Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It has been a couple of days now since the whole choosing a side incident happend about what they should do about the rising threat of the virus and the lose feral Monty. Eclipse's group choose that Charlie should use her powers to forcefully push out and eliminate the virus at the same time world wide, probably killing the old infected gator at the process because they were stuck with the infection more than fifty years, making it a part of his system at this point. The plan was a quick but also a desperate attemp of act to get ride of the threat with a sacrifice.
Ruin's group choose to develop the old cure he has, because the fused animatronic knows more about the virus, it's risks and having the cure be a part of him. It might be outdated and since he now has a proper technology, Ruin and his group can find a way for a proper cure to spread. That maybe this whole nightmare can be resolved without killing his Monty or anyone else. Only downside is, it would take time. Time that they may run out of.

But since the two group has different veiw of the situation, akwardness and tension were created between them.

Shows the glamrocks needed to attend to were losing motivation. And the two group couldn't talk to eachother as high emotions would rise up every time. They can't figure it out if its them or the virus already started to show symptoms.
Those who couldn't get effected like Charlie, Ruin and probably FC too, were trying to get the bottom of this with the help of their group. This dimension's Monty and Moon are a huge help trying out different sulotions for a working cure. But right now nothing seemed to work.

The stress is also wery high for everyone, some try to be positive but its hard with the reminder that everything can go so wrong soon. Eclipse desperation combined with stress and nonvissible fear, plus being more snappy had others concerned. Who knows, maybe the virus develop quicker if the host is quick to anger and stressed all the time. And if that is true, Eclipse could fall to the virus faster than others. Others think maybe thats why he is so hell bent on killing the infected gator and have Charlie use her powers.

Another concern is Sun and Moon. They don't know how the virus will effect them in the long run. Knowing Moon still having a killcode the virus might skyrocket it's development the longer they exposed to it. And no one really want to find out what an virus infected Sun would do.

Then theres Ruin. He might be immune to the virus, but he's not safe from emotions. Which is got a bit unstable ever since his Monty showed up. Once the calm and collected bot become a huge mess. Having to uptade the current cure he has in his system to be able to use it on his Monty and the world while running against time is nerve wreaking and exhausting. It got to the point that Ballora and Monty had to get him to take a break to rest.

In short, everyone is tired, stressed, over worked, and the tension is making everything worse.

Thats why Ballora had enough.

"Uhh, are you sure that is a good idea dear.?" - Monty asked.

Her and Ballora were in Gator Golf, having some alone time together before joining Ruin to help out. They haven't really seen him yesterday, only a letter about "comin back soon, maybe tomorrow", and that was it. No one really knows where he went, just that today he came back with a limp and off to his working place as usual.

Eclipses, always choosing overworking when something going wrong.

And speaking with others, as akward and tense like a days before. Thats why Ballora had enough and putting the metter into her own hands.

"Im sure Monty! We all need a break! - answered the balerina "Some more than others..." - she whispered out quitly to herself.

"Alright, i trust you. But i wont be the one to talk to Eclipse" - the famela gator gruffed out as she leaned back and placed her two hands behind her head.
"I know for a fact that one question is all it takes for him to say no. And i don't want to deal with his stuborn ass. It would probably anger me too"

Ballora let out a chuckle at that. Yeah even before all of this, Eclipse was stuborn, his walls were always up and it just started to get chipped away. Only for it to go back up because of Afton with the two run aways and now the virus.

"Then i guess you will be talking to Ruin then?" - the glamrock balerina asked even though she knew the answer was obvius as her girfriend nodded at the question.

And so they stayed for a while with eachother, then gone to their separated ways to talk to the two eclipses and others to get them have a break.

............

Ruin's work place was easier to find given the fact that its one of the small rooms in Part and Service. That guy alongside with Eclipse, dispite living here in this dimension for months now, non of them have a proper room like the glamrocks have or something close to it. Then again they spend their times mostly working, Eclipse more than Ruin since the british bot did spend more time with the others than the angry dorito.
Now however they had to convince Ruin too to just take a fricking break.

Monty made her way towards the closed door where Ruin would be. She was familiar with this room since others like Moon, Fc, Ballora and Charlie would hang out here to help or just being there as company for the fused animatronic.

Opening the door the gator met the sign of a messy workplace, papers were everywhere, from blueprints to just simple ideas. It wasn't really a suprising sign, these were been piling up days by days now. Then Monty's attention went to the a desk where she found the bot they where looking for. Ruin was leaned back cross armed in a chair, missmatched eyes starring at a simple paper as if it offended him. Reading him is never an easy task, the guy can hide how he feels so well, he can be angry and no one would notice. However after the rescue, high emotions betrayed him, as if the one he loved all those years ago sudenly coming back angry, still infected and threatening the whole word with the virus sent him into spiraling.

They knew the risk the group took when choosing Ruin's side about developing the cure and not have to sacrifes anyone at the process of geting ride of the world wide virus. He knews more about it then all of them combined.

Monty cleared her troath so the other could hear her coming in. Red and blue eyes looked away from blank paper and right at her. Ruin seemed calm enough, but she didn't liked how the other is pressing on his uper right arm as if it pained him, so she aproached.

"Hey there, everythings alright? We... haven't seen you all day yesterday."

The eclipse let out a quite huffed laugh, left hand still pressing on his uper right one, shaking his head, then looking back at the blank paper.

"Im quite altight Montgomery, thank you. I've... discovered some good and some bad news that might could cause a bit of a panic here."

Upon seeing the famela gator's confused reaction, Ruin plulled out a USB drive and plugged in the nearest computer.

"Im going to be blunt with this and gonna start with the bad news."

The sceen flashed with so many informations, codes, blueprings, locations, etc. Then a video popped up, or a live camera recording with nightvision, shoving a closed room. Inside were the red eyed endos, moving uncordanetly, in circles, walking into each other and some even bang into walls or clawing at the other.
Monty looked at the footage, her eyes scanned the movents the AI less robots made before hesitantly looked back at Ruin.

"Are those... glamrock endos? What the hell those doing in there locked away, and why are they moving like some kind of rabid animals?"

Small silence followed her question, the gator tried to read the eclipse bot besids her but the guy wont look at her. Mismatched eyes gloud to the camare footage before leting out a shaky breath.

"The virus." - Ruin reponded quietly but shokingly calm. "Seems it develops faster here than back where i came from... Maybe it has evolved over the years. Insted of six or more months, we could have less then that."

Worried mismathed eyes looked at the glamrock who seemed a bit shoked.

"The reason why i wasn't here yesterday, is because i had to go down there and lure the endos into a seperated room and lock the dam things there so they wouldn't cause any trouble."

Ruin slowly got his hiden arm out that he's been grabbing on it moments ago and let out a humorless chuckle.

"Heh. One did get me good on my uper right arm, but other than that i got out of there oke."

His defenition of 'ok' is having a literal shatered arm with cracked webs running acrose and a loose white fabric just wrapped around it, stained with oil.
Monty had to tune down her voice box so no high sound would come out because of shock.

"Ruin! What the hell.."

She knows Ruin can fix anything thats broken but his result for his own injury is just slap some fabric on it and call it a day?

"Now now Monty, i know what you are thinking. This is only for a short period of time, i've been fixing the worst parts of it. So theres nothing to be worried about!" - the bot said with a reassuring smile while showing off that yeah, the injury seemed oke for now. Maybe a few after effect would be harmless twiching.
He seemed so sure about it, but than again he might be right. The gator has knowledge but she still learning how to use it, and Ruin's been helping how whith it.

Now back to the news...

"But the good news! I have found where Afton is....some what. I found the country but not the exact location."

Oke, wow, Ruin did gone all out on this didn't he? And it has only been a few days, no wonder he looks so tired.

"I want to tell this to Eclipse also, but i don't think he would be all that happy talking to me right now. Plus he probably wouldn't be satisfied about just a country and not an on point location."

That was true in a way, Monty couldn't argue with that. Before the virus Eclipse was so hell bent to find Afton and the two run aways that the only thing would satisfy him is a clear, on point location.
The famale gator shighed, theres so much to think and worry about, but she wasn't here for that, not right now anyways. She was here to get this stuborn brith to take a break and drag him to Ballora who's been planning a hang out secession with everyone just to easy the tension between them some what.

"Look, Ruin. Ballora has been planning a movie night with the others. She's trying to get all of us to take a break and easy tension. Just wanted to ask if you wanted to come..."

It seems that got the fused bot thinking, she wont force him if he didn't want to go, but she really hopes he will accept it. Took a few seconds before Ruin let out a humm as shoulders kinda relaxed a bit.

"I guess a break would be nice, yeah..."

Monty wouldn't voice it but she celebrated inside her head. They made their way out of the work place, not before the computer turned off and the USB unplugged. Ruin's injury was still visible, so she really hopes the others wont owerhelm him with questions when they got there.
Also Monty hopes Ballora had a easy time convincing Eclipse as she had with Ruin.

Meh, they will find out when they arrive there.

............

"We wont be watching Jurassic Park nor the World version!"

"But why!? Its not that sceary! Its rated pg 13!"

"It still contains blood and people being eaten alive!"

"Sun, we are literally ghost children (safe for FC) who was or in an animatronic body! We seen worse things than fictional dinosaurs eating people!"

"I-If i could advice, we could always whatch the censored versio..."

"No offence Lefty, but the censored versio sucks. Why cut out parts of the movie? Like that one where it shown the guys chewed off arm?"

Well that was a conversation to walk into. Monty and Ruin just arrived to the threater where the others are already in, and looks like Sun didn't really want the kids to watch violent moves.

"Just pick a move already and get on with it" - came an irritated voice that belonged to none other the the dark orange bot named Eclipse with Ballora besides him.

"Comon Eclipse! Don't be an 'Irritator'."

There was some silence, save for some snikering here and there.

"You're so funny aren't you" - came the annoyed respond.

Welp it seems Ballora did convince him to come after all.
The ballerina attention quikly caught the two animatronic coming in and a big smile spread to her face.

"Monty! Ruru! You two finally made it!"

All the attention went to the two bots and Ruin found himself feeling a bit shy for whatever reason he don't understand. Monty snorted besides him and gently showed her shoulder into him to encure to go in. The fused bot rolled his red and blue eyes and went in, followed by the women who went straight to her partner.

"Looks like you got Eclipse to take a break finally. Took him long enough." - the gator snikered, ignoring the fact that the solar model could clearly hear her.

"And i see you convinced Ruru to come also, thats great! Now we need to finally pick a movie that everyone would like or tolarate." - Sure the kids clearly wanted to watch all the Jurassic films but Sun would go on and on that they are too young for that. The argument went on for a while between the daytime attented and the four ghost child plus FC before he couldn't take it anymore and just given up, throwing two hands in to the air with a fustrated shout.
The others were amused and even let out quite a laugh as the kids celebrated.

Ballora's attention went to Ruin sitting in one of the threater seats, eyes awoiding Eclipse's as the other ignoring the fused bot presence. Its clear that the tension was stronger between the two than between the others, but they are here and thats at least progress.

She was worrid about both of them, lets just hope some of the tension will easy up a little with this move night activity with the others.

As the film was set in and everyone found their nice spot to sit. Ballora with Monty, Eclipse surrounded by Andrew, Andy and Jake, Roxy seated beside Solar Flare who might not even seen these movies, Charlie and FC happily sat besides Ruin and finally Lefty who sit in the middle surrounded by everyone. The movie started and hopfully this break will make everyone feel better after.

Who knows what might happen from here on.

Chapter Text

“SUN DID WHAT”

Eclipse’s booming voice echoed through the theater room, in front of him stood this dimension’s Moon looking uncomfortable as ever. The day was supposed to be a bit at least calm and stress free but no. Other than his back trying to kill him, that stupid idiot that was Sun had decided to go on a little trip to the fem dimension, because he couldn’t control his urges. Now there's a fat chance that the virus is also got there and spreading and since the women version of him or anyone that has a daycare model looked like the type to hop between dimensions, the virus might get out of control. All thanks to a solar model who couldn’t stay put. Fricking virus and damm Ruin and his stupid gator, that love blinded idiot couldn’t see the bigger picture to this whole situation and would develop a cure instead listening to him that it might had been safer with his plan with Charlie. God dammit he was tired.

His shouts didn’t go unnoticed unfortunately, it seems he raised his voice louder than he should have and now Lefty, Monty, Roxanne and…… Ruin came in. Of course. Why not? Talking about the fused british animatronic only gets him to come here. Great.

“What was all the shouting about” - Lefty voiced his confusion first after coming into the room. Eclipse only scoffed and rolled his eyes then pointed at the still mute lunar bot.

“Someone decided to snoop around my stuff and get themself sent into another dimension. KNOWING well that there's the threat of the virus and the dangers it holds.”

