Chapter Text
Chie’s head ached terribly. She was awake for a while before opening her eyes, and the longer she sat there the more confused she was. The room was likely dark, and quiet- other than the distant laser sound effects and music. She seemed to be sitting on something soft, but her back and head were leaning against a harder surface. She noticed, ominously, that the room smelled faintly of blood.
Even worse than her headache was the sting of defeat, and the dread of knowing what lay in store for her. Being the anomaly’s puppet before was terrible, to say the least- he’d piloted her around constantly. She couldn’t talk to anyone he didn’t want to, couldn’t stop him from using her voice- she couldn’t even scream. It hadn’t been too long, but she, years after the fact, still half-expected to wake up one day to find her autonomy taken away again, to be reduced to a remote-control toy.
And now she supposed she had.
She was back and it was because of her own hubris- of course he’d build strength over time, of course he’d escape faster than she’d expected, of course she had been stupid to think she could stop him.
After a stretch of time she mustered up the energy and opened her eyes, finding herself in a small dark room, sitting on a mattress with a striped blanket lazily thrown over it. to her surprise she saw Vanessa sitting not too far away. She wasn’t in uniform anymore- instead wearing a black tank top and sport shorts. And she was…
Using a stitch remover on that white rabbit costume?
As if detecting her line of sight, Vanessa suddenly looked over, meeting Chie’s eyes.
“Hm. You’re awake… good.”
Her lighthearted, teasing tone from before was lost, and her hair was down, revealing just how much of a mess it was. She looked miserable- Chie didn’t blame her.
“I’ve been awake.” She murmured in response.
That earned a tired smile from the blonde.
“Yeah, I guessed as much… sorry if I woke you. Will wanted me to totally redesign my suit so we matched, so…” she shrugged. “I’m recycling the old one for us. Saving fabric and all that.”
Okay, made sense- even if she didn’t like it, she had to accept that she’d have to go running around in a rabbit costume too. The anomaly had a theme.
“Wait- ‘will’?”
Vanessa gave her a puzzled look.
“….yes? As in, William? William Afton?”
Chie’s blank expression only seemed to bring her more confusion.
“Um… that’s his name. The yellow rabbit?”
“It is-!?”
Vanessa nodded.
“Yeah… he’s a ghost. They accidentally scanned him into the game.”
“Well I knew that…”
But still, it was news he had a normal name. Chie sighed.
“I guess I haven’t had many conversations with him, luckily.”
Vanessa nodded, then looked back down at her hands with a sad sort of look.
“You… you two were talking before- I heard it. You were… the girl on the tapes, right? Back in the game?”
For a second, Chie didn’t know what to say. Vanessa… ‘William’ had mentioned how she’d listened to the tapes. Considering the contents of the last few… that was why she was here. As guilty as she was, Chie at least owed her the truth, right?
“…yes.”
The blonde shook her head sadly.
“Yikes… I’m Sorry, then.”
“What for?”
“Well… it’s my fault you’re back here, yeah? If I hadn’t just blindly listened to him tonight…”
Vanessa trailed off before finishing the sentence, but the message was clear. While Chie couldn’t argue Vanessa caught her just that night, there was one thing she was forgetting.
“…no. I willingly came here. I’m the one who put myself in harm’s way like that.”
She shook her head.
“Besides. If we’re playing that game, my voice lured you into trying to merge with him. That’s what happened, right?”
Vanessa stopped to think about that, before nodding.
“…but that was his fault. You… you gave me more hope than anything, anyways. William would’ve caught me one way or another.”
Hope, she said?
Chie was unused to this- being able to touch someone’s heart without even knowing them. Especially with everything being so dire lately. She wanted to say something else- anything, really- but Vanessa shook her head and directed her gaze to the pile of white fabric again.
“…anyways. We should get back to the costumes. He’ll be back soon, I think.”
“How do you know?”
Vanessa tapped her temple.
“The whole sharing a body thing… not to mention, he’s just cleaning up the footage from the daycare, and that doesn’t take him very long.”
Chie nodded. Weird… she remembered the last time she’d been under his control, and he was a constant presence… at least this meant she had other opportunities to escape. Vanessa, too, if she could be convinced.
“…okay. What do the costumes have to look like?”
“Woof.. if we wanna think about that…”
Vanessa started drawing something on the paper- ah. The ‘base’- two outlines of people with bunny ears. Suddenly Vanessa sat up.
