny janitor’s closet at the end of the hall. When Mike opened it, he found himself in a makeshift hallway, a crudely installed elevator situated at the end.

“I guess you did say we were underground…” Mike’s asymmetrical feet clanked loudly as he climbed into the barebones elevator, nothing close to what he used to get into Baby’s. It was a matter of moments before they were clunking upwards, the uneven stone shifting abruptly to uniform concrete. The elevator eventually spat them out in a dim, barren hallway, a few crates and bits of equipment were pushed up against the walls, but for the most it was bare, dirty walls as far as his eyes could see.

His head snaps to one side as he hears a voice shouting from down the hall. Human, he thought, unless the voice AI had gotten a lot better in the past decade. Either way it was a lead, and that was more than Mike was willing to pass up. He carefully made his way down the hall in the direction the voice came from, trying fruitlessly to soften his steps in hopes of not alerting anyone too soon. He passed into a different, more cluttered set of hallways, coming upon an odd sight. A gaggle of suitless endoskeletons were standing in the hallway, situated at odd angles. He hesitantly waved his hand in front of the nearest one, relaxing a bit as it failed to react in any way. He had no idea how they got there, but they seemed to be offline for now. Confident they weren’t going to be jumped all of a sudden, Michael took a second to examine the oddly familiar endos. It didn’t take long to recognize just why they were so familiar of course, considering he was there when they were designed. Each and every one of them was nothing more than a stripped-down copy of Uncle Henry’s design, made out of the same cheap material he noticed earlier. The sheer lack of effort was almost comforting in a way, knowing that no matter who was at the helm, Fazbear’s was still a piece of crap at its heart.

Shaking out of his silent critique, Mike continued down the path. Coming up to a set of double doors, as he went to open the second pair he heard a noise that made him freeze in place. The unmistakable voice of a child, interspersed with a distinctively robotic voice.

“ Crap. ”

Michael hurriedly burst through the door, and what he saw made him freeze up all over again. A young boy with messy brown hair and a striped shirt. For a moment, all Michael could see was him, David, but then his eyes refocused and he could notice the differences. The nose, for one, David had the same defined nose as he and Father; it always looked awkward on a face so like their Mother’s. The boy held himself differently as well, looking almost ready to throw punches even as he backed up away from the odd pair.

“Oh come on, not another one!”

“Gregory! The protective cylinder!” It was only then that Mike could notice the strange sight behind the boy, Gregory it seemed. Hooked up to some torture device looked chair in a cylindrical room was something that Mike could only assume was the current generation of Freddy. A muscular, punk-rock-looking frame instead of the more rotund versions before it. The animatronic’s head was hanging a few inches away from the body, with exposed multicolored wires. Gregory sped into the cylinder, pressing a button on the side to cause the hanging door to close.

“Ha! Take that!” The kid’s proud smirk was taken away before too long as the intercom started spouting off about “safety protocols” being turned off, and Mike felt like facepalming as Gregory’s realization about being stuck in a room with a potentially dangerous animatronic. Even without its head.

“What the hell is a kid doing in here?” Michael could feel the kid’s eyes snap to him questingly as Helpy dropped from his shoulder and made his way to the console.

“Hey… None of the other endoskeletons talked! What gives?!”

“Oi! What you think you're doing, comparing me to those pieces of junk?”

“Have you looked in the mirror? You look like a backyard project. What even are you?! Why aren’t you attacking me?”

“Why aren’t I…?! You’ve been getting attacked?!” Mike groaned as he slumped over, his pieces clanking against each other. “Of course you’re getting attacked, it’s Fazbear’s. Why am I even surprised?” Michael straightened back up and looked down at the kid through the glass. He knew if he was going to help him, and he was, he would need to start with the kid’s first question. He also was smart enough to realize waving his real name around in this body would lead to questions he still didn’t have answers to. So…

“Eggs. Eggs Benedict. I’m… from the older pizzeria.”

He felt like clocking himself over the head, but there was no going back now. At least he was treated to the sight of the kid fighting off a smile at the absurdity of it.

“What kind of a name is Eggs Benedict?”

“The name of something given a British accent. What kind of a name is Chica the Chicken?” If he could grin, he would have as Gregory began to uncontrollably giggle. He looked upset at himself for it even as more laughter escaped his lips; it was all-around adorable. It also made the newly christened Eggs think of if Even would have looked as cute, if he was ever given a reason to smile. He shook the feeling off, he had a living child to protect.

“Pardon me.” The Freddy head spoke up, Eggs could just barely see its eyes attempting to see beyond its nose from its perch. “I apologize if this comes off as rude, but I have no record of an animatronic under ‘Eggs Benedict’ in my database.” Right…

“Right… Well, I was never finished, as you can probably tell. The old place burnt down before I even got an exo designed. Probably never bothered putting me in the system.” God, Eggs hoped they would believe that. Fortunately for him, the bear seemed to buy it hook line and sinker. It visibly relaxed, which was a surprise on its own, and made Eggs wonder just how advanced was it.

“Oh. Well, I am truly sorry if I offended you.” Ok, it was official. That bear was just too damn polite sounding for its looks. Whoever heard of a polite punk-rocker?

“No problem.” He knelt in front of the glass, getting closer to eye level with the small kid. “Now, who’s attacking you? Why?”

“I don’t know. The other three band members have been chasing me, plus those endo things in the other room. Not to mention that security guard, and suddenly this weird rabbit lady appeared out of nowhere and chased me”

“Whoa whoa whoa, slow down Kid! Rabbit?! Was it yellow?” Eggs looked to the side, making eye contact with Helpy before looking back at Gregory in shock.

“No… She was wearing a white suit, looked kinda bad too, with patches and stuff. And she had a knife!”

“White… Then who?..” Eggs was interrupted when, with a sound of triumph from Helpy off to the side, the hatch between them slipped up. Gregory took a step back in shock, before mustering himself and bravely standing tall in front of the ramshackle bot. “Right, doesn't matter. Obviously still bad news.” Eggs stood back up, taking the chance to attempt to gauge Gregory’s size now that there wasn’t a barrier in the way. The kid was either very young, or particularly small, and his voice didn’t sound that young. “Let's… get the big guy up and at’em first, shall we?”

Eggs brushed past Gregory, entering the small, cramped room. He frowned at the overly complex device overhead, batting one piece to the side.

“What even is this? How’s a man supposed to work with this in the way?”

“But Mr. Benedict, this is what the technicians use to do maintenance?”

“Really? Don’t they teach people how to actually fix things here?” Already at his limit with the dangly bits, Eggs ripped everything but the parts holding Freddy’s head off the ceiling. He snapped a few bits he could use as tools off before tossing the rest out the door and getting to work. “But really, it’s a wonder they repair you at all, you’re practically a kids' toy, with all this plastic. Did they run out of metal in the past decade?” It took him mere moments to reconnect the animatronic’s overly simplified connectors, leaving him bound to the chair as he headed to the console. “Hold on, I’m gonna make sure you’re back in safety mode first.”

Eggs looked down at the screen as another wave of familiarity washed over him. He could swear they were still using the same system as he did, and a few keystrokes proved his feeling right as the computer accepted his admin password without a hitch. It made him wonder if they really changed anything under the hood since he passed on.

“Hey, Frankenbot.” Eggs looked down, catching Gregory peering at the screen from next to him. “How’d you get into the system that easy? And how did you repair Freddy? They don’t program animatronics how to do stuff like that, do they?”

“Nope, not really. But I… My creator was a genius.” And a madman. “I spent a lot of time watching him do stuff, and I picked a few things up.” Eggs returned his attention to the keyboard in front of him, seeing Gregory move on to watching Helpy tinker with the discarded maintenance pieces. He brought up Freddy’s logs, intent on checking of it was safe to let out.

“Hold on… What’s this?” Eggs double-checked, but the data didn’t lie. There was almost nothing in Freddy’s logs; from what he could see, the animatronic’s AI core was purged and reset… less than twelve hours ago. Which would have been in the middle of the day. “Fred, did anything happen to you roughly… Three PM yesterday?”

“Not… That I know of. Although apparently, I crashed in the middle of a performance. Is that what you are asking?”

“Maybe… Let me check something. Kid, you said Freddy’s the only one not attacking you?”

“Kinda? The worker bots don’t do much else than alert everything. Plus I ran into these creepy little… spider bots with cymbals in the vents. They actually guided me. But the other band members, yeah. They’re crazy!” 

“hmmm…” Eggs glared at the lines of code as if they’d give up their secrets if he looked stern enough. This meant something: the data purge, Freddy’s crash, and its un-hostile nature. They were connected to what was going on, he just didn’t know how. “Well, you’re safety is re-engaged. Let’s get you out of that chair.” He released the maintenance machine’s binds, watching as the large animatronic stood up and trod its way out of the cylinder.

“There’s so much tech in here. They’re gotta be something to use against the other bots, right?” Gregory asked as he looked around. A tug on his pants caused him to look down at the tiny pink bear holding a makeshift sword he made out of the maintenance machine. “...Thanks. But I meant more like something to disable them. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to fight them.” He took the sword anyway, sliding it into a belt loop and feeling decisively more brave despite his own protests.