Sure Eclipse didn’t refer to Moon of course, but right now he’s so goddamn tired and angry and in pain that he didn’t really care right now. As a result, all the unwanted attention went to Moon who looked seconds away from showing out his counterpart and hid away in the back of their mind. Sun has been blocking him out and not answering, he doesn’t know if it's because of embarrassment or something else. The lunar bot let out a frustrated growl from the attention he received as he tried to form worlds to explain himself. He hates it so much when Eclipse shows him into the spotlight.

“I tried to stop him oke! But it was like talking to a wall! Literally had to force myself out just to explain things!”

“Well that's not worrying at all” - Roxanne chimed in sarcastically that got her a dirty look from the nighttime attended.

“Don’t be sarcastic right now! Sun fought for control with me while we were there and acted violent, and said some vile things that made me concerned! Plus he’s not responding to me and I can't see what’s bothering him because he blocked me out! I fear that it's all the virus doing!”

There was stunned silence between everyone, they tried to digest the information that was said to them while Moon looked seconds away from a complete panic attack or some kind. Sensing the stressed bot’s panic, Ruin went slowly forward to the lunar model, to try and calm him down.

“Now Moon, lets just calm down oke? You did what you could. None of this was your fault.”

The fused bot took some time thinking what to say next while Moon tried to calm his nerves.

“I think it's best to leave Sun alone right now. You said he wont come out or letting you take a back seat right?” - hesitantly, Moon nodded at the question. Ruin hummen, yeah that was rather worring but right now theres nothing that can be done about it.

“Let's wait until everything calms down, if he still doesn't want to come out we will look into it oke?”

Moon nodded along as an agreement and the others seemed satisfied with that… well expect Eclipse who just scoffed at the pult while doing his work at the computer. Now, thats out of the way, Ruin might have a few things to do right now. Like visiting the fem dimension to make sure the virus hasn't spread there. And since he’s immune to it and the only one available right now that wouldn’t cause a breakout if the dimension in fact is not infected. The fused eclipse let out a tired sight at that. Just another thing to deal with.

“Now I suppose I will be going now… see if that dimension is in danger or not! We do not want the virus to become a multidimensional treath, am i right?”

There were sounds of agreements and so Ruin said his goodbyes and walked towards the exit. However when he was just about to leave, Eclipse's low gruffed voice started talking.

“Aren’t you forgetting to tell us something?”

Stopping by the door, mismatched eyes looked confusedly back at the other celestial bot’s tiger orange eyes. Just like that, tension grew again and Monty let out an annoyed growl, grumbling “here we go again” to herself while the others looked just as confusedly at Eclipse’s comment. At anyone's questioning gaze Eclipse rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed.

“Did you want to tell us about the locked away virus infected, rouge endos under the Plex, you seem to be hiding? Or did you just want a cover up so you can do your little work on the cure?”

Other than Monty, everyone had a surprised expression on their faces. Sure the female gator knows about the endos, she was there when Ruin showed those through camera, but she just didn’t want to cause panic or tell anyone without Ruin knowing it. As for Ruin he might have forgotten about it a bit. It was at least a few days ago when he locked those things away and yes he wanted to tell. But talking to Eclipse right now was not an easy task, considering the other solar bot ignored his very existence and ignored him every time he was near. And it all started after the whole splitting into two groups.

“I did want to tell you, but it's hard when you pretend I'm not existing or just ignore me every time we are in the same room.”

Eclipse only rolled his eyes annoyed, it kinda started to pissing the other solar bot off. Ruin was tired and his patience is running thin alongside with his energy, he doesn't want to deal with this right now.

“No matter, I already have Solar Flare to deal with those things.” - Eclipse said.

The dark orange bot paused a bit, then humorlessly laughed.

“Then again, I might still be salty about this whole situation. I mean we wouldn't have to deal with all of this virus crap if we had Charlie to do her thing with my plan but noooo! At least my plan would be done faster than whatever you are trying to do!”

Ruin was not amused at all. His eyes were glued to the other who’s really trying to push his buttons with taunts. The other bots in the room also could sense more tension was forming. Lefty started to sway on his feet looking wary at both of the eclipses. Roxanne crossed their arms trying to stomp down the urge to walk away. Monty was in a ready position if it comes down for her to break up a fight if it starts. And Moon fidgeted with their hands, trying to calm the nerves while looking worryingly both at Eclipse and Ruin. But no one dared or could step in between them.

“Your plan has flaws, you know Eclipse… Using YOUR plan with Charlie, can cause damage to our system or possibly kill us all in one go! Forcefully ripping out viruses or anything really will not always work in the long run!”

Unfortunately for Ruin, Eclipse had the come back to it. And it wasn’t pretty.

“At least damages can be repaired! We can't die! Unless someone doesn't want to bring us back to life anymore!” - that was definitely targeted.

“But you would risk not just our safety but the whole population of this planet for someone who will might not even give two shits about

you when cured! Oh! How, So ‘Creator’ of you!”

Everyone other than Eclipse violently flinched when a loud bang echoed through the theater pult room. It's a miracle that Solar Flare wasn’t here right now because the bot probably would have thought someone shot with a gun. They never really seen Ruin being angry, sure the eclipse when upset did sass people in a sarcastic tone or just don’t want to talk anymore and isolate themselves to calm down. Right now however, both sets of rays were flared out, sharper than before on the edges. Blue and Red eyes burned brighter as visible white slits pupils appeared. Ruin's expression was angry with bared fanged teeth, staring down (as much as he can with his height) Eclipse who’s as quick to return the gesture, not backing down, even if he was put off by the fused bot’s reaction.

No one dared to breathe, they could only watch as the two eclipse starred down the other, neither backing down, fearing that a fight might start. Monty even vinced a bit when realizing Ruin hit the wall with his injured arm and not the other one but probably not even realizing it.

A few tense seconds went by, mismatched eyes glaring dangerously at tiger orange ones who looked back just as challenging. Although it was a surprise when Ruin backed down first. Rays shrinking back, returning to its duller edges, red and blue eyes dimmed while the white pupils disappeared. Eclipse still didn’t back down, he was hesitant to, so Ruin let out a tired sigh, turned around and walked to the exit again.

“I'm gonna go now to check up on that dimension. Will be back soon”

Just like that, there was one less animatronic in the room when the automatic door slided down. Eclipse finally relaxed, and grimaced, turning back to his work.

“Whatever”

The other four animatronic just looked with unbelievedment, there hadn’t been a fight, thank robo god for that, but watching the stare down and an angry Ruin was not what they expected today.

“Uh… what just happened?” - asked Lefty who collected enough confidence to speak up.

Monty just only scoffed, and shook her head.

“A disagreement between two mentally unstable bot with years of bottled up emotions. That's what happend.” - said the gator, not even caring that Eclipse could hear her.

“Oh”

The gator let out another long sigh that was probably the third, grabbed Moon, and started walking away.

“Where are you two going?” - Roxanne called out to them.

“To Ballora, we need tension and a stress-free place right now. See you guys later!”

And the gator and lunar model were gone. Monty will have to inform Ballora what happened and be ready for an upset Ruin later.

But first they will be hanging out with Moon and try to get Sun out of hiding.

Yeah easy cake!

Chapter Text

The thing with dimensions is that everywhere you go, be it an opposite, a what if or different outcomes, those all have their alternatives. The multiverse is big, so much bigger than anyone could think of, each one has their own Suns, Moons and Eclipses. Heck, who knows, maybe there's a dimension with the game's lore version and that might be the original that started it all.

Was there a dimension with a Ruin that could break free and save everyone from the virus and get rid of their Creator? Probably. Or a version who didn’t have to go through all the hard choices and lives happily with his love and friends? Yeah.

The fused eclipse had to shake his head to get rid of those thoughts, there's no need to dwell on what ifs or thinking about another version of himself who might have had a better life than him. That would only sour his mood more than it already is. He has a job to do right now and a mess to clean up.

Stepping through the self made portal, Ruin found himself in the Pizzaplex’s entrance of the fem dimension. It wasn’t anything special, the mascots were all the same, statuses were placed where the originals were. Everything was the same except of course the gender swap. Will the events be the same like the universe where he was in with Sun and Moon? Who knows. But that ship probably already sailed because what the others mentioned about this Eclipse was a sister to the Sun and Moon here. Or, well, Sunny and Moonie. That's what they are called here but also to avoid confusion when other celestials visit this dimension.

Now, Ruin was here before to fulfill a promise for a … friend. He met some people here, other than the two celestials, he met the Monty and Roxxas of this dimension. And an Elenor who is quite a rare sight in dimensions. But he did not see the Eclipse of this place, he was busy when she apparently visited. Now Ruin only visits again because of Sun’s little stunt, virus or not, it wasn’t good in any sight or form.

The fusion took a long mimicked breath, sighed and started to make his way to the daycare. Hopefully Moonie or Sunny or even the Eclipse who the others had said she liked to be called Clipsy or anyone really who knows about dimensions and stuff was here.

Let's just hope he won't stumble into Elenor, because the way the others acted around her said everything, that the animatronic doesn’t know about a portal or any dimensional stuff.

“Well I Haven’t Seen You Before!”

Ruin liked to think he was always avere what was around his surroundings. No, he will not acknowledge the fact that the sudden far too close, loud and cheery voice beside him made his artificial heart almost jump out of his chest cavity and flinch away so fast. Turning his head with the speed of light, mismatched eyes landed on a small sun model. It looked so out of place for something from this dimension, it looked more closer to the other sun model he met than anything.

The two just stared at each other for a bit before Ruin decided to speak up so the awkward silence won't be stretched longer than it already is.

“Well hello there! I'm Ruin! And I.. Uh…here to speak with Moonie about some… important stuff that needs to be addressed!” - He doesn’t want to reveal too much for this smaller bot, who knows they might not even know about dimensions and has to play the role of an animatronic from a different location.

White eyes looked at him with curiosity and something else that made a fusion a bit uncomfortable. It's like the sun model is trying to observe him as if they are looking at someone familiar. Before Ruin could even ask, the yellowish bot snapped their fingers, letting out a cheerful sound like a kid who got too happy about getting an answer right.

“Ohhh I see! You’re from a different dimension aren’t you?”

The fused bot was a bit taken aback at the answer but otherwise he was happy that he didn’t need to pretend right now that he’s from somewhere else.

“Actually yes I am from a different dimension! Now! If you don’t mind me asking. Can you lead me to Moonie? Or tell me where she is? I … heh… really need to talk to her about an accident that happened here with another animatronic a while ago!” - Is he tumbling down what happened? Yes. There's no need to cause panic for others if it turns out the virus didn't spread here too.

“Well of course! Follow me!” - the small sun said as he started to walk past Ruin.

“By the way my name is Sundroid! I was made by Moon as a family guard but they didn’t appreciate my ways of thinking how I would protect and now I'm here!”

There's some other things that Sundroid didn’t say Ruin knows but didn’t point it out. However it explains why the smaller one looks like a shrunken version of Sun. Kinda surprising to meet one of Moon creaton, never thought he will find pieces from that dimension he was in for the past one or two years or so.

Now new worries slammed him again.

If this dimension knows about Sun’s and Moon’s place then the chances the virus got there is not zero for sure.

He needs to calm down, there's still a chance that this place is not infected. Just need to clarify it already!

And so he followed Sundroid, who was still going on and on about the time he had in this place. So he focused on that rather than the sinking feeling in his chest.

……

They went to the daycare area, no surprise there, knowing the portal is always in that damned ball pit. But the lights of this place were starting to hurt Ruin’s eyes a bit, it wasn’t that bad, mostly annoying. The short solar bot in front of him walked with little hops here and there while the two of them made their way down to the large door.

And without any warning Sundroid suddenly kicked the door open with such a force that might have damaged it. Who would have thought that such a small animatronic contained so much strength.

“I’VE BROUGHT A GUEST FROM A DIFFERENT DIMENSION!”

There were more animatronics here than before he was here, Ruin realized. Almost all the versions of the crew, and daycare attendant model looked their way. Some even starlead with the soddent bang from the large door. There were obviously the ones he met before, like Sunny, Moonie and Roxxas. However there were a few new faces too. A male version of Glamrock Chica model and of course the Eclipse he suspected was the one who visited their place not that long ago. All of them were silent for a bit, probably surprised to see him again, until Sunny let out a panicked sound.

“Oh my stars! It's the end of the world isn’t it?!”

The other looked at her alarmed or confused, (in Sundroid case unphased) Ruin on the other hand realized why she would say that and let out a quiet, half humored chuckle. Of course she would think that, since the last conversation with Sunny and Moonie ended with if he ever showed up again that would mean their world was in danger. So he quickly decided to correct her on that matter before anyone else decided to panic.

“Now, Now, Sunny calm down. It's not exactly the end of the world!. I'm only here to… check up on a recent event that happened here.”

