Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“But I wanna stay with you!” A young child cries, clutching onto their red and yellow striped pants.

Sun ruffles the child’s hair, a chuckle sounding from their voice box. The child’s mother approaches, grabbing the boy’s arm and tugging him away from Sun. He whines and cries louder, little hands wrapping around the animatronic’s leg.

“Jake-! We have to go home.” She scolds, massaging her temple while at it.

“Pardon ma’am, I hope you don’t mind if I handle this?” Sun asks. Jake’s mother sighs, shaking her head—

“Sure, but be quick. My husband is waiting for us outside.”

“Of course. Just a moment.” Sun scoops the child up and hoists him over to another corner of the daycare, where the shoe racks are. They put him down gently, 

“Hey buddy, it’s okay! You can come back next week, I won’t be gone forever! Go hang out with your friends elsewhere and tell me all about your cool adventures when you come back.” They pat the kid’s head and crouch down, pulling a handkerchief from one of their storage pockets.

Sun gently dabs at the tears on the child’s face, “There, you look more handsome with no tears. No crying, alright? You don’t want your sister to laugh at you now, do you?”

“N-no..” The boy sniffles, wiping the rest of his tears with a sleeve.

“Good! You’re a strong, brave boy Jake. So go out there and bust a leg! Is that how you say it?” 

Jake giggles through his tears, “Mama says it’s ‘b-break a leg’, I don’t get it though.. Cause.. You don’t actually break a leg and stuff.”

“That’s good, I don’t either! I only know it means ‘good luck’!” Sun lets out a laugh.

“D-do I have to go? Can’t I stay the night?—I wanna see Moon again.” 

Sun winces, the almost-permanent smile on their face shifting into a slight frown—an expression reserved for whenever they put a charge in timeout. Jake seems to recognize it and his own expression turns sour,

“Is he okay?”

“Moon is.. He’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about it!” Sun assures, smile widening and their head-spikes shining.

Jake doesn’t seem convinced.

“Mama says I should say sorry.. Cause I didn’t listen and stuff Moon got in trouble because of me.” He says in a small voice, a frown on his face.

“Well Moon will be back next week along with all the new stuff they’re building! Did you know that they’re planning to add a pirate ship here in the daycare?” Sun announces, a giddy excitement prevalent in their voice.

“A-a pirate ship?” Previous woe suddenly forgotten, Jake looks up at them with starry eyes.

“Yes! A pirate ship! Could you imagine? Oh, it’ll be so fun! We can finally play pirates on an actual ship.” 

Jake brightens up. Sun dabs at the rest of his tears, smiling brightly at the child.

“That’s so cool! I-I can’t wait for next week! I can bring my pirate hat—and Parry the parrot! And then I can play with you and Dean and Alice and-” He babbles, fidgeting in place. 

“Yes, yes! Now, you should go home so next week will come faster. Tell Dean, Alice and all your friends about it okay? As Freddy says, ‘the more—’” Sun starts, pocketing their handkerchief while at it.

“—the merrier!” Jake finishes with an excited giggle.

“Good job! Aren’t you a smart one.” Sun pinches his cheeks.

“Ow- ow! Suuuuun, stooop..” Jake whines.

“Go to your mama or I won’t stop.” Sun threatens playfully. Jake gasps.

“I will, I will! See you next week, Sun!” He glomps the animatronic one last time before running off to his mother.

Sun makes an exaggerated ‘oof’ sound before righting themselves back up and waving goodbye to his last charge of the day. Jake’s mother flashes him a tired, but grateful smile before taking her child’s hand and exiting the Pizzaplex.

Good job, Sunny.

Look who’s decided to appear.

Sun smiles at the appearance of their fellow animatronic slash brother. They scan the entire daycare for any lingering humans—thankfully finding none.

Yes it is I, your brother Moon. Hooray.

They snort at the sarcastic tone. The animatronic slowly makes their way through the daycare, trash bag in one hand. They pick up any leftover trash and clean up stains with a rag taken from their inner storage.

S.T.A.F.F. bots enter the room with sanitising equipment. The bots traverse the place, spraying and scrubbing every inch of the room—especially the play area and the eating area.

Not going to help, Moony?

Sun asks idly as they do their tasks. Moon has always been the more efficient of the two of them. Combined with his extra motor skills, their brother could clean the entire daycare faster than Sun ever could.

You know I don’t like crawling all over the place like some demented spider.

You used to.

Shut up.

Jake misses you, you know—I don’t think he blames you for what happened.

Sunny, can we not. No, that’s not a damn question.

You can’t keep avoiding him. I’m running out of excuses to give—

Your problem, not mine. I’m not seeing the kid ever again if I have anything to say about it.

Moon.

Lalalalala~ 

Agh, fine. This isn’t over—

LALALALALALALA~

At least their counterpart’s voice sounds nice, even when he’s being very annoying. Moon is after all, built exclusively for night time patrol and overnight stays. The former is what his advanced motor skills are for—while the latter makes use of his voice. Bedtime stories, lullabies, and such. 

He doesn’t like it very much though—the grump. Their brother much prefers to imitate their voice rather than literally anything else. Sun thinks it’s his way of showing affection—like that saying, ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’. Moon would deny it vehemently and instead say he does it to annoy them and troll the band. 

Which, to his credit, also works very effectively. Sun can’t count how many times Moon has worried the other animatronics by imitating their voice asking for help. It’s getting to the point that Sun themselves is worried that the others won’t take it seriously when they do actually need help.

There is one animatronic that could tell their voice from Moon’s imitation though—DJMM, or DJ Music Man. Sun guesses he could do that because of all the DJ-ing he does, though they weren’t exactly sure what DJ-ing itself entails—just that it’s related to music.

Hey, stop thinking. You’re making the S.T.A.F.F. bots do all the work for you.

I can think and work at the same time.

Sure. You’re not doing that.

I am!

Nuh-uh

Huh-uh

Nuh-uh- go back to work.

Huh-uh- darn it.

HAH!

Sun groans, they could practically hear Moon laughing in their ears.

Now you gotta get back to work Sunny~

Yes, yes I’m on it.

Eventually, Sun finishes the rest of their closing routine. They stand back to take a good look at the entire daycare—now spotless and freshly clean. The S.T.A.F.F. bots approach them with cleaning supplies, pointing at their form.

“Right, put that down. I can clean myself.” 

The bots nod in unison and drop the supplies, gathering at the exit and exiting the daycare as one group. Sun watches them go wordlessly, used to the scary synchronisation. They were pretty sure those bots shared a hivemind of sorts.

Sun picks up a clean rag and slowly wipes the dust, dirt, and other stains off their body from the bottom up. They finish quickly, cleaning was just another routine to them.

Done! Come on out, Moony. It’s your turn. Return the cleaning supplies too.

Moon doesn’t even grace their statement with a response, activating their switch protocol to swap their positions. Usually, they would switch automatically according to the lighting of the room—but they could also switch voluntarily, which is what they’re doing right now. Sun feels their head-spikes retract and their clothes inverting—their mind gets pushed to the backseat as Moon takes the reins.

Moon stretches his arms as his hat pops up, settling snugly on top of his head. The bells on their outfit jingle as he does so. Without further ado, he starts wiping himself just as Sun did earlier. The animatronic finishes even quicker than his counterpart.

He flings the rag to a bucket below and picks up the leftover cleaning supplies, jumping up high and swinging to the other side of the daycare—where the staff room is. Moon swings across the room with the harnesses hidden on the daycare’s roof, each move precise and almost graceful.

He lands in front of the staff room door easily, bowing his head slightly to an unseen audience before entering the room to drop off the supplies.

Inside there’s another S.T.A.F.F. bot, cleaning plates and other utilities that have been used during the day. He nods at it in greeting and gives the bot his things. It takes the used cleaning supplies and Moon goes back out into the daycare.

There are no children to take care of tonight—the company wants to do some upgrades to the facility and maintenance for the animatronics. That means his patrol across the Plex would start way earlier.

Do you think Vanessa’s here already?

It’s about ten, so she should be.

Moon hums to himself, might as well get this over with. He swings his way towards the door. As he’s about to drop down and walk out of the daycare, he notices that the doors are slightly ajar.

Moony. Whatever you’re thinking, no.

Moon cackles.

Don’t you dare. I’m not afraid to tattle on you on maintenance later.

We both know you won’t.

He swings back, gathering momentum. 

No—

Moon launches himself forward and out the door. The wooden doors slam open with a loud thud. He rolls forward as he hits the ground, standing right back up afterwards in mere seconds.

“Now that was fun!” He laughs to himself in Sun’s voice.

MOON.

Love ya, Sunny! 

Moon giggles and turns back to close the doors. He could see nearby S.T.A.F.F. bots looking at him in disapproval. Sucks to be them. After closing the doors, he saunters away—intent on finishing his first round of hourly patrol through the Pizzaplex.

He passes through the atrium, waving at the band members cleaning up in their rooms. They wave back absently, focused on their own closing routines. He walks through the entire arcade, going through each section. Moon breezes through every single part of the Plex, even Parts & Service—all the while he bickers idly with his brother.

Once the initial first patrol is done, he walks to the daycare—passing the golden statue of him and his brother.

Then—

Moon stops.

I told you it’s not like that, I-Moony?

He hears his brother’s voice, the concern evident—but somehow, it’s distant. As if he’s hearing it through another room. Moon has a bad, bad feeling about this. 

Moon. Listen.

A voice drowns out his brother’s concerns. Moon clutches his head as the voice gets impossibly loud—louder than Sun would ever talk in their little shared telepathy-space. Absently, he hears his brother start yelling at him.

Find- 

Kill.

Moon gasps, he pushes back against the voice—centering his thoughts on Sun and how amusing it is to annoy his brother and—his brother. 

Sun-sun, tak-ke control. Don’t-turn the lights off. D-don’t- something- wrong- wrong wrong wrong- DON’T TURN THE LIGHTS OFF-

He screams as loud as he’s ever dared to to his brother, hoping the other would get the message. Whatever it is, whatever this was—it’s taking over. Moon feels as if he’s holding onto a ledge, a deep fall below him with nowhere else to grapple to.

Above is an impostor, his own face stares back at him—with red eyes and a terrifying laughter that wasn’t his voice nor Sun’s. The creature’s foot was on his hand—the sole thing that was keeping him from falling into the dark depths.

DON’T TURN THE LIGHTS OFF.

He shoves his brother out to the front seat and falls.

Chapter Text

DON'T TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.

The sentence—no, the order, echoes in Sun's head as they notice the familiar motions of a switch happening. Moon backs down, fading into the back of their mind.

Not-Moon echoes the order.

DO -N'T TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.

Then suddenly, Sun is pushed out and they're shaking and stumbling on their feet. Their sun-beams-spikes rotate in distress. The lights flicker and they take a sharp inhale—not usually something they need to do, just there so they'll seem more alive to the humans.

But it helps, somewhat. Sun takes deep faux breaths and runs to the daycare, where they know the lights would always be on unless they turn it off themselves.

Moony? Moon! answer me please.

TU-RN N- NO OFF- LIGHTS-

The voice screeches like metal dragged on a rough surface. It glitches and distorts and Sun feels unfamiliar hysteria building in their mind.

They reach the daycare and enter, immediately shutting the door behind them afterwards. Sun slumps back against the door and clutches their head in a vain effort to drown out the horrible noises.

"Shut up shut up shut up-" Their metal fingers clench on their sun beams, enough to scratch the painted plastic. A horrible pit grows within their systems, branching out and messing with their predetermined protocols.

Sun glances around the room through their hands and spots a stack of paint cans. And another stack of cans, messed up on the floor. There's a pile of unshelved books next to the shelf and unsorted plates in the dining area. Some dolls and figurines and toys are littered everywhere and the daycare is suddenly so very messy.

Clean up. Clean up.

But that can't be right, they've cleaned the place with the S.T.A.F.F. bots all of those 'messes' are supposed to be there some of the kids don't like it when their usual toys changed positions—

Sun fails to suppress an involuntary shiver. The more they stare at the 'mess', the more it looks like a mess and the more they want to desperately clean it up.

Moon's presence would be very appreciated right now. He'd say something about how dumb it is to want everything to be neat and clean when they work with kids and it'll all go away. He's always been the more rational.

But Moon isn't here and in his place are the stupid glitchy voices issuing broken orders and messing with his systems.

"MOON! SUN!" 

Sun scampers away from the door as the knocking - banging - gets louder. They stutter and fall over, mind panicked and systems haywire.

"Y-y-yes?" They answer meekly. The banging gets louder, loud enough to drown out the new voices in their head. Or the voices simply got quieter. Whichever it is, Sun is grateful. 

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Sun finds themselves yelling at the door. They stagger back and puts a hand on their mouth—they hadn't meant to yell that loudly. The distorted voice laughs, a poor imitation of Moon’s laughs whenever they do something he considers ‘stupid’.

Not to mention, even their own voice sounds unfamiliar. It’s raspier, scratchier like a broken old record—what is wrong with them?

"It's Vanessa, open the door!" Vanessa says, the banging slowly reduces itself to knocks.

Vanessa. The head security officer—she could help. She could help!—they could find out what's wrong together and schedule maintenance tomorrow and it'll all be fine. Not-Moon laughs harder, as if they just told a very funny joke. 

Sun ignores it and rushes forward, nearly tripping over themselves in their haste to open the door. They peek their head out and is greeted with a familiar blond woman in the standard security uniform, holding a flashlight.

Vanessa stiffens mildly when she sees them. Sun doesn't mind it—she's always been rather iffy around animatronics, some other humans are the same.

"I need Moon. There's an emergency, a kid is loose backstage and the Plex is shutting down in fifteen minutes. I've ordered a lockdown and the band has been informed. With Moon helping, we'll be able to find the kid faster."

Sun stills at the mention of their brother. They rub the back of their head, an unsettlingly human action judging from Vanessa's odd expression—has she always had glowing eyes? Oddly enough, not-Moon goes silent. 

They shake their head frantically, "Nonono, the lights must stay on." 

"Sure, you can still switch to Moon with the lights on right?" Vanessa raises a brow. Sun feels uncomfortable under her stare despite technically being taller, so they slouch down further. 

YES YES YES YES-

Sun has no idea what’s wrong or what is going on with their system, but they know that they cannot let ‘Moon’ out, ever. It’s a bit suspicious of the security guard to ask for their brother—considering she was one of the ones that were fully on board with scrapping him just a few weeks ago after the incident with Jake.

Now that makes it hard to tell her what’s wrong—she could have Moon scrapped entirely if she knows. Better to avoid that, then.

"Moon is.. busy. He's not feeling very well—he doesn't like swinging around the Plex anymore too. AND we've patrolled tonight, no kid around. Just check the more discrete places outside of our patrol route and you should find him. Is that all? That's all, goodbye." Sun slips back in the daycare and shuts the door—but a hand slips through at the last second and they still automatically, unwilling to hurt a human. Not-Moon is still silent. 

Vanessa huffs and forces the door open, "Be serious—"

"You don't understand! The lights—I mean, can't-can't you just stop the system from locking down? I'm sure the kid wants to go home as much as you want to find him." 

"I—I can't do that." She says. She sounds unsure of herself.

"Why?"

"On second thought, you're right—I'll go check the places excluded from your usual route." Vanessa slips her hand out from the door and walks away very quickly. She’s gone before Sun could mutter up a response.

That was strange, if not a bit concerning—but Sun couldn’t find it in themselves to complain. What matters is Vanessa is gone and there’s another deranged laugh at the back of their mind—not-Moon’s still there, right.

Sun shuts the door and growls, “Get. Out. Of. My. Head. You’re not my brother.” 

They stomp through the daycare. Not-Moon tsks and does—something. After that it’s as if a switch has been flicked in their mechanical brain—the urge to clean up the ‘messes’ around the daycare is even stronger now. So strong in fact, that every ‘mess’ around sends them to overdrive and they need to clean up, now.

“No, no, no, no! What a mess! Oh, which was the bottom? Where is the top? Clean up! Clean up!” And so it goes that they rush through the entire daycare to ‘clean up the messes’.

Not-Moon laughs at them all the way through. If Sun’s mind is clear enough, they would’ve bite back over whatever he did to them that messes up their system so badly. Unfortunately, the animatronic could only focus on their two orders and nothing else; keep the lights on and clean as if their life depends on it. 

A good twenty minutes or so later, Sun is done with cleaning. They retreat to their personal room high above, only accessible through the balcony overlooking the daycare’s main play area and a staff door. 

In here they have cameras, designed to notify them of any children entering through the slide that leads to the ballpit. They must’ve had the worst timing because just as they glance over to look at the cameras, a brown haired child stands in front of the slide. 

Before they could process the kid’s presence, Not-Moon makes a sound of delight and activates another protocol of theirs—the standard one they use to greet new arrivals. Sun tries their best to fight back but their programming takes over and they walk out the balcony. 

The child slides down and into the ball pit. Just as he looks up towards the balcony, Sun spins around in place—kicking one leg out and extending both of their arms in the air.

“Hooo hooo hooo!”

They raise both arms up and dive down into the ball pit. The little boy in the blue shirt scrambles back. Sun charges at him, putting their hands below the kid’s armpits and picking him up like humans would do to a cat. Their programming state that they must welcome the child, but it never said how—so not-Moon’s glitchy alterations made for a very not-great welcoming message.

It’s not to say that Sun themselves don’t get a say in what they said—they’re just too panicked to control their words. The pre-programmed statements spill out of their voice box quickly,

“Hellooooo! New friend! You’re sure up late! Are we having a slumber party? Where are all your friends?” 

They hear themselves screech out in a rather unhinged, high tone—not suitable nor comforting at all to a small scared child locked inside a giant pizzeria establishment. The poor boy freezes, most likely in terror or surprise. 

Sun continues their monologue,

“We can finger paint, tell stories, drink Fizzy Faz until our heads ex-PLODE and then stay up all night! There is only one rule; keep the lights on. ON. On...”

The animatronic blanches internally—is that exploding part an actual pre-programmed statement or something not-Moon messed with? Judging from the glitchy snickers, it’s the latter. Thank someone. Sun swings their arms around in a clown-like motion—it’s their usual ‘idle animation’, as someone would put it. They don’t usually regress to that unless they’ve been idle for too long—oh, that’s probably why. 

Sun breaks out of their preprogramming, freezing in place. The kid flinches, raising up both hands—now isn’t that a sign of something else that’s very concerning.

“Hi-sorry, sorry! I—there’s something wrong with my system.” They hunch over, burying their face in their hands.

The kid doesn’t respond, he runs to another part of the play area—towards the security desk. Sun instinctively gives chase and picks him right up, bringing him to the center of the daycare.

“Hey, buddy—don’t run off. Don’t you know there are a bunch of people looking for you?” 

KILL- KILL KILL KILL-

Sun jerks back and lets themselves fall to their idle animation—at least with that they won’t do anything to harm the kid. 

“I know, why did you think I ran over here? Now let me go!” He kicks at them and squirms within their grasp, a valiant effort to escape.