“Bright lights can cause our eyes to malfunction briefly, a fazerblaster or faz-cam could work.”

“Where would I get those?”

“Fazerblasters are of course in the fazerblaster course. Faz-cams are sold in Monty’s golf, although I suppose some could still be in the confiscated pile. You’ll need a party pass for either, Maybe you’ll find one in Chica’s room?”

“Hey, look at these pictures.” Gregory had moved around the cylinder, staring up at a set of blueprints hung on the wall, showing off various parts of the other three band members. “Chica’s voicebox, Roxy’s eyes, and Montey’s claws. Freddy we can use these to upgrade you!”

“But Gregory, those are my friends. I would not want to hurt them to take their parts.”

“But they’ve been hurting me! They totally deserve it!”

“What are you two on about?” Both human and animatronic heads snapped back to Eggs, seeing his impressively unimpressed look (considering his unemotive face). “Not even Fazbear is dumb enough to put one-of-a-kind prototypes in their easily damaged stage animatronics. There’s got to be spares about.”

“...Oh. I suppose that makes sense.”

Eggs got back to work on the computer, bringing up inventory logs and directing the other three around. Fifteen minutes later he had a small pile of prototype parts, as well as some proper tools, since he doubted the bits he pulled off of the machine would cut it.

“Hey, Freddy. What upgrade did you get?” Gregory helped his friend back into the chair, looking up at him with a head tilt.

“Well, I… Don’t quite know. They didn’t bother telling us, and I don’t recall having the issues the others had that required repeated checks.”

“I can tell you.” Eggs set up the maintenance mode before joining them in the small chamber. “Saw it in the logs, the big guy got stronger suspensions connected to his hatch. Guess even these idiots can’t mess up shock absorbers.”

“Oh! That’s probably why I’m able to ride in it so well!”

“You… What?! Why in God's name would you do that ?!” ‘ They’d reused so much. If this Freddy had anything taken from the Funtime…’

“Uh, to not get killed?” Turns out Gregroy could do a deadpan look with the best of them. Eggs considered coming up with some comeback, but decided to drop it in favor of upgrading the bot currently strapped to the chair. That didn’t stop him from double-checking the hatch mechanism for anything too close to the older model for comfort.

“Right… Well be a champ and grab that screwdriver for me… No, the red one. Thanks.” Eggs got to work, first detaching everything he was planning on replacing. A shiver ran up his arms when he grabbed the eyes, something about them seemed to cling to the remnant in his system. He shelved that though for now in favor of finishing his job, and not five minutes later he was unhooking the newly upgraded bear. It wasn’t a perfect job; its hands were now a clashing purple and green, and its eyes were glowing an uncomfortable silver. But they were hardly in a position to care about aesthetics, plus as he was, he had no right to anyway.

“Thank you, Mr. Benedict.” Freddy moved its new hands testingly, its eyes jumping between the sharp claws and Eggs’s body before seeming to visibly decide something and move on. “Now, If we’re to get Young Gregory something to defend himself, Chica’s greenroom is still our best bet.” It turned to the set of doors, taking notice of the red lights. “It looks like Roxy’s elevator is the only one online, Gregory, it is best if you hide while we pass through.”

The young boy did as asked, clambering up into his guardian’s stomach hatch and curling into a ball. Eggs tensed a bit as it happened, but forced himself to relax. The way it was described to him the two had done that multiple times beforehand, so he just had to have faith in the oddly human animatronic.

“Right, let's go. I’m not getting any less rusty here.” Eggs repositioned Helpy on his shoulder before following the bear down a short hallway and into another, more upkept elevator.

Chapter Text

The first thing that welcomes the unlikely quartet when the elevator doors open is the sound of sobbing coming from the room ahead. Freddy takes on a convincingly concerned look as it rushes forwards towards the sound, Eggs and Helpy bringing up the rear as it bursts through the door. 

“Wha- Freddy! Get out of my room!”

“Apologies Roxy, it’s just that your elevator was the only one running.”

Eggs peeks his head around the doorframe, years of hesitancy over animatronics winning out. There, standing in front of a mirror and glaring at Feddy was a grey wolf animatronic with an overdone mess of a dyed hairdo. Despite Eggs’s overall hesitancy, the wolf catches sight of him with ease, shifting her glair to him.

“Oh, what now!? Freddy, are you sneaking out endos? This is not the time to play around!” And there it was. Why was everyone comparing him to those crappy plastic things? He wasn’t nearly as cheap.

“Oi! I ain’t an endo!” Well… “Ok, I am an endo. But not one of those cheepass ones you’re stuffed with! I was actually made with quality in mind.” He wasn’t even lying, whoever made his body, the original maker, before everything else was added on, put their heart into it. He could tell.

“Mr. Benedict! Language!” Freddy cut between them, blocking the wolf’s attempt at a lunge. “Forgive him, he was just reactivated. Roxy, this is Eggs Benedict, he was an animatronic built right before the last sight was closed. Mr. Benedict, this is Roxanne Wolf, she’s one of my bandmates.”

“Pshhh, this scrapheap? I wouldn’t even call him an animatronic, more like a walking recycle bin.” Roxy flipped its hair in dismissal. Turning back to its mirror.

“Recycle bin?! At least I’m not bloody plastic!” Eggs was squaring up with the furious wolf when a subtle knocking brought him back to reality. Roxy cast her eyes around the room in search of the noise, but Eggs and Freddy instinctively knew what it was. How he forgot about the literal child holed up in the bear's chest he’ll never know (He did, but pretending not to was easier than admitting that a robot got him worked up like that.)

“Yes, well. We all should probably get back to looking for that poor kid. He must be so scared right now.” Freddy physically pushed Eggs out the door, grinning nervously. Once they were out of sight, it opened its chest and let its passenger out.

“About time! Why were you standing there arguing with Roxy!?”

“...Well in my defense, I was the aggrieved party.” Even Helpy shook his head at him, and Eggs sent his buddy a betrayed look. “Besides, our main goal is getting to six anyway, right?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make curling up in Freddy comfortable!” Gregory walked up to the brightly colored door, frowning as it refused to open. “Freddy! My party pass isn’t working on this one!”

“Oh, my apologies Gregory. The party pass is single use only though.” Freddy frowned in thought, before snapping its fingers. “I know. Why don’t you go through the vents you used to first escape my own greenroom? My room is set to maintenance mode, so it will be unlocked.”

“Hey, that could work!” Gregory thumped his fist into his hand before making a slightly disgusted face. “Ugh, but I’ll probably run into another of those weird spider bot things. They’re pretty gross looking.” That caught Eggs’s attention. He could only think of one kind of spider-like animatronic. Well, two kinds, but only one would have been able to fit in a vent.

“Spider bots? What do they look like?”

“They’re creepy . Friendly though, one of them guided me through a pretty confusing vent. They’re all white and pink, with a weird rectangle mouth. Oh! And cymbals for hands! Like I said, creepy.” The mini-music-men. Eggs made them to act as backup players for his larger creation, inspired by the Minirenas. “Welp, I better get going, the sooner I get that pass, the sooner I get something to defend myself!” Gregory made to rush down the large hallway but was pulled back by his shirt as Eggs sensed the faint sound of shoes on linoleum coming their way. “Hey! What gives!?”

“Shhh!” Eggs put a finger to Gregory’s mouth to hush him “I hear that lady from earlier coming this way, and I doubt any of us want her to catch us. Besides, there’s a faster way then you crawling through vents. Take it away, Helpy.” He lifted his tiny companion up to the panel by the door, watching as Helpy stuck his wrench-thingy into a socket and fiddled around with it. A second later the door hissed open, letting the four of them rush inside the messy room. Eggs closed the door behind them and tugged on one of the large curtains to block them just in time for a young-looking blond woman to pass by and go through another door.

“That’s the guard, huh? And you’re sure she’s untrustworthy?”

“Yeah! She’s probably in cahoots with that weird rabbit!”

“I’m not doubting you kid, there’s always been something wrong with the night guards at Freddy’s” He should know, he was four of them.

With the current threat gone, they had the time to look at the rather disgusting room. Days-old pizza boxes littered the floors in stacks, and most of the furniture and plushies were stained with grease.

“You’re all lucky you can’t smell. Now help me look.”

Eggs and Helpy dutifully began shifting through the moldy boxes, but the larger bot’s attention was more focused on the back of Freddy’s head. The amount of personality it had demonstrated in the handful of minutes he’d known it was staggering. At first Eggs had written it off as a partially good bit of programming, no doubt AI had advanced quite a bit in the decade he’d been… gone. But the animatronic’s expressiveness was something else. The bear experienced real emotions, he could tell. The wolf too, it got genuinely upset at his ribbing, AIs don’t do that. He had a sinking suspicion about what it was, and he hoped he was wrong. Taking advantage of his companions’ lack of attention, Eggs dug into his soul, pulling at the familiar energy that made up his being. He hesitated a bit, caught off guard at how different he felt now, his remnant didn’t feel the same as it did in his old body. He pushed back that thought for now and, with one final tug, made the world around him go dark. Everything around him became shrouded, like he was looking through a thick blindfold. But in the darkness, beacons of brilliance showed through. He could see the remnant surrounding him. The echoes of people covered everything, the dimming smudges of energy living beings always left behind when they interacted with something. Gregory was a massive, pulsing light, and Eggs was grimly reminded of why his father always targeted children. 