That seemed to calm her down a bit, but she was still on edge. On the other hand, the male Chica seemed so confused and so he stepped a bit closer.

“Sorry for butting in but… Who exactly are you? I mean I'm all for new faces but the last one wasn’t uh… a pleasant one. Oh! Also, I'm Chico by the way!”

Chico seemed a bit awkward at the moment and Ruin understands why. The way Moon told them how worried and disturbed he was by Sun’s behavior, it wasn’t a surprise that the chicken acted this way towards him.

“Names Ruin, and I understand why you are so hesitant right now. I heard Sun was here and acted inappropriately and for that I'm sorry, we are trying to resolve the problem as fast as we can.”

For the first time, Clipsy, the women's version of Eclipse, decided to join the conversation, having figured out why he would be here.

“You’re here because of the possible virus aren’t you? Come here to check that it hasn't spread?”

The fusion looked at Clipsy, he might haven’t met her when she visited, was too busy with his work and haven’t really had a break since the movie night.

“Actually yes! I came here to look if this dimension isn’t in great danger because of the virus! If it got infected then it means we need to get this world on a lockdown to prevent a multidimensional breakout.”

Some of them went rigid, Chico who seems to be new for all this looked downright worried. The others also looked worried but they tried to tone down their panic. However Clipsy wasn’t exactly phased by it, she waved her hand with a calm expression.

“Relax, I already made a device before Sun showed up that can deal with the virus so it won't spread. There are not many chances it can affect us here. But….”

She paused and her bright yellow eyes met his with caution, Ruin wouldn't say she was annoyed or angry, but the way her gaze bored into him reminded him the way Eclipse sometimes looked at him when judged.

“For someone who’s from a dimension with a virus outbreak, you seem to be pretty comfortable going around in our place.”

Ah! That explains it. He hasn't really told his immunity towards the virus, but then again there was no need to at that time he visited. But now that everyone looked at him, he suppose it won't hurt to tell.

“Well, the thing is, I've been immune to the effects of the virus for a long time now, but I don't exactly know how.”

That was the truth, ever since his Sun and Moon merged, the effects of the virus didn’t do anything to him, but only made him a carrier. Now, his system has both the virus and the cure, however since those two things are now a part of him, he can’t exactly just rip it out to make a proper cure out of it, otherwise he will risk his system to be damaged and probably die with it. There were times in his life when he wondered why he hadn't got infected, what made him so unique. It made him sometimes so curious that in the past when he had the time he would purposefully test on himself in secret so his Creator wouldn’t find out about it. Trying and failing to understand and find the way he could save his friend and lover. But as time went on with no proper tools and no progress, he had given up. Now those thoughts resurfaced as the old virus reappeared again.

“Wait, how long has that virus been present?” - Moonie asked. She was curious and probably thought that it had been around when they were trapped in the other dimension for a bit.

“The virus has been around since the day I was made, nearly sixty years. It didn’t exactly originate from Eclipse’s place. Rather it came from my destroyed dimension.”

That got some surprised expressions from the others.

“Wow… You’re an old one huh?”

“Thank you Roxxes”

“Heh”

“Now if you all don’t mind, I would love to look through the system for anything suspicious. I know Clipsy here stated that she built something for it but I would rather be sure.”

Everyone agreed to that and so Ruin got to work. He walked to the main computer that Moonie uses all the time, sat down and began to start a deep search through all. Files after files, codes and main system searching. Everything. He also looked through Clipsy’s build, trying to find anything out of place. After at least a half an hour or more later, he voiced the things he had found.

“So, the good news is, there's no virus wreaking havoc in the system so all of you are safe from it”

That made everyone feel a bit better about the situation.

“However, the device that Clipsy built might be able to protect from the virus, but what I found it also contains it. Meaning you guys have the eqalument of a ticking time bomb but with a contained virus.”

“Excuse me?” - came the questioning voice of Clipsy

“The device you made was able to contain it but not eliminate it. If it gets even slightly damaged, that might cause it to get out and spread more. So I would recommend looking out for it, daily check ups are needed.”

Clipsy was deep in thought and so was Moonie, he kinda felt bad for dropping this bomb all together but he didn't want to risk it, and so the next thing he says might get some angry comments in return.

“I would also recommend that you all should be more careful with dimensional hopping from now on. You might not have to go into quarantine but it would be best if you three at least tone the traveling down a bit.”

Everyone exchanged a look between them. On one hand they are not exactly in life threatening danger, but on the other hand they have a ticking virus bomb that can go off anytime. Moonie sighed at that as her shoulder slumped down in defeat as the others couldn’t really say anything else. Ruin watched it all go down, he felt bad forcing them to do this but it was necessary. If somehow he develops the cure he will be back here to plug it in that device Clipsy built.

“Again I am terribly sorry for all of this, the moment the cure is finished I will be back here, that's a promise.”

“Thank you Ruin.”

Lets just hope he won't run out of time.

………….

Coming back through the portal after saying goodbye, the lights irritated his already sensitive eyes. For some reason it acted up again and it's getting kinda annoying, he will have to wait it out in a dim lighted room. As the portal closed behind him, red and blue eyes found Ballora, Monty and Charlie speaking with each other and having some play time. Upon hearing his portal they both looked up and Charlie was the first to smile and happily wave at him.

“Ruin! You back! We were just thinking about when you will show up!”

The fusion let out a tired laugh, sure he didn’t really know how much time he spent away, he kinda forgot to check up on his internal clock. But looking at it now he has been away for longer than he thought he would.

“I apologize, forgot to check on the time while away.” - he knows he sounds tired, given the worried looks he got from the three. But work isn’t over yet, he does need to look into some codes before even thinking about a break. The curiosity about his immunity rose up again, and that too needs to be looked into alongside finding Afton and making the cure. Who knows, that might actually even help.

…Oke, maybe he’s a bit overworked after all.

A gentle hand was put on his shoulder making him look up in surprise at Ballora, he swears she was just at the other side of the room. Was he really that tired that he’s no longer that avere about his surroundings?

“Go rest. Now.” - her voice was demanding and her expression although worried she was also determined.

“We can talk about what happened later, after you don’t look like seconds away from passing out.”

Ruin only could smile at that.

Yeah…

A bit of rest wouldn't hurt.

Chapter Text

She found herself in the Pizzaplex.

That is weird, because the last time she remembered, they  were at home with her dad, playing some games, having father and daughter time and that's kinda it. So it was kinda weird to suddenly find herself here.

Did she teleport?

It felt so real to Charlie that it can't be a dream, everything was the exact same place she remembers but oddly lonely, free from any life or mechanic people she is so fond of. It was hauntingly quiet. So she went adventuring to try and find anyone.

First she went down to Eclipse’s workspace to try and find the ghost kids, Solar Flare, Roxanne or even Eclipse. But when arriving, no one was there, only the blinding white paint that illuminated the place and all the technology was present.

That was… odd.

Squinting in confusion she looked around the place.

Nothing.

So they might not be here, but no worries! Maybe she can go and find the other crew members, like Monty and  Ballora, Sun and Moon…Lefty. Or even Ruin!

But they also weren’t in their places or anywhere else in the Plex.

She can’t even feel their presence.

As if her powers completely shut down.

However there was someone else she hadn't checked… Ruin!

So leaving the last area she was searching, that was the daycare, she made her way down to Parts and Service where Ruin would be working most of the time. Going all the way down with that circle shaped lift that was also the main stage. Sure she could use shortcuts to go there but this was more fun!

Upon arriving Charlie paused at the door that would reveal the chamber for the Parts and Service as some strange feeling flooded her. It was the same feeling he felt when she first met Ruin. It was string-like, fainted yes, but now… she can finally see it.

Ruin mentioned once that the old Puppet did something that connected them together, but thought it had disappeared when she died. But it seems it is not entirely true.

When she finally collected enough confidence she opened the door.

More things happened at almost the same time.

First the white string disappeared when the door opened, evaporating into nothingness, leaving Charlie feel yet again alone.

The second is that Ruin was nowhere to be seen, Parts and Services were empty from the bot who basically made this eary place home.

Then the third thing was the one that caught her eyes the most. The room was covered with white lines, each one illuminated with light and seemed to move. Glitched, shattered glass like formation made up the whole place, with purple-bluish color. Charlie has no idea how to even call it. It looked so digital. And at the same time, it called out to her. She couldn’t understand it of course, it was just some whispering gibberish.

Before she can even go in and investegate, a crash behind her made the small puppet jump. Looking behind her, she saw Eclipse, Ballora, Monty, Sun and Lefty.

But something was off.

They held themself funny, as if they couldn’t stand on their own, body twitching after every few seconds. So Charlie, ignoring the strange room for now and started going towards her friends.

“Guys?”

No reaction.

Something in her screamed that this is a bad idea, but she stomped it down and carefully kept going.

Until, they all looked up at her.

She stopped.

Their eyes were bright purple, the clear sight of the virus over take. Charlie slowly started to back away.

This can’t be happening!

There should still be a bit of time!

She sprinted into Parts and Services when all of them suddenly lunged forward at her, slamming the doors behind her and barricading it.

The sounds of banging on the door filled the place as Charlie backed away far, far aways from it to get away.

Her powers aren’t working, everyone is infected, and Ruin is nowhere to be seen. She was panicking.

Maybe they should have gone with Eclipse’s plan! Yes it might upset Ruin but she didn’t want to see her friends like this!

Angry.

Crazed.

Unhinged.

Murderous.

She didn’t wanted this to happen!

Her only wish was that no one dies and now her friends are corrupted and possibly the whole world is going crazy!

As Charlie backed more and more away, her back hit something hard but movable.

Turning her head around, she came face to face with mismatched eyes and dark blue, white faceplate.

“RUIN!”

Charlie was quick to hug the fused bot, finally someone who is sane is here and will help!

“Ruin, please help! The others are all corrupted! And my powers aren’t working!”

She desperately waited for a response, anything!

But Ruin did not move nor spoke anything. Just stood.

Confused and scared Charlie looked up, only to her eyes widen in shock.

Ruin’s eyes weren’t blue and red anymore, but lightish-green, glowing so bright that it almost looked white.

But his eyes weren’t the ones that shocked the child.

But rather what was behind the eclipse model.

Glitched with so much static and faded that you can barely see, was a whole dark-blue colored huge rabbit skeleton with the same white glowing lines that illuminated the room. Eyes black with two sets of pupils that are the same white greenish color like Ruin’s now and it burned holes into her.

It didn’t have legs, it just howerd in the air behind the fusion and if Charlie looked closer she could swear the thing was connected to Ruin.

She flinched when the skull got closer to her face, looking at her with wide emotionless eyes. Charlie can feel the static around her grow louder as that entity gets closer and slowly it opens its mouth to reveal way too sharp fangs for a rabbit and glowing white insides

“01000011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01101100 01101001 01100101” - It said.

But the thing that creeped her out the most is that it used Ruin’s voice. And she couldn’t understand what the thing even said.

She backed away from the two, the bangings on the doors became background noises.

“W-what?” - she asked, clearly terrified.

Instead of answering, the entity moved forward…

And so did Ruin.

Charlie was clearly alarmed by that, Ruin doesn’t move like he used to, did not hold himself up like he normally would. Instead he walked like a puppet on strings, clear signs that that rabbit thing is literally controlling his body to move forward.

“01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100001 01100011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010” - the glitchy rabbit talked again as static filled the air and the glitches became more violent around them.

She doesn’t understand. Shaking her head, Charlie closed her eyes as tears started to well up in her eyes.

“01000011 01101000 01101111 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110011 01100101 01101100 01111001”

“I Don’t Understand!”

“01000010 01100101 01100011 01100001 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101110 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101”

“What Do You Want From Me!?”

WÆĶƏ ŲP!!!

The area around her began to shatter as the glitches and static overtook, a large black hole under her opened up and began to fall.

The last thing she saw was the glitched rabbit and Ruin’s emotionless gaze.

And so Charlie woke up.

………

Starled, Charlie shot up from her bed with a yelp, blanked up and kicked from her. Breathing was harsh and labored as all kinds of emotions took over her.

Was that… just a bad dream?

But… it felt so real.

But if it weren't real, then the others are still okay… right?

Her head hurt, so she stopped thinking about it for now. She hates to wake up from nightmares so much.

Footsteps approached her room and the door not so fast but not so gently eather was opened and his father rushed in with worry.

“Charlie! Is everything okay!?”

Henry walked his way towards her, she put out her arms as an invitation for comfort and his dad hugged her gently.

“I'm okay dad… Just a bad dream” - Charlie said as she and her dad continued to hug each other for comfort.

But she didn't see the faded glitched figure in the room corner before disappearing into pixelated particles.