“O-okay look, kid. There’s—something wrong. With me. You seem like a tough cookie so I have a deal for you.” It’s probably a bad idea to trust a kid with this stuff, but Vanessa with her odd demeanour is out the window and none of the band would be able to help when they’re all stuck in their rooms.

The kid stops, scrutinising him with his big brown eyes. He doesn’t continue kicking them. Sun takes that as a notion to continue. 

“You can spend however long you like here, I have glitter glue and stuff you can play with—or you can just sleep away in my room and I’ll wake you up when it’s six. I’ll make sure nobody finds you here. But, you have to do me a favour—it’s an easy one don’t worry!”

“..I’m listening.” He says. 

“Help me get to Parts & Service and recalibrate my systems there. This may sound very weird but I’ve lost my brother and there’s an evil voice inside my head in his pla-place—"

Their voice distorts and they involuntarily take a swing at the kid. Said kid gasps and runs, knocking over a bunch of cans they had sorted previously. At that, Sun rushes over to the cans and screeches akin to a broken record,

“No, no, no, no! What a mess! Oh, which was the bottom? Where is the top? Clean up! Clean up!” 

The lost kid gets to the security desk. Sun turns to him in alarm and speeds over—running faster than they’ve ever ran before. Just as they get to the counter, the boy swipes a security badge right out of its freddy shaped container. The room turns dark. Sun feels cold dread settle in their non-existent gut. 

“No—no! Why would you do that? Lights on! Lights on! I warned you- I WARNED YOU—” Sun screams at the kid in their raspy, glitchy voice. They fall over the counter, headspikes twisting in as not-Moon shoves them off the front seat. 

Not-Moon jumps the kid and stops in his tracks, arms swung forward and red eyes blaring at the terrified child. Sun forces him to stay put.

“B-buddy- turn on—the generators. There’s th-three- hidden in the-play area. Go. I- can’t hold him back for long. QUICKLY—” 

The boy runs away, fading into the distance with a flashlight in hand. Unfortunately, Moon has night vision so the thing taking over him probably do too. Sun can only hope that the kid turns on those generators fast.

—

Gregory pants as he runs as fast as he can to find the generators. Freddy speaks, “Gregory. I do not know what you did, but the lights are out in the Daycare! You need to find the—”

“Generators in the play area thingies, yeah I know. Sun told me. He’s—I think he’s like you, Freddy. But not really because he’s all glitchy and wrong.. He told me to take him to Parts & Service—”

“Naughty boy. Naughty boy. It’s past your bedtime~” A guttural sound, rough and distorted—similar to Sun’s distorted voice, sings at him. Gregory shudders and runs quicker through the play structures, following the cables that run through them.

“Who is that?” Freddy asks, the concern obvious in his tone.

“Moon.. he’s-he’s not like you or Sun. He’s trying to get me too—"

The aforementioned animatronic swings down, swiping a hand at him. Gregory ducks into a slide, quickly sliding down. He runs quickly and tramples over another pile of cans in his haste.

“Rrrrgh… Clean up! Clean up!” Moon growls and stops to stack the cans back the way they were.

Gregory notes that down as he runs to find the generator.

“...I have an idea. We might just get another friend on our side.” Freddy says.

“What is it? Tell me quickly, I don’t like Moon. He’s creepy.” 

Moon laughs, a horrible, rough, throat curdling sound. Gregory isn’t looking back but he knows the animatronic is right on his tail. He spots another stack of cans and runs over them, kicking some to the other side of the room—anything to buy more time.

He climbs up the jungle gym, following a cable that leads up. 

“When Sun is back, tell them to enter safe mode. That is what I did earlier, when I woke up in my room and met you. With any luck, it should return their functions to them. Then we can recalibrate Moon at Parts & Service.” He instructs.

“I must go now, I sense Vanessa nearby. I’ll contact you soon. Stay safe, superstar.” 

Freddy’s voice fades and Gregory is alone once again. He takes a deep breath and lands inside the top floor of the jungle gym. Luckily, the generator is right there. Gregory pulls down the switch. 

“One down, two to go—”

“Bad children must be punished.” Moon says sinisterly. 

Gregory looks up and Moon is right on his face - he screams and scrambles away, running zig zags through the tunnels to lose them. He slides down another slide and goes to knock off as many piles of cans as he could. 

Sadly, the speed of a ten year old could never beat a sentient acrobatic robot and Moon is right back on his tail again. 

Gregory takes lefts and rights until he spots another generator at the corner, he quickly turns it on and turns back to run and get the last generator—until metal fingers clasp at his wrist. He frantically tugs at the metal hand, kicking and screaming at Moon to let go.

Moon grips his shoulders tightly, forcing him to stare into the animatronic’s glowing red eyes. The smile on his face that’s supposed to be friendly widens to creepy levels.

“LET GO OF ME—” He yells and kicks with all his might.

Moon lets go and funnily enough, slaps himself with the hand that had been on Gregory’s wrist. Gregory takes the opportunity to run for his life, quite literally in this case. He knocks over a few more neat piles of things as he goes. 

The small child takes deep breaths and hides behind a slide. His brown eyes dart around the play area, hoping to find the last generator—somewhere, anywhere. 

“There!” He shouts unintentionally and runs for the generator. 

Moon hears him and follows suit.

Then it’s a race against time on who’d get to the generator first—him or Moon. Gregory forces his already sore legs to run faster, it’s all or nothing. In his path lie a small toy brick, a part of the piles he had messed up earlier. 

It says something about his luck that Gregory steps on the brick and slips, giving Moon the extra advantage he needs to reach the generator first.

He freezes in place, terrified. His flashlight got thrown somewhere else after he fell and now he’s at the mercy of this likely-possessed animatronic who’s out for his hide. Gregory’s eyes widen in fear as Moon’s chuckles get louder, the ringing of the bells on his outfit and the creaks of his mechanical joints highlighting the scary factor.

“Game over, Gregory.” 

—

Sun feels his metaphorical heart drop to his chest as the poor boy trips right on the way to the last generator. Not-Moon laughs, loudly—he’s almost wheezing. The other voices, which they recognize now as simple reverbs of the main voice, echo the sentiment, laughing and wheezing unsettlingly. They don’t find this funny, what’s funny is how they managed to slap not-Moon earlier.

This, though—slowly walking forward towards a defenceless, terrified child like some demented monster taken straight out of a horror story? Not funny at all.

Sun growls at the intruder. All their efforts to thwart him and switch back haven't been working—they can only force a switch if their lighting is active—as in the lights are on. When it’s off, it’s Moon’s time. Only with his explicit consent can they switch back. 

The intruder isn’t Moon, but it has control over him and there’s one last thing Sun hasn’t tried yet. They didn’t consider it, because it’ll effectively shut Moon down and they’re-they’re scared that he’ll be gone forever. That last option is implemented just a few days after the incident, it’s a way for Sun to forcefully shut down Moon in case he goes ‘rogue’.

Though, Sun hasn’t heard from Moon since the glitch appeared. They don’t want to assume the worst, but they know more than anyone that Moon would want them to do it. The incident with Jake practically traumatised their brother—to the point he stopped scaring people as much and stopped swinging and crawling all over the place.

He wouldn’t want them to let him—even though it isn’t him—hurt the kid, Gregory.

So Sun takes a deep metaphorical breath and hopes with all their heart that this won’t kill their brother—or they’d happily turn themselves over to switch with another endo. If Moon is leaving, so are they.

Sun activates the protocol and forcefully shuts Moon down.

Not-Moon doesn’t even get to say anything—it just stops and vanishes. Their mind feels lonely alone—too silent. They force themselves to shelf the thought for later, there are better things to worry about.

They absently feel their body go through the motions of a switch, then they blink back and see Gregory. It’s still dark, though and Sun doesn’t have night vision—so it’s just plain darkness between both of them.

“G-gregory?” Sun tries, making their voice sound as harmless and soft as possible—a far cry from not Moon’s scratchy guttural voice.

The poor kid sniffles.

Sun panics—very intensely, they might add. Looks like the alterations not-Moon did on their personality chip stayed. They shake their head frantically and rush over to the last generator blindly. The animatronic hit the generator with a loud bang, 

“Ow—” thankfully their hand successfully grasps the lever and pulls it down.

The room erupts into bright lights as all of the lamps in the daycare turn on simultaneously. Gregory hisses at the sudden brightness that assaults his eyes. Sun groans and slumps against the body of the generator.

“Good job, buddy. Real sorry about Moon. I swear he’s not usually so.. Murderous. He’s just a grump.” They sigh and get up, stalking slowly to Gregory.

“You okay there?” 

Right at that moment, Freddy bursts into the room with loud stomps. Surprised, Sun muffles a swear and falls over, hitting a pile of cans. Some of the cans fly up and drop back down, landing right on their head in a very comical way. Sun winces, looking up—and spotting another flying can. They open their mouth and scream,

“AAAAH-” That last can comes their way and Sun.. kicks it like one would a football.

“Gregory I am he—” It hits Freddy in the face, the contents—blue paint—splattering across his face. The bear freezes, stunned. The can falls down on his feet with a clang, spilling more blue paint across the floor. 

Gregory watches all this happen with a dumbstruck look on his face. 

Sun and Freddy stare at each other—one laying against a pile of cans and the other with a can on his foot and a freshly blue face.

Gregory bursts out laughing.

“You- you guys-! The timing of that—oH- HAHAHAHA THAT’S HILARIOUS-” He clutches his stomach, doubling over in laughter.

Sun registers Freddy’s blue-painted face and joins Gregory in a round of laughter.

“While I am glad that you two are fine, please tell me that this paint is not permanent.” Freddy sighs, though it’s more fond than anything.

“I am so sorry- hEHEhe-n-no it’s not permanent-” Sun says through giggles.

“I’ll go get myself some rags.” Freddy shakes his head.

Sun exhales and stops laughing, “I’ll show you where they are-” they get up—

Their optics settle on the mess of cans and the telltale urge to clean it up immediately returns with vengeance—minus the sinister laughter and overbearing presence of not-Moon, that is. 

“...on second thought, hold on.” They stand up and begin stacking the cans. Sun takes the blue can that’s spilled and rights it up. 

Gregory sits up and watches them stack the cans, seems like he’s only gotten to see them do it now. Couldn’t exactly stop and watch with Moon on his tail. 

“Is that something you always do? The clean up thing?” He asks.

“As far as I am aware of, Sun cleans the daycare everyday after closing.” Freddy chips in.

“I do clean up after closing. But.. this whole, excessive compulsive cleaning thing—it’s not in my programming. I don’t know who but someone messed with mine and Moon’s system. I got the better deal out of it cause I still retain my conscience and stuff. I just ended up a little more intense, you could say.” Sun says sheepishly, rubbing the back of their head.

“That.. explains a lot, actually.”

“That explains a lot!” 

Freddy and Gregory say at the same time. Their eyes meet in surprise.

“Oh—wait a minute.” Gregory glares at them, abruptly realising something.

“How did you stop Moon? I thought you can’t switch back unless the lights are on.” He points at them accusingly.

Sun raises both hands in a gesture of surrender, bucket of blue paint still slung over one arm. 

“I activated a safety protocol that forces Moon to shut down. It got implemented after an incident a few weeks back, which I think made the newspaper.”

Gregory glances at Freddy.

“I can confirm that. He is not lying.”

“Which incident though?”

“The one with a boy named Jake and a broken arm. Moon accidentally dropped him after he refused to sleep and struggled against his grip while they’re both high up. He fell and broke his arm.” Sun explains.

Gregory nods, he seems satisfied with that answer. 

"Anyway, we should get Freddy that rag-" Sun starts—before he is interrupted rudely, once more.

YOU THINK YOU CAN GET RID OF M-M-ME THAT EA-EASILY?

OH COME ON—

“....it’s back. IT’S BACK. Freddy, take Gregory and get out. Get out. As far as you can.” Sun panics, dropping the bucket they’re holding. More paint spills on the floor—oh that will be unpleasant to clean. Gregory jumps back and runs behind Freddy, hugging the bear’s leg.

“Calm down, Sun. Activate safe mode, it’ll get rid of the errors and… block that thing out.” 

Safe mode. Right, why didn’t they think of that—that’s such an obvious solution—they think hysterically. Sun shuts their systems down, rebooting to safe mode. The voice screams louder as it’s pushed back, an invisible barrier forming in their mental faculties. 

Sun blinks their optics and the world refocuses, tinting green-blue to indicate the activation of safe mode before fading entirely. 

They exhale.

“Thank you.” They face the mascot of the Pizzaplex, a sincerely grateful expression on their features and in the tone of their voice. 

Gregory shudders, “That almost went very bad. I thought you were gonna charge at me again like Monty did.”

“...excuse me, did you say Monty?”

Freddy sweatdrops, “I-that is… one thing we haven’t gotten to yet.” 

“I don’t like what ‘that’ implies, Freddy.”

“I don’t like it either. Everyone in this place except Freddy and.. now I guess you, are out to get me!” Gregory mutters.

“WHAT?”

“Now why don’t we all calm down and wash out this paint first—"

“Y-you can’t just imply that everyone else has also malfunctioned and sAY THAT-” Sun screeches in disbelief.

Chapter Text

In the kitchen area of the daycare stands a bear, a daycare attendant, and a child. Sun is re-washing the dishes because even though they're pretty sure those plates are as clean as can be, their programming says no, they must clean it until it's as clean as freshly new plates. Sun very much prefers stacking cans to this. They could practically hear Moon complaining in their ear.

Thankfully, Freddy seems to have some sympathy for them and their newfound obsessive compulsive cleaning disorder because he's helping and has roped Gregory into helping too.

The kid had complained, but then he realized that they're not going anywhere yet without Sun, so he obliged. 

Sun glances at the kid mid-scrubbing plates. Gregory is sat on Freddy's shoulders, sorting the plates back on high shelves. He's squinting with one tongue sticking out, oddly focused for someone who complained so much about the task.

Freddy is drying the plates with a clean rag, his face finally not-blue. There's a visible blue tint on his nose that they couldn't quite scrub off through—for some reason the bear gets exceedingly embarrassed when they scrub that part.

Gregory thinks it was funny—which Sun agrees with wholeheartedly. They had no doubt Moon'd find it funny too. Since then the kid has decided that booping the bear's nose is the greatest thing ever. It even makes a cute squeaky sound. But sadly the nose booping session had to be stopped for Freddy's sake.

"Say buddy, how'dcha end up here anyway? Me and the actual Moony patrolled a few hours ago, we didn't see anyone... unless you hid in the band's rooms or something." They start casually as they set another plate aside.

Gregory frowns, ".....do I have to tell you?"

He's... really distrustful, isn't he? 

.

"You don't have to! I'm just curious." 

"...I hid in Freddy's chest compartment." 

"....." Sun snaps their neck towards the bear.

Freddy would sweat if he could, but unfortunately animatronics don't do that—so he meets Sun's menacing gaze instead. 

Can you BELIEVE THIS GUY- THAT IS INSANELY DANGEROUS—

..

"...I was offline at the time."

"......" That stare changes its target to the child, though less menacing this time.

"We're having a talk about that. Out of all the hiding places you could choose here, you hid in Freddy's chest compartment when he is offline—" Sun huffs.

"What's wrong with that? It's not that bad, I fit just fine in there—" Gregory bristles, hugging Freddy's head.

"Gregory, Freddy had just finished a concert. He could've had a lot of little party tricks and other things stuffed in a bunch of hidden compartments in there. If even one of them slips off or malfunctions or he tries to get them while you are inside after he wakes up, you would be toast aND HE WOULD BE NONE THE WISER—" 

Gregory winces at their volume. Sun backtracks, hand covering their mouth. They really should stop talking.

Sh-shrimp—I messed up. Gregory here's giving me some very unpleasant signs..

…

"O-okay, okay I'm sorry! I won't do it again, just- don't yell.. please." He doesn't look away from Sun, but he hides his face behind Freddy.

If Sun has a heart, they're sure it broke just a little bit hearing that.

"I—I'm so sorry." Sun stutters.

"...what for?" Gregory sounds genuinely confused.

"Yelling. I—shouldn't have done that. I got carried away—"

"You were concerned for me, it's fine. It's not like you were angry at me." He reasons. The kid sounds a little unsure at the 'angry' part.

He's.. I should tread carefully, shouldn't I?

….

"Still, yelling is bad. You have to know that. I'll try my best not to do it again." Sun hands Freddy the last plate and dries their hands.

Gregory gives them a strange look, "..okay, thanks.. I guess."

"I was not aware that that is something that could happen if someone hides in my chest compartment." Freddy interjects, he sounds spooked and understandably freaked out. 

"But it.. it makes sense. Gregory, you are not hiding there anymore unless it's an emergency. We cannot risk your safety." Freddy states as he takes the last plate and pass it to Gregory.

"Yeah, I won't! It's not like I wanna get crushed to death." Gregory takes the plate and slowly stands up on Freddy's shoulders, stacking it on top of the rest inside the top cabinet.

While he does that, Sun strolls to the water dispenser—a plastic glass in one hand. They return with a glass of fresh, warm water.

"Good, good. Oh by the way, here take some water. You must be thirsty after all that running." Sun straightens up their posture and suddenly, they're almost a head taller than Freddy.

Freddy gapes, taken aback. Gregory gives them another weird look but grabs the glass and drinks the water in one go.

"Thanks." He returns the glass to Sun.

"You're welcome. Feel free to take more if you're still thirsty." Sun beams at him, quite literally—their sun-beams are flickering with light.

They're starting to think that the expression on Gregory's face is an impressed one—or just plain fascination. He's been staring at them for a while.

"...I can do that? You don't mind?" He asks rather distractedly.

"Of course not! Take as much as you need, you're a guest here."

"I'm not a registered guest." Gregory mutters.

Sun doesn't think Gregory meant for them to hear that, but they're not one to let a child believe he's below basic human needs just because he isn't a registered guest. So they insist,

"Still a guest." 

Gregory clings to Freddy a little closer. The bear pats his ankle.

"..thank you." He says in an uncharacteristically small voice.

What has he been through?

…..

"Anytime, buddy. D'you want some food along with it too? When's the last time you ate?"

Gregory thinks about it for a concerningly long time before answering, "Uh… I guess.. this afternoon?"

"Fazbear, did you not think to give him some food?" Sun levels a judgemental stare at their fellow animatronic—which looks a tad more intimidating now that they're taller than him.

"I am sorry, the thought never crossed my mind—I had assumed he had eaten already." Freddy stutters. Poor bear looks ashamed and guilty.

Haha, Freddy's so soft huh.. I should stop being so hard on him.

……

"He-hey! Don't blame Freddy! It's not like he had any food in his room. And we couldn't exactly go to the kitchen when everyone's looking for me." Gregory immediately defends.

"True. But my point stands. We are putting some food in you, buddy. Any preferences? We have every kind of junk food you could ever think of, a lot of sodas, fruit juice, milkshake, some boring salad and veggies—exclusive to the daycare, and more! If none of that is to your taste, I can whip something up for you personally." Sun lists off, tone upbeat. They're always happy to take care of someone.