“Quick. You know what your measurements are?”
“H-huh!?”
Chie found herself being yanked forward by the arm, and Vanessa grabbed the back of her shirt. Chie complied, feeling an awful lot like a kitten grabbed by the scruff of its neck, as Vanessa noted the size.
“Hmm… you’re a little shorter than me too… I’m gonna have to adjust it to fit, then.”
She let go of Chie then, leaving her to fall onto the mattress embarrassingly enough, and turned to jot that down. Feeling very much like a ragdoll, Chie sat back up and looked over the blonde’s shoulder again. She’d jotted down the note about changing sizes and whatnot, but the bases…
Half-and-half black and white, huh. Interesting. Chie watched Vanessa’s face- observing people had always been a guilty pleasure of hers- and watched her as she scribbled more notes.
Suddenly, her face froze, and the sound of scratchy pencil on paper stopped. Vanessa perked up, doglike, and stared at the far corner of the room- where a laptop sat open on the floor.
Suddenly, that damned rabbit materialized out of nowhere, the telltale faint purple glitches surrounding him. His eyes fell on Chie.
“Ah, finally awake!” He chuckled. “You two aren’t off-task, now are you?”
“You didn’t tell us to do much.” Vanessa said, her voice more monotone now. “…But no, we’re not.”
The rabbit tilted his head unnaturally to the side, eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. Chie felt studied, suddenly. Though that wasn’t a new concept, it still made her blood boil.
The rabbit kept speaking, of course.
“Hm-hm. If you say so, dear. Anyhow, there is something I want to discuss, now that you’re both conscious.”
Vanessa stayed quiet, so Chie didn’t bother with saying anything. That was probably what he wanted- a moment of dramatic silence.
“You maaaay be wondering… since there’s two of you now, how is that going to work?” William chuckled again, folding his stitched-together arms behind his back.
“Well, I’ve had the most fascinating idea! See, Vanny here has already garnered a bit too much attention from staff- so to draw attention away, I’m going to have both of you wearing the same mask! Two costumes, two killers… but only one will be suited up at a time, you see? it’ll make everything much more confusing for our enemies.” He seemed quite proud of himself.
“Hm… will, what about the name? And, the characterization? It’s already gotten so muddled…” Vanessa muttered. The golden rabbit responded by simply patting her on the head.
“Oh, silly thing. You two are more similar than you think, you know…” he said. “I’m sure Chi won’t make Vanny act too out of character.”
Chie was confused. “What?”
“Vanny’s the white rabbit.” Vanessa said simply. William elaborated for her.
“Well, yes… she came from Vanessa’s original mask, but we had to update her a bit, since we’re sharing… as for characterization, we’ll key you in later.”
“But… don’t you call her vanny?”
“Well, yes, it’s also a nickname I gave to Vanessa. I did say it originated in something for her specifically, yes?”
Well, it didn’t make sense, but at least there was an explanation at all… Chie didn’t know how she felt about all this- especially since it had someone else’s name attached- but she still didn’t know much about what William was planning, exactly. Spread the virus all around, and then what? During the hiring process she was only ever told that the animatronics behaved oddly. Was that this guy piloting them around for fun? What was the point of having two human meat puppets, anyways? sure, Vanessa might be acting as a host of sorts, and her covering for vanessa, sure, but…
Chie decided that nothing he could be planning would be good and left it at that. That knowing look in the rabbit’s purple eyes said she’d be finding out soon enough anyways.
Vanessa spoke up again, interrupting her train of thought.
“Well, it’s gonna take time to get materials together for the costumes. What’re we going to do for the rest of the night?”
William shrugged.
“We can’t do any more work like this. I’m going to monitor the systems to make sure nobody tries to fix anything. Maybe get some shut-eye, you two?”
Vanessa nodded, looking relieved. Chie supposed that meant the two of them would be alone again for a while. Better than being left with the glitch. And yet…
“…wait, you’ve been camping out up here?”
Both of them nodded.
“I found a nice blanket, it’s not that bad.” Vanessa said.
“It’s over fazer blast, lots of electricity!” William added.
Chie thought for a second.
“…So, I can’t go home then?”
William scoffed. “Certainly not! Especially not after I fixed the footage. Goodnight!”
And with that, the rabbit glitched out of view again. Great. Chie glanced over at Vanessa, who seemed to be zoning out, and then back around the room. Might as well get used to it, she supposed. At least she had the rest of the night away from that thing.