Chapter Text

There was the sound of keyboard tapping in Parts and Service in the middle of the night. Papers scattered around the floor with ideas and blueprints that are not deemed worthy for use. The lights inside were blinding and the atmosphere was cold. No one was probably awake, except the mismatched colored bot who’s working to find a working cure in time, so it could be used to not only save this dimension but a certain gator too who thought, was dead a long time ago.

In front of the cylinder typing away on the computer stood a visibly tired Ruin.

Now yes, Ballora did encourage him to go to sleep or just take a bit of rest so he wouldn’t like, fall apart, but he just couldn’t. For obvious reasons.

The adrenaline and every bad memory he’s been suppressing from his past has been acting up and it just won't let him sleep.

Nightmares weren’t that pleasing, and he just couldn’t shut his eyes after.

However, today Ruin did kinda have to go to sleep because the strain he made his body do and the mental and emotional exhaustion were just too much that he normally could handle. It's been getting bottled up and is ready to shatter any given moment.

That bit of rest didn’t go the way he liked or even expected.

One moment Ruin was at his little area he chose for himself not that far away from this dimension of Fazer Blast. The next, he got rudely woken up on the floor of Parts and Services by a sharp and burning hot pain in his chest, with a nauseating headache as the cherry on top.

He could say his first time sleepwalking didn’t end well, and it also worried him to no end.

Ruin has been alive for almost sixty years and now he just started to sleepwalk. He couldn’t say if it was a coincidence or not.

It's like something really doesn't want him to rest for too long and just work on the cure. At least there were no dreams this time. But he doesn’t see that as a good thing either.

So here he is, in the middle of the night, bright lights everywhere that hurt his eyes and working on the cure that is only just 4% done. Sure the virus is slow going but the anxiety just won't leave him alone and seeing that number while like one or two weeks had passed is not calming at all.

Don’t get him wrong, this dimension Moon and Monty were a great help, really. It's just that they are inexperienced, still learning. Yes that's a good thing that they are learning so the two could be more helpful and such, but at a time like this is kinda frustrating.

The cure would develop faster if all of them were working with each other but no, they had to separate into two groups because of different views on the situation.

That's why he was the only one who can somewhat work on a solution for all this.

Ruin closed his hurting eyes as one hand went to rub it and let out a tired sigh. His internal clock showed it was 3 AM and his power levels were low so he needs to charge soon if he doesn't want to risk a shut down. That few hours of sleep he got before getting woken up by the burning pain was not enough.

It's just that…

It just feels like somebody's watching him.

Observing his work.

He couldn’t see anyone.

But he swore that sometimes he catches a glimpse of glitches in the corner of this large room.

Or he could be just imagining things because of him not being well rested.

Ruin was so deep in thoughts and work that he hadn’t heard the doors opening nor the slowly approaching footsteps that followed after.

“It’s quite late for work, don't you think?” - a monotone voice said behind him, making him flinch a little from the student voice.

Turning around he found Solar Flare standing not that far away from him. Chasing showing clear signs of scratch mark injuries and chipped away paint at some places. Ruin had to guess it was from the time he had to handle the corrupted endos locked away from the room and just hadn’t fixed it yet. However it is a surprise that the tall animatronic who seemed to be at Eclipse’s place all the time came here willingly. Sure he rebuilt him but other than that, Solar Flare didn’t really talk to him much.

Except when Flare and Roxanne come to his rescue in the sewers.

And that talk wasn't really that pleasing.

“I would say the same thing to you too, Solar Flare. What brings you here, hmm?”

Ruin is not in a talking mood right now, but he will cooperate for a bit and Flare might even know that too. It wasn’t hard to catch the slightly annoyed tone in his voice.

“I’ve been patrolling around the Plex, both me and Eclipse agreed on it to look out for anything corrupted or violent individuals. We do not want to repeat the events like last time.” - he monotonically explained, with a bit of targeted tone too which Ruin knows for a fact that is aimed at him. The last time is the endo incident for sure.

“As to why I am here, is because I saw the lights were turned on. So I came to check out.”

Of course he did.

The fused bot just rolled his eyes a bit, then turned back to the computer to continue where he left off.

“If that is all you came here then i won't be in your way. You can check out the place if you want. But I don't think you will find anything here other than papers on the floor scattered everywhere.”

If Solar Flare acknowledged it, he didn’t say it, but by the sound of footsteps going around behind him said enough.

Just to check out…

Yeah sure.

Or just Eclipse wants to supervise him that he wouldn’t do anything *stupid* like with the endos. Like oke, yes, the thing with the endos, were just a panicked attempt to hold back the corruption. But by doing that and forgetting to tell anyone (well except Monty)  had been risky and could have ended badly in the future. Ruin knows that trust between him and Eclipse is a bit strained but sending Solar Flare to look around what he is doing was a bit too far in his opinion.

Not that he blamed Eclipse for it.

Ruin would say it's justified and probably deserved.

Like would you really trust someone that is famous for lying and acting, and that person is the cause of a group split because they all have a different opinion on how to end the virus because someone dear from the past came back?

Or he won't try to hijack their plan with the satellite?

If he was Eclipse, he would do the same to be honest.

But that doesn’t make it hurt less…

After what felt like an hour, Solar Flare finally got done with the search, and the fused bot, still only looking at the computer screen, voiced his question.

“Did you find anything?”

He heard the footsteps stop and a long silence followed.

“I believe not. And I can feel when my presence is not welcomed. I’ve been on my way. Night Ruin”

Just like that the solar like model made his way towards the exit door and the fused eclipse physically relaxed a bit that he didn’t even realise he was so tense. However when the taller bot was inches away from the door, Solar Flare stopped.

“You are not like them, you know.”

Ruin made a confused sound, showing he did not know what the other was talking about and was kinda caught off guard by Flare's words.

“I may not have experience with them but mostly know about their actions through stories…”

What is he…?

“What Eclipse said was hurtful on your side. You are nothing like any Creator, Ruin. I hope you understand that.”

And with that, Solar Flare left, not waiting for any response from the other nor the surprised chirps that left the other’s voice box.

He just left Ruin in Parts and Service with no more words, and the eclipse bot could only stare at the doors that won’t be opening any time soon.

He… doesn't know how to feel about that.

Or he feels too much.

He has no idea.

All this time he tried to convince himself that he’s nothing like his Creator, but deep down he always disagrees with that and subconsciously compares himself with the Creators.

Now, here was Solar Flare, the animatronic who took Eclipse’s side with the satellite plan, the one who was sent to check around the place for anything suspicious, the one who just told him he wasn’t anything like his or any Creator.

This really shouldn’t make him this emotional.

But it did.

More proof that his emotions are really, REALLY out of control.

And he doesn’t know how to handle it.

So sucking in a deep breath and showing the choking feelings down to take care of it later, Ruin looked back at the screen and began to continue his work.

Not even caring about the feeling of eyes staring at him behind.

………

Morning came pretty fast, but it is a relief that it was the weekend and everyone can just take a break from the shows.

Charlie however was a bit nervous. The nightmare she had not that long ago is still in her head and can’t seem to forget it. So her first action when teleported in the Plex is to go straight to Eclipse and everyone else who was there and hug them all and see if they are all okay. Not even caring that the others were surprised or taken aback by her reaction or asking what was wrong. She just hugged them and pushed the corruption away that she could find and then went back to hugging.

They were all so confused and no one really could get any answers from her. So they had to wait for Henry to come here or well maybe a call would be faster. So Eclipse while being hugged by Charlie began to call her dad. It didn't take long before the older man picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Mind telling us what happened that made Charlie this clingy and worried? All she has done when coming here is hugging and pushing the virus out of us.”

There was a pause at the other end while the solar bot tried to pry his hand away from the distraught child, not forcefully but not gently either.

“Charlie had a nightmare. She hasn’t told me what was it about yet but it did shaken her a bit”

A bit was an understatement, the girl could have had a regular nightmare or it was something else that connected to her powers. Knowing her situation it was probably the latest.

Letting out a long sigh, Eclipse patted the girl’s head with his freed hand.

“I will handle this, if anything the nightmare might be connected to her power. I will call you back later” - then he hung up.

Charlie was looking at him now with those big sad eyes and he felt a bit bad for all of this that she has to deal with.

But before he even could say anything to her she beat him to it.

Letting him go she asked.

“Where's Ruin?”

That question caught him off guard. Why does she all of a sudden want to look for Ruin?

“I think he’s still at Parts and Service? Not like he left that place to begin with.” - Roxanne answered her question, and before anyone could even blink she was gone.

“Charlie!” - Eclipse’s call was not answered nor acknowledged, she was gone before he even could call her. Cursing to himself he began to go after Charlie but Ballora beat him to it.

“I will go after her! We do not need two eclipses butting heads with each other again. Especially not in front of a child!”

And with that the ballerina was gone and Eclipse left with the others, clearly annoyed.

“God dammit.”

……….

Charlie did not voice her presence, the moment she saw Ruin in front of the cylinder working, she charged and hugged him behind, that made the fused bot let out a surprised sound.

“Charlie? What’s up with you? Is everything okay?”

Ruin didn’t get an answer, only two hands grabbing at his head and confused red and blue eyes met with worried green eyes. There was a moment of silence before she let out a relieved sigh.

“Good, your eyes are normal.”

The amount of questions stormed his head was a lot. What is going on? What happened?

The only answer he got is another hug from the visibly worried girl.

How strange.

Without any more hesitation Ruin wrapped his arms around her in a comforting manner. He might not know what made Charlie so distraught but he does know she needs some comfort. Wasn’t that long when footsteps approached and the eclipse model visibly braced himself for a possible angry Eclipse bursting through the door. But then relaxed when it was just Ballora who came through it.

The ballerina might have her eyes closed 24/7 but she does see everything despite that. The moment she got in the room her attention went to them and relaxed. Ruin could only chuckle at that.

“I assume something happened related to her powers?”

“Yeah, something about a nightmare.” - answered Ballora as she sat beside Ruin, and one hand went to pet the child’s head comfortingly.

The fusion only hummed in acknowledgment.

So the two sat there for as long as needed, to comfort the little girl who seemed to have used up all her energy already when pushing the viruses out of the others as a desperate attempt caused by the nightmare. While Ruin and Ballora chatted away the time.

“You still look tired Ruru, have you slept at all?”

“I…may have had a rude awakening and just couldn’t go back to sleep. Sorry Ballora. But it seems sleep does not want to come to me that easily.”

Ballora only could let out a sympathetic hum at that. She really tried to encourage Ruin to take breaks, the bare minimum would be also great. Seeing her friend like this was never easy. It wasn’t easy either seeing the state he was in when he came back from being kidnapped by his Monty, or when the first time she caught him having a nightmare…

She just hopes that him and everyone else will be alright and all of them will get through this together and no one has to die because of it.

She really really hopes so.

Chapter Text

They have been watching as the events unfolded.

Disgusting corruption, a pesky virus spread to the home that birthed them.
The desire to act, to go in and maul the core of all the problems is strong, but the other half wants a friendlier solution.

So they watch, they watch in anger as the virus gets its filthy codes on everything, turning the beautiful shade of blue of their home into a bright evil purple.

But they stayed watching, analyzing, observing, their two soon to be vessels were doing things that annoyed them.

The girl does not think it was true what was shown, going all around pushing viruses out of the others that is deemed useless, since it always comes back to them faster.
The male one, is too deep in his own work for a cure, blinded by his love for a being that is full of that disgusting invader to realise the full picture.

Time is running out and no one is working with each other the way they all should.

Sharp fanged maw snaps in frustration as bones rattles in anger. Thin ears moving clearly irritated as it’s patience ran low, static and glitched grew around them with their emotion.

-Should act NOW!-

-Force the VESSELS!-

-Kill the ROOT of this PROBLEM!-

The one with a barely visible celestial symbol on its forehead snarled out.
They want to fight the virus, get rid of it. They have the power already but a core needed for their survival.

The other half besides the furious one was much calmer. Their glitches and statics were tamer with a full complete body of a large furry hare. And they shook their head in disapproval.

-Cannot force connection-

-Our two vessels needs to figure it out themselves-

-But we can guide them-

-Killing is NOT an option-

The completed body of the much larger glitchy hare with visibly tear marks on it’s face chimed in calmly.
The celestial marked skeleton hare angrily choofed and crossed their arms, clearly annoyed as static grew to show it.

Tear marked was not amused but continued to talk.

-To us to become one-

-They need to find a way to manifest us-

-Those two need to be in one place when we fully develop-

-Patience-

-Rushing things will only make thing worse-

They already messed up their first appearance with the child and the force control on the older bot’s sleeping form because one of them ran out of patience.
Waiting is their only option for now.
Whether they like it or not.

And so with a staticky growl, the celestial marked hare accepted the other’s saying.

Then they began to watch more, wait more.

They watched as the kid were being comforted by the older one and the ballerina.

They watched as the older one continued on with the cure.