"I would be happy to assist as well! I have some cooking experience from when I helped Chica experiment in the kitchen." 

"I-um—" Gregory stutters, looking back and forth between both animatronics. Bear and sun wait for his reply patiently.

"....I guess.. a burger would be fine."

Approximately fifteen minutes later, the three of them sit on a table right outside the daycare's play area. Gregory is munching away on his burger, a soda next to him.

While the boy eats, the two animatronics talk.

"Did Vanessa seem..off.. to you?" Freddy starts, a frown on his face.

"She's.. always been.. um, you could say..creeped out? By us, I mean—me and Moon. So we take care to not stray too close to her, which means I don't know her very well. But she did ask me about Moon earlier, after the errors started popping up. It's.. it put me off, because she's always kind of disliked him. Especially after the incident."

I don't like the way she looks at you, even if we're just robots to them.

…….

"I see. I feel that she is a lot more.. angry. I was caught by her earlier and she threatened me with decommissioning. Which is strange, because I remember that she granted me permission to leave my room to help look for Gregory."

"Everyone's a lot more angry." Gregory chimes in after swallowing a bite of his burger.

Sun frowns. The other animatronics' behavior is understandable if not-Moon or a similar entity messed with their personality chips, but the security guard is a human. How strange.

"I agree. We should take care to avoid aggravating them further." Freddy agrees.

"Got it. What's our plan again?" Gregory asks. He's almost finished with his meal.

"We go to Parts & Service to recalibrate Sun and Moon." 

"Moon? ..I don't like that guy." 

I can't disagree more. 

……..

"The actual Moon is not that bad Gregory, do not worry! He is quite nice. Did you know he used to prank the rest of the band and I? It's a common thing to see him starting a food fight, throwing a cake, planting water buckets on top of doors, and such." Freddy sighs in the tone of someone who's been the subject of those pranks. Despite that, it's obvious he's fond of it to an extent.

"...I'm sorry about the cake." Sun winces at the reminder of that one birthday party where Moon was supposed to make a surprise appearance. He passed it off as an accident but Sun knows very well that he was not supposed to come out from the table, but the gift box literally a few meters next to it.

At least the birthday kid found it the funniest thing ever and for once in their career, Moon wasn't the one responsible for starting a food fight. That was such a plot twist, though—oh.

They planned that.

The high five between their brother and the kid at the end of the party suddenly gained a whole new context.

... nevermind what I said, YOU LITTLE SHRIMP—

……...

"It's alright. What matters is we had fun and the party turned out a blast!"

"Pranks?" Gregory tilts his head at both of them curiously. He has a gleam in his eyes that doesn't assure Sun at all.

"Yes. Moon had an unfortunate fondness for pranks. Not to worry though! They were harmless—and quite humorous most of the time. Though it is rare to see him out and about these days.." Freddy muses.

"..is it because of the accident with the Jake guy?" Gregory predicts.

"I suppose so. He has become a lot more.. strict, you could say. I can't say I do not miss his pranks."

"You're telling me.." Sun mutters.

"Apologies, Sun."

"No, no need to apologize for that! I do miss Moon's shenanigans too. The incident really hit him hard—" Sun inhales.

"….boy, he's going to freak when he comes back. Yeah no need to worry about him hurting you, buddy. He'd avoid you as if you're the plague himself."

Please don't ignore me when you come back.

……….

"What if the other one comes back instead? What'll you do then?"

That's a possibility Sun has considered, but they're willing to risk it—if only so that their head isn't so silent. So they respond, without hesitation,

"I'll shut myself down and bring him with me!" 

So you better come back.

…………

"Okay, but you better not forget to do it." Gregory warns. He doesn't sound so threatening with his prepubescent childish voice.

"I won't, pinky promise!" Sun reflexively offers a pinky to him.

Gregory startles. 

"I- uh, yeah! Pinky promise." He wraps his pinky around Sun's.

Freddy beams at both of them and wraps his own finger around their intertwined ones. He doesn't have a pinky, but it somehow works, "Pinky promise!" 

Sun giggles at the bear's antics. 

"Right, right—back on topic, how are we going to get to Parts & Service?" Gregory pulls away his pinky, breaking the knot of fingers.

"There's an entryway on the main stage. The regular way is highly monitored and does not allow animatronics.. except Moon. But we cannot risk it, alerting too many S.T.A.F.F. bots will bring the others to our location."

"So we're going to the main stage, got it. ...where's the main stage again?"

Sun and Freddy would leave Gregory somewhere safe, but with lockdown initiated the safest place would be with both of them—and so, they're going together. 

"I have marked the location on your Fazwatch. It is not too far from here." 

"I don't like to asking this question but Gregory, will you be walking on your own or hiding in Freddy?"

"I'll walk. Freddy's on low power and um, if it runs out then I'm toast. That almost happened to us earlier." Gregory explains. 

Sun looks horrified.

"It's fine, I didn't die. With the new flashlight, I can manage getting around on my own. Besides, it'll be less suspicious."

"I'll.. trust you on that. I'll distract anything that comes too close to you."

"And I will make sure to keep an eye out for Vanessa and the others!" 

—

It feels like he's in one of those spy movies with all of this rolling and hiding in unconventional places. Gregory can't say he minds very much. The threat to his life are just three; Chica, Roxy and Monty. The rest are mere hindrances that happen to be very loud and kind of annoying, he'd be getting heart attacks if he isn't so young.

Freddy and Sun are a lot of help with sneaking around, too. They suck at being subtle and actually sneaking around, but because of that everyone else's attention is on their antics and not him. 

There’s also the occasional ‘clean up’ mode Sun’s dragged back into every time there’s some form of a mess nearby. Freddy always helps them and it’s done pretty quickly, so Gregory doesn’t worry too much about that.

He’s having a pretty decent time. As decent as it can be with him sneaking around a giant mall while evading a bunch of may-be murderous robots.

Now he's hiding behind an arcade machine, just a ten steps or more to the main stage. Sun and Freddy are arguing loudly in front of the main stage. The bells on Sun's wrists ring loudly as they make over exaggerated movements. The occasional S.T.A.F.F. bot shine its flashlight on them, fooled by the noise. Freddy stands next to Sun, arms crossed.

And then Monty comes in, foot stomping and growling.

"I refuse to believe that." Freddy says with finality.

"I swear to you, it's true. I've seen mothers do it."

"You are.. what do the teens say, 'gaslighting' me and I do not like it."

Gregory covers his mouth with a hand, muffling a snort. While their argument is funny, what's not funny is Monty stomping over their way. He hopes the gator won't do anything to Freddy or Sun.

"Do you even know what gaslighting is?"

"No. Do you?"

"Nope. What I do know is that milk doesn't always come from cows."

"You lie—"

"What are you two doing?" He interrupts gruffly.

"Oh Monty, helloooo!" Sun greets cheerfully.

"Monty, it is good to see you. Do not mind us, we are.. discussing the origins of bottled milk for children."

Monty glares at both of them.

"Ya’kno we got better things to do than talk about stupid stuff right? There's a kid loose somewhere in this place and both of you are here—talkin’ ‘bout milk! Aren'tcha ashamed of yourselves? And you. Where's Moon? We'll find the kid faster with him." 

Gregory flinches at the angry yelling. He forces himself to stay still and keep an ear out. It's just Monty and he doesn't know he's here. It'll be fine.

"Moon's out of commission. Uh.. the ..kid, sneaked to the daycare and kinda caught us off guard? He disabled Moon and ran out. I was stuck there because the lights were off and I couldn't switch back.. untilll Freddy found me. Right, Freddy?"

"Yes, he's telling the truth." 

"Tch, you're both just as useless as Chica and Roxy. Am I the only one who gets things done around here?"

"Calm down, Monty. We'll stop and look for him. Have you seen him anywhere?" Freddy gently asks.

"If I have then I wouldn't be here, Fazbear." Monty snaps at him.

"Someone's grumpy tonight." Sun pokes at Monty.

The gator swipes his sharp claws at them. Sun jumps back just in time to dodge.

"Don't. Touch. Me. Sunshine."

"Eek—I won't I won't! Sorry." 

"Monty, I think you should rest for a bit.. I do not think you are quite yourself—"

"Shut it. I'm not resting until I find that brat."

"It’s not good to run around angry! Maybe get yourself some nourishment first if not rest?” Sun suggests. 

Monty laughs, “Nah, I’m not going back to the kitchen.”

“Why not?”

“Find out yourself.” He walks away.

Once Monty is out of the atrium, Gregory runs from behind the vending machine to the mainstage. Freddy and Sun follow suit and soon enough they’re descending down to Parts & Service. 

“What’s up with him?” Sun huffs.

Freddy winces, “I.. well, Monty has always had trouble with his emotions. I assume the alterations have made it worse.”

“Boy, if he’s like that I’m scared to know what Roxy and Chica are like..”

Gregory remembers sneaking through the vents and hearing Roxy, talking to herself in the mirror. It was a bit sad to see as she tries her best to convince herself of her own worth. Chica was pretty normal in her room, playing her guitar and stuff. Then he meets her in the bathroom and sees her eating trash.

The band has definitely got some problems between them. Gregory’s not one to judge, he has his own set of problems—so he doesn’t comment. 

They get to Parts & Service without problems. There aren’t any S.T.A.F.F. bots nearby. 

“No S.T.A.F.F. bots, that’s good.” Sun sighs in relief.

“Yes, that is good news indeed! Sun, do you know where the mother computer is?” 

“It’s, uh, to the right of the protective cylinder there. That door with the ‘out of order’ sign. Me and Moon found it on one of our patrols.” 

The three approach the door.

“Gregory, I think it is best that you stay here. I will alert you to hide if Moon is not the one who comes back.” 

“Okay, I’ll hide in that box over there.” He points to said box.

Freddy and Sun nod, they enter the room.

Gregory waits in the box for a few minutes. He checks his Fazwatch after a few mind numbingly boring minutes of nothing. The Fazwatch has to be one of the most advanced and coolest things he’s ever had the chance to use.

It allows him to check security cameras after Freddy modified it, gives him a map of the area he’s currently in, and—

“What are these?” Gregory whispers to himself, tapping on the ‘messages’ tab.

There are three messages detailing certain parts of the other three animatronics. Gregory skims over them quickly, his curiosity peaked.

—

What- what happened?-

Sun lets out a great exhale of pure relief at the sound of their brother’s voice. They turn towards Freddy with a thumbs up, “It’s him.”

Freddy beams, “Thank god.” 

Sunny what the fuck?

Language. Welcome back, Moony! 

Hold on hold on—what time is it?

They suddenly feel a sense of dread, “F-freddy, what time is it?”

The bear stills in place, presumably to check his internal clock. 

“...oh. I have forgotten. It’s 12:50 AM.” 

Fuck. FUCK-

Watch your mouth-! 

THAT’S NOT OUR PROBLEM RIGHT NOW—I don’t sense the error virus creature whatever thing, but I know he’s coming back—why did you reactivate me?—

The rest of the bots are also tampered with. Me and Freddy can’t really defend ourselves great.. And uh, I miss you in my head.

That’s.. that’s very sweet Sunny, but don’t just stand around here, have Fazbear get to a recharge station.

“Sun, we must get to a recharge station immediately. I fear that I will run out of power soon. I do not want to hurt Gregory.”

Excuse me, Gregory who?

Okay so Freddy found this kid who’s sneaked up past everyone and hid in his chest compartment. Everyone else has malfunctioned like you did and is for some reason after him. We don’t trust Vanessa because she’s being weird.

..let’s say I understood all of that. Quick question, did I hurt the kid?

I stopped you before you could.

Good. That’s good. Now Sunny, I needcha to get the fuck away from ol’Fred and the kid before the switch is forced and our hourly patrol protocol is activated.

“Sun?” Freddy asks again, louder and more panicked.

“Yes, yes sorry! Um, Freddy do you think you can hide Gregory somewhere?—"

“I- I don’t think I can, I’m on low power and we’re running out of time—"

“Oh no, no no! You know how Moon has his hourly patrol thing? We fear that the error virus thing might come back when that protocol’s activated.”

“This is.. bad.”

“Yes, yes it is. We have to tell Gregory—"

Have the kid go to Fazer Blast. Nobody should be around there and he can get a weapon to defend himself with. 

“Moon says that we should have Gregory go to Fazer Blast. ..does the Fazerblaster work on us?—”

It does. I’ve tried it.

I don’t know how or why but I won’t question you right now.

Good.

“That’s not a half bad idea! I shall inform Gregory immediately.”

—

“Superstar, can you hear me?” Freddy’s voice echoes through the Fazwatch.

“Oh—uh, yeah? Did something go wrong?” 

“Yes. While we have successfully gotten Moon back with us, I am ashamed to say that we have forgotten about our.. hourly night time activities. I have to get to a recharge station and Moon has to patrol the Pizzaplex.”

“Patrol? …oh no, will this happen every hour?”

“Unfortunately. I am very sorry, Gregory.”

“It’s-it’s okay, I can manage.. I hope.”

“I believe in you. Moon has suggested that you get yourself a Fazer Blaster from Fazer Blast. It will suffice as a weapon for self-defence. I have marked the location on your map. You will need a Party Pass to enter, but I am pretty sure that there is one in one of the boxes at your current location.”

“Get party pass and go to Fazer Blast, got it. Okay. Um, see you there?” 

“Yes. I will meet you there as soon as I can.”

“Got it.” Gregory crawls out of his box and rummages through the other boxes, conveniently finding a lot of party passes in one of them. He takes three just in case and shoves them into his pocket before running out of Parts & Service.

—

“I have informed Gregory. I suppose this is where we part ways?” 

“I can accompany you for a while.”

Sh—I almost forgot.

Was that an almost-swear I hear?

Shush you. Enter safe mode, Moony. 

Safe—oh. That’s—that’s smart.

I know, thank Freddy.

“Oh, alright. Let us go.”

The two make their way to the atrium. Sun helps Freddy to his room and waits outside until the bear comes back post-recharging. The intercom blazes to life, announcing that it’s now 1 AM. 

Sun braces themselves for a switch and the telltale glitchy, broken record voice telling them to murder that belongs to—Glitchy. They think ‘not-Moon’ can no longer be an appropriate name now that Glitchy is not Moon, so Glitchy it is.

….I don’t hear anyone and I’m not going insane in murderous bloodlust and rage. I think we’re safe to switch.

PFFF—can you not say things like that?

Dunno what you’re talking about. Anyway, switch with me before both of us get shocked for not following protocol. Shut us down if something goes wrong, yada yada.

Sun giggles as the automatic switch is triggered.

I missed you, Moon.

Shucks, it’s barely been a few hours since I was gone. Don’t be a sap.

I still miss you.

Whatever. 

Moon stretches his arms as he regains control of his and Sun’s shared body. He blinks his eyes—a calming blue instead of the blaring red of Glitchy. He won’t ever admit it, but he’s happy that Sun missed him.

“Right. Let’s get this over with.” He groans, jumping up to grab onto the harnesses on the roof—put there just for him.

Be sure to avoid Vanessa and Monty.

What’d you tell them?

Moon swings all over the place, past the S.T.A.F.F. bots on the ground. He does as his programming tells him to do and scans the area for anything wrong, before moving onto the next section of the room.

I told Vanessa you were experiencing a malfunction. And told Monty that you lost to Gregory.

You told Monty that I lost to a kid?

I had to come up with something!

Way to ruin my reputation, bro.

Oh, you’ll get over it.

Yeah yeah, I will—..say, Sunny. You weren’t lying about me not hurting the kid right? What did I do? Tell me everything.

It’s not that bad, really. Glitchy was just—

You nicknamed him Glitchy? Y’know that’s me right? Not some glitch? 

They sweep over the daycare, entering the theatre. Moon waves at the endoskeletons there, none of them respond. Tough crowd.

It’s you under the influence of a glitch. So it’s not really you. You don’t even remember what happened.

Willing to bet I still traumatised the kid.

I- I guess so, you got pretty scary. I assured him that it’s fine though, you don’t have to worry about it.

Yeah- I’m not interacting with the kid. 

Hey, don’t be like that! Gregory would like you.

You say that about every kid we meet. 

I say that because I know it’s true—

You’re too nice.

Moon shakes his head in disbelief. He makes his way through the rest of his patrol route, pointedly saving Fazer Blast as the last destination. Along the way, Sun keeps pestering him about talking to Gregory.

Come on, he likes burgers! You like burgers.

No. 

He jumps down from the roof, content to walk as slowly as possible to not meet Gregory but complete his patrol. Moon manages it, until he has to enter Fazer Blast’s play area. He gets in just fine with his special patrol-animatronic credentials.

Moon’s not even in the area itself and already, he can hear the sound of laser blasting and poor S.T.A.F.F. bots getting stunned left and right.

Moooony, come on.

Moon does not like this at all—but he knows that it’s better to announce his presence than sneak around, accidentally spook the kid, and break whatever trust that’s still between them. Even though he doesn’t remember meeting Gregory at all.

“Hey, kid! Gregory, was it?” 

The sound of laser blasting stops.

“It’s me, Moon. The not-murderous version. I’m just gonna patrol around here real quick and I’ll be on my way okay? Telling you so you won’t shoot me in the eyes. But if you want to do that I won’t blame you.” 

He gets no response in return, but Moon assumes Gregory heard him. So he makes his way through the maze of Fazer Blast, dodging the occasional S.T.A.F.F. bot. 

“How is this game even active at this hour?”

—

Gregory hears Moon. 

His voice isn’t what he expected. It’s not like the other Moon at all. The voice is uncharacteristically soft. It has a soothing quality to it that Gregory is willing to bet would be great for audiobooks. 

While the voice is nice, he can’t associate it with Moon at all.

So he doesn’t respond. Instead, he abandons the game and sneaks through Fazer Blast’s maze. He spots Moon after a few turns and he backtracks to hide behind the wall. 

The animatronic is walking through the maze slowly. His pace isn’t upbeat like Sun’s or heavy like Freddy’s. The familiar bells ring as he moves—those used to scare him but after seeing Sun trip over themselves to clean up things in the atrium, he doesn’t associate it with Moon anymore.

Gregory makes up his mind and brings his Fazerblaster towards Moon. 

He did say that he could shoot him if he wanted to. And in Gregory’s honest opinion, the best way to get over a fear is to confront it head on, guns blazing—literally, in this case. The boy waits until Moon faces his way and shoots him right in the eyes—his blue eyes.

“OW-wow. Okay I think I deserved that but not even a warning? Uncool, kid.” Moon grumbles, blinking his eyes repeatedly to soothe them.

Gregory smiles a little—and shoots him again.

Moon doesn’t even try to dodge—or maybe he’s still too stunned.

“YEESH—chill with the lasers would ya? Sunny, be useful and tell me where the kid is.”

Hmm.. how about.. No.

“You dirty traitor.” Moon groans. Gregory assumes it’s because Sun refused.

“You guys can talk to each other?” He asks. 

After asking that question, he moves to another location. No need to risk his position even if—

“Player 2: Moon has joined the game!" The intercom booms.

