Chapter Text
“I am not jumping off this thing.”
Moon huffed, and you imagined them rolling their eyes at you in their apparent… headspace..? (Fuck, this is way too confusing for you.)
‘Come on, our body’s made to handle this kind of height,’ they grumbled, ‘besides, there’s even padding at the bottom to cushion any accidental falls from the children.’
You suddenly wished you had a separate body from them, if only for a moment, purely so you could strangle them.
“And??” you retorted, “I’m not jumping off a balcony into a fucking children’s ball pit that’s, like, 20 feet below me.”
‘Coward.’
You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest, stepping away from the edge. “Calling me a pussy isn’t gonna get me to jump,” you strained out, “isn’t there any other way to get down?”
‘Other than our wire, no,’ Moon said almost smugly, ‘but like you said, you couldn’t figure out how to call it, right?’
“It has been less than five. Minutes. Since I woke up in your body,” you hissed, reluctantly crouching down to peek back over the edge, “tell me you didn’t have trouble when you first.. I dunno, popped into existence or something…”
‘Actually, all of our knowledge was pre-programmed into us, so—’
“AcTuAlLy—” you interrupted under your breath in a mocking tone, spitting a quick, “shut the fuck up already, I’m trying not to kill myself here.”
The silence that followed was loud in your ears (audio sensors?), but you couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief that you’d finally managed to stop arguing with the other.
Carefully, you poked one of your legs over the edge of the balcony, your nonexistent heart rate picking up as you let your other leg follow. You slowly shuffled off of the balcony, holding yourself up only by your arms while your lower half kicked in the open air.
Suddenly, you heard metal scraping against concrete.
“Oh no.”
In an instant, you were clawing at the floor of the balcony, desperately kicking your legs up in an attempt to get them back on there, feeling almost like a cat struggling to stay on a table as you inevitably started slipping.
“Ohhhh no no no no no.”
You lost your grip.
“…motherfu—”
You interrupted your own curse with a yelp, feeling yourself falling through the air for a moment before you hit the ground.
Or, rather, the ball pit.
Your hand was still sticking out of the ball pit as you sunk to the bottom of the pit, nearly completely buried in colorful plastic orbs. The perfect grave for a fucking clown such as yourself.
It took you a few moments to realize you weren’t in pain. Or scattered into pieces at the bottom of a bacterial cesspool.
You suddenly shot up, sending plastic balls everywhere as you patted yourself down to make sure nothing was actually missing. Your hands landed on your face— well, still not technically your face —and you barked out a soft laugh.
“I’m okay,” you breathed out softly, before nearly shouting, “I’m okay! I did it!”
You laughed triumphantly, standing up and kicking away the plastic balls as you climbed out of the ball pit.
“See?” you said to Moon, “I’m no coward!”
Moon was silent for a few more moments, before grumbling, ‘You screamed the entire way down.’
“A scream of excitement.”
You cringed lightly at your phrasing, but didn’t bother to correct yourself, not really expecting Moon to get the accidental dirty joke.
‘Sure…’ Moon chuckled lightly, before mumbling, ‘now, try to go out that door over there. That’s the Daycare’s main entrance.’
“A-okay, Moon-man,” you snickered lightly as you strided over to the door, feeling a little energetic from adrenaline(?) and glancing at everything around you as you did so.
The jungle gyms were about twice your size, but you could easily tell they were definitely much larger in comparison to… normal humans. (Not ones accidentally controlling random massive robots.)
You also knew that the comically small chairs and tables were a little more fitting for toddlers, but you couldn’t help but giggle slightly as you passed one, the chairs barely tall enough to reach midway up your calf.
As you were staring at everything around you, you felt yourself bump into a tower of odd barrels, making a sort of squeaking noise as they fell to the floor.
You were about to walk around the scattered barrels and pretend that never happened in favor of getting out of here, until you heard Moon make a loud, distorted noise in the back of your head.
“A-Are you okay..?” you tentatively asked, holding your head at the sudden headache.
‘C-..can you.. fix that..?’ Moon nearly choked out, voice sounding oddly distressed and staticky, ‘Please?’
Although very, very concerned about them and their sudden behaviour, you awkwardly complied with their request, crouching down and stacking the blocks again.
As you finished, you heard Moon quietly growl, ‘Wrong way.. wrong way…’
“Oh, um..” you hesitated nervously, “which is which, then..—?”
‘Blue, green, orange,’ Moon replied in an instant, making you flinch slightly, ‘l-like.. like a gradient…’
“O…kay?” you awkwardly mumbled, before reorganizing the stack, “There. Happy?”
‘Mhm…’ Moon almost meekly responded, ‘sorry, it just… bothers us…’
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” you reassured, standing back up and finally reaching the door, which you wanted to think would be a lot taller for an average human, “I’m not gonna yell at you for having your… preferences? So to say?”