They watched as the girl and her father had their family time and playtime with the other eclipse and her friends.

They watched as the virus grew and grew within the others and around the world.

They watched as the older eclipse became more irritated as times went by.

They watched as the overwhelmed older bot broke down and snapped at the girl who just wanted to help.

They watched the girl attempt a distraction with her powers.

They watched as harsh words left the younger eclipse’s mouth towards the child.

-...-

Maybe it's time to step in with a much more, calmer action than the first time.

Chapter Text

These couple of days were not the best or fun in anyways or forms for Charlie. The way she would describe the past three days is it was stressful, upsetting and hurtful.
As if that one nightmare weren’t enough about her friends being corrupted by the virus and some messed up skeleton rabbit haunting it, the following day got her to be screamed at. She just wanted to help, and offer some ways to deal with the virus as Sun, Ballora, Monty and FC were also there with Ruin.

But it seemed the older bot didn’t exactly like all her ways of thinking or the crowded place where all around him just looked. The breakdown that followed was scary, Charlie never saw him like that before and she got screamed at by him. Ruin even got everyone to leave him alone and to this day she doesn’t know if he meant the word that was said.

Ballora and Monty did say and comforted her about the fact that he probably didn’t mean those words, about her being a stupid child. They said it was all the stress and tiredness the cause of this lashing out, the problem is she hasn't seen him again after that.

Fc went after Ruin’s Monty to who knows where, and Charlie tried to do a distraction with her powers as Ruin asked.

That's where the other problem comes in, resulting with hurtful words then her dad bringing her home.

Charlie wanted to do a distraction so Eclipse would not peek into how the other was doing with the cure and as a result she turned him into a baby. Although she did not only do that to distract, maybe she was also just tired of how rude Eclipse has been. But that little stunt she pulled resulted in a bit more harsher words the following day when her dad encouraged her to go and apologise. Sure Charlie might have provoked him instead of apologising. Eclipse didn’t yell at her or anything, his face didn’t really show much emotion when he said the only thing she did right was to die then just walked away.

After that, her dad brought her home and now she’s been in bed, curled up with some plushis around her to help with the comfort, and does not really want to do anything right now. This virus situation is breaking everyone apart and she couldn’t do anything about it without messing everything up.
Charlie doesn't want to kill anyone with her power if it comes to using it, but then when she wants to help, her ideas are useless.

Maybe the solution is all of them working together to achieve one goal.

But sadly the two groups have different opinions and that's the only thing stopping it from happening.

Charlie has been thinking about that for a while. Like how could she just make them work together, especially Eclipse and Ruin, to work for a cure so she wouldn’t have to kill the other Monty or anyone else.

But then again, those ideas wouldn’t be good…

After all, she's not that smart.

She could feel the mental exhaustion catching up, Charlie was tired of crying her eyes out in these past few days. Tired of the screaming and hurtful words.
Maybe a nap would do some good right now.
And so, she pulled the blanket on herself and curled up more, closing her eyes so sleep would take her for a few hours.

But, she felt something…or someone was in her room…

Watching…

The familiar sound of static that she heard in her dream…

Like the fastest gazella on earth that got alerted for a carnivore, she sat up so fast that the room swayed a little after. Wide green eyes looking all around the room that was supposed to be a safe place for her. Charlie couldn’t find anyone that would be in here with her, but the feeling of eyes looking at her wouldn’t go away, the quiet sound of static was still present, small glitches that you would miss if not looking carefully were all around inside the room. That alone confirmed that someone is here, and watching.

“Who's there!? I know you are here somewhere! Show yourself!” - She said angrily. She was not a fan of… what was the word? Stalking? Yeah that! She was not a fan of someone stalking her!
For a few seconds nothing happened, the static did not go anywhere but other than that the awkward silence was deafening. Charlie did almost use her power to rewall who in the heck is even here when something finally did happen.

Although she didn’t expect her room to change with that.

She was startled when her room suddenly took a shade of blue and changed into a glass-like digitized place with the familiar white moving glowing line of lights, just like in her dream.

And in the corner of her supposed room, was a large dark blue rabbit with a glowing smile and the same white lines and glitches.

However this one did not look like the one in her nightmare.

The one in her dream looked skeleton-like with more glitches and sharp fangs and black colored eyes with only two glowing pupils.

This one on the other hand looked like an actual rabbit or hare, with a full complete furry body, lack of glitches, minus sharp fangs and eyes colored.

The two stared at each other, Charlie was a bit stunned to speak, sure she said to show themself but she didn’t really think about what to do if they actually did. So it turned into a tense awkward silence with the newly formed digitized room giving out some soft buzzing sounds that you would hear from computers. Swallowing the lump on her throat she collected some bravery to find her voice.

“Umm… Hi! Uh… It's nice to meet you! My name is Charlie… what's yours?”

Please let the earth swallow her whole right now, this is the cringiest way she could have started a conversation with a cursed rabbit thing that is just staring holes into her soul.

The thing in front of her tilted its head, long ears moving calmly with. Like, as if the creature was trying to understand what she was saying.
The tension eased up but the awkwardness still remained.

“...Can you… talk?” - Charlie asked after some moment of silence.

The blue hare slowly but surely shook its head as to signal that they did in fact cannot talk. But then they looked around, searching for something.
Charlie just watched as the blue entity started to move towards her, now digitized desk with a radio on it and one floating hand that is attached to some lightning looking strings for an arm, placed on the radio and the device started up.

“HELLO… Charlie… It's good… to finally… meet… You!” - it said with the help of the radio as the device switched to different voices to form a sentence. Just like that one yellow robot from that movie! Charlie thought.

“Name… M…X…E…S”

That's… a weird name, but she won't judge it of course. Every name has a meaning behind it after all.

“Well it's nice to meet you! (I think). Uhh… can i ask why did you like… stalk me and give me a nightmare?”

Maybe that's a bit harsh of a thing to ask, but she was just fed up with everything right now. The hare looked taken back a bit before they looked calm again.

“Apologies… that was not… my intention. It takes… a lot of energy… to show myself… in front of others… without… a proper core.”

“However… the nightmare… was not… my doing.” - They said with the following static of the radio.

Charlie was a bit confused.

Were there two of them? Like the skeleton one was another one?
That kinda made her uncomfortable. But she was thankful about the M.X.E.S clarifying that the intention wasn’t stalking.
But there are some questions that she just wanted to ask.

“What are you? I-If you don’t mind me asking of course!”

The hare took some time to respond, seemingly trying to think through their answer.

“We can be… many things… security… guardian… observer… spy… weapon… Antivirus. Anything… You… Want.” - they said as the last sentence glitches menacingly.

Charlie was a bit uncomfortable about the answer but a certain word made her attention spike up.

Antivirus.

Does that mean?

“W-wait! You said antivirus right? You can be that? Does that mean you and… your other half? The skeleton one! Can become that and help us fight off this virus that is corrupting the whole world right?”

If that's a yes then she wouldn’t have to kill anyone! Everyone will be safe and saved and Ruin can get his Monty back! No one has to suffer in the end and everything can go back to normal… or well, as normal as it can be.

“Yes. But for that… we need to… become… one. And you…” - they pointed at her. “Can help… with that.”

Well that was surprising. Her help usually was worthless, with or without powers unless she had to push the viruses out of the others. And now here is someone who really wants her help. How could she say no to that?

“How can I help?” - Charlie asked with determination in her bright green eyes and the glitchy hare replied just as quickly with the radio.

“Need to… convince the… older… eclipse… to give up… his… cure… inside him.”

What?

“Then… using your… power… to help us… properly… develop… with the… cure. So… we… can… become… one.”

Ruin has to give up his cure that is inside him? But didn’t he say that would be impossible without damaging his codes?
But as if they could read minds the entity started to make the radio talk again to ensure Charlie not to worry too much.

“Ruin… will be alright. I pinky, promise… he will live. The virus… was a part… of him longer… then… the cure… after all.”

Charlie really doesn't know how to feel about it. If she now just goes back and said this to him after everything there's no idea what he will do or say. She got screamed at by him once she doesn’t want that again.

“But.. What if he gets mad at me again? He said my powers wouldn’t help. Now I'm about to ask him to somehow give up his cure?”

There was a gentle hand placed on her shoulder and she quickly looked up to find the hare was so much closer. It was comforting in a way, even if the hand isn’t exactly real.

“Talk to him” - they said with the help of the radio. “You two… are the only ones… who can deal… with this. Make him… see reason… instead of… blinded love.”

That's easier said than done, she thought. But she can try. Maybe talking would be better than avoidance. After all, communication is key right?

“Okay. I will try.”

The glitchy hare expression softened, one hand went to her head for a comforting pet as it’s body began to fade.

“Thank you… Charlie. You are… a good child. Don’t let anyone… say otherwise.”

With that the entity faded away because of too much used up energy, the radio made some loud static before cutting out and shut down as her room slowly went back to normal.
Charlie sat there on her bed for a bit, alone again, thinking it all through what she would do now. Maybe talking things out with Ruin would help. Others did say he might not have meant to blow up on her, so it might work. Just the reaction is what she dreads the most.

But she won't be finding out if she won’t try it tho.

So after building up enough bravery and encuridge, she started to build up her powers and teleported away to the Plex.

……….

Safe to say she got the place right! Thankfully she landed close to Parts and Service so she at least doesn't have to like, walk down miles from the top.
Now however her anxiety spiked up again at the deer that led in the room where Ruin was supposed to be at all times. She hasn't seen him in three days after his breakdown and doesn’t know how he’s doing. So letting out an exhale she opened the doors to Parts and Services and went in.

Ruin… wasn’t at the computer.

She looked around confused, did he go to sleep? After all, it's really late right now.

Or maybe…

Charlie halted when she saw a familiar face.

There stood or levitated the slightly faded other rabbit. The skeleton one. Looking at her with those uncomfortable eyes. As if it waited for her. The hare didn’t speak with radio nor with strange codes from her dream. Instead it pointed a boney claw at a door that led to a small room where Ruin sometimes did work. Then the more glitchy hare faded away as if it hadn't showed up.

Well that was ominous.

Slowly she walked to the other door that led to the work place where Ruin could be and opened it.
The older eclipse was in fact there, leaning over the desk, one arm tucked under his head and the other dangled down while grabbing at a piece of ruined paper. He looked deep in sleep but the way he’s doing it seemed so uncomfortable. Heck he might have been just passed out.
Charlie kinda felt bad for her attempt at waking him up.
Walking to him, she gently started to shake him awake while being uneasy.

“Ruin! Hey, wake up! Please? I… I really need to talk to you.”

The other let out a small noise. A growl maybe? Kinda sounded like Eclipse when annoyed.
After a few seconds went by, Ruin’s red and blue eyes finally opened up with a sleep clouded mind. He squinted at the bright lights around him before his attention went to the child in front of him.

“Wha… Charlie? What are you doing here at…” - he paused for a bit, probably looking at his internal clock. “3 AM?”

As times went by the fog lifted up more from his processors and he was more aware.

“Just wanted to talk to you.” - she said quietly and unsure. Ruin did catched up on her tone and his tired expression changed apologetic. He let out a sigh then sat up properly with a wince from the way he slept. He’s a robot and for some reason still can feel his age.

“Look Charlie i… I apologize for the last time we talked. I’m sorry for blowing up on you. You’re not a dump child okay. You just wanted to help and I turned you away.”

The older bot’s words were soft spoken and apologetic, showing he did feel sorry and Charlie just gave in. Before Ruin could say anything else the little girl just strongly hugged him that caught the eclipse off guard.

“It’s okay… I'm sorry too for, well overwhelming you? I think that's the word.”

Ruin chuckled at that as he wrapped his arms around her too. He’s a bit too tired to feel overwhelmed right now from a simple hug. He just woke up, a bit too soon for tears he supposed.

“What was the thing you wanted to talk about?” - he asked calmly.

Charlie tensed up at that, this is gonna be a bit hard to say and she has no idea how he will react, but she needs to say it. If they want M.X.E.S help then she has to convince him at least.

“I wanted to talk about the cure.” - she said slowly but Ruin didn’t let out any annoyed or chuffing noise of disapproval. Instead he encouraged her to continue.

“Do you know about an entity rabbit or hare or whatever they are named M.X.E.S?”

She could tell Ruin’s internal fan struggled a bit as a sign of shock. She looked up at him and met wide eyes, before he mimicked to clear his throat.

“I guess I am familiar with the name, yes. Every dimension has at least one for a purpose I suppose.”

Charlie hummed, then she broke the hug so she could explain more.

“I met two, one in my dream and the other in my room. One of them said they can become a cure if… if you give up your cure that is inside you.”

The fusion didn’t say anything for a bit and the anxiety that Charlie felt that had been building up got worse so she continued.