Gregory’s face falls.

“Shi- Shih-tzu uh.. yes we can kid. By the way, where the fu-I mean, fridge, are you? Swear I won’t do anything but you kinda put me in the game with those shots—"

He snorts at the blatant attempts to censor profanity. Gregory leans back against the wall. Moon doesn’t seem too bad. He’s not willing to trust him, but now that he’s tested the Fazerblaster and it worked—Gregory thinks he can fight back fine if Moon turns out bad. 

“You can swear, I’m not a kid.”

“Pretty sure you're a ten year old.”

“Eleven, thank you.” 

“Pretty sure you’re an eleven year old.”

Scratch that, he’s not bad. He’s worse - annoying.

“You’re annoying.”

“I have been told that, yes. You’re also annoy—”

Gregory runs out of his hiding place and shoots Moon again. It hits him right between the eyes and the animatronic is stunned, once again. 

“You little shit.” 

He snickers, Moon isn’t even trying to censor himself now.

“Come at me… bitch.” Gregory cackles, pointing his gun at Moon.

Moon gapes, “Freddy and Sunny are going to kill me if you swear, don’t fucking do that—”

“Then don’t patronize me.”

"I’m not?” 

“You are.”

“How the fuck am I patronizing you? I mean, how the—oh forget it just don’t swear in front of Freddy please? Sunny’s already yelling at me for swearing.”

“Not unless you stop calling me ‘kid’.”

“That’s patronizing to you? Wow, kid.”

Gregory shoots him again.

“OW— fuck stop doing that.” Moon covers his eyes.

He does it again. And again.

“Okay okay, kid—look. You gotta finish this game right? So what about we play a little game—beat me in Fazer Blast and I’ll stop calling you a kid if you win.”

“You know we have to play either way now that the system recognizes you as a player right?”

"Yes, so why not make the stakes a bit higher? Motivation is always good.”

“Okay. Game start.” Gregory throws a few more shots at Moon before running off, intent on getting his flag before Moon gets over the stunned effect.

Now that there is more than one player, the S.T.A.F.F. bots adopt different colours for each team. Red for Gregory and blue for Moon.

“Wait- I don’t have a blaster yet—!”

“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO USE ONE!” Gregory yells at him.

“Wh—that’s not fair!”

“You’re an animatronic, it’s never been fair!” He follows.

“Agh, fine. You better be prepared kid because I’m not losing this game.” 

“You’re on, old man!”

“Not a man, kid.”

“Not a kid, old man.”

—

(cue the montage)

“HAH! GOT YOUR—"

Gregory’s shot hits its mark and Moon freezes. He politely skips over to the animatronic and takes his flag right out of Moon’s hands.

“I’ll take that back, thank you~”

“Brat.”

—

Gregory dodges another swipe of Moon’s hand and pokes him between the eyes. 

“Wh—” He follows up the move with two shots to both eyes. He’s getting great at this game.

“Catch you later, sucker!” He sticks his tongue out at him and runs away with Moon’s flag. Gregory reaches his base and whoops in joy.

“Red team: 1 point. Current score: 3 for red, 2 for blue!”

—

Moon twists and jumps up to another floor to avoid another round of lasers from Gregory,

“How are you not running out of ammo?!”

Gregory groans, “Stop jumping away!”

“I will if you stop shooting at me!” Moon vaults another wall and hides behind it just in time for the lasers to miss him.

—

Gregory giggles loudly as he runs through the arena, another flag in hand and an angry Moon on his tail. 

“Come get me, Moony! Come get me! You’re so slow, do your old joints need oil?” 

“I swear to Fazbear when I get that stupid blaster off of you I will—” 

“It was your idea to give me this, remember? Also, catch!” He throws something—is that a plushie? 

Moon’s eyes widen at the plush, then his vision promptly blacks out as he’s shot for the nth time. Gregory sneaks in between his legs and runs past him with the flag. The plushie makes a squeaky sound as it hits him in the face.

Sun loses it laughing—they’ve been laughing like that for ages.

“Smart brat. I’LL GET YOU FOR THAT—" 

—

Moon stays still, hanging on the second floor of the Fazer Blast arena. He keeps himself as quiet as possible, watching down below for any sign of Gregory.

The kid rushes through the hallway a few minutes later, flag in hand. Moon leans down and snatches the flag from up above. He doesn’t stay to taunt the kid, he immediately runs away with his flag and Gregory’s own.

“Wh—hEY! That’s so not fair!”

“You’ve stunned me twenty times it is SO FAIR—” Moon throws back one of the plushies Gregory had thrown his way. To his satisfaction, the plush hits him on the face—getting an ow from the kid.

“OW—you’re stealing my strategy!” Gregory yells out.

“You’re cheating!” Moon shouts back in return as he deposits the flag in his base.

“Blue team: 1 point. Current score: 6 for red, 6 for blue!”

—

Moon rushes through a hallway, Gregory right behind him with his gun shooting lasers every other second. 

He’s pretty proud to say that he’s doing very well at the dodging business. 

Another point for me!

He cackles, taking a sharp right—and running into a S.T.A.F.F. bot face first.

Gregory follows him to the right and stops, bursting into laughter as he catches Moon colliding with a S.T.A.F.F. bot. 

He shakily shoots the animatronic while still laughing and takes his flag back, running from the scene.

“OH COME ON—"

The S.T.A.F.F. bot shakes its head in disbelief.

—

Freddy rushes over to Fazer Blast with slight anxiety. He’s freshly done recharging and he couldn’t find Moon or Sun anywhere. He uses the special gateway for animatronics to enter Fazer Blast. He does not find Gregory in the main hall or anywhere in the lobby, so he enters the play area—and hears screaming.

That does not sound good.

“I’M COMING TO GET YOU, KID—YOU BETTER RUN.” Moon screams from somewhere in the play area.

Freddy startles. That does not sound good at all! Did Moon malfunction again?—he hurries through the maze that is Fazer Blast’s play area, hoping to find Gregory.

“AAAAHHH GET AWAY GET AWAY—” The sound of lasers being shot echoes through the room, louder than it has the right to be when the entire Pizzaplex is on lockdown.

The bear forces himself to walk faster, his steps echoing through the room.

He finds Gregory backed into a corner, Fazerblaster knocked away—too far away for him to retrieve it. He’s holding two flags and there’s a smile on his face. Moon is in front of him, closing all possible exits. He’s brandishing a… a plushie?

“Give me the flags.”

“No!”

“I will throw this bear at you.” He pulls his hand back threateningly.

“I’m not giving you the flags.”

Freddy coughs.

Moon jumps, turning back and pointing the Freddy plush at Freddy himself like it’s some sort of weapon. 

“Oh.. Freddy, h—”

Gregory runs forward and jumps, kicking Moon on the back and landing gracefully before grabbing his knocked down Fazerblaster. Before Freddy could say anything, the boy screams a victory screech and runs away to another part of the game. He doesn’t even acknowledge Freddy.

Moon hits the ground with an oomph sound. He gets up just as quickly as he falls, head snapping towards where Gregory had run off to.

“KID THAT WAS DIRTY—”

“Red team: 1 point. Current score: 7 for red, 6 for blue! Game over. Winner: Red team!”

Gregory’s scream of delight follows the announcement. He follows it with,

"IT’S ‘GREGORY’ NOW!”

“Ugh.” Moon groans.

Freddy splutters, out of words. That is an unexpected but very welcome development. He’s glad to see his charge so happy for once. Though he could do with less aggression—where did Gregory learn to kick someone like that?

“Couldn’t you have come at a better time?” Moon sighs.

That was great.

It was not. My vision is permanently red.

Don’t be a sore loser, Moony~

Shut it.

Chapter Text

Freddy shakes his head in disbelief.

"What were you two doing?" 

Gregory comes running over with his Fazerblaster in one hand and no flags to be seen. He's grinning ear to ear. Someone's happy with the victory.

"Fazerblasting." Moon grumbles at the sight of the kid—he instinctively backs away to a more strategic place—next to a shorter wall in the arena. Who knows when Gregory will decide that taking another shot at him would be funny.

"And I won." The brat puffs his chest up proudly, brandishing his blaster. 

There's a gleam in his eyes that Moon doesn't like.

Do you think he's going to shoot?

Sunny's voice echoes in his head, muffled in between traitorous giggles. 

Wow, so supportive Sunny. You're the greatest brother ever.

His brother laughs even harder.

Bitch.

Hey! Language.

Freddy pats Gregory's head, "I am proud of you, superstar. But please try to reduce the.. aggression. I do not want you to hurt yourself."

"He suggested it." Gregory immediately points at Moon.

"I'll admit to that but you're the one who's been doing all the screaming and shooting—don't put all the blame on me." 

Gregory sniffles. It sounds so obviously fake Moon doesn't doubt a 5 year old could do better—wait, that logic doesn't apply here. A five year old could always do better in crying. Freddy frowns, taking his hand off of Gregory.

"You tripped me!" He points at him accusingly.

"Kid—"

"Gregory." 

"Gregory. You just drop kicked me in front of Freddy not even five minutes ago."

“It was a jump kick,  you’re welcome. And you still tripped me. Freddy, Moon's being mean—" Gregory whines to Freddy.

"You're being mean, you little shit-" 

"Moon, language." 

"See, he called me a little shit!" 

"You called me a bitch."

Gregory gasps dramatically. He hides behind Freddy and covers both of his ears,

“Freddy, he said a bad word!”

You’re being bullied so hard right now.

If you’re not gonna help Sunny, shut it.

Freddy frowns in disapproval. He has this aura around him that makes Moon falter, feeling like a scolded child that got caught trying to steal a candy. To be fair, he probably has to deal with a lot of unruly and plain rude children on a daily basis—so that’s probably why.

Moon decides he doesn’t like that stare. He’s not even the one at fault here—kind of. 

“Look, the kid—”

“Not kid.” Gregory interrupts smugly, peeking his head from behind Freddy to stick a tongue out at him.

“The not-kid knew that word before I said it. I’m not taking the blame for him knowing that word but I will admit that I did suggest the Fazerblast game—without the knowledge that it would get as competitive and brutal as it did. That not-kid has a terrifying aim—I didn’t even get a blaster of my own!”

Gregory grumbles in similar fashion to Moon himself at the incorrect correction of ‘not-kid’. Sucks to be him because technically, it isn’t really calling him a ‘kid’—so Moon’s actually sticking to his words of dropping the ‘kid’.

Freddy picks Gregory up and gives Moon a dirty glare with all his ‘disappointed parent’ vibes. Gregory puts a hand on his mouth to muffle a giggle. Brat.

“I—didn’t you hear what I just said?! Gah, forget it. Move on or whatever, my patrol’s done.” 

Moon gets off the metaphorical front seat and shoves his brother onto it.

wHOA- hey!—

You’re welcome, brother.

Gregory stops giggling at the sight of a switch happening.

“Wow.. that’s actually kinda cool.” He says, clinging to Freddy’s chest.

Freddy ruffles his hair, “Are you hurt anywhere, superstar?”

“Nope! My legs kinda feel like jelly though. And some water would be great, I’m beat.” Gregory rests his head below Freddy’s bowtie.

“Helloooo!” Sun greets both of them, cheerfully waving.

“What’s that I hear about water?” 

“Gregory needs some water for nourishment.”

We can go to the kitchen, it’s close.

“We can go to the kitchen.” Sun suggests.

“Splendid idea! But let us go retrieve the Fazerblaster first.”

“But I have it already?” Gregory asks, confused. He waves his Fazerblaster in front of Freddy’s face as emphasis.

The bear chuckles, “That is the one used for games. You must return it after a game is finished. But do not fret, we have another one for commercial use.”

“Ohh, okay. Where do we return it?”

"There’s a box in which we can return it near the elevator in the middle of this arena. I shall walk you there.”

“Let’s go then!” Sun says.

—

The three of them walk towards the elevator, they pass some S.T.A.F.F. bots who are heading towards the exit but pay no mind to them. On the way, Freddy and Sun start up another conversation. Gregory tunes them out, too tired after the game to pay attention.

“What? Surely that is not true!”

"It is! Chica told me.”

He snuggles into Freddy’s chest, hugging the bear tighter. Gregory feels a little sleepy. Maybe a few minutes of shut-eye wouldn’t hurt. He lets his eyes shut—and forces them open again as he spots a strange blur behind the two animatronics’ back.

Gregory frowns.

“What else are you going to tell me next? That tomatoes are a fruit?”

“.....well—"

“I was joking, please do not answer that question.”

He raises his head a little higher to peek over Freddy’s shoulder better. The blur runs past from right to left. A strange feeling bubbles within Gregory’s gut, he keeps his eyes open and clings onto Freddy tighter.

The world distorts around him. Shaking and blinking in and out. Static grows in his ears as if they’re next to an old radio. For a brief moment, Gregory sees a pair of red eyes in the suddenly dark corners of the Fazer Blast arena.

There’s a shadow in the distance. Two pairs of bunny ears shake and wave like a taunt. 

Gregory gulps. His throat feels drier than ever, and he doesn’t think it’s from all the screaming. 

The shadow grows larger. Those terrifying red eyes seem even bigger. Whatever it is, whatever that thing is—it’s getting closer.

Gregory shrinks back and glances up at Freddy. The animatronic is still talking—presumably with Sun. He doesn’t look off or anything. They reach the elevator and Freddy takes the Fazerblaster from him to put it in the return box.

Sun keeps talking about whatever it is they’re talking about—then they stop and Gregory sees their sun-beam-things invert in and their head spin as Moon takes over the reins again.

“Freddy. Get in the elevator. Now.” Moon pushes the bear towards the elevator, his eyes looking over both Gregory and Freddy—behind them.

“Moon?” Freddy’s startled.

“Freddy, listen to him. Go now. GO—” Gregory lightly hits his arm. 

He feels his heartbeat get louder until it’s almost ringing in his ears along with the static. His throat is dry and he’s sweating profusely. For once in a long, long time—Gregory is terrified. Freddy somehow senses that and rushes to the elevator.

It takes way too long to open. 

Gregory hides his face in Freddy’s chest. The world spins and distorts like a bad case of vertigo. He distantly hears the sound of screaming and crashing in the background. 

It’s way too long until they’re inside the elevator. Gregory has never felt so relieved to hear the elevator music until now. He shudders and lets out shaky breaths.

“Gregory?” 

—

“It’s you. You son of a bitch.” Moon positively growls at the creature in front of him as soon as he orders Freddy to get in the elevator.

The bear has Gregory in tow, waiting for the doors to open. It’s taking way too damn long.

Just a few metres from them stands a bunny-looking creature. It—she—is brandishing what looks like a kitchen knife. Out of all the possible things that Moon would have imagined the hacker-virus-whatever-thing looking like, it’s certainly not a human in a bunny fursuit. 

Well he did expect them to be a human, what else would it be if not a human? But the bunny suit is kind of killing the whole ‘dangerous hacker with access to their personality chips and protocols that could potentially make them kill someone’ vibe. 

There’s patches on the suit—indication that it’s old and well-worn. The patchwork bunny lady has two sets of glowing red eyes though—now that’s great for the killer bunny look she’s going for.

Do you really think that that’s.. The hacker person?

She appeared conveniently just now and she has a knife, she definitely ain’t an easter bunny who’s here to give me decorated eggs and spread love and happiness, Sunny.

True. On second thought, yeah I can’t think of anyone else this person could be.

How the fuck did we miss her anyway? We patrol every single day every hour of the night after twelve and immediately after closing.

Language—I have no idea. Maybe she’s hiding somewhere outside of our patrol routes.

“There you are~” She says, a distorted quality in her voice. It sounds more animatronic than human. Now that’s weird.

Moon can’t really care about that though. All he knows is that she messed up with his programming and made him almost kill the kid, so she has to go.

“Yes. Come at me, you Bonnie rip off. Let’s see if that knife of yours is just for show or not.” He spat out and jumps on her, knocking her down. 

Moon rips the knife off her hands and flings it as far away as he can. He wraps his hands around her throat. Bunny lady’s red eyes widen in surprise. She looks almost—scared, you could say.

He doesn’t care. She took away control from him and made him hurt someone. Unconsciously or not, that wound after the incident with Jake is still fresh and he doesn’t like that it is. 

Say that it makes him weak or sentimental, but all he can feel right now is anger. Anger towards this hacker, the stupid fool who dared to mess with the systems and turn him and the rest against their literal life’s purpose - to entertain and help children.

His hands wrap around her throat tighter. Her breath hitches and she claws at his metal fingers.

Moon- calm down-! You’re going to hurt her—

Fuck that, she deserves it.

She’s human, she can die!

Then let—

The elevator opens with a ding. Freddy runs over to Moon with too-loud steps that he could’ve sworn shook the entire place. He’s grabbed by his collar and lets go of the bunny lady with a yelp. She gasps and takes deep breaths in relief. Freddy slings him over the shoulder Gregory isn’t holding onto and runs quickly into the elevator. 

The door shuts, leaving the gobsmacked bunny lady person whatever laying on the floor.

“WHAT THE FUCK,  FREDDY?” He snaps his head towards the bigger animatronic. 

Gregory exhales, very loudly.

He shrinks down, suddenly reminded that there’s a child in the room. Moon’s anger wavers, toning itself down a little.

“Who was that and why did they make me feel like I just ran for my life and almost peed myself in the process?” He slumps against Freddy’s shoulder.

Moon gets knocked on the head by Freddy, “Language.” he scolds.

“The hacker person thing whatever, I don’t know what she is. Looks like a human wearing a fursuit, sounds like an animatronic with a faulty voice box. I got her, Fazbear—you could’ve just let me threaten her a few more times and all of this would be done with!” 

You were going to kill her.

Freddy echoes Sun’s statement, “You were going to kill her.”

“I—"

“Moon, we do not know what she did, how she did it or why. If you had killed her there we might never know how to help everyone. Not to mention the lawsuit that would come our way with that.” 

“I could take you guys with me and we could get out of here.” Gregory grumbles. The kid doesn’t seem too disturbed by Moon’s attempted murder.

He gets his own knock on the head, courtesy of Freddy Fazbear himself. 

“Ow—!”

Hey! No murder.

“That would not work. Sun and Moon may not need to recharge much, but they take a generous amount of power to stay active for that. Besides that, I myself have to recharge every hour at night. You will not be able to power us all.”

“Damn.” He tsks.

“What are we going to do about bunny person thing whatever?”

“You’re bad at naming things.”

“Unless you have a better idea for a name, hush it.”

“Bunny.”

"Genius. Thank you, captain obvious.” Moon bows dramatically.

“It’s better than ‘hacker person thing whatever’ and ‘bunny person thing whatever’!” Gregory huffs.

“No it’s not! Freddy, come back me up here.”

“I am afraid I will have to side with Gregory for this one.”

“Why did I even ask you? You so obviously favour the not-kid.”

“I do not know what you’re talking about. Also to answer that question, I propose that we help the others enter safe mode first before doing anything with.. Bunny. I do not want to fight friends.”