That was the expected stuff. Humans were always a faunt of Remnant, children even more so, and it stood to reason such a busy place as this would have a lot of traffic. What wasn’t supposed to be there was the remnant he could feel pulsing through the walls, or the remnant that enveloped the boy’s imposing guardian. It wasn’t living, wasn’t possession. In fact it was nearly identical to the much smaller beacon that indicated Egg’s small creation.

“Of course they did.” He thought to himself with a growing sense of dread. “They reused everything else after all.”

Remnant-based AI, artificial souls. Give a bundle of remnant directions and it’ll grow around them until what was inside was almost indistinguishable from a human soul. It’s what his father did with the funtimes, what he did with Helpy, what Henry did with Lefty. And now it was what whoever ran this new location did with these glamrocks.

“I have found one!” Eggs was brought back to the real world when Freddy emerged from a pile of pizza boxes with a slightly greasy ticket in its… In his paw. 

“Nice one Freddy! Now I can go get som-” Gregory was cut off when the lights went out with a hum. He and Freddy both tensed at the faint sound of bells echoing down the hall. “Crap! It’s that Moon thing!”

“Gregory…” Eggs stepped between them and the door. The sound was making its way towards them, making its way right towards them. “Get in Freddy, now!” The sound was right outside Chica’s door, the clanking of mechanical parts joining the sinister cacophony of bells.

“It won’t matter, he can like… see me through walls!” The young boy did as he was told anyways, darkness enveloping him as he felt his guardian shift backwards away from the door. He could see through Freddy’s eyes thanks to the fazwatch if he wanted, but he couldn’t tell if being able to see what was coming was any better.

Eggs shifted himself, bracing for whatever this ‘Moon Thing’ actually was. Helpy was hiding against the makeup table, Freddy looked like he was trying to slide between the arcade cabinet and the wall, the door was sliding open, the figur-

“Oh, what the hell is that”

Now, Saying that Eggs was familiar with cute things trying to kill him would be an understatement. He’s barely met an animatronic that hasn't tried it at least once. But this thing… It was a clown , with a big moon-themed head, a genie motif straight out of Aladin, and little dangle bells on its curly shoes. It was also tiny ! Tall yes, but thin and lanky in a way that he was sure he could have carried it around even as a human. The only thing going against its look was the blank white eyes. 

And the fact it was currently trying to rush past him directly at the hidden child who just so happened to be under his protection.

Eggs should probably do something about that.

His large hand shot out as Moon Thing (Eggs doubted that was its real name, but it was all the kid gave him to work off of. It’s not like Fazbear would call their animatronic something as simple as Moon… right?) tried to rush pass, wrapping it around its waist and stopping it in its tracks. Eggs didn’t have any way to gage weight in this new body, didn’t even have the relative comfort of a similar measure of strength that his corpse had in comparison to his living body. But whatever metrics this new body had, he was right about being light, light enough to hold in one hand. It curled up onto itself unnaturally, trying to claw at his arm for freedom. It seemed pretty strong for its size, Eggs would give it that, but whoever built his body made it to last. Moon Thing might have been able to wreak havoc on the cheap modern animatronics, but as he held it straight out, Eggs couldn’t help the comparison to a fussy kitten trying to claw at its human.

Frankly curious as to whether or not this other animatronic was also powered by soul juice, and confident in the fact that Moon Thing didn’t seem to be able to do much more than scratch and tug ineffectively at his exposed parts, Eggs let himself slip back out of the real world, looking for the telltale glow of Remnant. What he found really wasn’t what he expected, but it definitely gave him a massive hint as to what was really going on.

 A dark presence twisted its way up the animatronic’s Remnant core, If that wasn’t what was causing them to go crazy, Eggs would eat his… Eggs would be surprised.

As he tried to think about how to deal with this new development, Eggs saw movement off to his side. Helpy had managed to climb up onto the table he was hiding behind and was waving the wench above his head. It didn’t take a genius to recognize that the small bear had a plan, so Eggs shifted himself over to the table, giving Helpy access to the infected clown.

Moon Thing’s head shot up as it felt something cling to its back, but that turned out to be the exact opening that Helpy was looking for. Before it could even turn to look at him, Helpy managed to cram the spokes of his tool into a receptacle on the flat back of Moon Thing’s head, causing the animatronic to freeze up momentarily before going limp. Eggs fumbled as he tried to keep both the animatronic and his companion from falling to the floor. He carefully set them down as Help fiddled with his wrench, and Eggs got a firsthand seat as all the Remnant in it, both normal and infected, got purged out of its body and drained into the air to dissipate. 

The lights flickered back on a moment later, just in time for all present to see the unresponsive animatronic change in front of their eyes. The blue on its clothing and body faded to a dull grey, and its sleeping cap was tugged into a small compartment.

“Is… it over?” Freddy peeked out from behind the arcade cabinet hesitantly.

“Yeah, Helpy purged its AI core. We’ll have to recharge it first, but it should boot to a backup from before it got infected.” That was a lie, but Eggs didn’t really feel like explaining the intricacies of Remnent-based AI right now, nor did he admittedly care to break it to Freddy that all his friends were basically possessed by a sapient computer virus.

“Do we have to? That thing’s creepy ! Even the Sun one!” Gregory had banged on Freddy’s casing until the bear had gotten the message and let him out. The boy joined Eggs in staring down at the deactivated jester.

“Sun one?”

“Ah, I can explain that to you, Mr. Benedict. The Daycare Animatronic has two forms: Sun takes care of children during playtime, and Moon Watches over them during naptime. That’s why they’re colorless right now.”

“Huh.” So apparently Fazbear was unimaginative enough to call their animatronic Moon. And Sun. Oh, and also to give an animatronic split personality disorder on purpose. So there’s that. 

Eggs forcefully shrugged that off, filing it under the part of his brain he labeled ‘Fazbear BS’ before tossing the lanky robot over his shoulder.

“Right, where’s the nearest charger? At this point anything on our side is preferable.” He then nodded at Freddy. “Besides, You probably need a charge too.”

“Oh! Yes, I am getting rather low. Please, follow me.” Freddy led them through the back hallway, past the out-of-order elevator to where a colorful cylinder was tucked into the corner. He went first, and Eggs got to watch as energy poured through the chamber.

To the visible eye, it was a light show. But when Eggs shifted over to the spiritual spectrum was when he got the real show. Among the electrical currents running through Freddy were bright tendrils of light, being sucked through his body and gathering mostly in his head. It only took him a few minutes until he was shaking the leftover static off and stepping out of tube and letting Eggs shove the Daycare Attendant in next.

“Right… We’ll be waiting a while longer for this guy. It was fully drained by the purge.” Eggs watched the slumped figure slowly take in the Remnant, with nothing already there to work on, it’d take substantially longer for it to regain itself. “In the meantime, I’m thinking of unlocking your own battery Big Guy, we can’t afford to have you running on such a low allowance.”

“Er… if you say so.” Freddy dutifully sat down on the ground, and if Gregory seemed to hesitate a moment before sliding into his lap, Eggs wasn’t gonna mention. Nor was he planning on pointing out how ecstatic the robot was at the prospect. Instead, He just unlatched the back of Freddy’s head, exposing the endoskeleton beneath, and held Helpy up to do his thing. Eggs was certain that, given some time, he’d be able to do this by himself. The endoskeleton was just a cheaper version of the ones he’d worked with after all. But the wench gizmo was something new, and his old pal seemed to have anything to do with it handled so he resigned himself to acting as the small bear’s stepping stool.

Besides, who could deny the little guy when he looked so adorably proud of himself as he stepped back from his work?

“Oh!” Freddy started to slump forward before jolting up hard enough to unseat the kid in his lap and speaking in a dull, robotic voice. “Safe mode off, battery unblocked.” His companions were then treated to the sight of him shaking his head back and forth like a massive puppy before looking at them and speaking in a familiar, and preferable, voice. “Thank you, Mr. Benedict! I am back to full capacity!”

“That’s good, Big Guy. We need you at your A-game tonight.” Eggs stood up, watching as Gregory ‘helped’ his guardian climb to his feet. “Now we just gotta wait for-” He was cut off as the charger opened, revealing the slumped figure once again. “Speak of the devil.”

Eggs picked the Daycare Attendant back up and laid it face down on the floor, watching as Helpy stood next to its head, lined his wench up to its socket, and looked to Eggs for confirmation.

“Welp, here goes nothing.” With that, Helpy stuck the wench in and pressed a button, stepping back just in time for the limp figure to begin shaking.

Chapter Text

“ mmm m m mMorning!” Eggs snatched Helpy out of the way as the figure sprung up with its hands in the air. The grey bits on its body filling in with yellow, and a number of triangular spikes folding out around its head. “That’s odd, this isn’t parts and service, why was I offline?” It looked around the backroom before spotting Gregory, currently half hiding behind Freddy’s leg, and pointing a finger at him.