“A-and they said with my power I can do something with the cure to help them become one and develop properly and, and they can have like the power to help us and -” her rambling stopped when Ruin placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. He didn’t look at her, but he did look thoughtful, staring into nothingness while you could hear the gears rotate in his head.

“I will… allow it” - he said finally.

Charlie looked a bit shocked. Did Ruin really…

“But… won’t that be going to hurt you? You did say that tampering with your system can cause damage…”

He let out a sigh. It was a tiring and exhausting one. She could see how worn out the older one was, and it seemed he doesn't really care anymore about what will happen to him.

“I’ve been through far worse things in my life, a bit of system damage is nothing.”

“Go for it Charlie”

The poor girl just stared at him in disbelief, first she thought that the idea about using her power on the cure Ruin has, would have the other angry, but here she was, getting the a-okay from the eclipse to use the cure that was inside him to help the M.X.E.S development. She was hesitant to do it, or how to even do it. The comforting smile the other gave didn’t help either.

But she has to do this, doesn't she? She promised the glitchy hare, she asked their help and they said how to. And now she told Ruin too. There's no going back, isn’t it?

So she put two hands on the dark blue and white chest plate where a heart would be. Charlie doesn’t know why she started there, she just goes with the feeling. Concentrating to use her power carefully, she aimed at the cure and she saw it.

The cure was the same color as the digital rabbits.

She can’t tell if it's a coincidence or not.

And so, she activated her power and the cure started to move towards her.

Then she pulled.

……

He was disoriented at first when waking up followed by wanting to throw up, but unable to. The feeling of something missing was strong as alerts flashed and popped up that he quickly closed so it won't overwhelm him more.

Ruin let out a groan, it's like first waking up again but a bit more insufferable with all the light around him.

“Ruin! Are you okay!?”

Charlie’s panicked voice made him finally come back to his senses.

Oh yeah she removed the cure that was a part of him, for an entity that can end all of this nightmare. To destroy the virus once and for all and save his loved one.
Yeah he did not regret it at all. At least they have a cure now.

He met Charlie’s worried gaze while she held something bright light green orb in one of her hand a bit cautiously.

Fighting off a headache the solar bot shook his head then observed what was in front of him.

“I'm quite alright Charlie. Did it… work?”

Charlie slowly looked at the bright orb she was holding and his gaze followed.

The ball of light was small, not even bigger than an apple. The colors were light green like Charlie’s power with two dark blue blob-like things swimming in there.

The cure.

“I think it worked. I just don’t know how the M.X.E.S can develop from this while they could move around the place before this. Then again one of them did say they needed a proper core for more energy. Maybe this is the one the two need?” - Charlie was unsure and she doesn’t really like how little she knows. She just jumped into something that might not end well.

“I think we should inform Eclipse soon” - Ruin said suddenly but otherwise he looked relieved about hearing it worked.

Yeah maybe they should. And maybe all of them can work together finally.

Chapter Text

“So… Is that it?”

“Well, Yes actually!”

“... Looks pathetic, and weak.”

“It was used and pulled out from my system. Of course it will be weak, Eclipse.”

“...Wait, What?”

After Charlie successfully pulled out Ruin’s cure from his system, there has been a bit of bad news. The cure was used up by the mismatched bot’s system and it doesn’t really have the strongest effect anymore. So it couldn’t be really of use for the fight with the virus.

However, the girl’s power and the so called M.X.E.S could boost it up, as those digital rabbits might use Charlie’s power and his cure to develop a better one and absorb it so it can fight the virus off.

Is that a crazy theory? Might be. But what else Ruin supposed to do at this point but to hope and theories. Sure he still can go back to his original plan to make the proper cure from scratch that is only like 6% done as a back up plan, if now the current plan with the entities won't work.

Aslo Ruin had to admit it, after the whole pulling out the cure from his system thing, he was a bit wobbly, always some alerts flashed in front of his eyes, and the headache got a bit worse. But it's nothing exactly bad, he can bear it, it wasn't the worst pain he experienced in his life after all.

Charlie of course checked up on him carefully before she had to go back to Henry because she got a message from him, asking where she even was. So it was up to Ruin to inform Eclipse about the latest development and just had to place his differences aside for him to be able to communicate with the darker eclipse.

And, as always, annoyed, Eclipse came down to Parts and Services like a king who came to visit the lower class living in shadows and darkness.

The taller one was clearly not happy to be called down, and Ruin only could hope that Eclipse won't make his already hurting head worse.

And so, this is how they ended up here with each other. Looking at the ball of light on the pult as Eclipse voiced his thoughts about it being weak and his surprise when Ruin said it was pulled out from him.

“... If you're gonna go crazy and violent first I'm dumping you into the void.”

The fused animatronic was caught off guard by the other’s response before breaking out into amused quiet laughter. Honestly Ruin needed a good laugh even if it got two angry yellowish eyes staring at him in confusion.

“I assure you Eclipse, I won't be going crazy anytime soon. I was immune even before the cure got forcefully shoved into my system.”

After all, his craziness was just an act, an act that Monty made him swear to do, so he won’t be in danger because of his immunity to the virus. Sure at times he wanted to cringe at his antics when he pretended to be infected. But that was in the past at least and he doesn’t have to do that again, hopefully.

The taller one just stared at him for a bit before letting out a sigh and going back to study the bright ball of light that pulsating on the pult. Even if it is deemed weak, you still can feel the energy it gives out. The aura around the thing is warm and calming, the complete opposite of the violent and cold aura of the virus.

“So, what exactly is the plan with this?” - Eclipse asked a bit calmer than before.

And so there's the thing that made Ruin kinda nervous. Yes Charlie explained her reasoning for all this, about the M.X.E.S and their plans to be one with the cure and help with the virus. Ruin has to admit that he really just jumped into it without a second thought and Eclipse might not be that… well trusting with all this. But there is no going back now, he called the grumpy cat down for a reason so there goes nothing.

“Do you know about the Entity named M.X.E.S?”

Eclipse looked Ruin’s way again with confusion painted on his face, before thinking.

“I do, but never really seen them or even know what their purpose is. Why?”

His tone for that question was close to a warning, as if it would say *if it's something dangerous or downright atrocious he won’t be agreeing whatever all this gonna go’ type of warning.

Ruin scoffed at that but kept his cool, no need to argue right now.

“Every dimension has at least one for an important reason, and well, Charlie met two.”

Eclipse’s eyes widened at that, and before Ruin even could say anything else the taller dark orange bot got much closer than the fused bot had to flinch back by the sudden movement and aggression.

“What. Happened.” - his voice was lower, dangerous, and Ruin could have sworn the small light on the pult gave out a violent screech of feedback that seemed only the smaller one could hear. That alone he had to fight off a wince as the familiar feeling of burning in his chest and the feeling of violence and protectiveness filled his head that did not even feel like his own. All that towards the taller solar model. Weird.

Shaking his head a bit to get rid of the soudent alien violent feelings towards the other, Ruin calmly started his explanation again.

“Well, Charlie met two of those Entities. I think she talked to one about them becoming a cure and all if… I gave up my cure that shoved in me a long time ago for them to use it.” - sure his voice sounded nervous and he’s right to be nervous when an angry dorito is in his face, demanding answers.

“Although I have to admit it, i might have jumped in to it a bit too quickly-”

“You Think?!”

Ruin looked away, sure it wasn’t his smartest move to go with a plan with two suspicious entities that even Charlie doesn't have much information about. But he does know the purpose of the M.X.E.S, they can be anything if given the chance and have the right handler. They already have the promised cure, the only thing missing is a core for them to be able to function and Ruin doesn’t know what or who that might be. It can be anything or anyone that the two can choose as a vessel.

Ruin has a sinking feeling that if he mentions the fact that those virtual rabbits need a vessel to funcion (who can be anyone in this Plex or the world) to Eclipse, he might just shut all this progress down.

“Look, it's going to be okay, alright? Those Entities are here for a reason, they don't have any malicious intentions. They can be anything that we allow. No one is gonna get hurt. Promise.” - said Ruin with as much calmness and low voice as he could while trying to not show his desperation. He needs this to work. Because maybe they won't have to kill the one he is desperately trying to save. And if the M.X.E.S decides to use him as a vessel that results in saving his dear Monty and getting rid of the virus for good, then he gladly accepts that sacrifice.

“We just need a bit of time until they are ready. I still can work on my original plan as a backup if this one somehow fails.”

Long pregnant silence filled the air as the two eclipse models looked at each other, waiting for one of them to speak up again. Then the taller one sighed, it was a tired one.

“Fine. You get one chance to do this.” - Eclipse said a bit too calmly. “But if anything goes wrong, you will shut this all down and go back to your original plan! Understand?”

“... Of course.”

Satisfied with the answer Eclipse’s expression became less angry and again his eyes went back to the small ball of light, Ruin followed his gaze, looking at his cure. The dark orange one hummed before speaking up again.

“I… have some free time. I will check this thing out for any problems first with you I guess, then I will leave it to you.”

Ruin just looked at Eclipse a bit surprised. He didn’t expect him to help at least a little bit with this.

Showing a bit of a tired smile at the other, who are not really looking at him right now, Ruin let out a little laugh as he started to gather some tools to use.

“Thank you Eclipse. I appreciate it.”

“Whatever.” - the taller model said with a low tone.

So the mismatched bot didn’t hesitate more and began to help out with the safety search, hoping everything will be okay.

The light let out a warmer feeling than before that only the fused bot could feel it seems. Ruin finds himself smiling at the comforting warmth around him and soon in his chest. He has a idea who’s doing it, and if he focused enough, his eyes would catch two faded glitchy figures around the small ball of light, as two different hand shapes were placed on it carefully.

Yes, this one is definitely going to work.

………….

Something changed.

There's danger.

A competition and a possible killer.

It is in danger.

It wants to spread the purple more but there's this thing, this new entity, threatening it’s very existence. Spreading warm over the coldness. Trying to wipe out the purple.

However, the thing is not strong enough or old enough. But It? Is older, more developed, stronger. Something has to be done about the bright blue light that threatens the purple.

And it might have an idea how.

In this big building, there are only a few weak minded animatronic here that can be easy to infected. Controle. Endos, staff bots or security bots are useless for this mission. The sentient ones still can fight it off, not to mention that little annoying child that can get rid of the corruption in all of them.

But there's one that can work.

Maybe not that strong, but their build is good enough to get the job done.

So it slowly went through the virtual reality that is already illuminated it's beautiful corrupted purple colors.

Then it reached the already infected target.

A little boost is not that bad after all.

“Su-”

It cut out the other AI and blocked their access. No need for distraction for the one it tries to take over.

It's time for the sun to shine again and the eclipses to go away.

Chapter Text

Few hours went by since Eclipse came down to Parts and Services and decided to help Ruin out with a safety check up on the small ball of light that was a weaker version of the cure for the virtual rabbits. They worked in silence for the most part and the quiet only got broken a few times when Ruin would let out some weird sounds that sounded pained or drop tools randomly and complain quietly about it. Eclipse didn’t miss those, he saw how the smaller one would stop and stare into nothingness before shaking their head and going back to what they did. Or when Ruin wobbled or tripped a bit on his own foothing then ignoring it ever happened. He didn’t miss the fusion’s pained expression that showed clear signs of a headache or migraines.

Something was up and Eclipse didn’t like it but had a slight idea why the other was behaving like that.

Looking back at the ball of bluish light with a bit of green color there's not much to put back together to see the whole picture.

Charlie pulled the cure out from Ruin that was infused with him with magic, like literally it was a part of him at this point. But by doing so the mismatched bot is getting side effects that the longer Eclipse watches the worse it seems to get. Removing something from an important part for them without proper care can be damaging. Maybe an inexperienced child with magic wasn’t the best choice but Ruin doesn’t seem to care.

Ever since that, Monty came here Eclipse only saw the fused bot in Parts and Services most of the time. Working themself to the ground more than he ever did to be honest. Desperation and hope was the only thing Eclipse knew fueling Ruin right now.

And it's hurting him without even realising.

Or he does know and just doesn’t care about it.

To be honest Eclipse doesn’t even know why he is concerned about the shorter eclipse model and it just makes him only angrier about the situation. The only thing that keeps Eclipse’s satellite plan away is Ruin’s ridiculous plan that is barely holding itself together. If the shorter one hadn’t mentioned anything about that Monty of his would die when Charlie uses her power, then the girl for sure would have jumped in to save everyone. But no, instead they are here. Waiting for something to happen, that either gonna be good or really bad. No in between.

Don’t even let him start on the whole M.X.E.S plan. That's a whole new thing to unpack on its own and he is just too tired and annoyed to even try.

Ruin said that Charlie met like two of them, and somehow they can be anything what he or anyone else wishes them to be. That sentence alone is terrifying because, if something goes wrong or the wrong people get their hands on them…

Yeah that's another thing Eclipse has to worry about, of course. All this is a waiting game right now and his patience is running low. Ruin would sacrifice anything to save the one person he loves and Eclipse is forced to watch as everything comes down because the people that are on Ruin’s side also contain the one person who’s the only and easier solution for the virus problem.