“Sure.” Moon mutters as both a retort to the first sentence and the last sentence Freddy said. Freddy knocks him on the head again. 

“Okay!” Gregory snickers.

Freddy shakes his head in exasperated fondness as the elevator opens again to the hallway of Fazer Blast’s lobby. Freddy carries both Moon and Gregory to exchange their winning points for a Fazerblaster. Gregory hops off of Freddy and takes his new Fazerblaster happily. 

He smiles at Moon sweetly. Too sweetly. The brat raises his Fazerblaster. 

“No.” Moon smiles back. It’d look menacing but the soothing blue lights that are his eyes make it hard for it to look scary. Red eyes really add to the scary effect.

It does. You looked a lot scarier when possessed. 

I’m taking that as an insult.

It’s not!

It is to me. You’re cruel, brother.

I promise you it’s really not-

Gregory shoots him in the eyes. Both eyes. Twice for each. Of course, he misses Freddy whose face is literally right next to Moon’s. It further proves how terrifying his aim is. Moon doesn’t even flinch at the shot. 

He slumps on Freddy’s shoulder and groans, blinking his optics rapidly to chase the red off his vision.

Freddy sighs and knocks Gregory on the head a little harder than he normally would. Finally, he’s playing fair.

“Gregory. No shooting.”

“I was just testing if it works! And hey, Moon doesn’t mind. Riiight, Mooooony~? Gregory sing-songs and skips forward, poking at his cheek.

“Fuck. You.” He gives the kid the middle finger. That feels satisfying.

MOON.

It gets him another bonk on the head, but Moon thinks it’s worth it.

—

They’re now enroute to the kitchen and Gregory is walking alongside his two new animatronic friends. Moon isn’t as much of a conversationalist as Sun is, so the trip is spent in silence.

In the back areas, there aren’t many S.T.A.F.F. bots—so they have no trouble heading towards the kitchen. That is, until they reach the doors of the kitchen itself and hear loud crashing, shuffling, and banging of pots and pans and other things inside. 

Freddy presses an ear against the door.

“Who’s in the kitchen?” Gregory whispers to Moon.

“Chica, most likely. She likes eating so the kitchen is one of her favourite places.” 

“Ohh… she likes eating?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?” Moon narrows his eyes at Gregory.

“Nothing! I mean, it’s just that.. I saw her in the bathroom a few hours ago?”

“Mhm?”

“She was digging the trashcan and eating some of the trash.”

WHAT

“What?” Moon whisper yells at the kid-not-kid.

Freddy interrupts their conversation, “Everyone, I will come inside first to see what is happening. Please stay here. Moon, swing up and hide in the air if a S.T.A.F.F. bot pass by.” 

Both Moon and Gregory give him a thumbs up. The bear nods and enters through the double doors of the kitchen, the doors closing behind him.

“She was eating trash.” Gregory repeats.

“..that’d.. probably be the effects of the tampering. Y’know how I.. got violent earlier and Sunny’s super hyper and stuff?”

“Ohh, yeah that makes sense.”

Moon winces, “Yeah. That… sounds unpleasant though. I wouldn’t like to eat trash.”

“I wouldn’t too.” Gregory agrees.

There’s silence for a moment between them as they wait for Freddy to come back. Gregory fiddles with his Fazwatch and sees some of the messages that he read earlier back at Parts & Service. He glances towards Moon and remembers what had presumably happened earlier with Bunny.

Gregory makes his decision.

He ushers Moon close, “Hey.. can I tell you something? I think I have another plan on how to deal with the other bots.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Before you came in with your maximum level security credentials and stuff, Freddy and I had to look for badges to upgrade my watch’s security access levels. I get access to more information and stuff with each upgrade. Guess what I found?”

“Hmm.. cheat codes to arcade machines?” Moon guesses randomly.

Gregory snorts, “No! Come here, look.”

He shows his watch to Moon.

—----------------------------

CHICA UPGRADE

MAINT LOG: CHICA - Don’t let her sing! Messes with the navigation of the other bots. Horrible results when she sang during live performance. S.T.A.F.F. bots dropped serving trays, chaos, guest injuries, 12 lawsuits. Experimental voice box test failed. Replacement advised.

—----------------------------

ROXY UPGRADE

MAINT LOG: ROXY - Roxy sees things differently than others. This upgrade was meant to help her win races. However, there are some side effects. Sometimes she will stare and talk to the other bots through walls.

—----------------------------

MONTY UPGRADE

MAINT LOG: MONTY - Montgomery’s Claw upgrades allow him to play the bass. Following performances, he mostly uses them to cause damage. The fence repairs are getting costly.

—----------------------------

“..okay, so it’s about the upgrades the others have? I have extra mobility, flexibility and a more advanced AI because I fulfil more functions than everyone else, same thing. What of it?” Moon glances towards him, making eye contact.

Gregory used to be scared of that face. But the eye colour change and blasting the same face about thirty times or so really helped with that. So he keeps eye contact easily,

“This might sound a little crazy to you, but I think we could use these upgrades.”

“I’m not getting your point here, Greg.”

“Okay I’m saying that we should use these upgrades on Freddy.”

“...why?”

“Safety reasons! We’ll be safer that way and we can put the others out of the picture!”

“Greg, I almost killed Bunny. There is no safer place in this entire Plex than next to me, I assure you. I will claw and bite at anyone or anything who means harm.”

“I know, I know! But have you seen Freddy? He can’t hurt a fly to save his life. Sure, you can just pick me up and swing around to get me to safety, but what about Freddy?”

“Nobody would dare hurt the bear, k-not-kid. He’s the face of this place and a sweetheart with too big of a heart. Even if the rest are possessed, I’m damn sure they wouldn’t dare lie a hand on ol’Fred.”

“Bunny is in control of the systems. The S.T.A.F.F. bots are dumber than the rest of you. She has them looking out for me now. I know she does.”

“Pretty sure that’s Vanessa’s doing—”

“Vanessa hasn’t done a single thing to help until now—"

“Okay, okay—let’s say Bunny is. Why doesn’t she have the rest of the band attack Freddy too then?”

“...true. But she could have the S.T.A.F.F. bots attack him.”

“Greg, if the S.T.A.F.F. bots ganged up on anybody, it’d be over for them—no matter how many upgrades they have. It’s many against one AND they share a hivemind. Also, how would you even get the upgrades? They’re specially made for that certain animatronic, you can’t get them anywhere else but—oh.” Moon stops mid-rant with the realisation.

He buries his face in his hands. The animatronic seems to take a metaphorical deep inhale. Then he crouches down and puts his hands on Gregory’s shoulders,

“Tell me you’re not suggesting that we.. we literally rip their upgrades out of them and put it on Freddy.”

Well putting it that way is just crude.

“...we don’t have to tell Freddy..?” Gregory winces a little.

“That’s a great breach of his trust, Greg. Also literal murder.” Moon sighs.

“You didn’t have a problem murdering Bunny.” 

“I—the circumstances were different. She’s not an innocent. Look, for now.. I have a plan of my own. Why don’t we go with my plan first. If, and only IF it doesn’t work, I’ll cooperate with yours.” Moon says with finality.

“Fine.. I trust you. Deal.”

They shake hands. 

The kitchen door slams open.

“Chica- wait—!”

Chica stands in the doorframe, frozen in place at the sight of Moon and Gregory shaking hands. The two are also frozen. 

“...hey, Cheeks.” Moon says, voice strained.

—

Oh no. Oh NO!

Fuck.

Chica’s eyes turn red and she lunges at Gregory. Moon tackles the kid forward and scoops him up, jumping high in the air and holding onto another harness on the roof as Chica swipes a hand at them again.

Freddy rushes out of the kitchen and grabs onto Chica, restraining her with a hug.

“Chica! Calm down, please!”

Gregory holds onto Moon as tightly as he can. Moon puts a hand on his back to keep the kid from falling off. His other hand holds onto the harness on the roof. 

“You—you’re on their side! Secu—” He puts a hand on her beak to keep her from yelling.

“Chica, listen!”

“MMf- nO! Freddy let me go—!” She thrashes against Freddy’s hold.

“You’re being unreasonable!”

“I- nOT—!” 

Moon watches the scene from up above.

“Hey, hey, Cheeks! Calm your tits—”

“Moon.” Chica glares up at him even if her voice is muffled by Freddy’s hand.

“Look. I know we don’t always see eye to eye but what do you think about a little trade?”

“Trade?”

“Yeah, I’ll give you the kid-” 

Moon-

“Excuse me—” Gregory yells.

“Moon–!” Freddy sounds betrayed. His grip on Chica slackens due to his shock. 

“BUT—beat us in a pizza cook off. I know you’re feeling hungry right now. You wouldn’t be in the kitchen if you weren’t~”

Chica glowers at him, but she’s listening. Which is a damn good sign because that means she at least has some control over her actions—unlike his prior state.

“Don’t try to trick me. There’s no more food in the kitchen.” She huffs haughtily. 

“No but guess who knows where all the emergency storages are?” Moon taunts.

Chica falls silent.

“Come on, Cheeks. You know you want it. You’re getting the better end of the deal here. I’ll tell you where all the emergency storages are, you get to eat pizza, and you’d have the kid if you win—just gotta beat Sunny n'the kid in making pizza. C'mon, you do that all the time."

"What are you doing?!" Gregory hisses at Moon, smacking his face with the fazerblaster.

"Trust me, Greg." Moon whispers, keeping his voice low.

"...fine. What do you want in return?"

"Enter safe mode if you lose. That's it. Honestly even if you did lose you'd still know where all the emergency storages are and have pizza—it's a great deal."

The one flaw slash suspicious thing  in his 'deal' is how he practically gets nothing out of it—which would usually make Chica suspicious. But Moon is hoping that this Chica is more oblivious than normal Chica.

MOON!

No I'm not gonna give Cheeks the kid, Sunny. Even if we lost. I'd just book it and we can try another way.

You're gambling Gregory's life—

I'm not! Kinda.

Moon, Chica is THE pizza connoisseur, there is no way I can beat her on her field—

Not with that attitude, Sunny.

I'm being serious!

So am I. C'mon, have more faith in yourself. I thought you were the optimist here.

It's not that, agh.

"Okay. Deal." Chica says.

"Great! I'd also like to add that if you take a swing at Gregory or try to harm him in any way, shape or form—deal's off and I'll rip that beak off your face, capiche?" Moon smiles sweetly at his co-worker.

Freddy suddenly looks very relieved. Chica takes a step back, clearly intimidated. She hmps, crossing her arms and strolling to the kitchen—letting him have the last word. Moon drops down, landing on his feet and putting Gregory down as well.

The kid turns around and shoots him with his Fazerblaster. Moon yelps and covers his eyes, wincing as his world blares red.

"I guess I deserved that."

"Yeah you did! What were you thinking?! I barely know how to cook an egg—let alone make pizza. Chica's one of the cooks in this place, she's a professional. Are you insane?!" Gregory whisper yells. He's upset but conscious enough about it to mind his volume.

"I am very, very sorry Gregory. I failed to calm her down." Freddy sounds very guilty.

"It's okay Freddy, it's happened. Nothing we can do to change it."

"It'll be fine, Sunny'll be with you. They can cook great." 

"Sure. But we can still lose. What then? You're just gonna hand me over to her?"

"No! Of course not."

Moon leans down to whisper in Gregory's ear, "If this fails, we're going with your plan."

Gregory perks up, "Fine." 

"I do not want to be a downer, but what if Chica hurts Gregory unintentionally while we are having the cook-off? Sun and I cannot defend Gregory as well as you do, Moon."

"I'll still be watching in the backseat. If she tries sh-anything, I'll see it coming." 

"Alright. I will trust you—"

"What's taking you three so long?" Chica's shrill voice shouts from the kitchen.

"We're coming, we're coming!" Freddy calls out.

----

"I will be the referee of this cook-off. You have half an hour to make a pizza of your own choosing with all the ingredients provided. The dough and the sauce  must be made from scratch and baking time is not counted in the half an hour preparation time. No baker is allowed to follow a predetermined recipe, it must all be from memory. As agreed previously, I will also be the judge of this cook off. The judging criteria are presentation, creativity, taste, and 'is it a pizza?'"

Freddy lists off, holding a plastic mic he got from somewhere. He's standing between the two counters they're going to bake on. Next to each counter are mini ovens they've shuffled into place. The kitchen doors have been locked shut so no S.T.A.F.F. bots would enter and interrupt.

Chica stands on the right counter while Gregory and Sun stand on the left. Sun is fiddling with their fingers, a clear nervous tic. Gregory and Chica are glaring at each other with great force.

Why did you make it a without a recipe challenge?

It'd be more fair! This way Chica will have more trouble. She doesn't usually make the dough and sauce herself.

Brother did you ever think that, I, would also have trouble - seeing as I barely ever decorate pizza for the kids let alone MAKE one?

You can make bread, it'll be fine.

It's pizza dough you can't just make bread—

If it looks like pizza dough and tastes great, it'll be fine.

"Your time starts.. now!" Freddy announces.

Chica breaks the stare off with Gregroy to immediately begin working. Sun muffles a surprised yelp from their lips as Gregory's face comes into view.

"...uh what do we do?"

AAAAAAAAAAA

Sunny. Just make bread. Change it up a little or something so it'll be not bread. Less yeast. More uh, oil? I don't fucking know just make it taste good.

"Okay okay okay okay—so Gregory um—" Sun crouches to Gregory's eye level.

"I'll take care of the dough. You're on sauce duty. Use uhh, those tomato sauce cans over there and season it until it tastes good." 

"....is that how you actually make pizza sauce or are you just guessing?"

"For the sake of your sanity and mine, trust me on this."

----

"There's tomato soup, dried tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato sauce - which one do I use?!"

Sun pauses mid kneading, "Uh.. the last three and maybe a little bit of the first one?"

"....yeah I'll just.. do whatever it is."

Chica snickers from the other side of the kitchen. Gregory gives her the finger. He gets a now familiar bonk on the head from Freddy for the rude gesture.

----

Sunny you sure you wanna add that much butter?

"Butter? What but—GREGORY—"

"It has like, an ugly brown colour! Butter makes it paler right?"

"....I don't actually know but I'm pretty sure not. Get it out—get it out!"

Gregory sticks his hands in the bowl and tries his best to take the butter out.

"With a spatula!"

"Okay okay! Geez—"

The two hear a miffed sound and glance over to Chica, who looks very offended and scandalized. Yeah, no butter.

----

"Lemme taste that dough." Gregory sticks a finger in the dough and licks it.

He makes a face. "Eugh. It's so plain."

"It's bread dough—and don't eat that!" Sun shoos his hand away.

Gregory takes some salt and puts more of it in the dough.

"Gregory! Work on your sauce." Sun scolds.

----

“Come on! Green pizza would look cool.” Gregory begs.

“No green pizza. Literally any other colour but green. Please.” Sun hugs the mixing bowl to their chest protectively, away from Gregory and his dye-stained hands.

“Then… this cool blue grey? We could make it look like Moon.”

Honestly that’d be fucking hilarious, do it.

No! And language—

C’mon don’t be a party pooper, Sunny.

“What toppings do we even use to make a Moon-themed pizza?” Sun sighs for the nth time in that half an hour.

“Uh.. grey ones. Mushrooms, olives maybe, onions?”

“If we go with that our options would be limited to a colour palette. And no pepperoni because they’re red and I am not watching you try to colour it blue. Also, our sauce is red.” 

“Then.. orange pizza. Sun-themed. So we can have pepperoni and the other red stuff that’s on pizza.”

“....”

“Pleaaaseee, Sunny?” Gregory clasps his hands together and flashes them his puppy eyes.

“.....” His lip wobbles.

No, Sun. Stay strong. We can’t lose this.

No, Sun. Think about how hilarious it'll be.

Gregory sniffles once and Sun gives in immediately.

“...fine.” Their shoulders drop in defeat.

Sun blames those damn puppy eyes. Moon laughs.

PFFFFFFFFFF AHAHAHHAAHAHA—

—

"We are now with Chica, everyone—would you mind telling us what you are doing, Chica?" Freddy asks.

He tries to not pay attention to the whisper-yelling and concerning arguments going on between Sun and Gregory in the background. 

Chica is pouring some tomato sauce onto a bowl. She follows it with some tomato paste and a few crushed tomatoes.

"I'm making the sauce while letting the dough mix." She says.

"SHIT—" Gregory swears in the background.

"That is nice—Gregory, language!"

"Sorry!" 

"OH GOD—" Sun screeches.

Freddy really doesn't have much faith in them.

"You know how to make sauce?"

"No. I'm clueless. But I like to believe that I have the best taste out of all of us, so I'm pretty confident that I've got this."

Usually, Freddy would be very proud of her and even throw in a few praises her way. He's happy when his friends succeed. But with the current situation, he feels a bit awkward. Still, he must stay neutral—Moon did say they have a backup plan.

"If I am being honest, you really do have a better chance of winning." Freddy sighs.

"GREGORY—" 

There's a loud clang and both bear and chicken glance forward at the other table. Sun has a bucket stuck on their head and Gregory is fiddling with the mixer that's spinning at full power. Splatters of orange dough cover the countertop and some parts of the floor because of how fast the mixer is.

Chica gapes and drops the jar of salt she was holding—it lands right into the sauce mix.

"Oh-oh no—" She picks the jar up and tries her best to pick out the excess salt.

"HeLP HOW DO I TURN IT DOWN—" Gregory screams at the mixer.

Sun is flailing in the background, struggling very hard to take the bucket off their head. They lean over and smack themselves on the wall. The bucket flies off their head and right at Chica—who is too busy picking salt out of her sauce to notice.

Freddy runs forward and catches the bucket just in time.

"Why do things keep flying in our faces?" He shakes his head.

"HELP—"

"Turn the button to the left." Freddy says.

"Oh." Gregory turns the button to the left and the mixer immediately slows down.

".....I am so dumb."

Sun gets up to see a terrible orange mess on the countertops and floor. They run to the janitor’s closet, come out with some cleaning supplies, and proceed to scrub the hell out of the floors and countertop. 

Chica gives both of them an unimpressed stare and turns to Freddy,

"You're right. There's no way I'm losing this."

Then things start going wrong for her.

"Why does my sauce taste so weird?" Chica frowns. She takes another sip with her spoon.

"Have you checked the can for the expiration date?" Freddy asks.

Chica leans down to the trashcan and grabs the can. It's weeks past the expiration date.

"Agh! I have to remake this."

Freddy checks his stopwatch that he got from who knows where, "Fifteen minutes left." he announces not very enthusiastically. It’s followed by a yelp from Sun and a tsk from Gregory. Chica just grimaces.

----

"Sun, taste this! I actually made something decent." Gregory raises his spoon up to Sun.

Sun presses a finger to the sauce covered spoon—they can't eat food themselves but taste is something they can do, if only to make sure that they're giving the children something edible and/or doesn't taste horrible.  "Oh. That's pretty good! It needs a little more salt though."

Gregory nods, "Yeah thought so!"

"How did you make it?"

"Uh.. I mixed a bunch of tomato stuff and put in a bunch of seasoning—"

"Like?"