Can robots have OCD? Or something like it? You aren’t gonna judge, especially considering your current situation.
You proceed on to push the large, wooden doors open, noting how they were surprisingly light for their appearance. You even nearly slammed them open on accident before regulating your strength and pushing a little softer.
You glanced back as the door closed behind you, before looking in front of you.
Black and white checkered floors, an obvious entrance to somewhere with a couple go-karts, several stairs telling you that there were definitely multiple floors to this place…
“Now what?”
Moon didn’t respond for a few moments, making you shuffle on your feet awkwardly. They were terribly quiet, but at least there was that funky music still playing in the background to fill the silence.
“Now what?” you tried again, “Moon?”
They made a startled noise, ‘Oh! Oh, um…’
You heard them take a breath, as if trying to calm themself.
‘I just didn’t think… nevermind, just.. go upstairs,’ they said, sounding a little better than before, ‘just follow my instructions… the plex is a bit of a maze…’
You awkwardly threw up a quick thumbs up before making your way up the nearby stairway.
“You were not kidding…”
You don’t even know where you are anymore.
You don’t know if it’s the fact you’re not used to being a robot, or maybe it was some sort of problem you’ve had since before this whole situation, but it’s starting to get.. disorienting, all of a sudden. The lights were too bright and there were too many colors and shapes everywhere blurring all together. If you could get nauseous in your new and unfamiliar body, you would’ve thrown up by now.
‘I could’ve sworn the elevators to the basement were this way…’ Moon mumbled, sounding oddly distant despite the fact they were inside your head, ‘…or was it.. hm…’
“Please figure it out sooner rather than later,” you groaned softly, “I think I’m about to collapse.”
‘We might be overheating,’ Moon said, ‘and our fans aren’t even activating on their own.. nothing’s automatic anymore, is it?’
They then mumbled something about it being summertime after all, but you were a little distracted from their voice by the sound of a… music box??
You slowly turned around with a puzzled whine, only to see nothing near you other than an empty building. It was kind of unsettling, actually— most of the lights were on, but there weren’t even any employees here— wasn’t this place some sort of establishment?
You heard another little piano-ish sound, and you finally managed to pinpoint it as coming from below you.
Looking down, you finally saw the source of the music box; it was another robot-thing like you(?), but a lot smaller with a weird head and a bunch of legs— two of them bearing little cymbals —like some sort of messed up spider. It was pink and white with big, black eyes and something resembling a wide grin, and for some reason was wearing a little top hat.
You feel you’d normally be freaking out at the sight of such a strangely-built thing, but honestly? You’re so dizzy your head feels like it’s about to fall off, so you could care less about being scared of this tiny robot spider-thing.
Another piano noise snapped you out of your trance, and you noticed it had come a little closer, now at your feet and staring up at you.
After a few moments, you decided to crouch down in front of it, noting how it wasn’t scared of you at all, despite you being, like, twelve times its size. Maybe it knew the original owner of your body.
“Heya there, little guy,” you heard yourself drawl slightly, “no clue who you are, but you seem nice..”
As it cocked its little head at your words, you held your hands out in front of it in an attempt to get it to climb on. To your surprise, it actually complied, and you easily brought it up to your face so you didn’t have to strain your voice too much.
“But to be entirely fair, I don’t even know who I am right now, sooo…” you clicked your nonexistent tongue, then squinted at the thing’s cymbals, “Are those like plastic or somethin’—?”
You were cut off by the thing clapping them together, making you flinch slightly at the loud crashing noise. The thing let out a series of notes, as if it was laughing at your reaction.
“Nope. Very real,” you deadpanned, before trying to shake away the ache the loud noise caused, “anyways, not only do I not know who I currently am, but I am totally lost. Looking for a place called Parts-and-something, I think.”
The spider tilted its head to the other side, silent for a few moments, before letting out a few notes and suddenly hopping out of your hands. You yelped slightly, nearly diving to catch it until it gracefully landed on the ground (unlike you earlier today) and skittered away.
Before it scuttled out of sight, though, it stopped, turning back to you with a few more notes.
You had to take a few moments to process all this, before perking happily.
“Hey! You aren’t actually abandoning me!” you chirped, moving to stand and follow only to receive a light wave of dizziness, “Try not to go too fast, I’m, like, five seconds away from falling flat on my face and not getting up.”
The spider robot responded with another series of notes, waiting for you to catch before scuttling once more, slowly enough you could walk with it this time, letting it take the lead.
You don’t know why Moon wasn’t talking right now.
Actually, were they talking? And maybe you just couldn’t hear them? Your head did feel like it was literally spinning..