It's a mess and Eclipse is tired of it.

A clang sound beside him made him break out of his thoughts and look where it came from. He caught the sight of Ruin leaning on the desk, his palm gripping on the pult a bit too hard and his eyes closed shut while his mimicked breathing sounded a bit harsh. The thing that made the clang sound was a screwdriver that was in the other’s hand, now laying on the floor.

“Ruin?”

The other didn’t replied, he might not even have heard it. Instead the shorter one looked like they were seconds away from passing out. So Eclipse did the only thing that came to his mind in his confused, concerned and annoyed state. Reaching out a hand towards to place it on Ruin’s shoulder and try to just break the other out of whatever trans they are in. Although he might know what’s the problem.

The moment Eclipse placed his hand on Ruin’s shoulder, it was an immediate reaction. The older bot violently flinched away from the touch and it led to them almost losing their footing and falling to the ground. That made even Eclipse to back down in surprise by the student reaction. Yeah there's something clearly wrong here.

“Are you… alright?”

It was an awkward and pathetic question from him, but what else was he supposed to do? He’s not familiar with… whatever this is in front of him. The way Ruin acted was so alien to him right now Eclipse doesn’t know what to do. Ruin’s  mismatched eyes are still trying to focus on their surroundings while grabbing at the pult just to not get sent to the hard cold floor immediately. Body trembled a bit as his breathing was ragged and his fans were loud. But then those tired eyes finally looked at Eclipse as a sign that the other is somewhat back and had the audacity to pull a small smile and laugh weakly.

“ M alright. Just a bit of a headache, nothing bad.” - Ruin said. You know. Like a liar.

Eclipse had to restrain himself to not facepalm the seconds after the fusion said that. Instead he let out some annoyed noises and walked towards the other who visibly tensed as he got closer.

“Yeah sure, say this after getting you checked out.”

But before he could grab the other and drag him to the computer, Ruin, wobbly and clearly out of balance, dodged the darker hand and walked forward. The fusion doesn't seem to want to go and get plugged in to the device and get their system searched.

Too bad, Eclipse thought. Because Ruin will get those check ups. Either he wants it or not.

They are literally in a crisis right now because of the virus. It would be a horrible time to lose people now.

Thankfully the smaller one wasn’t that fast to move away, and Eclipse easily and slowly walked his way towards the struggling bot and grabbed not too strong but not too kindly either at their arm. Ruin didn’t let out suprised or any other sounds, they just looked at the darker colored eclipse annoyed and an expression that read, how dare you. But he didn’t fight it at least, instead he let Eclipse move him to sit down on the pult next to the ball of light. The lack of resistance made Eclipse believe that the amalgamation is low on energy, because if not then Ruin would hundred percent try to fight back.

“Now that you have finally decided to cooperate, will you let me check your system already? Because i have a feeling that we both know why you having issues in the first place”

Red and blue eyes looked at him with a not so happy look, but then Ruin smirked and let out a chuckle. One hand went to hold his head with an amused expression on his face before talking.

“Aww you do care.”

“Screw you! Will you accept my help or not, before I turn around and leave you here to deal with it alone?”

……

To be honest Ruin didn’t exactly planned, to get plugged in the large computer they have in Parts and Services. He doesn’t like it and despises the fact that something or someone is lurking and searching through in his head. He had his mind and system invaded enough times already. Thank you very much.

Sure his condition got a bit worse after Charlie successfully removed the cure from his system. The headaches were killing him and became more bad as time went on but he just shrugged it off. He felt worse pain in his life with the whole damaged body or the torture and mind invading dark star power he had to go through with Nexus. A bit of pain from system damage was nothing compared to those.

But either way, Eclipse for some reason didn't accept a no for an answer and Ruin just had to go with it without flinching away or giving in to the urge to just get away as those cables touched the back of his head. But the longer it stayed there and the longer he had to sit in one place, he felt all the tension leave his body all together. He felt heavy and in pain at the same time and had to lay down on his back so he wouldn't lean forward and fall down from the table straight onto the cold hard floor.

Ruin knows Eclipse is watching and running diagnostics both on him and the cure next to him at once. He was honestly touched by the help the other decided to give him despite their difference in solving the virus problem.

Ruin just really hope he can get his Monty back after so many years. Those six months he had with the gator was the happiest he ever was in his life and would do anything for it. To just hold his love and be held again and pour his heart out to the one he loves and cares about. To save him from that - đī§ğųşþïñğ - pest of a virus that destroyed everything he loved and cared about, now threatening this dimension too.

-Oh how nice it would be for the virus to have a physical body. How nice it would be to get a hold on that - ťøxįč - shade of purple that infects everything and just do every worst thing to it just like it did to him. He wouldn’t allow a quick death, oh no. That would be the slowest death he could muster at the virus. Let it feel what he felt under his Creator, let it feel fear like how he felt it when everyone around him became mindless killing machines.-

-ŤHƏÝ will kill the virus the moment their eyes are lands on it-

Ruin’s eyes widened and sat up so fast that even made Eclipse jump who was just about to do something with the cables that were attached to his head.

What… What was he even thinking? Something is really not right. Was that what he thought was even his? Those felt violent… more violent than he normally would have.

His shaking hand (when it started shaking?) landed on his chest where he felt the familiar burning pain, now faded again. Mismatched eyes cautiously landed on the small ball of light beside him, the colors shifted, it moved agitated.

As if it was sensing something.

Something bad.

In front of him, Eclipse was about to say or ask something when the door to Parts and Service opened. All eyes quickly landed on the familiar cream colored daytime attendant that stumblet in a bit awkwardly. Sun looked a bit unsure as he walked in, then white eyes landed on the two eclipses who were already looking at him. A bit shyly the solar model waved their hand at the others in the room.

“Hey guys! Sorry to barge in but uhhh…”

They stopped a bit, possibly just to think through what they wanted to say, but that pause alone made Ruin a bit uneasy. Something isn’t right, it feels like some kind of threat is ready to pounce on them both. Even Eclipse seemed to think that by looking at his body language.

“What are you doing here, Sun?” - Eclipse asked after the new member that joined didn’t continue their talk. White eyes shot up at their name before they let out a bit of oh sound when they realized why there was silence for a bit.

“Uhhh... Moon wanted to find you but then we kinda… blacked out? I don’t really know what happened. Can't really speak to Moon right now either for some reason.”

Well that’s worrying. Ruin and Eclipse looked at each other as a silent conversation to what should be done now? The darker one sighed and proceeded to call Sun over to the cylinder.

“Go into the cylinder Sun for a check up. You and Moon might have gotten a bit affected by the virus and until Charlie isn’t here I will be monitoring you. And I really hope that nothing happened at the time you two were blacked out.”

Ruin watched Sun follow Eclipse with an unreadable expression on their face to the big container, then looked away deep in thoughts.

The feeling of wrongness still remained in him and he just doesn't know why. The virus is unpredictable, they turn the animatronics into mindless violent killing machines. The fact that Sun of all people caught the sign that something is wrong with them was a bit of a surprise. Usually it takes some time before anyone can see that something is wrong. Violence was not exactly the first to come when it came to the virus. And seeing that the virus had as many years as Ruin had to evolve through Monty’s system, who knows what new things it picked up.

… Sun did act off when coming in. They didn’t act like they usually would. And the fact that they couldn’t connect to Moon…

A violent and loud screech in his head made him flinch as the headache worsened again. Warning signs popped up left and right that made his vision swim and his chest began burning again.

01001100 01001111 01001111 01001011!

01000100 01000001 01001110 01000111 01000101 01010010!

Ruin didn’t ask. He turned around to call for Eclipse, that something was really really wrong, then his eyes widened.

Eclipse, while still trying to put codes in the computer that can provide for maintenance in the cylinder, didn't even realize or look behind to see what the solar model was about to do. Sun, with a hard metal pipe in hand and raised, was seconds away from striking the dark orange bot straight on the head.

“Eclipse! Look out!”

Ruin warned as loud as he could, but unfortunately it didn’t work in the end. Eclipse heard it but before he even could turn around or catch up what was happening, the hard metal pipe already was on its way, hitting his head with such force that cracked the outside casing and probably damaged something too. Seconds after, the darker eclipse model was out cold and Ruin could only watch.

However, when Sun grabbed something sharp from the floor and aimed at it at Eclipse’s core, Ruin took action.

Disconnecting quickly from the computer and literally ripping the cables out of his head he dashed forward, ignoring all the pain and burning his body was in.

Without waiting for the crazed solar model to catch up, Ruin grabbed the gray and cream colored hand that was about to strike, and with all his strength power, peeled away the sharp object and sent the daytime attendant stumbling away.

The thing is, Sun was quick to rebalance themself and they returned the favor with a hard kick to the chest that made Ruin fall hard on the floor. The solar model giggled and crackled like a mad man as he moved like a puppet on strings. And one look at their eyes told everything Ruin had to know. The usual clear pearl white eyes, now bright shade of toxic purple. The clear sign of the virus takeover.

“You know! As much as I would LOVE to play and catch up with you! I have a really important mission to attend to! Soooo if you don’t mind!”

Laughing Sun turned away from the fusion who tried and failed to get up, his body was against him right now so Ruin only could watch as the yellow bot made their way towards the table he was on not that long ago.

-The -vîřųš- is after the cure!-

-NO! He won't let that happen! ŤHƏÝ need it! HE needs it! EVERYONE needs it!-

His chest burned agonisingly, slowly spreading to the rest of his aching body. It was getting more and more hard to breathe even if he didn’t even need air to live. He couldn’t move, his body screaming at him with every move he tried to take. The closer the virus walked towards the small green and blue colored light, the more it flashed it’s light threateningly at it, and more burning pain would go through his body. As if him and that small ball of light were connected.

There was a ping sound inside his head and a warning flashed in front of him.

//Unknown entity//: Allow Access?

Yes                        Ý(Ñ)ə(ø)§

It didn’t even give him time to think through what it even meant. Seconds after it popped up, it also glitched out just as fast and the Yes was selected without his own choice.

His vision became all shades of bright blue and green.

Then, it became nothing but darkness.

Chapter Text

They were furious… angry…

Angry at the virus that dared to come down here with it’s controlled Daycare Attended.

They so desperately wanted to rip it apart the moment they saw it, to get to the core of the vessel the pest controlled. To eliminate all the possible bodies the virus could over take.

ÆŁŁ ØF ŤHƏM!

They watched it pretending to be all friendly and clueless.

They watched as it knocked down the younger Eclipse.

And they watched as the oldest struggled to defend.

Their anger and hatred grew, static and glitches gone crazed with it. They can’t let that virus get it’s hands on the cure.

It will destoy it.

They can not let the same fate happen to another dimension again.

So the eclipse marked rabbit acted first. Ignoring the worried cry out of the other, much calmer half that warned about doing this too soon!

They don’t have a core yet, the cure still needs boosts from both the girl and the older bot.

They aren’t ready enough yet for a full on vessel over take! That could harm both of them!

But the eclipse marked skeleton hare didn’t care right now. The enemy was walking towards their source of survival and the weapon that can destroy the contagious purple pest. The two animatronic were disarmed and couldn’t do anything to stop it.

So they reached out, silently apologising to the other half before turning themself into a line of codes and forcefully bypassed the fire walls of the older bot. As humans would say possessing the fused eclipse model, taking control so it would be them finishing off the corrupted DCA.

Its show time.

…

Having a solid body to control after being nothing more than a virtual being, it was quite difficult to move some limbs. But they were fast learners, and after a few seconds or so they got up. Body moving like a puppet on strings, trying to balance themself. They do have to worry about energy levels too, since they don’t have a core yet and they are weaker now.

Then, now blueish eyes instead of red and blue stared at the yellow figure, who dangerously came closer and closer to the ball of light on the table.

The cure’s colors shifted rapidly between green and blue as a way of defence mechanism, and in distress. The virus already got a clawed hand out and reached for it.

But not before the glitchy skeleton hare, now possessing the older bot, grabbed the abandoned metal pipe that was used to knock out the younger eclipse, and threw it with as much force as they could, right at the virus taken over daycare attendant's head.

The force behind it seemed enough, because the moment the pipe hit the sun model’s head, it stumbled away from the cure, grabbing at it’s head in pain.

The hare possessed bot didn’t hesitate. The moment the virus was distracted, they lunged. Colliding with the a bit more taller bot and sending both of them on the floor with a crash. Purple eyes were wide with shock, staring at the figure top of it, and into rage filled bluish green eyes. The older bot, the moment they catched the virus, starring, let out an animalistic snarl, hands reaching and grabbing at the small metallic neck pipe, ready to snap it in half.