“Rulebreaker! Rulebr-MMM!” Eggs shoved his hand under Sun’s facemask, covering its speaker and pulling it back.

“Quiet!” He whisper-shouted into Sun’s sensor, getting the hyperactive animatronic to stop shouting. “You had a dangerous virus, we had to purge your other AI core. Most of the other animatronics are still infected with something that makes them target Gregory here. I’m going to let you go now, do not attract attention to us unless you want a child to come to harm.” Sun stiffened, visibly computing the idea of a child being in danger . Even a rulebreaker. Eggs let it go after receiving a vigorous nod, and it rubbed it’s head.

“A virus? And it’s causing the others to attack children ?!? …Is that why Moon has been acting all weird?” Sun put its hands over its mouth, which probably would have worked better if it didn’t have a permanent plaster grin. “But… The friendly maintenance people said he was fine, I thought he was just angry with me!”

“Wait a minute!” Gregory moved out from behind Freddy to point an accusing finger at Sun. “If you didn’t know Moon was gonna try and kill me, why were you so scared of me turning off the lights?”

“Moon scares kids even when he isn’t in a bad mood!” Sun put its hand on its chest and turned its nonexistent nose up. “I was just looking out for your mental well-being.”

“Right, enough of that.” Eggs put Helpy back down and moved to block Sun’s and Gregory’s views. “You both need to be more quiet, and as fun as this is, we also need to get moving soon. Sun, the rest of the animatronics attack Gregory on sight. We need to know when and how the virus was uploaded. When did Moon start acting weird?”

“When it… started?” The clacking of plastic on plastic sounded out as Sun tapped its chin. “A few months ago at least. Long enough that Moon would have normally forgotten about being upset with me… Oh!” It snapped its fingers in realization. “It was just after the new night guard lady was hired! She was really nice at first, but I guess the night shift has been stressing her out. So snippy now.”

“The guard huh? Well… shit.” Eggs muttered, ignoring both Freddy and Sun’s insistent scolding at his cursing. “We already figured that she was in on it, but if she was the one that implanted the virus in the first place, then…” He trailed off, not quite wanting to voice his true concern. “...Never mind. Anyways, if the mechanics gave Moon the all-clear, either they’re in on it, or they’re even more incompetent than I thought. Which is saying something.”

“So… what now?” Gregory said, climbing up Freddy’s leg until the big animatronic got the message and picked him up.

“Now, you need something to actually defend you. And my vote’s on Fazerblaster. I’m more than aware of how absurdly sharp those upgraded claws are, and no way in hell we’re sending you into the bastard’s personal zone.”

“Language, but I agree. Fazerblasters is my own zone, with any luck you won’t run into much danger.” Freddy looked over at Sun, who seemed to be stuck in his own head. Maybe he was able to communicate with Moon again, now that the virus was gone? “Sun, will you come with us?”

“Oh!” Sun snapped back to the conversation, looking around. “Uh… I’m not supposed to leave the daycare. But Moon promised to keep an eye out whenever he’s set on patrol!”

“Good enough, 'cause we really need to get a move on now.” Eggs picked Helpy back up, making his way towards the greenroom again. “Sitting around here is just asking for one of the others to find us. And I’m not so confident in overpowering the less lanky animatronics before they get their mitts on the kid.”

The small party split up, Sun (and Moon, Eggs guessed, still wasn’t fully comfortable with the whole ‘two-in-one’ thing they had) hooking itself to a near-invisible wire that came down from the ceiling and flying off back towards the daycare. Meanwhile the rest of them made their way to Fazerblasters. Thanks to Freddy having his battery unlocked, they didn’t have to risk Gregory being exposed for now. Though if any of the sapient animatronics noticed his new claws and eyes, they’d be in for uncomfortable questions. (They were lucky that Eggs aggravating Roxy kept her from paying Freddy much notice. Neither of them were eager to test that luck again quite yet).

“So, question.” Eggs took his chance to look around the huge, overly spectacular atrium. Even after hours it was clear how overdone the place was. “If you’re here, and the kid’s hidden, what do we need the party pass for?”

“Oh, that’s simple. I am not allowed access into Fazerblaser unless there’s either an event, or if I’m escorting a VIP. Apologies for the confusion, Mr. Benedict.”

“Eggs, Mr. Benedict just sounds… weird.” He ignored the muffled voice of Gregory asking how ‘Eggs’ sounded any less weird. “And we’ve got you get you to sound less… vanilla. What’s the point of making you a punk if you talk like you’re from customer service?”

“I… do not understand. What does the way I talk have to do with ice cream?”

“No, not ice cream, it’s- oh, whatever.” They had already made their way to the entry door, currently blocked off by a staffbot. True to Freddy’s word, it didn’t budge until Gregory got out and ran the party pass through the ipad-looking thing it had instead of an arm. The pass was shredded, and came out the top as a little puff of confetti as the staffbot did a clunky dance before moving out of the way.

The door behind it opened, revealing an elevator. The four of them rode down, somewhat cramped, before they were let out into what Eggs would consider a fairly normal-looking laser tag lobby from when he was alive, dark walls lit up by bright neon lights. Another staff screen was against the wall right next to the entry door, showing the (In Eggs’s opinion rather dumb-looking) Helpy redesign. The real (And much cuter) bear had Eggs hold him up to the screen as he did… something. Regardless of Eggs confusion, Helpy seemed happy with whatever he did, and not long after the four of them made their way through the door and into Fazerblaster proper.

Chapter Text

“This is… yikes.” Eggs looked up at the announcer-bot. What was even the point of it? Either have a more general speech or have color-specific ones further down the line where the teams split. It wasn’t even Fazbear being cheap, it was just dumb.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Benedict? Children love Fazerblaster.” Freddy, for all his sapience, was still limited by his company programming, and that included not really being able to notice the corners cut. (For now at least, Eggs had noticed him breaking more than a few rules already, for Gregory’s sake.) 

“I’m gonna have’ta agree with Eggs. What’s with this? ‘The orange/blue team hasn’t got a chance’.” Gregory did a mocking little robot dance as the four of them made their way further into the tunnels. Entering a locker room where helmets and blasters were strewn haphazardly.

“You tell them Kiddo.” Eggs picked up a pair for him and Helpy. They were pretty clearly sized for kids, just too small to be comfortable in Eggs’s or Freddy’s hands, and laughably large in the stubby paws of Helpy. Still, the determined look in the small bear’s eyes got a giggle out of Gregory, and with everything the kid’s been through so far, Eggs would take that as a win.

“Oh… None of the children I’ve played alongside seemed to notice any problem.” Freddy’s core felt… staticky. Like he was supposed to defend his attraction from the ‘slanderer’... But this was Gregory, he couldn’t be upset at Gregory.

“They were probably too excited about playing with you to notice.” Eggs reassured the larger bear in the party, patting his shoulder. “Trust me, once you’ve been around as long as I have, you get used to things like that.”

“How long have you been around?” Gregory asked, trying to get a helmet to settle on his head without dipping down over his eyes before just tossing it back onto the bench. “I thought you were made like, right before the last place burnt down.”

Oops.

“Yes, well. My creator was much better at building and programming than getting an outer shell designed and built. So I was around for a good while.” Still technically true. Father was never that good at coming up with designs; that was always Henry’s sphere. The only exception ever was the original Bonnie.

“Huh.” Gregory led the way, leading to a fork in the hallway. “So, is this gonna try and split us up or something?”

“Oh, no. That party pass put the attraction into VIP mode. One team against specialized staffbots.”

“Cool, so we get to team up?!” That got Gregory excited. Freddy was his hero, and while he’d only known Eggs for an hour or so, the quirky endo had grown on him.

Like a tumor.

They made their way down the orange hallway, finding themselves in another, larger elevator. Once it hit the bottom, the lights went out and the door opened, spitting them into a multilayered neon wasteland of greens and purples. Sounds of blaster fire and other sci-fi ambience played over the speakers

“I’ve… never gotten to play laser tag before.” Gregory admitted, starry-eyed. “Is it always this cool?”

“...Neither have I, of course.” Eggs had, not that he’d be able to explain how an unfinished animatronic would have had a chance to play. “But from what I understand, most are more akin to dark rooms, maybe a decal or two. And certainly nothing this… big.”

“Of course! Fazerblasters is the best and largest laser tag facility in the western United States!”

“Western states, huh? What about the East Coast?”

“I… cannot say the company, but needless to say that while their laser tag may legally be larger and more advanced than Fazerblasters, they can’t compare to the rest of the amenities in our Fazbear Mega Pizzaplex!”

“It’s ok, we get it.” Eggs patted Freddy’s shoulder. “You don’t need to sell it to us.”

“Ah… apologies, I don’t know what came over me.” Freddy apologizes, embarrassed at how his corporate programming took over like that. “Shall we move on? The sooner we play, the sooner Gregory has a method to defend himself.”

The first flag was right ahead of them, and as they stepped onto the circle surrounding it and pressed the button, a voice announced their goal of defending it. Waves of staffbots came towards them, and a quick test shot demonstrated the need to get a headshot to send them exploding.