"Everything in that rack over there." Gregory points to said rack. The rack has all the spices and seasonings imaginable. Seasonings wouldn't destroy it too much, but spices—Sun dearly hopes Gregory didn't put any ginger in the sauce.

(Gregory did. Just a pinch.)

Oh no.

"On second thought, don't tell me. And please keep away from the spices."

"Spices?"

"Everything that isn't in the shakers."

"Ohh, okay!"

----

Chica has her brand new sauce in the pot atop a stove with low heat. She adds in a pinch of salt and stirs the pan. 

"Hmm.. I think that's good." 

Sadly, that sauce is just going to end up sweet.

----

After letting the dough rest for around 5 minutes, the two opposing 'teams' took out their dough to start rolling and stretching them into the classic pizza shape. Usually the dough would be rested a lot longer, but they don't have much time—so five minutes it was.

Sun rolls out the orange dough with Gregory’s help. 

“I wanna try throwing it.” Gregory says.

Do it, Greg. DO IT—

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, buddy.”

"I’m going to do it.” Gregory decides.

FUCK YEAH—

Damn it!—Moon stop swearing.

He takes the vaguely circular dough and throws it up with a little too much force. By now used to Gregory’s antics, Sun catches the dough before it lands somewhere it isn’t supposed to.

Surprisingly, the dough is holding its shape greatly.

On the other side of the room, Chica tries to do the same thing. Her dough rips and breaks apart mid throw. Of course, Gregory notices and sticks a tongue out at her. She glares at him before re-kneading her dough. 

“I’ve got it! Gregory, sauce please.”

“On it! Oh wait—Sunny you gotta make your sun beam thingies. It won’t be you-themed if it doesn’t have that.”

“Right. Get me a knife, I’ve got this.”

----

Chica isn’t doing too well.

Her dough is still sticky and too stretchy—it’s not holding its shape at all. Her sauce tastes too sweet but she doesn’t have enough time to remake it again. She doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong.

She grabs the bag of flour and pours a generous amount to make the dough less sticky. It works, but the results aren’t what she hopes for. 

Do not fail.

She cannot fail. 

Chica looks at her pizza. She could swear her stomach is growling as the urge to eat, eat, and eat claws at the back of her mind. She’s an animatronic, she doesn’t need to eat—she reminds herself. She has to focus on making the pizza.

It doesn’t have to be that good—Sunny and the intruder don’t have baking experience. She’s better than them. A simple, pepperoni pizza would do. She doubts they could do better than that.

She hears laughter from the other side of the room. Freddy is there with Sunny and the intruder-child, laughing at whatever they’re doing. They look happy despite the disasters that befell them in the course of the bake-off.

Her eyes travel from Freddy’s eye-smile, Sunny’s exasperated but fond grin, and the child’s beaming expression. 

She doesn’t know why, but she feels angry, looking at them. 

No, looking at him. The child. 

She shouldn’t feel this way, a small part of her whispers. 

“I'd also like to add that if you take a swing at Gregory or try to harm him in any way, shape or form—deal's off and I'll rip that beak off your face, capiche?" 

Moon’s threat echoes in her mind. She bottles her feelings up and ignores them.

----

“What temperature do you bake pizza in?” Sun mutters as they put their finished work inside the oven.

They close the oven’s door.  

Gregory skips over to the temperature settings.

“It’s pizza. So uh… let’s just.. turn it up as high as we can get it?"

“What if it burns?”

“We can look at it while it bakes!”

----

Chica is dismayed once more to see that her cheese burned faster than her dough had baked. 

It’s not a good sign. 

Do not fail.

“I'd also - if you - Gregory - off and I'll - capiche?" 

Chica glances towards Sun and Gregory, sitting in front of their own oven to watch their pizza bake while chatting idly. Freddy is next to them still.

It’s his fault.

----

Eventually, both teams are finished.

Everyone stands around the newly erected middle table. On the table sits a plate of two pizza. The one on the left looks like a crude image of Sun’s face, complete with sunbeams and two cheek-pepperonis. Smaller pepperonis decorate the left side of the ‘face’. A long line of smartly-cut sausage connects the two ‘cheeks’. Two onions serve as the ‘eyes’ and the pizza has two different colours of cheese to mimic Sun’s two-toned face.

It looks pretty impressive for the work of an eleven year old and an animatronic, both with no prior pizza-baking experience.

The pizza on the right is a perfectly ordinary pepperoni pizza. It’s rather underwhelming when compared to the one next to it, Chica realises, staring at Sun and Gregory’s pizza with a frown.

“Now we will be judging the pizza. Who wants to present theirs first?” Freddy asks.

“I’ll go first.” Chica volunteers.

“This is the classic pepperoni pizza. It may look ordinary and stereotypical for a pizza, but I assure you it will be the.. greatest pizza you have ever tasted.” She lists off a short monologue, sounding detached even to herself. She doesn’t see Sunny and the intruder frowning.

“Let’s see about that.” Freddy says. He takes the pizza cutter and slowly cuts the pizza. 

Chica stares at her pizza silently. 

Freddy removes a slice and half of it crumbles midway. He tries his best to put it back together before biting a good chunk of it—he’s always been too nice. He munches silently as the three contestants wait for his judgement.

“It’s… sweet. A little too sweet for a pizza, in my honest opinion. The dough is still too sticky, it feels.. underbaked.”

All problems Chica herself found with her pizza. She couldn’t even protest the criticism.

“I can say that it is definitely pizza though!” Freddy flashes her a smile. 

Usually, it would calm her down. Freddy’s smiles and hugs are like a one cure-for-all, it’s almost magical. Now, it just makes Chica feel worse.

He’s making you mess up.

You’re going to fail.

Freddy gently pats her back, “You did great, Chica.”

She just stays silent.

Freddy moves on to judge Sunny and the intruder’s pizza.

As expected and begrudgingly deserved, Freddy takes a liking to their pizza more than hers. She takes a slice for herself, to soothe her stomach if not her growing resentment.

The pizza, though it looks silly—tastes good.

Almost as good as ones she could whip up on a good day—with the correct ingredients. They made this from scratch. Her stomach growls. She wants—no, she needs more. As her thoughts run, she takes more of the pizza and shoves them inside her mouth. 

They’ve won.

Chica glances at the three mid-bite; her eyes travel from Freddy’s beaming smile, Sunny’s tired but proud grin, and the intruder’s—

He’s stealing your friends.

He’s making you mess up.

You’re going to fail.

It’s his fault.

It’s his fault.

The bigger part of her, the anger and resentment, combined with the painful urge to eat and eat and eat until she can’t anymore—wins. It wins despite her attempts and she suddenly forgets the threat Moon presented to her.

“I'd also like to add that if you take a swing at Gregory or try to harm him in any way, shape or form - deal's off and I'll rip that beak off your face, capiche?" 

----

Moon notices it before anyone does, once again.

Sunny, switch.

What—

He doesn’t even wait until the switching process is finished before jumping over the table and running at Chica. The bells on his wrists ring as he kicks her on the stomach and pins her to the floor with his foot, pulling her hands behind her back with a harsh tug. The pizza that was on her mouth flies off, scattered to the floor. 

Moon can’t focus on that yet.

“What did I say, Cheeks?” Moon hisses at her. 

She growls inhumanly, eyes glaring red.

“Greg, shoot her.” 

Gregory is shaking, just a little—he must’ve been startled from the sudden movement. He obeys without a word, shooting Chica on both eyes. She screams and thrashes against Moon’s tight grip before growing limp.

(Gregory is staring at the locked double doors—there’s a familiar figure waving a knife at him.)

“What—what happened? Chica?” Freddy asks fearfully, rushing across the room to be closer to his friend. 

Moon. Moon- Moon—Look at her eyes.

Moon’s anger fades a little as he takes in her red eyes.

“Possession.”

Chica growls and shakes off the stun effect of the Fazerblaster, thrashing harder against his grip. 

“The fucking timing—"

Freddy doesn’t even scold him for language.

“Tch, stay down. Fuck, Fred is there any way to stop her? I don’t want to hurt her.” Moon takes a deep metaphorical breath.

Oh god oh god oh no oh no—

Sunny, calm down please.

Sorry sorry sorry sorRY I’M PANICKING AND I CAN’T STOP—

“I-I do not know.. Gregory and I have just ran to avoid the others.”

“Do we have to find Bunny—”

"M-moon—door. DOOR!—” Gregory shouts, pointing at the door. 

Moon snaps his neck towards the door. It was the wrong move to make—his sensors catch the mess of pizza on the floor and he freezes as programming takes over and he’s forced to let go of Chica and clean clean clean—

Chica gets up and approaches Gregory. 

“Lost boy over here.” She says robotically.

Freddy gets in front of Gregory, blocking Chica’s way. 

Gregory is frozen in place, stuck in whatever trance Bunny is able to put him in. 

Moon curses and screams at the door, 

“BUNNY IF YOU FUCKING DARE TO STEP IN HERE I SWEAR—” Moon stops to scrub off a particularly stubborn stain on the floor.

Bunny just laughs a shrill, high pitched laugh. She doesn’t take it seriously at all. Gregory shakes harder, his face stuck in a horrified expression. 

Chica lunges at Freddy, not caring about him as long as she gets to Gregory. Freddy tackles her back and tries his best to halt her in her steps.

Moon scrubs harder.

HURRY HURRY HURRY AAAAAAAAAAA

I AM SCRUBBING AS FAST AS I CAN. SHUT. UP.

I’M SORRY.

I’M SORRY TOO BUT YOU ARE REALLY NOT HELPING SO FUCK OFF- SORRY.

The door’s knob turns. 

“YEAH YOU FUCKING OPEN THAT DOOR. DO IT. OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR.”

(Gregory doesn’t know if he should cry or laugh because of this absurd situation.)

Bunny pauses. The door’s knob stops turning.

Freddy is still trying to fend off Chica, “Chica please—"

Moon finally gets that stubborn stain out. 

“ONCE I’M DONE CLEANING THIS SHITSTAIN I’LL RIP YOUR INTESTINES OUT OF YOUR FUCKING CHEST AND SPREAD IT ACROSS THIS ENTIRE DAMN PLEX FOR EVERY HUMAN TO SEE NEXT MORNING.” He grits his teeth, smiling menacingly at the door as he squeezes the dirty rag. 

The rag rips in his hands due to the sheer force he used.

Oh god. Moon control your strength—

Sunny can’t you fucking see how mad I AM RIGHT NOW? ARE YOU BLIND? FUCK, AAAAAAGGH SORRY.

IT’S FINE IT’S FINE I’LL STOP TALKING.

Bunny visibly gulps at the ripped rag. Moon fights off the urge to clean with pure stubborn will and dangles the remains of the poor rag for her to see.

“YOU WANNA BE LIKE THIS RAG TOMORROW BITCH? COME IN. DON’T BE SHY, I’M A FRIENDLY GUY.” Moon yells, his voice distorting slightly—he’s not meant to talk so loudly.

He’s forced to continue cleaning again soon after. Moon takes the fallen pieces of pizza and throws them to the trash can. The pizza slams on the trash can’s lid, which slams onto the wall and makes a very loud bang.

“COME ON. THAT DAMN KNIFE JUST FOR SHOW?” Moon’s hand twitches.

The threats are not very intimidating when Moon is furiously cleaning as he is saying them, but it eventually gets the intended effect as Bunny vanishes from the door. Gregory groans in relief and takes a while to readjust himself before firing the blaster at Chica to help Freddy.

Finally. Fucking HELL.

Moony, I think you’re developing anger issues.

Sunny. Timing. Please.

Sorry.

Moon focuses on cleaning again and picks all of his cleaning supplies up when he’s done, throwing them a little too harshly back in the closet. 

----

Chica winces at the shot, “Hey, what gives?!” She whines, covering both of her eyes.

“Chica?” Freddy asks hopefully. He and Chica are in a rather awkward position on the floor.

Chica’s vision seemingly clears at that exact moment and she lets out a shrill shriek, pushing Freddy away,

“EEk-! Freddy what are you doing?!” She yells at him, slapping the bear across the face.

Freddy clutches at his poor face.

“OW—!”

“Fucking bunny—stupid cleaning—I hate this—” She hears someone mutter.

“Moon?” 

Chica looks around, seeing the kitchen and pizza, the child, Moon, Freddy—it all comes back to her. She gasps, covering her beak with both hands.

“Uh.. is that the real Chica?” The child, why is there a child here—her internal clock says that it’s way past closing time.

“What- why- how?—” She mutters.

“Chica, enter safe mode. Please.” Freddy puts a hand on her shoulder, exhaustion in his voice.

“I’m—okay, okay. Hold on.” 

Chica does so, a green tint filling her vision before fading back. She exhales, “What is happening.” she whines, clutching her head.

“A ripoff easter Bunny’s running around hacking the systems and fucking with our personality chips. A kid–Gregory there–got stuck here at the same time, which is the worst possible time.” Moon explains, grumbling as he does so. He seems very ticked off. 

“Oh and I’m pretty sure everyone is trying to kill me too.” Gregory adds his own two cents.

“I–okay. Okay. Just—give me a minute to process all of this.” Chica sits down.

Chapter Text

The room falls into silence.

Moon props himself up on the nearest counter, hand twitching to swipe off a stray dough stain at the edge of the counter’s surface. The thing is now spotless after furious scrubbing on his part, which gives him a sort of mild satisfaction.

However, that does almost nothing to negate his anger.

He stays deathly still.

WHY AM I SO- SO—

Angry? Frustrated? Nervous? Furious? Pissed off? Enr—

ALL OF THAT. 

I don’t know. I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW—

You’re being so fucking annoying right now.

i’M SORRY I SWEAR I’M TRYING NOT TO BE ANNOYING–also language–

Yeah yeah whatever. It’s–fuck, I’m sorry for being rude as fuck but my filter is gone right now and I am.

Mad.

Oh um oh no uh—

We could–switch? If you want to of course if you don’t want to that’s fine too I don’t mind at all I’m just a little concerned and I can’t stop talking and I’m now panicking and I DON’T KNOW WHY—

Moon buries his face in his hands and lets out a silent scream. 

Gregory nudges his leg.

“Greg, not now.” He bites back the rest of his might-be-words and attempts to shoo the eleven year old away with a hand.

“Bunny’s gone. I’ve stopped being scared so you have to stop being mad.” He says.

“I hate that bitch.”

“I do too. You’re not a special snowflake, old man.” The brat sticks his tongue out.

Moon wants to smother the kid. 

NO! NO MURDER.

Metaphorically, Sunny. METAPHORICALLY.

Ohh.. ..OKAY! 

Kind of. A little bit. Maybe he really is developing anger issues, Moon thinks as he desperately convinces himself that no, he does not actually want to smother Gregory—that’s just his anger talking. 

Anger. Right. What else is he angry about that isn’t Bunny—Moon stares at the counter. The darn thing looks brand new, squeaky clean. As if it just got thoroughly deep cleaned with a bunch of chemicals for a straight week.

He decides,

“I hate involuntary cleaning.”

“Same. Anything else you wanna complain about or can we get me some water?” 

Moon snorts.

Sun’s giggles ring throughout his head. Accompanied with Gregory’s sass, It’s somehow a comforting sound. Moon’s fiery anger slowly simmers down into mere embers. In fact, it dies so quickly he’s almost concerned—but, anything to prevent him from snapping at someone undeserving.

“..thanks, not-kid.”

“Hey! Switch back to Greg.” Gregory smacks his leg, miffed.

“Sure, not-kid.” He snickers.

----

Freddy is concerned. Scratch that—he is very concerned.

Both Chica and Moon are frozen, the former sitting on a stool and staring blankly into the distance while the latter is sitting on one of the counters with his face in his hands. Gregory is hiding behind Freddy himself. He has a hand on the child’s shoulder, the poor boy looks shaken.

Everyone looks shaken.

Until Gregory breaks the silence and starts a conversation with Moon. It’s more vulgar than he’d like, but it does the job in dragging Moon back from whatever hole he fell into after that unusual outburst. 

He leaves them to talk and approach Chica.

“Chica, would you like some water? And maybe pizza?”

All of the band have the capability to eat and drink, their creators made sure of that—almost nobody does it outside of parties though, it’s a hassle to clean up. But, there is one notable exception and that is Chica.

As the chef and the main animatronic who often hosts pizza making sessions and similar activities, Chica enjoys eating and drinking like none other. It’s a comfort to her—a comfort that’s been horribly twisted judging from the tampering, but a comfort nonetheless.

“...I’d really appreciate that, Freddy.” Chica sighs, putting a hand on her stomach. 

“I’m.. very, very hungry right now. Actually, I’ve been very hungry since the lockdown started. I’m—the memories are kind of muddled right now. I think I remember everything, though. It just feels like.. I wasn’t the one actually doing it. If that makes any sense. My memories of the past five hours are like.. In third person. It’s like I’m watching myself do something—and I know I did it but–”

“You don’t remember doing it yourself.” Moon butts in. If Moon was human, his voice would’ve been hoarse after all that profanity and screaming he definitely was not made for—which Freddy still doesn’t approve of but he can’t deny its effectivity. Fortunately though, Moon’s an animatronic so his voice is perfectly fine and pleasant to the ears as always. 

He’s a little relieved to hear that. It had been a very concerning if not unsettling experience. Freddy doesn’t think he’s ever heard the other scream that loud and angrily at anything—even when he’s at peak frustration. It's nice to hear Moon's voice again, too.

Chica too. She’s the least brutish of all of them, second only to Sun—who wouldn’t hurt a fly if they could help it. Seeing her butchering and failing at her own craft, her pride and joy—hurt a little to see.

He spotted her taking a pinch of dough or ingredient during the contest. Usually, that’d be normal—she samples her ingredients while cooking all the time—but, she sampled just a little too much and a little too often. There were periods of times where she’d freeze and stare blankly at Gregory and Sun, too. 

Freddy doesn’t think Chica herself noticed what she was doing in her mind-controlled state, but he’s pretty sure that was why she had failed so badly. He hands her the box of leftovers from the Sun pizza, then turns back to get her and Gregory some water.

“Huuh.. how come you kinda remember but Moon doesn’t remember at all? Oh and, you didn’t try to murder me when we were cooking. Except for near the end.” Gregory questions. 

He shuffles a little closer to Moon—clearly not trusting Chica yet. 

“I think Bunny’s got different levels of control over certain bots. She’s hacked the system so she must know that I’m one of the strongest upgrades and power wise. Chica’s one of the weakest—no offence, Cheeks.” Moon hypothesises.

“None taken.” 

“So.. she controlled you like, a 100%-y and controlled Chica half that?” Gregory doesn’t sound too sure of his own summarization.

“If I’m right, then yeah.” 

“I suppose that makes sense.” Freddy returns and hands Chica a plastic bottle of water he had fetched from a nearby shelf. He hands Gregory one as well.

The child takes it and opens the cap with no problems, gulping the water down almost immediately after he’s given it.