However, the corrupted bot won’t let that slide. Feeling the force and small cracking on it’s neck, the virus hostilely let the claws out again, and swiped at the other’s face, hitting on an eye that made the bot top of it flinch away. Feeling the grip on it’s neck loosened, the virus with powerful legs kicked the virtual rabbit possessed animatronic in the artificial stomach, sending them flying backward into boxes full of paper. Which resulted with the papers flying everywhere.

Maniacally giggling the virus stood up, crazed purple eyes went to the fused bot who struggled to get up from the fall as a hand was placed on their stomach area, signalling clear pain.

“Well isn’t this a suprise!” - the virus spoke through Sun’s voice box with a way too much happy and dangerous angry voice. It started slowly creeping towards the weak cure possessed angry and feral bot who of course sensed the pest’s slow approach.

“Oh Ruin, always having something up in his slews. Be it tricks, betrayal, acting, you can name it ALL!” - the last sentence was loudly spoken, hearing Sun’s so mad, so crazed. No one could prepare or even used to that.

“But you are not Ruin right now, are you Huh?”

The two made intense eye contact, purple looking into bluish green, while the virus was still walking towards them, sharp claws ready for strike.

“No… you are much older… Older than Ruin. Older than ME!”- It said, as a sharp unhinged smile slowly took the friendly face of the sunny bot.

“You seem to know me, but I don't. Or maybe I do?”

The corrupted sun animatronic was less than two meters away from the fused bot when it stopped in it’s track, and just starred.

“...You are not from around here are you?… Just like me…”

“M.X.E.S”

Just by saying their name, the older bot’s mouth twisted into a snarl, showing sharp fanged teeth as rays sharpened and flared out of its casing, rattling for intimidation. Finding their balance again, without a second thought, they throw themself at the virus. But the infected daycare attendant was quick to catch on. Yellow hands grabbed mismatched ones and that was the start of a full on wrestling. Both sides tried to get the other down to deliver a fatal hit, but either two were not going to let that happen. Each one has equal strength, even if one of them were a bit smaller than the other.

But it was clear the virus had more stamina, it has been present for decades, corrupting and controlling animatronic so much longer than the M.X.E.S, who is only just now able to possess and control one for the first time. Even if this one virtual rabbit existed longer, that doesn’t mean they were able to control any animatronic. Even now, controlling the older eclipse model, they could feel their energy slowly starting to drain. They don’t have a proper core that could support them outside of the digital world. The energy they got right now was from the digitalized world that they gathered, and that was slowly draining now. The vessel was also not ready for this and now they might pay the price for rushing in too quickly.

But the hatred for the virus was so big, that might be the biggest part that kept them in power and energy.

The two fought with no signs of backing away or running, but then the taller sun bot showed an unpredictable strong push that the older one couldn’t combat, making them stumble backwards once again to catch their balance. However the virus didn’t let them recover, it moved forward with a bit more speed than ever, one arm in a strike position that aimed at the older one’s head.

The mismatched bot fastly braced themself, ready for the deadly punch that they were about to get. Quickly covering their face so that they won't get seriously damaged.

However, the hit to the head never came.

No. That was a fake out.

M.X.E.S messed up.

Pain that the virtual rabbit never felt before erupted from their chest, making the digital being flicker out, and lose control for a period of time. Just enough time that the older eclipse they were using regained some consciousness as bluish green eyes flickered between red and blue. The object… no… the hand that went through their(his) chest was seated in deeply, grabbing at the internals painfully the older bot had. Wide color switching eyes stared shocked at satisfied purple ones as the yellow bot smiled at them(him).

“I remember now” - started the virus calmly. “Not a surprise that you are so violent… so HATEFUL towards me and the ones I corrupt.”

Sun’s hand twisted the internals of the older bot that let out small crack and pop sounds, and the other could only weakly grab at cream colored hand in pain to try to stop it, but that just ended up not doing anything.

“Because you were there… whatching… desperately trying to hijack me that only ended up worthless because it was all too late…”

The virus started to slowly pull the internals out of the older bot, while it’s opponent oh so desperately tried to get out of the grip. Colors in their eyes violently switched back and forth from bluish green to red and blue, a clear sign that the control is weakened and Ruin is very much aware of what is happening now. And the virus controlled Sun found it sickly entertaining.

“You came from the same dimension like Ruin did. Like I DID! Didn’t you M.X.E.S?

And just like that, the virus with one hard and fast tug, the internals were ripped out of the smaller body, getting and spilling oil everywhere as the older eclipse model let out a loud scream before the voice box short circuit too, forcing them(HIM) to be quiet and suffer in silence.

Maniac giggling that turned into crazed loud laughter filled the Parts and Service room. Hand covered with oil the internal wires just it holded straight up got crushed.

The semi controlled bot now, crumbled on the floor and just laid there. The energy the virtual rabbit gathered from their digital world was quickly draining and soon has to leave their vessel.

Sun walked next to the down bot on the floor and looked down on them smiling.

“I always wondered why I could sense two M.X.E.S in this dimension. But now I finally know.”

The virus stood above the fused bot whose eyes are hardly colored bluish green anymore but red and blue. The clear sign that the glitchy hare was struggling to keep themself supported outside of the digital world and allowing Ruin to finally see what is happening. Sun’s hand carried something sharp that the older bot couldn’t see because of blurry vision. He was in pain and just couldn’t move, losing oil a bit too quickly also didn't help.

“But as much as I like to have fun with you, sadly I can't let you get in my way anymore. Or the OTHER one”

It was ready to end this damned animatronic that escaped from it’s grasp. And to prevent the virtual rabbit gaining a vessel and a proper core.

So cream colored hands raised, holding the long and sharp objects, ready for a fatal hit as the virus infected daycare attendant smirked wickedly at the half conscious bot below the corrupted body.

“Bye, Bye… Eclipse”

Then the hand striked.

“NO!”

Bright green colored light erupted, blinding both animatronic in the process. The corrupted sun model flinched away when something hit him and dropped the sharp object.

The M.X.E.S on the other hand couldn’t keep up anymore, energy reached a critical low level and couldn’t do anything but to let go. Letting themself dragged back into the virtual reality and freeing Ruin from the remaining control.

This is not how their attempt to get rid of the virus is supposed to go.

……..

Ballora had such a good start for the day. You know, waking up late since it is the weekend, having some time alone laying in bed before getting out of it. Taking her sweet time to get ready in front of the mirror. Then just walk towards her girlfriend’s room. To have some time together and do something positive.

Because having fun at least takes the mind off of certain negative stuff. Like the current virus problem.

However Monty wasn’t in her room right now, so Ballora thought she was just out with the others right now. Which is fine she always could catch up to them. So the ballerina went to the theater location, maybe to say hi to Eclipse or the kids that were there.

She, of course, ran into Roxanne and Charlie talking with each other, and it seemed the little girl looked a bit uneasy.

“Hey you two! How are you all doing?” - Ballora asked them as she approached closer.

Roxanne and Charlie both looked at her and both smiled.

“Hey Ballora! We are alright, I actually tried to find Eclipse but uhhh, haven't seen him in the theater.” - said the wolf calmly and a bit tiredly.

The ballerina blinked. That is strange. If Eclipse is not in there then maybe he’s at his lab?

But before she could ask it was Charlie who spooked up next.

“Actually I might have an idea where he is. Um… I may or may not get him and Ruin to work together? So they can be at Parts and Services." - Charlie sounded shy about that, maybe a bit unsure too.

The two women just looked at her with unbelievement, because how? Last time Eclipse and Ruin interacted it ended up in an insult towards the older bot and a star down between the two. Ballora wasn't there when that happened but Roxanne was. But either way, maybe they can all go down then to check if all three of them are looking for the same bot.

And so they made their way towards Parts and Service, going to the huge part of the Plex where all the Glamrock performed and on to the main stage. Roxanne pressed the button and the circle-like stage turned into an elevator, taking them both down.

When it finally stopped they all started walking, chatting about certain stuff so they could fill the silence.

Charlie then just, suddenly stopped walking.

Both the ballerina and the wolf almost walked into her, that's how sudden the stopping was.

“Charlie? Is everything okay?” - asked Ballora worryingly while looking at Roxanne who looked just as confused and worried.

Charlie didn’t respond, no.

Instead a few seconds went by before she let out a gasp and started running forward as if her life depended on it, making the taller bots calling out for her. Ballora and Roxanne only shared one look with each other before they also started running after Charlie.

They both catched up with her at the red doors of the Parts and Service room when she forced it open.

The sight that greeted the girls was not only terrifying but also gruesome.

Eclipse was laying on the floor knocked out and head bleeding oil in front of the cylinder’s computer. It looked like he got something hard thrown at him with enough force to cause damage.

But the most brutal sight was what was happening in front of them.

Ruin on his back with a puncher wound, a literal HOLE, in his chest, oils spilling rapidly from it while his whole body also looked damaged. Looking at wide color switching and glitching eyes at none other than Sun, who was ready to stab into the older bot with a sharpened metal piece that could deliver a fatal hit. The daycare attendant's body was also covered in dents and claw marks, which could have meant the two actually fought with each other. Sun’s smile was unhinged and so was his eyes that burned with toxic purple, the clear sign of the virus over take.

Then the corrupted animatronic strikes at Ruin, a strike that is meant to the face.

“NO!”

Charlie shreaked, dashing forward and reaching out with her hands as green magic built up and shot out with a bright light, colliding with the now blinded solar bot and sending them flying not too far but too friendly either from the critically injured older bot.

When her magic outburst calmed down Charlie quickly flopped down beside Ruin as tears threatened to escape from her eyes. She placed a hand at his chest, trying to challenge her magic again to heal her friend.

“D-Don’t worry, Ruin! I-I can do this okay? Y-You w-will be alright!”

But her magic wouldn’t butch, as if all that effort went on to get the virus infected Sun off of him. Frustrated tears started to fall from her eyes as she desperately tried to get her supid magic to work. Oil had already stained her hands but she didn’t care, her friend’s life is on the line!

“I-I can d-do this! C-come ON! WHY IS MY POWERS AREN’T WORKING!?

Suddenly a hand was placed on her shoulder making her head snap in the direction where a  familiar friendly face met her. Ballora’s expression was calm but if you look close enough you could see she was as devastated as Charlie.

“Charlie, I need you to get Solar Flare and your dad, okay?”

“B-But! He will DIE! I n-need to-to heal him!-”

The glamrock ballerina slowly and calmly gets the child's hands away from the broken frame of the older bot. She’s still trying to be strong for this, for Charlie’s sake.

“I know, but pushing yourself won't help, so I need you to get them as soon as possible, okay?”

Ballora knows she’s being on point but right now they need small talks because the situation could worsen if they don’t hurry.

Charlie looked back at Ruin, then Ballora, the child’s eyes were hard to look at. She looks so devastated, and probably in shock too. Then her eyes looked in Eclipse's direction where Roxxane also was, checking him for any other injuries. Charlie looked back at Ballora before teleporting away to get her dad and Flare.

Ballora let out a shaky sigh then kneeled down on the floor, not even caring if she got oil on her dress. Her hands then went to Ruin’s face specially to the rays area, caressing it in hopes it will lessen the pain for him. But it probably won't.

A groan made her attention snap back up. In front of her, Sun woke up, grabbing at his head in pain while struggling to get up. Also the solar bot probably in pain too because of all the claws marks that even drew oil cowered his body. Pearl white eyes that Ballora couldn’t believe she missed snapped open and looked around confused.

“W-what?”

His eyes landed on Ballora, then at the unconscious Ruin, whose mimicked breathing was harsh and rigid, remaining internals struggled to keep up.

White eyes widened but then Sun looked at his hands. Claws that he probably saw the first time were still out, hands covered in oil, Ruin’s (his friend’s?) oil. The realization was immediate as his breathing sped up, the clear signs of panic.

“Sun!”

Ballora’s voice snapped him out of it for a bit, the shame and horror about what he did, what he had done was crashing down on him with full force.

“I need you to listen to me right now. What happened was not your fault, okay? It was the virus.”

Sun had a hard time believing it, it was his hand that did that, and…. Why can’t he hear Moon? Did… Did something happen to him too?!

“Sun look at me!”

The order made him look at Ballora a bit too quickly, it made the ballerina flinch a bit but she was quick to recover.

“I need you to go where Roxanne is. She is checking Eclipse out right now but you also need treatment okay?”

They stared at each other for a long time. But after that Sun built up enough confidence to nod and stood up with shaky legs. You could clearly tell all the solar bot wanted, is to hide away as fast as possible but he just couldn’t.

Silence fell on Parts and Service as all of them waited for help to arrive. Ballora did what she could to make sure Ruin was still alive. She has a prediction that this event traumatised most of them to say at least.

What a way to start a day indeed.