“Gah! Seriously?! That CAN’T be ergonomic!” Eggs and Helpy tried to keep up with the others, but it seemed that Gredory and Freddy would be their MVPs for the match. Eggs hadn’t used a toy blaster since before he died, much less his uploading into this new body. And Helpy, bless his robotic soul, was simply too small to aim properly.

The timer counted down without a single staffbot touching the flag circle (and since none of them bothered wearing a helmet, the bots couldn’t score any hits on them). The voice from earlier congratulated them on their first flag, but a sound under the announcer sent all four players freezing.

“WhO WanT’s CaNDy??”

“Crap! How’s she get in here?!”

“I don’t know! Not even I’m allowed in Fazerblasters without administrator permission or a VIP ticket!” The two larger bots began shepherding Gregory up a ramp towards the next flag, encountering more staffbots. These ones noticeably didn’t explode when shot, but that didn’t stop Eggs from kicking one off the ramp when it’s frozen body threatened to block their way.

“Damn it, the virus must have overridden the rescriction!”

“Or that rabbit lady gave her permission!”

Fortunately for them, Chica didn’t appear during the second flag, just more staffbots gunning for the button. They had to go down again for the third flag, a cramped area of oranges and red that funneled the bots towards them. Unfortunately…

“I FouNd YOu!~”

The bots weren’t the only thing heading toward them.

Eggs and Freddy formed a wall in front of Gregory, hoping to keep him hidden, but the damage was already done, and Chica was limping at them like a reject from a zombie movie, her beak hanging open and her eyes drifting apart.

“Eggs, remember you need to hit her in the eye, or it won’t do anything!” Freddy could do this, he just had to imagine his oldest friend wearing a fazerblaster helmet, it was just a game, he wasn’t hurting her.

Just a game…

Freddy’s shot hit dead on, while Eggs had gone wide. Chica snapped back, hands going up to her eyes with a glitchy yell.

“Ha! Take that you freaky chicken!” Gregory ducked out from between his guardians’ legs to hit a few more staffbots, Helpy joining in at defending the point while the two ensured Chica stayed back. Or at least that was the plan.

“Gredgory! She’s still my frie- EGGS!” Freddy shouted out as Eggs rushed forward, his mismatched legs thumping loudly as he tackled Chica before she could recover from being stunned. The staffbots around them didn’t react beyond a few canned lines about not roughhousing.

“Helpy! The wench!” Chica was both larger and stronger than the daycare duo, and Eggs had to physically wrestle her to the floor to keep her from moving. “Gah! Where’s the damn port?! Freddy!”

“Uhhh…!” Of course Freddy knew where the port was, but he didn’t know if he could… no. Chica was his friend, but she was a robot, made to be repaired. Gregory was a child, and he couldn’t be repaired so easily. “Our optic ports are compatible with the Fazwench! You’ll have to remove her eye!”

“Damn it!” Eggs knew there would be no way to get the eye out safely, and there was no time anyway. He shifted one arm to put her into a headlock, his other hand poised right above her faceplate. “Sorry, Cheeks.” He dug his hand in, the plastic around Chica’s eye creaking and cracking. Forcing himself to ignore the disturbingly human scream as his digits found the underside of her eye and tugged. Her eye left her socket with a *pop* as shards of white and pink flew everywhere. There, right where Freddy said it would be, was a set of two equidistant holes perfect for the Fazwench.

Freddy hid Gregory’s eyes, though the boy couldn’t say why. The sound was the worst part. The sound that continued until Helpy finally managed to get the wench in, purging the chicken’s AI core, and taking the tainted Remnant with it.

“Well,” Eggs let go and made to stand up. “That wa-!”

*BZZZZ*

“...I forgot that was still going.” The four of them jumped as the timer went off behind them, signaling the capture of the third and final flag. The staffbots all began rolling back to where they emerged from as the announcer congratulated them.

“Oh! I forgot as well. That was… exhilarating!” Freddy tried not to look too excited over the match, and their unexpected extra opponent, as Eggs popped Chica’s eye back into her shattered socket and slung her over his shoulder, tossing his blaster towards Freddy.

“So, that’s it? Kiddo’s got a blaster now?”

“Well, not quite. The exit doesn’t open until all blasters are returned to the receptacle by the exit, but VIPs get a complimentary golden blaster afterwards. It should be deposited up the elevator, in the Superstar Lounge.”

True to his word, a trashcan-looking receptacle greeted them near the elevator door. (With what Egg’s seen so far from modern Fazbear, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a trashcan, and they made new blasters for each match.) Once all four blasters were deposited, the door opened, letting them ride up. Another series of cramped, dark hallways, and they found what they came here for. A cheaply painted golden blaster had come up on a pedestal from the center of a room overlooking the entire arena. It seemed that the mechanism had displaced a bunch of snacks that weren’t cleaned up at all, and Eggs subtly shifted around some of them while Gregory marveled at his new weapon and Freddy congratulated him.

Fortunately, Eggs found what he was looking for: an unopened bag of some Fazbear brand chips, hidden among the piles of opened, half-eaten ones. It was the kind of thing teen Michael would have loved; all sugar and preservatives with no nutrience worth a damn. But it was the best he’s seen without resorting to giving Gregory actual trash.

“Hey, Kiddo. Heads up.” Eggs tossed the bag Gregory’s way, watching the boy try to juggle both his blaster and the chips until he could remember how his hands worked, looking at the bag in confusion. “I don’t know if you’ve eaten anything tonight, but I’d say you should use something to pick you up after all that.” He readjusted Chica’s body on his shoulder. “We can take a break for you to eat now, or you can eat while I make sure Cheeks here isn’t still infected.

Gregory looked at the chips again, before handing them to Freddy to shove in his hatch. Another set of halls spat them out back at the locker, and yet another back to the lobby.

“Wait,” Freddy stopped them, pointing at an employee door. “There is another security office down there, I am sure we’d be able to find something useful there.”

Past the short, cluttered employee hallway was the security room in question, and boy was Eggs not ready for what he found. If it wasn’t for the presence of Glamrock paraphernalia, he would have thought he’d stepped right back in time. Familiar black walls, with red lines and a checkerboard band, just like the third location. From his look, Helpy also recognized the look. Most likely from the data packets Eggs downloaded into him.

A small device shaped like Freddy’s head let Gregory upgrade the security card he’d swiped, with a year pass for Bonnie Bowl being grabbed as well. However, it seemed their detour had set off some form of silent alarm. Multiple flashlight-wielding staffbots now populated the Fazerblaser lobby, not that it mattered when they could safely hide Gregory away within Freddy. A quick elevator ride later, and the four of them, or five if you counted Chica, were on their way back to the main stage and its express passage to the maintenance room. 

Chapter Text

 “So…” Gregory kicked his feet from where he sat on a table in the maintenance room, munching on the chips Eggs had tossed him back in Fazer Blast. “Why do we need to be down here? Wouldn’t doing what you did with Sun and Moon work?”

“Sure, if you want her to be dead weight.” Eggs was in the maintenance cylinder, fixing Chica’s up from all the damage he caused in the scuffle (or at least the mechanical damage, her shell was out of his area of expertise) as Helpy typed at the computer furiously, going through every file in Chica with the kind of robotic efficiency made to find every possible loophole in a lawsuit. “What we did to the freak twins is purge their cores to force a reboot to a safe backup, but that backup took time, and the main band all have way more data. It’s quicker to go through and find the virus points manually.“

“I guess… Not sure I really want her going around with us though… What if the virus takes hold again?”

“Kiddo, have some faith. In Helpy if not in me.” Eggs stepped away, looking at his handiwork. The eyes were both working again, and he went ahead and fixed her voice box while he was at it. She wasn’t pretty, but she worked. “Speaking of… Helpy, ready on your end?”

The little bear gave a thumbs up, letting Eggs exit the chamber before running the remote startup.

“G-G-G-Good morning…” Chica sat up, eyes focused again as she looked around. “What… happened? Why am I in maintenance?”

“Calm down, Chica, it’s ok.” Freddy put a massive paw on her shoulder, helping her to her feet. “You had a virus, Eggs and Helpy here fixed you.”

“Not totally, but you won’t be tweaking out anymore, not without getting into your eye sockets directly.” Eggs walked up, holding out one of his hands. “Eggs Benedict. From the last location.”

“O-Oh! You’re the one that helped me?” Chica shook his hand before bending down to address Helpy. “Then you must be Helpy, thank you.” The little bear looked proud of himself, and the attention he was getting, until a crinkle was heard, which caused Chica’s eyes to snap up to where Gregory was sitting.”

“Uh… Freddy, why is there a child here after hours?!” Chica tried to whisper, failing spectacularly.

“Well, you see Chica… Gregory here…”

“You were trying to kill him.” Eggs cut in, causing Chica to look at him in shock and Freddy to sigh.

“I was trying to work up to that.”

“Don’t got the time.” Eggs made sure Chica was looking into his eyes, glowing a faint purple. “That virus was made by a serial killer; it turned you and all your friends into child-killing weapons. Gregory here is the latest target. Keeping up?”

Chica looked like she was very much not keeping up, and Freddy had to keep her steady. But surprisingly, it was Gregory that spoke up next.