“Right. Okay. So.. Gregory here somehow stayed in the Plex after closing. We’re all possessed and tampered with by a strange bunny suited hacker to some degree. Everyone is trying to kill Gregory. What else is there? There’s a murderer on the loose?” Chica summarises in her ‘I am so done’ tone. She takes a bite of the pizza while at it.

“I fucking hope not.” Moon flops back to lay on the counter.

“Language.” Freddy interjects.

Gregory sneaks over and snatches the last slice of the Sun pizza. He retreats behind the counter Moon is on immediately after. Mid-munching, he says,

“Yeah so are we going to go for Monty or Roxy next?” 

“Swallow before you talk, superstar.” Freddy scolds.

Gregory swallows his pizza. 

“..wait.” Chica freezes.

“Huh?” Gregory and Moon say at the same time. 

“WAIT- WHAT TIME IS IT?” She screeches. The sound is ear grating—Moon and Freddy twitch uncomfortably. 

“...maybe don’t yell, Chica—” Freddy winces.

“Time.. oh. OH. OH FUCK—” Moon joins in the screeching.

“What? What’s with the time? Huh?–” Gregory glances between everyone in confusion.

Oh. Oh no- OH NO–

FUCK WE GOTTA GO—

"HOURLYPATROLGOTTAGOSEEYOUBYE"

Moon jumps off the counter and breaks out into a run, exiting the kitchen through the double doors. The doors slam open loudly, rattling some of the appliances there. They close just as quickly as they open, swaying a little due to the force of Moon’s speedy exit.

“What? Hey, where are you going–!” 

“Our hourly recharge.. Oh dear.” if Freddy was human, he’d be visibly sweating right about now. His optics flicker, their lights visibly dimming.

“You—um, Gregory.. Why don’t you go find somewhere to hide? Freddy and I have to return to our rooms and Moon has to—there he goes. He has an hourly protocol he must follow every night.” 

“Ohh, that. Yeah.. I remember now. Oh, man. Where do I go?!”

“Um.. you have that blaster so I assume you’ve been to the arcade?” 

“Yeah?”

“Okay, it should be safe there—um, you can get another weapon to defend yourself with too. Just in case something happens to the Fazerblaster.”

“Oh I like the sound of that. Tell me where to go.” Freddy doesn’t like the sinister grin on his charge’s voice. Chica shakes her head in disbelief.

“..there’s something else that can incapacitate us other than the Fazer Blaster?” He blanches. He hasn’t been shot with the blaster himself, but he can imagine what it’d feel like.

“The Faz-Cam. It’s in Monty’s Gator Golf. It should be able to stun the S.T.A.F.F. bots.. assuming they also go after you.” Chica says, ignoring his concerns entirely.

“They do but they’re dumber than all of you.” Gregory confirms.

“That’s—that’s good.” Chica takes a sip from her glass of water.

“Is Monty in Gator Golf right now?” Freddy questions, worry evident in his voice.

“He shouldn’t be. I saw him last at the lobby. Anyway we don’t have much time—Freddy, do you have a party pass for him?” 

“No need! I took some from Parts & Service. I’m gonna get going now. You guys better come find me later.” Gregory runs out through the same double doors Moon exited from.

“That.. solves the problem. Ugh, I’m still so hungry..” Chica whines.

“We can get some food later. For now, let’s go back to our rooms together.” Freddy offers.

—

Moon feels a sense of deja vu as he navigates his way through the Plex. He’s running instead of swinging around this time.

There isn’t much going on. The S.T.A.F.F. bots seem normal as they follow their predetermined routes with their flashlights. The Plex is as clean as it can get post-closing, which Moon is definitely thankful for because he doesn’t know if he could survive another round of programming-enforced cleaning.

There are still miniscule amounts of trash like wrapping paper or receipts that he still has to pick up though. It’s better than a lot of trash, he tells himself.

Say, uh.. why’d you run off so fast like that? 

Sun has since calmed down throughout the conversation following Gregory bullying Moon into calming down—which relieves Moon by a lot. His brother has always been an anxious worrywart. 

Uh, no comment. How are you? Do you need me to sing something?

No, no need! I’m calm now. I don’t know what got to me, oh dear.

Probably the tampering, Sunny. You’re kind of a lot more hyper.. and not in the good way.

I am? Oh yeah, I am- ..IT GOT WORSE- OH GOD OH NO, do you think I scared Gregory?—

Nahh, Greg’s a brave kid. It’s obvious that he had lots of fun with you making that pizza. And on that topic, he’s.. I think he isn’t scared of me anymore. 

I told you he’d like you! 

It doesn’t count. Greg is definitely not a normal kid. You saw how terrifying his aim is!

Still. He's a kid and he likes you! Come on, Moony.. the kids miss you at the daycare. They keep complaining to me about how you're not fun anymore.

Hey, what’s that got to do with Greg? 

You know what I mean. You—you haven’t been there. You only sing a song every nap time and never interact with any of the kids anymore.

I’m dangerous. I’ll get us decommissioned if I run wild. If me not being there keeps the kids out of danger, I'll gladly continue doing it. So drop it.

You've been swinging around all over the place the last few hours more than you have in this month alone though. I know you like it. You even picked Gregory up! You didn’t panic over it either!

That’s—that was different. Greg is a wily kid, he isn’t gonna break an arm if I drop him.

Moony..

It's not like I'm carting Greg around while I'm doing it either. It's different.

I bet he'd enjoy getting to fly.

He would. But I wouldn't. I'm not dropping another kid and getting us decommissioned. You deserve better than that. The kids deserve better—

You know it was an acc-

Lalalala don't wanna hear it.

But, you can't deny that you're comfy around Gregory. 

…he's a nice kid.

He is. You don't even imitate my voice around him. 

I don't?—oh.. I haven't noticed. I've.. oh wow I've been talking with my own voice the entire night, have I? Huh.

Yes. Please keep doing that. Stop pretending you don’t exist—

I definitely won't just because you said that.

Brother. Listen–

He snickers audibly.

I wonder how Greg will react.

Moon–oh, I think he'd find it very funny. ..speaking of kids finding something funny—Moon. Alice's birthday party. Did you plan that with her?

He remembers that particular party. Alice and her friends wanted a little surprise. So they planned that literal surprise. It made a mess of the poor cake, but the thing wasn’t even edible anyway. The looks on her parents and the band’s faces were absolutely worth the scolding he got from Freddy for it. 

Took you long enough to figure that one out, Sunny.

Moon snickers loudly, getting curious looks from nearby S.T.A.F.F. bots that he passes.

Of course you did! Agh, you’re unbelievable.

You love me for it.

Yes. So continue–aH you’re changing the topic. Stop doing that. Just-just please, be yourself again. Everyone misses you—I miss my brother.

I have no idea what you’re talking about, oh wow look at the time. Wait shit—Fred and Cheeks gotta recharge, what’d they do with Greg?

Brother–OH, oh curses! We should finish the patrol quickly, it’s too dangerous for Gregory to be left alone here.

Honestly, it’s more like he’s too dangerous for this place. You have seen what the kid can do with that blaster.

Oh I don’t know, Moony. Maybe you’re just bad at dodging.

WOW. I’ll switch when he’s shooting and let’s see how you like being blasted.

You wouldn’t dare!

I totally would! My eyes hurt like hell.

Moon can practically feel his optics ache at the reminder of Gregory and his fazerblasting prowess. At the end of this, he’s going to be immune to those stupid lasers. He wonders where Gregory learned to shoot like that. 

Hahaha… yeah.. Um. Do you think he’s abused at home?

..that’s a very sudden and very loaded question, bro.

Sun usually has more tact than that, but Moon easily blames it on the tinkering that bunny bitch did to their programming. Whatever, as long as it steers his brother away from the other conversation. It is a concerning topic anyway.

I- sorry.. I’m just–um, concerned. Because he flinches at loud noises, raised voices and he’s the type to not trust easily–and he seems so surprised at the slightest bit of kindness I show him. I told him that he can get as much water as he wants and he just-he just had this–this expression.

Moon frowns.

Gregory himself didn’t look too shabby. He’s dressed in a plain but nice looking shirt and some shorts. His shoes are a little worn-down, but it’s nothing of note when most children his age run around a lot.

His behaviour towards Moon himself until now doesn’t trigger any red flags–or at least, not of the usual variety. He can note that Gregory is a lot more daring and reckless than most children his age would be, though.

But he’s mostly blamed that on personality.

Say, Sunny, is he registered as a guest?

No.. he's not. I’ve checked my databases. No ‘Gregory’ to be found.

How’d he get in then?—actually nah, brat’s sneaky, he can totally bust in no problem. Question is, why.

Now that, I don’t know..

Abused kids have always been something that hurt to discuss. As animatronics, their existence is simple. Stick to their jobs, care for the kids, see them off at the end of the day. Rinse and repeat forever until they get decommissioned. They can’t—they’re not allowed to interfere more than they should. 

It’s none of their business how the parents raise their kids. Moon knows for a fact that Chica and Roxy are always vehemently on the children’s side anytime they catch the kids being berated loudly by their parents. It’s heartbreaking to see how happy they are being defended from their own parents. 

It gets them a warning or two, then a stern talking-to from their manager because customer service is the most important part of running a business like this and the parents are the ones paying—not the children. 

Moon remembers kids flinching away from sudden movement in his heyday as a performer back at the daycare. They were cautious of him, because they see him as someone stronger–someone who can hurt them–and the way he can move was unsettling to some of them. 

Seeing kids like that always made his brother sad. He really is Moon’s better half–he could comfort them and get them up and running around cheerfully again in almost no time. 

At the end of the day, though–all of that is temporary. The kids have to go home eventually and unfortunately, not all of them will do so happily. They can’t be assured that some kids are even safe in their own homes. 

It sucks. It really does. Moon hates the fact with passion but what can he do? He’s just an animatronic. All of them are helpless under management and their creators’ whims. The Plex is a business, not a charity. Their purpose is not to save abused children from their parents. They can give the kids a reprieve, but that’s all they can do.

….d’ya think he’s homeless? 

What? But- he’s so young! He’s ten–

Eleven.

Eleven years old! And he’s dressed too nicely to be homeless. 

Not all homeless people dress in rags, Sunny. I think.

Oh, well.. Gregory is quite crafty. Maybe he got his clothes from somewhere?

He definitely stole them. He’s great at snatching shit up. 

Language–but, if he’s homeless then… oh. Oh. Gregory..

Sneaked into the plex to get food and shelter for the night, I presume. 

But–he can’t be. He’s·he must have parents. Somewhere. I bet they’re looking for him now—! Or maybe an orphanage?

Brother, you know if he’s got parents we wouldn’t be on lockdown right now. Any parent worth their title would look for him and he’ll be safe at home by now. It’s- it’s like two AM, Sunny. Orphanage is out, too. They can’t afford a place as expensive as the ‘plex.

It–it can’t be. Then- why- how- how are we- where–where will he stay come morning?

….

Moon, please. We–you can’t throw him out. Promise me. If he’s really homeless-

Programming dictates my actions. We’re robots, Sun. We got one job.

Moon..

….

—

Freddy and Chica are walking together.

It’s a very nostalgic act, one they’ve found themselves doing many times. They’ve always walked side by side. Freddy in the middle, Chica on his left, and Bo–

He shakes his head, somehow meeting Chica’s eyes in the process. Freddy can’t tell what she’s feeling—her neutral expression gives nothing away as they make their way to a lobby that’ll lead them to their rooms. The S.T.A.F.F. bots are still searching for Gregory, but they give the two a wide berth as they pass along.

Chica takes a deep breath, her voice crackling slightly. He feels like many of them have started doing that more often, these days. Or perhaps just this one, chaotic night. The silence is a little discomforting to him when all the walks he’s taken this night so far have been filled with Sun’s chatter and their silly debates together.

He wants to strike up a conversation—say something. Comfort Chica, because she must be feeling down right now. She’s freshly free from mind-control and had a lot dumped on her in a single setting. Not to mention her unabating hunger and the wound to her pride from losing a pizza baking competition. 

But.

He’s scared. Chica is a dear friend and Freddy knows better than anyone how much she struggles with food and how insecure she can get over her own abilities. He doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and make it worse. 

“Freddy always makes everything better!” everyone says. 

He wishes, wishes it was as true as everyone believes it to be. But he knows, even he is not exempt from his share of insecurities. All he can do is support his friends—give them an ear, someone to confide in and depend on and rely on. 

So he should talk to Chica before they can’t get any more time together. He knows she’ll never bring it up first. She’ll make up excuses and he’ll feel too bad pushing her and they’ll end up never talking about it.

After all, it’s what happened to- to—

Freddy can’t bring himself to say the name. Moon had dropped it so casually earlier and the appearance of Bunny hurts Freddy in all the ways he didn’t know could be hurt—he hates himself for it even though he knows that’s unhealthy and he really shouldn’t.

He knows he wouldn’t want him and Chica to be like this though.

So Freddy takes a deep breath of his own and opens his mouth–

“I’m sorry.” Chica says quietly.

“It’s–you have nothing to be sorry for, Chica.” Freddy murmurs.

“I almost hurt Gregory. I was trying–I was trying to kill him. Because what? I lost in a pizza baking competition? It’s–that’s so stupid.” She laughs in that self deprecating way Freddy oh-so hates.

“Chica, you were mind controlled!”

“To a lesser extent than Moon was. We could have avoided all that mess if I–if I wasn’t so stubborn and immediately entered safe mode like you said.” Chica says bitterly.

“It’s okay, Chica. It turned out well. We’re all okay.” Freddy tries to assure. He doesn’t know if it’s effective or not.

“It could have gone so much worse than a pizza baking competition, Freddy.” Chica chokes, her voice pitching.

“Chica–”

“I don’t wanna be decommissioned. You know how they treated Moon after the incident. I–I thought we would never see him again.” 

The thought of Moon stirs a well of various feelings inside Freddy. On one hand, he’s glad—he’s happy. So happy. Moon is talking as himself, he doesn’t seem as apprehensive to swinging around like he used to outside of his night patrol protocol. 

He’s willing to talk and joke around and be crass with Gregory. He doesn’t pretend like–like he’s just a plus-one to Sun. Like he doesn’t matter compared to his brother. Freddy remembers a talk he had with Sun earlier on.

----

“Have you ever thought about why your brother does not use his own voice much?”

“Oh, well.. He’s really good at imitating me for one. I think it’s how he shows affection. It’s really good for pranks too.”

“..I see. I think it may be for a different reason, Sun. You are aware that he has been.. Distant, lately? To the band more than yourself, I’d presume.”

“..I do. It’s really worrying. He always retreats back during busy days. I’m busy entertaining the kids so I don’t notice much–but sometimes.. it’s like, I don’t feel him with me. I know he’s there though.”

“Your brother has.. a very low opinion of himself. He thinks it would be better if you were the only daycare animatronic.”

“....and you heard this from?”

“It’s not hard to see it from how he conducts himself, Sun.”

“He’s my brother—I would know if he’s feeling like that! We share one mind. We’re two halves of a whole-”

“I know, I know dear one–but you know how protective he is of you. He would die for you, Sun. He would sacrifice anything if it meant keeping you safe.”

“I- he–he would .. he would hide things from me if he thinks it’ll hurt me.”

“Yes. He would. I.. unfortunately, he does not talk about that even to myself. I have only come to this conclusion from observing him, the way he talks about himself when you’re resting–when he thinks nobody is around… DJMM has confided in me about the issue, he has overheard Moon, several times. It is..” 

“It is concerning.”

“It is. Please–I know that it is not the right time, but I have a bad feeling about tonight. Something will change. For the better, or the worse, we cannot be sure. Talk to your brother about this when you have the chance.”

----

So many of his family struggle with self-image, Freddy thinks. He doesn’t know how to make it better, because he feels it too. Words can only do so much. It says something about the environment they’re in–or maybe just his abilities as a leader.

“You won’t be, Chica.” He assures.

“Nobody is getting decommissioned.” Freddy says in the most convincing tone he could muster. Anymore, he doesn’t add.

Chica makes a sound akin to a sniffle in a human. She puts one arm around him, bringing him closer. 

“Thank you, Freddy. I’m glad you’re still here.” 

“As am I, Chica. Everything will be fine.” Freddy isn’t sure if he’s comforting Chica or himself, but the words make him feel a little bit better.

Everything will be fine. 

It must be. 

He just has to believe that.

----

Gregory brandishes his flashlight and does a very impressive forward roll to the back of yet another vending machine, narrowly avoiding a passing S.T.A.F.F. bot. He runs to the next narrow space he spots in the corner of his eyes, vaulting over a fence with ease.

The sight of a flashlight coming closer forces him to run for the closest hiding space—a trash can. Unpleasant, but he’s hidden inside worse things. The smell of trash is nothing compared to the ones outside. 

He carefully opens the lid to see several S.T.A.F.F. bots gathering in one area. His eyes narrow and he squints to get a better look, spotting a pair of unfortunately familiar feet. Stuffed white, three toes—the paw of a rabbit. Rounder and softer than any of the band’s plastic ones—can’t be the daycare twins either.

Gregory focuses and he hears snippets of conversation. That sense of dread that always freezes his senses and makes him so helpless around Bunny comes back for a moment but Gregory knows he’s safe—at least right now.

They don’t know he’s here, and he has a feeling that whatever this is—it might be important to hear. He’s scared, yes, but that’s exactly why he should stay and listen. 

Best way to confront a fear? Guns blazing, head on. Well in this case not quite head on, but he’ll get to that later.

“Yes, master—of course. Everything is going according to plan.”

“N-no, of course not—no, I’m sorry–it won’t happen again.”

“I-I will not fail.”

“I will not fail.”

The S.T.A.F.F. bots jerk to attention. Their eyes are red. Bunny says something to all of them and they immediately scatter to different places, their flashlights also blaring red. 

Fuck, Gregory can almost hear Moon say. He kind of misses the crass humour of the other, they work really well together. He’d say something about how it’s always the god-damned red eyes too.

Bunny stops and she now has a really good view of the trash can Gregory is hiding in. He doesn’t dare close the lid properly—she’ll undoubtedly notice that. That fear, the feeling of bile rising in his throat and the absolute terror he doesn’t understand the source of—it comes back and it takes everything in Gregory to not tremble as his eyes meet Bunny’s red ones.

“I’ll get you.” Bunny says. She may not know he’s there but Gregory knows for a fact that you means him.

It takes too long before she turns around and walks away, slipping into the shadows and vanishing like she was never there. Gregory doesn’t get how she does that. 

Maybe a better, more creative name for her would be.. Vanny. Because she van-ishes into the shadows like it’s a daily chore she does. Or something. Gregory thinks hysterically, trying to squash the rest of the panic out of his mind.

Sun would like that pun. Freddy would think it’s funny and also be concerned that they’re arguing over the name of a might-be-murderer hacker.

Whatever. Whatever. He doesn’t want to think about it when he’s alone and he doesn’t feel safe. Gregory gulps and carefully comes out of the trash can, spilling a bunch of them everywhere on the floor. If he’s calmer, maybe he would think to put all the trash back. Who knows if it might hinder Sun or Moon later. 