“Moon..?” you hesitantly mumbled, quiet enough the other robot couldn’t hear you, “You alive in there…?”
Nothing.
Welp. That’s terrifying.
Nothing scarier than the voice in your head suddenly going silent.
“Moon?” you tried saying again, “Moooooon. Moon. Hello?”
‘I’m here.’
You had to physically restrain yourself from jumping at the sudden sound of their voice, unconsciously letting out a simulated sigh of relief.
“Fuck, you scared me,” you breathed out softly, “the hell have you been doing?”
There was a strained groan, ‘Trying to run a diagnostic. Hasn’t been working, though…’
“I realize this,” you huffed, crossing your arms, “anyways, I’ve finally been able to get some directions.”
‘From who?’ Moon asked, ‘You can’t have met any of the other animatronics yet.’
“Anima-huh?” You then shook your head, “Wait, no, nevermind, I can’t keep any information down right now. I wanna say it’s a tiny spider thing? I’m following it right now, as you can, y’know, probably see.”
You gestured to the little spider bot scuttling in front of you, earning a curious hum from Moon.
‘That’s one of the Mini Music Men,’ they said, their voice sounding oddly affectionate.
“Mini what.”
They chuckled this time, before explaining a little more, ‘A Mini Music Man. A wind-up animatronic toy.’
You blink cluelessly, despite them not being able to see it.
“Yeah, that doesn’t clarify shit,” you groaned, feeling the urge to facepalm, “one, ‘one of’ implies there’s multiple of these little creature-things, and two, ‘mini’ implies there is a much larger Music Man that I probably wouldn’t want to meet.” Spiders are usually a no-go for you— when you weren’t loopy as fuck, at least. Giant spiders are most likely a resounding fuck no.
Moon makes a disgruntled noise. ‘The DJ isn’t bad,’ they protest, ‘yes, big, but very polite.’
You let out a sarcastic hum. “Sounds like a very distinguished gentleman,” you comment, “also, ‘DJ’?”
‘DJ Music Man,’ they clarified, ‘he’s in charge of the dance floor in Fazcade.’
You narrow your eyes in confusion, “Faz- what — y’know what, who the fuck cares anymore. I just feel like dying in so many different ways.”
Before Moon could respond with their concern, your attention was caught by the now-semi-familiar sound of the spider-bot’s piano noises.
You turned your head to where it was… attached to the wall next to a jankly opening door, before noticing you’d already seemed to have gotten to where you were going. Aka, an elevator with a sticky note saying “PnS Elevator” with an arrow pointing downward weakly clinging to the drywall above an oddly shaped button.
You shot the Mini Music Man an appreciative thumbs up. As you spoke up next, your voice was strained from trying to ignore how the world felt like it was trying to tilt onto its side.
“Thanks, little guy,” you chirped to the spider, groggily reaching over and gently patting its little head. It accepted the offer with a few happy notes, “I don’t think you’re gonna come with you, are you?”
It hesitated for a few moments, before scuttling up the wall and into the vent without another word. You stared at the open vent for a few moments.
“Alright then,” you shrugged, “bye, I guess.”
Without waiting for a response, not that there would’ve been one, you ducked your head and walked into the elevator. It was obviously built with a more human design in mind, but at least it wasn’t so cramped you had to crouch. You sat down on the ground anyway.
You glanced at the buttons and sort of wished you could’ve frowned. You don’t even know why whoever put that sticky note on the outside even thought they needed an arrow— there was only one button, and it was literally the same as the one on the outside. The people designing this place really seemed to like this weird blob-like shape.
As the door closed as you felt the elevator start moving, you noticed Moon had gone silent again.
Again, very scary.
“Hey, Moon?” you mumbled out, even your own voice feeling weirdly distant.
They let out an acknowledging hum.
“Can you talk or something?” you hesitantly asked, “It’s, like.. way too quiet. Like, ears-go-ringing quiet.”
You heard them make a puzzled noise, ‘Ringing..?’
“Yeah, like when it’s so quiet that your brain tries to make its own noise that ends up way louder than necessary and kinda hurts,” you explained, before pausing, “..or maybe that’s tinnitus.”
They chuckled softly, ‘Well, that’s never happened to us before.. usually when it gets quiet enough, we can hear our internal systems working.’
You groaned in envy, “Lucky fuck. You’ve got some permanent white noise, while I killed, like, five different box fans by keeping them on 24/7.”
They make an odd noise and go quiet again. Ah, they’re probably a little.. offed by the idea of you burning out a bunch of fans. Was it because they were a machine too? Or maybe they just didn’t like you breaking things?
You let out a defeated sigh, your head dropping back and clanking against the wall, “Yeah, let’s just.. let’s change the subject or something…”