“Wait, Serial Killer, how do you know that?”

Bugger. Better think fast.

“Cause it’s happened before.” Half-truths, things he’d be able to know. “A rabbit-suited killer usin’ the bots, back in the 80s and 90s. If this White Rabbit of yours is mucking about with a knife, chances are they’re a copycat.” If only they were dealing with a copycat. But Eggs had long learned that when it came to family troubles, luck was never on his side.

“B-B-But…” Was all that Chica could get out, “I-I-If…”

“If Gregory is the latest… did we… Eggs, have we killed?” Freddy finished Chica’s unasked question, looking at his paw.

“Most likely, but who knows. Any missing children reports lately?”

“I… Yes, several. There was never any connection to the Pizzaplex, though.”

“That you know of. Or that your programming lets you know of. Maybe you just dragged them to her? Didn’t do it yourself?” It was a poor comfort, but it was all Eggs could think of right now. “Look, I feel you, being forced to do something like that, it's… But we don’t have the time. We gotta keep on the move, for Gregory’s sake.”

“...Yes, for… for Gregory’s sake.” 

Great, now Eggs felt like an ass. He could relate, he could. The blood on his hands didn’t have the excuse of a magic virus. But he couldn’t admit that without revealing himself. And at this point, that would just tear the fragile party they’ve formed apart.

Instead, he just turned away, the four of them following him back out of the maintenance room.

Two down, three more to go. Get rid of the viruses and find the source, ensure whatever remainder of his father that was causing this joined the man in hell. Then, maybe, Eggs could find his rest again.

Chapter Text

“Care to explain how we got here?”

“I already said sorry! How was I supposed to know the floor would open under me?!”

Eggs brushed a moldy banana peel from his body, looking up at the hatch they fell through, already closed.

Almost as soon as they left the maintenance room, Gregory’s stomach made itself known. The small snack he got only made his hunger unignorable. On Chica’s advice, they went through Bonnie Bowl to reach the kitchen, thanks to a shortcut she knew of.

It went well enough, and Chica even withheld her desire to eat the pizza she made for him. Except Gregory, gremlin that he was, had the bright idea of going through the trash for some god forsaken reason. Eggs had been the only one to notice the compactor activating in time, diving in to block it.

Now, He and Gregory were separated from the others, Eggs’s right arm was busted, and neither had any idea how to get out.

And once again, Eggs was very grateful his new body didn’t have a nose, considering that there were SO MANY rotting pizza boxes piled up higher than his head.

“Right, this entire thing is a bloody problem. And since I’m down an arm, you get to lead.”

“Ok…” Gregory fished his flashlight out of his pocket, shining it about before heading toward the doorway. “Can… Can you fit it? You’re arm?”

“Down here? Not a chance. Once we're back up top, with Helpy, then for sure.” Eggs looked at the bum arm with a critical eye, mentally deconstructing and reconstucting it.. “I’ll need to salvage one of the endos for parts, which I heavily dislike, because those pieces of junk are bloody plastic.”

There was another of those employee panels by the door, but without Helpy’s wrench, there wasn’t much either of them could do with it, so they were forced to just move on for now.

Or they would, except…

“EW!!” Gregory yelled, staggering back and bumping into Eggs’ legs. He’d dropped his flashlight onto the muddy ground in order to clamp both hands over his nose, and Eggs couldn’t really blame him.

Eggs had thought that the room they fell into, with trash piled up almost as tall as him, was bad enough. But the room beyond that was a whole different beast, a sewer with just as much trash, but also black, sludge-like water gushing out of grates and into the channel in the center. The tunnel was so tightly packed with old pizza boxes and black bags, there’d be no way past on their side of the channel, and no way across the channel that didn’t mean trudging through the gunk.

Well, there was also no way Eggs was letting Gregory touch that water. He wasn’t particularly interested in letting his charge catch every disease known to man after all. So instead, he picked up the dropped flashlight, clamped down on it with his teeth (He was also thankful that he couldn’t taste, considering what said flashlight had been sitting in), and knelt in front of the kid, his one good hand ready to support him.

“...What?” It took Gregory a few moments to catch on to what Eggs was trying to get at, which made the possessed bot sad for some reason he couldn’t stop to puzzle out at the moment. But, he did eventually climb up and wrap his arms around Eggs’ neck, supported by his good arm. It wasn’t very comfortable, since Eggs’ body was all exposed parts, but as Eggs stood back up, Gregory was rendered safe from everything but the odd drips from above.

Gregory marveled at how high he felt as Eggs made his way down the tunnel. This was so different from when Freddy carried him, where the only view of his surroundings was through the tiny screen on his Fazwatch. Granted, he couldn’t see much, since the flashlight was firmly aimed at the side by virtue of being in Eggs’ mouth, but it still felt exciting.

It was only after they made it out of the tunnel, passing countless bags, boxes, and the odd broken washing machine, emerging on a catwalk over another trash pit so deep they couldn’t see the bottom that Eggs stopped to let his passenger back down, handing Gregory the flashlight again after giving it a vigorous shakedown to get as much sludge off as possible.

Speaking of flashlights, there was another flashlight charging port at the end of the catwalk, which Gregory took advantage of. A locked gate ahead of them sent them down the side tunnel, luckily, it seemed to be a service tunnel this time, though Gregory was still focusing on breathing through his mouth and not his nose.

The walkway passed through a broken wall, and a pair of lights at the end of the short segment sent Gregory hiding behind Eggs. It wasn’t moving though, so they cautiously approached. But what they saw once they were near rendered Eggs frozen.

If he still had breath, it would have caught in his throat. The glowing white eyes, the large grin, and those tear lines… But no, it wasn’t her. On closer look, it appeared to have been one of those Staffbots, only disfigured and scribbled on. The fact wasn’t much comfort though, since it meant that whoever, or whatever, was behind all this knew the Marionette, possibly even enough to know her role.

What happened that night? Did he fail? Was Charlotte still bound? Why could he not remember?!

He knew Helpy had told him that his Father wasn’t really the one behind this, but then who? It was too precise, too… him to be a simple copycat. Everything pointed to his M.O.

“Wait, Eggs? Are you scared of that thing?” Eggs was broken from his immoble state as Gregory giggled up at him, playfully shooting the broken Staffbot with his Blaster, to no reaction. ”Out of everything, this is what scares you?”

“Oi, be quiet.” Eggs tried to play it off, ruffling Gregory’s hair as he thought up an excuse. “It just… looks like one of the bandmates from the old place. Right terror she was, you’d be scared too.”

“Suurrreee…” Gregory tried to force Eggs’ hand off, to which the bot relented. “Come on, we still gotta find a way back to the others.”

“Yeah…” Eggs left the bone-chilling sight behind him, trying to force the image of that painted mask learning down on him, so long ago. “...With any luck, Helpy knows where we’d come up, so they might be able to meet us there. If not, the call function on that Fazwatch will hopefully work once we're back up top.”

They exited into another trash pit, this one larger than the one under the trash compactor. Eggs didn’t think too much of it, though, not until Gregory started shining his light at the ‘walls’ at least.

“Sweet mother of Mary…” What Eggs had first disregarded as cavern walls were actually piles of scrap. Not trash, the bags and pizza boxes they’ve been seeing, but mechanical parts. Rusted gears, broken chassis, and bent rods piled up high enough that, if it didn’t reach the roof, it was too close for them to tell.

But what more, there were… drawings. Senseless scribbles on colorful sheets of scrap paper, the kind of thing a toddler might do. And they led the pair deeper into the trash pit. Where they found, of all things, a generator. Bright purple and suspiciously untouched by the dirt and grime surrounding it.

After several minutes of Eggs making sure it wouldn’t explode or something, they flipped the switch, the engine humming to life. A quick circle around the room showed that if there was a different exit, it was blocked off by the mountains of trash. Really, this whole area felt like it was just repurposed for a trash pit. Eggs knew that the Pizzaplex was built on top of his Pizzeria, but was the Pizzeria built on top of something else? It was like Eggs was putting together a puzzle, but someone mixed in three different boxes that might or might not be related to the original puzzle.

Lacking any alternative, they made their way past the creepy off-brand Marionette again, finding that the generator had powered the gate forward. Or what they hoped would be forward. But it also showed a new problem.

“No, screw that. Seriously.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad, right?”

The ‘that’ in question was a series of flimsy, half-rotten boards acting as a poor excuse for a bridge. It was also, unfortunately, seemingly the only way forward.

“Gregory, Kiddo, that’s a death trap.” Before Gregory could reply, Eggs grabbed a rock off the ground and gently tossed it, even the light force of the falling rock enough to crack one of the boards in half, sending it down the pit.

Nearly 3 seconds for them to hear the splash from down below. Now, it’s been half a century since Eggs had been in the Boy Scouts (not that he lasted long before being kicked out), but he was pretty sure that could be filed under ‘way too deep’.

“Hey! How are we supposed to get across now?!”

“Kiddo. If that rock broke the board, what do you think your footstep would do? Much less mine.” Eggs cast his eyes around, looking for a way across. Spotting something that might work, he walked back up the stairs to the catwalk they had been on when they first entered the room.

The very end of the walkway was only about five feet from the other side of the pit, which could work.

“Right…” Placing one of his mismatched feet on the railing, Eggs easily tore the heavy bolts from the concrete, sending the corner of the railing tumbling down to join the broken board at the bottom.

He also tried really hard to not think about the fact he’d been grabbing Gregory with that same destructive capacity and not even a sense of touch.

“There. This is how he get across.” Eggs turned and knelt down, offering Gregory a hand. “Ready?”

As soon as Gregory took Eggs hand, he was picked up again and cradled in Eggs’ one good arm. The bot stepped back from the ledge and took a running start. The same powerful legs that were able to bend metal with a stomp took them clear over the gap.

The landing was where it got tough, cause as soon as he touched down, Eggs knew trying to stay upright would be an exercise in futility. Instead, he twisted on his heel (or ‘heel’ as it was), ensuring Gregory would be unharmed and sacrificing his already busted arm instead.

“You ok, Kiddo?”

“You kidding? That was awesome ! I didn’t know you could jump that far!” Gregory ‘helped’ Eggs back to his feet, frowning at the further state of Eggs’ arm. “Is that gonna be a problem?”

“This? Nah.” To demonstrate, Eggs ripped the busted arm off and tossed it into the pit behind them. Was that a good idea? Not in the slightest. In fact it would make replacing the arm even harder, since the wires and fassenings were busted now. But ensuring Gregory didn’t feel too guilty about the damage was far above convenience on Eggs’ list right now.

“Come on, we still gotta get out of this scrap heap.” Eggs offered his good hand again, and if he could grin, he would had as the boy took his hand, Eggs leading them further into the new tunnel.

Chapter Text

Eggs had to bend over in a way he knew would hurt like hell if he still had a spine for him to be at a good height to hold Gregory’s hand with his only remaining one. Whether if was for the kid’s benefit or his own, Eggs couldn’t tell you. Either way, he was glad he couldn’t get sore in this body.

Another tunnel, and another massive pile of rubbish (didn’t they know about trash day?) led them to a fenced-off corridor in another cavernous room; the walkway itself was bathed in sickly purple lights that made seeing past the sparse lights a pain.

There was also another locked gate with a cord running off into another trash-filled tunnel put Eggs on edge. While he really wouldn’t put it past Fazco to make their employees wade through trash for no good reason, he also couldn’t shake the feeling they were being herded. By who and into what was the question, but between the suspiciously clean generators powering the locks barring their way and the fact there was still some unseen not-father rabbit after Gregory, Eggs felt his paranoia was justified.

They found another rickety ‘bridge’ over more sludge, though in this case it was shallow enough for Eggs to carry Gregory, jump down, and boost the kid up onto the other side.

Getting back up himself was a different thing, or he thought it would be at least, the ledge was over his head after all. Instead, as he braced his hand on the edge and jumped, he outright cleared the ledge, fumbling and landing on his face from the unexpected momentum.

Jesus Christ, how powerful was this body? It took an industrial trash compactor to even damage him, and even then it was little more than loose wires and a few dents. He could rip a railing bolted 3 inches into concrete out with a single push, could rip the same arm that tanked said industrial compactor clean off, and now he could apparently jump… what? 10 feet? 12?

What was this body made for?

“Pfff… Ha! You ate shit!” Gregory was rolling on the floor right next to him, outright crying from laughter. “Seriously, that was both awesome and hilarious!”

“Shut it before I drop you back into the brack.” Eggs couldn’t even try to make it sound intimidating, and it was clear Gregory wasn’t buying the bluff. So, in an attempt to salvage what little remained of his dignity, Eggs just stood back up and grabbed the kid by the back of the shirt, setting him on his feet. “You’re gonna catch your death, rolling in filth like that.”

The area they entered next was a… mineshaft? That… actually made sense. It wasn’t like Utah had any shortage of old mining sites; he was sure any given building in Hurricane had a 30% chance of being built above a mineshaft.

Still, walking through what would otherwise be a piece of Hurricane history was somewhat ruined by the fact every tunnel was full of more bags of trash. The place was a damn maze too, or it would have been, if not for the bright green cord guiding them right to the generator.

When they found said generator, tucked into a caved-in tunnel and once again spotless, Eggs was more than ready to get Gregory out of there. He couldn’t keep himself from imagining the place caving in. Fazco had people working down here?!

Following the cord back out, Eggs once again farried Gregory over the pit, this time avoiding another faceplant on his own way up, and they were back at the second locked gate.

Twice now, they had to go on one of these detours, and twice now, nothing happened. That should have calmed Eggs down a little, but it somehow only put him more on edge.

He hadn’t survived for so long (Well, not survived but… you get his point) without learning to trust his gut. This wasn’t adding up, and he couldn’t shake the feeling they were just walking deeper into the lion’s den.

His gut once again proved itself superior as, passing through another door and up some stairs, they found themselves face to face with more of those marionette staffbots. Grimy, with wide painted mouths and tear marks.

Eggs reacted on instinct, grabbing the nearest staffbot’s head and crushing it like an empty can of pop before it could raise an alarm. It felt oddly satisfying.

They were in some sort of parking garage now. Good news: while there was still a ton of junk piled about, there was no more smelly trash, something Gregory very clearly appreciated. Bad news: the call function was still reading static, so they weren’t in the clear yet.

Well, Eggs took great joy in trashing every single staffbot they came across. He might not know why these things exist, but it was pretty clear that no matter the reason, they shouldn’t exist. Neither as obvious tools for the one hunting Gregory, nor as mockeries of a girl Eggs once considered family.

The final generator they came across didn’t even lead to a button; it just caused a door to swing open. Yeah, if there was any part of Eggs that didn’t think this was a trap, that part had just been squashed. They were being led somewhere, he just didn’t know where.

The door led past some more hallways and up another flight of stairs to another utility tunnel. The whole thing felt like such a trap, Eggs wasn’t even that shocked when Gregory suddenly screamed.

“It’s her! It’s that rabbit!”

“What?! Where?!”  Eggs looked back, but he couldn’t see anything.

“She’s right there! Can’t you see her?!”

Eggs still couldn’t see anything, but he felt an itching in his core. It was a risk, but he pulled back from his form again.

There. Right in front of them, slowly skipping down the hall like it was all some game, was a woman in a white, patchwork rabbit costume. She must be using some form of Remnant Disrupter to hide herself from the animatronic. And clearly that included him.

“Shit!” Eggs slammed back into himself and picked Gregory up, rushing down the tunnels. He couldn’t see her now, but it wasn’t like there were many places to hide anyway. “I can’t see her normally! Tell me if she’s getting close!”

“OK!” Gregory clung to Eggs, keeping an eye on their rear as his guardian tore into another large area. Gregory couldn’t get a good look at it before Eggs slammed into a pair of doors into a room absolutely covered in colorful craft paper, just like that area with the generator.

Egg not-so-gently tossed Gregory onto a cardboard box before turning on his heel. Gripping a boulder bigger than Gregory was with his one remaining hand and tearing it out of the ground, slamming it against the door and denting them beyond easy repair.

“There… That should keep her from getting in…” Eggs rested his hand on the rock, feeling worn out despite not being capable of feeling worn out.

“Eggs… You… Saw her. You saw her! How did you see her?!” Eggs flinched, crap, no hiding that.

“Gregory… kiddo… Now now. Please. It’s… It’s far too long a story for right now. Ok?” He saw Gregory hesitate. He couldn’t blame the kid, not after everything he went through. Still, there wasn’t time, neither of them knew if the rabbit girl had another way to them. Hell, for all they knew, they were trapped; the stairs behind them could just lead to another dead end.

“...Fine. But later, you’ll tell me. Promise that you’ll tell me.”

“I promise, kiddo.” Eggs straightened back up, looking up the stairs. “Now, let’s try to get back to the others. Safety in numbers and all that.”

Chapter Text

As Eggs calmed down from the chase, Gregory had a look around the… hideaway? It kinda felt like something a kid would claim as one at least. The room was a mess, like the rest of the underground had been, but the real noticeable parts were the lit candles on fancy candlesticks, the Staffbot heads with still glowing eyes (He didn’t want to think on how they were still glowing), and of course the thousands of sheets of colorful craft paper: Childish drawings, crazy writing, and just meaningless scribbles, almost every inch of the place was covered in them.

After a moment, Eggs stood back up fully and made his way over to the staircase, his mismatched feet clunking as Gregory rushed to follow him. Only to run into the back of him (Not pleasant) and almost fall back down the stairs as Eggs randomly stopped in place.

“What the…”

Gregory peeked past him, seeing a table, on top of a floor made from random planks of wood and surrounded by Staffbots: One in a stripped shirt, one with pigtails, one with blue hair, one with a tophat, and one without a head. A prize box was near the blue-haired one, but Gregory couldn’t see what had gotten Eggs to freeze in place.

“Hey, you’re blocking the way!”

Eggs ignored him, reaching out with his hand to touch the shoulder of the headless bot. What was with him? They didn’t have the time!

After a moment of staring at each Staffbot, Eggs’ eyes narrowed at the tophat bot, a punch sending it crashing into the ground beneath them.

“Right… Let’s go.”

“What the hell?! What was that about?!” Gregory kept on Eggs' tail as the bot started climbing the stairs again.

“Remember how I said I’d talk about why I could kinda see the rabbit later?”

“Yeah..?”

“It has to do with that.”

Gregory went to object again, but found himself faltering. He thought Eggs was just some unfinished animatronic, but now he can see something the others couldn’t and had some kind of grudge with… whatever that tophat bot represented.

Wait… If this was the rabbit lady’s hideout, what did that mean for the table?

And the strangest part was, despite everything, he just couldn’t bring himself to distrust Eggs.

Since when has Gregory trusted someone? Much less someone he knows is hiding things from him.

As they breached the top of the stairs, they found themselves in some sort of storage room full of towels. Eggs wasted no time in grabbing a few and kneeling in front of Gregory, starting to clean the worst of the grime off of him.

“There. We’ll probably want to find a restroom before long so we can properly clean you, but at least you’re not covered in gunk.”

“... Thanks.” Gregory took his hand again, despite the fact that this place was clean and well-lit. More Staffbots roamed around, actual ones this time, mopping the floor in a seemingly endless loop. At least they were easy to avoid.

“Gregory!” He turned towards the shout, finding Freddy rushing towards him. Gregory wasted no time in jumping into the bear’s grasp, feeling the big guy hug him tight. Behind Freddy was Chica, carrying a distinctly smug Helpy before handing him over to Eggs.

“Yes, you knew where we’d come up. Knew you would.” Gregory didn’t know who seemed more Proud: Helpy or Eggs.

“Oh, Eggs. What happened to your arm?!” Gregory saw Eggs look at him, before seeming to smile a little, like he was sharing some big secret.

“It got too damaged in the fall. We’ll have to head back to the maintenance room to replace it.” What? No mention about how it was all Gregory’s fault? Why would Eggs cover for him?

Why did it make Gregory feel so warm?

“Ah, well, I’m sure we’ll be able to fix you right up. Come on, let’s get to the main stage.” Freddy’s chest opened up, letting Gregory climb in as they wound through back to the main auditorium, taking the main elevator down.

“Kiddo, mind helping me with this?” Gregory followed Eggs back to the backrooms behind the maintenance room, hiding behind his leg as they came across the endoskeletons. For whatever reason, they didn’t seem to be moving now, but he didn’t want to take his chances.

On the plus side, he got to watch Eggs rip the head clean off one of the bots, tossing it aside as he began dragging the headless skeleton back to the room.

“Right, be a champ and grab that wrench. I don’t wanna damage the arm.” Eggs had Gregory hold the shoulder still as he began uncrewing and unwiring the arm. Gregory looked to make sure the others were a suitable distance away before whispering.

“Why did you cover for me? It’s my fault-” Gregory found himself on the receiving end of the particular feeling of having the now dispatched arm shoved against his mouth, wielded as a weapon to silence him.

“Right, enough of that rubbish. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault; you're a kid getting chased by a serial killer. If my arm was the cost to keep you safe, then it was one I paid willingly, not you. Understood?” Gregory, still muffled by the endo arm, just nodded a bit, trying to ignore how his eyes seemed to be burning a little.

“Good.” Eggs went to sit down on the chair in the tube, Helpy rushing to mount his shoulder, a welder in his little paws. Between the two of them, they cut out the twisted parts of his shoulder, replacing it with the new arm. It definitely wasn’t an easy fix, with how different the styles were. Plus, even fully extended, the new arm was still a little shorter than the old one, leaving him mismatched. Still, it would have to do.

“Eggs… are you willing to talk about it now?” Gregory wrung his hands, looking over where Eggs still sat.

“Talk about what, Gregory? Did something happen to you two down there?”

“...Something like that.” Eggs sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “And you’re right, I should tell you at least part of it. But there’s… Well, some things are better left in the past.” He looked Freddy, then Chica, in the eyes.

“Now, have either of you heard about ‘Remnant’?”

Chapter Text

Freddy and Chica looked each other in the eye. Freddy didn’t know about his friend, but what Eggs just said, ‘Remnant’, stirred… something in him. Still, he didn’t know what, and it was clear from a glance that Chica didn’t either.

“No, we have not. It is something important, right?”

“You could say that. It’s what makes all four of us tick.” Eggs pulled Helpy into his lap, holding the tiny anamatronic up in demonstration.

“Remnant is the byproduct of the human soul. An energy source, binding agent, and in your… our case, the basis of our AIs.”

“Souls…” Gregory sounded incredulous, and Freddy, as much as he had come to trust Eggs, could understand why. “As in Heaven and Hell stuff?”

“I’m not so sure about Heaven, but yes. In the 1980s, the co-founder of what would later become Fazbears discovered the power of Remant… when he murdered his partner’s daughter. He began studying the stuff, eventually founding a spin-off branch called Baby’s…”

Freddy listened in increasing horror as Eggs told the story; the information grated against his circuits, like they couldn’t accept it as fact.

Or like they were programmed to not accept it.

It was clear that Chica was having a harder time with it, her voice box glitching again with high-pitched beeps. Freddy wanted to reach out a paw to comfort her, but he found himself unable to move.

His stomach hatch, the one Gregory had climbed into countless times, was designed to do what?!

“...The virus itself is Remnant-based as well, not quite an AI, but close.”

“Eggs, you…” Gregory seemed to struggle to think of what to say. “You do realise this sounds crazy, right?”

“Trust me, I know.”

“How do you even know about all this? Eggs, who are you?”

Freddy could see Eggs visibly steel himself, Helpy reaching up to put his paw on the endo’s shoulder. After a moment, Eggs looked back up and launched into another story.

“When… In the mid-2020s, the son of the murderer, as well as the murderer’s old business partner, came together to lay a trap: Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place. A labyrinth of sounds to keep the remaining spirits occupied until the son could burn it down. That’s where… well, me and Helpy are from.”

“So, ghosts, spirits, it’s all real?”

“Yep.”

“That doesn’t explain why you could see the rabbit lady, or why she’s after me. You said the other zombie rabbit… thing got burned to ashes, right?”

“Helpy said he did, that the plan worked. My memories of that night are… damaged. As for why I could see the rabbit, I have the unique ability to look into the… well, the spiritual realm I could say. I can see the flow of Remnant, that's how I knew it wasn’t any normal virus. Our rabbit girl must be using a Remnant-based disrupter to mask herself from the animatronics. By looking with Remnant, I could see past it, but I have to focus, so I can’t do it and move at the same time.”

“And why she’s after me?”

“Don’t really know. Could be a copycat killer, could be a wannabe Remnant scientist, could be trying to rebuild the original rabbit killer. What I do know is that, if she’s behind the recent missing children, she’s most likely harvesting their Remnant.”

“But wait,” Freddy interjected. “Didn’t you say Remnant can be condensed from the air? Why would she… t-target children?”

“Remnant condensers are handy, but they’re slow. And I doubt even Fazbear’s would ignore a large amount of their precious stock being stolen. Children on the other hand… they have a lot, ripe for the taking.”

Freddy was pretty sure he shouldn’t be able to feel sick to his stomach, but he did. This woman had been using them to capture children for… what? Some sick science project?

Freddy was also pretty sure he shouldn’t be able to hate someone, but tonight was one of many firsts.

“...We need to free the others. They don’t even know what they’re doing, under that…. That monster’s control.”

“You won’t hear any complaints from me.” Eggs moved Helpy up onto his shoulder and stood up, mimicking dusting off his legs. “Who first thou-” He was cut off by the clashing of cymbals, causing everyone to jump and jolting Chica out of her error feedback loop of trying to comprehend a Fazbear owner killing children.

Crawling out of a nearby vent, one of the Mini Music Men waved at them before jumping onto Eggs and nuzzling into his neck.

“Hey there, Mini… 6?” The Mini, much to Freddy’s shock, nodded happily, eliciting a chuckle out of Eggs as he shifted the little guy onto his free shoulder. Mini 6 and Helpy started chattering in clicks and beeps (and clanges, on Mini 6’s part) before Helpy quickly slid to the floor and ran over to Gregory, pulling the map out of his pocket and pointing to an area.

“The West Arcade? What’s there?” Eggs, who had followed Helpy, looked at Mini 6 questionably as he took the map out of Helpy’s paws and handed it back to Gregory.

“Oh! I can be of assistance. The West Arcade is where DJ Music Man resides. I am… not allowed in, after an… incident.”

“DJ… Music Man?” Eggs shared a look with Helpy, an unspoken conversation passing between them as the facsimile of a grin broke out on the endo’s face. “Change of plans, Music Man wants to see us, so we’re heading to the West Arcade.”

“You know this… DJ guy? Is he as freaky as the Minis?”

“Yes and yes, if not more so. Helpy says he’s the same AI as back in the last location, the one we’re from. And if he is, he’s gonna be a big help… somehow.”

“Somehow?”

“Look, Kiddo, can’t a bot want to see an old friend? Besides, if Music Man’s there, it should be safe.”

Gregory looked like he wanted to argue, but ended up just shrugging as the party set back off up the main stage, this time heading west to the… well, West Arcade.