Unfortunately, he is not calm so Gregory ignores the mess and runs as fast as he can afford to without making a sound. He’s close to Gator Golf and it’s easy enough to get in after slipping a party pass.

Strangely enough, there are no S.T.A.F.F. bots around.

Gator Golf is darker than he remembers and ridiculously green. His throat feels a little dry so he checks his Fazmap for the nearest food booth—which is thankfully close. He slides through the security measures easily and—

“JUST—FUCK OFF, ROXANNE. Go—go be fucking useless somewhere else.” A familiar voice grits out–loudly.

Gregory flinches and jumps behind the nearest hiding place—an out of commission arcade machine. It doesn’t cover him much at all. His heart thunders in his ears and he takes deep breaths, listening in to the conversation.

“I was just asking you a question!” Another voice chimes in, clearly frustrated.

“A FUCKING USELESS ONE THAT’S WHAT—why the fuck would I know where everyone is? The fucking place is big, Rox. We all got one job, stop worrying your tits off about all of them—”

“It’s 2 AM and I haven’t ran into anyone but you for the past two fucking hours, Montgomery—don’t you care about our friends?!” A decidedly female voice–Roxanne, yells back. Not as loudly as Montgomery, but still pretty loud and harsh in the way that stirs the most unpleasant memories in Gregory’s head.

He curls into himself, slightly shaking. 

“Shut it. I’m goin’ and I’ll find the fucking kid.” Monty storms off, the heavy weight of his steps thundering across the floor. 

His heart is beating in his ears and Gregory squishes himself further in the corner. He has to- remain unseen. Hidden.

I’m safe.

Gregory repeats to himself until the thundering steps are so far away that they’re inaudible and he believes in those two words. Once Monty is gone, Roxanne–Roxy, his mind helpfully adds–bursts out into tears.

She starts a round of self deprecation that hurts Gregory’s heart in its aching familiarity. He wants to leave and find somewhere safer. Somewhere where nothing hurts and he can just run around and not worry about where he’ll sleep, when his next meal would be or- or–

I’m so useless.

Nobody wants me around.

Why? Why?

You’re so fake.

Why did everyone leave me?

No, I’m the best. I’m the best.

I’ll find the kid first.

I’ll be fine.

He doesn’t know if it’s Roxy or him talking or thinking anymore and he really, really can’t stop it. Gregory feels weak and vulnerable the way he hasn’t been since- since–he shakes his head. He has to save himself. Or at least calm down. 

There’s nobody else here. Nobody cares for him. He has to move–or be moved. He can’t rely on anybody, everyone is out to get him. Here, and outside, and anywhere else. Nobody likes a street rat–a nuisance to society.

He takes a deep breath and shelves his thoughts. Everything. 

(He wishes Freddy was here. Or the twins—he wants them to bring him somewhere safe where he won’t have to run or worry; but really, that’s too much to ask for.)

Don’t be a child, Gregory.

----

As soon as they’re done patrolling, Moon switches out with Sun and they don’t say another word between them. They arrive at Monty’s Gator Golf in strange, slightly uncomfortable silence. 

Their steps are loud in the silence of the area—strangely no S.T.A.F.F. bots anywhere. Their sun-spires spin around their head idly and they have an urge to fall back to their idle animation. They don’t, though—Gregory is waiting for them somewhere around here.

Sun’s head feels silent and they’re reminded again of that awful few hours without Moon. It’s different now, they assure themselves. Moon is there, at the back of their head. He just isn’t talking to them. 

It’s nothing new. Moon doesn’t always talk, they’re usually the talker out of the two of them. It’s fine.

Sun makes their way across Monty’s Gator Golf, passing through each golf course slowly—hoping they’ll find Gregory in one of them. Maybe he befriended Monty the same way he did Moon. Through a thorough beatdown in a minigame. That sounds very nice. Yes, very nice. 

They giggle to themselves, it sounds a little unhinged even to their own ears. Sun winces.

The giggle seems to have not gone unnoticed, because there are heavy steps coming over their way. Rough, harsh and rather loud steps; which can only be two people. Freddy or the owner of the place himself, Monty.

Sun dearly hopes it’s Freddy. Freddy is so much better. Everything will be fine with Freddy around.

The telltale glint of dark green, almost camouflaging with the rest of their surroundings–tell them otherwise. Sun screams as something green and dark and foreboding comes into view.

GREEN AND DARK AND FOREBODING HAHHAHAHA–

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-” 

Monty grabs them and puts a clawed hand over their voice box. It doesn’t really do anything, but they get the memo and stop screaming.

Oh shit he looks angry. 

OH LOOK WHO DECIDES TO COME BACK— LANGUAGE.

“Sunshine.” Monty growls, lifting them up by their collar. It feels kind of awkward considering they’re taller than Monty when standing at their full height—but the threat works. Sun squeaks,

“H-hI~ HI! WHAT ARE WE HAVING TODAY—I meAN, HOW ARE YOU MY GOOD FRIEND–”

“Where in Chica’s fucking tits have ya god-damn been?!” 

“Language.” Sun chides half-heartedly.

Not in Chica’s fucking tits that’s for damn sure.

Language–heathens, both of you.

I’ll take it from here. Don’t like how he’s holding you.

Frankly, Sun thinks that’s a horrible idea considering how terribly Moon and Monty get along–but they’re too terrified of Monty to stay.

“Finally—fucking hell, Moon you shitty bastard–it’s fucking two AM and none of you useless fucks have found the brat.” 

Moon kicks him, forcing Monty to let go. He settles on his feet and backflips, landing with a bow some metres away. He raises his head to meet Monty’s eyes head on, his optics glowing blue.

“I’m the useless fuck? Try looking in the fucking mirror, bitch.” He grins widely.

Sun gives their brother the mental equivalent of a hard shove and a pull at the ear. 

Ow. I’M RIGHT.

He’s mind controlled, Moon. Be reasonable.

“You- you’re such a fucking stuck-up bitch—” Monty growls and charges at him. 

MOON- do NOT start a fight right now—

Moon laughs, briefly falling to their idle animation before sliding away—barely avoiding a swing to their head. He spins around Monty and kicks the other animatronic on the back, throwing him to the ground with the force.

“Sure, Mr. Collateral Damage.” He sneers.

Monty gets up with an enraged scream.

Chapter Text

They’re halfway to Gator Golf before Chica stops walking.

“I–I need to eat.” Chica says quietly, hand clutching her stomach area.

Freddy frowns, “It’s–is it like a compulsion, dear one?”

She jerks her head in a nod, “Yes. It’s like… if I don’t eat, I’ll die. I’m already struggling to breathe.” 

Freddy steps closer, holding her arm in silent support. 

“It’s–I cannot in good conscience leave you to yourself.”

“It’s okay—you’re gonna be dealing with Monty, Fred. The twins might already be there by now, but they’re—you know how Moon is with Monty. You have to be there.” Chica grimaces.

Freddy suppresses a wince at the reminder of Moon and Monty’s spectacularly deteriorating relationship. There’s not even a reason or a vendetta beneath it all—they’re just horribly into goading each other. That added with their amplified anger is just asking for trouble.

Sun won’t be able to wrangle them both themselves. Not with their unhinged episodes that’s been frequently growing worse. 

“Go, Freddy. I know where the storages are. I’ll be okay, yeah?” Chica puts her hands on his shoulder. It’s a very grounding motion and Freddy is forever grateful for her.

“Al-alright, Chica. I will meet you as soon as I can. Hopefully we can get Monty and Roxy into safe mode soon.” Freddy leans in to hug her. Chica wraps her arms around him easily, a practised motion from the many years they’ve spent together.

“You’ll succeed. You’re Freddy Fazbear, you got this.” Chica says lightheartedly, patting him on the back.

Freddy nods, “Of-of course. I’m Freddy Fazbear.”

He has everything under control. Hopefully.

—

Gregory slips out of the kitchen once Roxy is gone. He drinks the water he had so painstakingly waited for like a man dying of thirst. It immediately soothes his dry throat but unfortunately not his fears.

He takes a deep breath to calm himself.

And of course, because he’s Gregory and his luck is utterly horrid, there are sounds of things being knocked around and two voices yelling outside.

He groans quietly, hoping it’s not Monty and Roxy again.

Gregory takes another glass of water to drink. Surely they’ll be fine without him for a few more minutes. He’s tired and he hasn’t slept in two days. His ears pick up more of the argument and he chooses to not tune it out. His fear precedes the need to overhear - it might be something useful.

“I DON’T WANNA FUCKING HEAR THAT FROM A FUCKING COWARD WHO WON’T EVEN USE HIS OWN VOICE.”

“I’M THE COWARD? HAH—YOUR PRIDEFUL ASSHOLE CAN’T EVEN ADMIT TO YOURSELF THAT YOU FUCKING NEED HELP PLAYING GUITAR –”

It’s Monty, very obvious from the growly deep voice and harsh tones. 

It’s also Sun from the sound of unhinged, high-pitched screaming. It doesn’t feel like Sun because whoever is talking with their voice is swearing and insulting Monty with the harshness and blunt words of—Moon.

Conclusion, Moon is talking with Sun’s voice. Very cool, but also why the hell would he do that–

What is going on. 

Gregory wants to throw himself to the ground and sleep. Maybe for a week. That sounds very appealing right now. The loud noises are putting him off by a lot but when this has been happening for the last twenty minutes, he’s somewhat immune to the fear already. 

He’s glad that the twins are finally here too. Finally, he’s not alone anymore. He feels somewhat safer with them around despite Monty being right there too.

The very loud voices suddenly die down and there’s no more banging or clanging. 

He puts the glass down and rushes out of the room, footsteps silent. Gregory finds another vending machine to hide behind, one with the convenient perfect view to witness Monty and Moon’s explosive argument.

Except, it’s no longer an argument.

Moon- Sun–the twins, are stuck in a kind of half-and-half state where it’s Moon’s face and expression but Sun’s–actual Sun, talking.

“...so, um… don’tbemad? We can play golf and settle things?? Give us a chance?? I know we don’t really have anything to give you but um, Gregory right?”

Sun says with a strangled expression on their face. 

Monty looks like he doesn’t know whether to be utterly enraged or just plain confused. It’s a funny expression that matches the one on Moon-Sun’s face.

“.....wow.” Gregory says way too loudly.

Both of them turn towards him quickly.

“....so, we golfing?” He asks slowly.

—

They golf.

The first game starts with an underlying tension that is never broken, but Gregory doesn’t let that stop him from having fun. He intentionally annoys both Moon and Monty and goads them into playing with him.

Being the prideful bastards that they are, they agree.

—

“FUCKING BITCH THAT’S CHEATING—” Monty screams when Moon’s blue golf ball knocks his green one out of the arena with a very well timed swing.

Moon is great at this game, Gregory notes. He could very well win the game in under three shots if he’s not so busy bullying Monty. 

Gregory isn’t complaining. It’s so easy to win with both of them playing against each other, and the match is on him to win so Monty’ll enter safe mode; like how it was with Chica.

He’s not sure how the hell Sun managed to get Monty to agree to the game when he gets nothing from it, but it seems the very idea of beating Moon at something is good enough for him.

Whatever, it’s fucking hilarious. Gregory laughs as a golf stick smacks Moon on the face and breaks in half. 

Sun must be having an aneurysm right now.

—

Sun is having an aneurysm.

Their brother and Monty are playing golf like it’s a competitive first person shooter game. Both of them are—how is this even possible.

Sun gapes as Moon hits the golf ball back at Monty with the end of the stick. The other animatronic hits it right back with his own golf stick. They’re playing a game of demented badminton with golf sticks.

Gregory is hollering in the background despite the sheer angry tension in the room.

—

“YOU–STOP FUCKING BREAKING MY GOLF STICKS.” Monty roars as he does exactly that, snapping another golf stick in half and grabbing another one to replace it and hit Moon’s golf ball back at his stupid fucking face.

“You’re just jealous that you can’t do a smash with a fucking golf stick. Hah. Golf expert my fucking ass–” Moon would be sticking his tongue out if he could right now.

“Oh, you wanna fucking smash?–I’LL SHOW YOU SMASH, MOONSHIT—” 

“Oh my~ at least invite me out to dinner first, brute.” 

“YOU–”

—

“Point for me!” Gregory cheers as he finally gets his red golf ball in. It’s his tenth-something turn and he’s utter shit at golf, but he’s winning by virtue of Moon and Monty sabotaging each other to hell and back.

“WHAT–” Moon screeches.

“This is YOUR FAULT, ASSHAT–” Monty breaks another golf stick trying to do a smash with a golf ball. The golf ball flies and Moon catches it with one hand.

The loss seems to totally fly over Moon’s head after Monty’s reaction because he resumes juggling all of the green balls Monty has failed to throw at him.

“SAYS THE LOSER —” Moon laughs.

“You’re both losers.” Gregory snickers.

“Wow kid, can’t believe you’d side with the third-rate.”

“SHUT IT YOU SECOND— FOURTH RATE MUSIC BOX-”

“At least I can sing, tone deaf.” Moon drawls.

—

Moon- I—Please. Language.

Bro. I’ve been sayin’ every fucking swear word known to man and the kid don’t even flinch. Fuck off–

Oh, and watch out—

A green golf ball finally hits Moon’s face and Monty cheers—that utter fucking horrid bitch –

—

Gregory feels like he’s watching a soap opera.

A very dramatic one where the male leads are fighting over a girl and screaming at each other. Except this time the male leads look like they’re minutes away from jumping each other into doing adult stuff. How does he know? Well, he’s a kid but he’s not blind, dammit.

It’s really ridiculous how much tension these two have between them. Can animatronics even have this kind of tension? 

“Hmm.. would they make a good couple?” He asks himself loudly.

Moon and Monty seem to realise what he said because they turn to him as one with matching indignant expressions, 

“I would rather fuck myself.” 

“I’d rather fucking die—”

“You’re both animatronics.” Gregory reminds calmly.

“THERE IS A CHILD IN THE ROOM, YOU IDI-IDIOMS.” Sun shoves their brother off the front seat and screeches.

—

They’re in the fifth course and Gregory has scored in under two minutes through a very lucky hole in one. 

He’s sitting off to the side and munching on a snack bar he looted from one of the vending machines that became another unfortunate casualty to Monty and Moon’s ongoing battle.

He swings his legs while lounging on the really comfy beanbag he’s found. He’s really living the life right now. Full air conditioned room, a blanket, food and drinks, plus a free real-life soap opera that is really helping him get over his fear of people screaming.

Right now Moon and Monty are playing golf normally after a very loud chiding from Sun. The sunny animatronic seems to have grown a backbone from how not-PG the other two are being in front of him.

Somehow, seeing them playing golf calmly while hiding their seething raging tempers is much more entertaining than the previous enraged yelling.

“Your. Turn.” Monty grits his teeth and bares them at Moon.

Moon swings his golf stick with moderate strength and his golf ball knocks Monty’s out of the arena before sliding into the goal.

“Blue team: 1 point. Current score: 3 for red, 1 for blue, 0 for green! Keep it up!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Moon apologises. It doesn’t sound like much of one.

“It’s. Fine.” 

And there goes another golf stick to the pile. There’s- one, two, three–nine now.

—

“I fucking hate golf.” 

Is what Freddy hears the moment he enters Monty’s Gator Golf. He pauses, taken aback at the sight in front of him. 

Gregory is standing next to a red golf ball, holding his golf stick with wobbly lips and eyes filled with mirth. Moon is a bit further away from him, but close enough to reach Gregory if need be. He has a displeased expression.

Monty is opposite from Moon. He looks to be in a similar mood that Moon is in. That is, utterly frustrated and about to blow.

Freddy wonders who had the bright idea to assign their most temperamental member to manage a game that requires patience. Perhaps that’s exactly why Monty was given Gator Golf. Or Monty’s Gator Golf just rings better than the other options.

He’s seen Monty play golf before though. He’s brilliant at it, provided he’s in a good mood. 

Which he clearly is not in right now. 

He watches as Moon takes a swing at his own blue golf ball and sends it flying across the room, hitting a lamp and breaking the golf stick. The ball ricochets back and hits Monty in the face, then rebounds back to do the same thing to Moon himself.

Gregory bursts out laughing-his face is already red. He must’ve been laughing a lot.

“THAT’S THE FIFTH FUCKING STICK, MOONSHIT—” Monty slams his own golf stick to the ground, breaking it and sending his green golfball flying across the golf course they’re currently doing.

“Language.” Freddy says in reflex.

“Sixth for you, jackass.” Moon drawls back.

“OH you fucking–” Monty clenches his fist and strolls forward.

Freddy is about to step in to stop them from having yet another fight, but the game does it for him first.

“Green team: 1 point. Current score: 5 for red, 2 for blue, 1 for green! Keep it up, buddy!” The game announces in Monty’s voice.

That’s nine games already and none of them have killed or maimed the other. Freddy is seriously impressed.

“Excuse me.” He interrupts before they can start screaming again.

Gregory has migrated to a beanbag in the time it’s taken for Monty to get closer to Moon. The child is sipping on a soft drink and lounging on the admittedly comfortable-looking bean bag, his eyes set on the starting fight.

Freddy sighs. 

“Fazbear. Took you a while.” Moon huffs, putting his golf stick over his shoulder.

“Fred–fucking finally, tell Moonshit to quit playin’ games and be fucking serious—” Monty grumbles.

Freddy levels them with a stern look.

“Language. Have you two really been talking like this with Gregory around?” He sounds like a disappointed parent and he sure does feel like one. 

“Brat’s not yer usual kid.” Monty grunts.

“Yes, he is not. Monty, why don’t you enter safe mode and we can talk like civilised people–”

“Are y’callin’ me uncivilised?” Monty growls.

His eyes are glowing red.

—

Gregory jumps up from his bean bag and bolts away at the sight of glowing red eyes.

They never mean anything good and he is not risking his hide to hope that this time is the rare exception. He grabs some of the drinks he can and puts them in this extremely convenient tote bag. 

He knew this was coming sooner or later but damn did it suck. He was waiting for one of the anger duo to break and make up, then they can get Monty to safe-mode and—

Monty is right on his tail immediately with Moon right behind him. They’re moving terrifyingly fast and he can see Freddy struggling to keep up in the corner of his eyes. He ducks below a sign and makes use of his smaller stature to put a hamper on Monty’s warpath.

The angry gator just tosses everything aside and destroys his way through the whole arcade to get to him.

“Hey, little guy!” He shouts at him. It sounds distant and not all there—must be the preprogrammed voice lines or something. Moon did that too when he was possessed.

It’s been approximately two minutes and Gregory already hates this. 

He tosses back a trash can and realises too late that it might trigger something in a certain someone of their party.

Shit.

The trash can hits Monty and knocks him over, but it also triggers Moon’s cleaning compulsion so now one half of the wonder twins is aggressively cleaning while trying to hold back a giant gator animatronic. 

“NOT-KID YOU LITTLE SHIT —” Moon screams out his displeasure with Sun’s voice, which makes it even more horribly ear-grating than his usual screaming.

The sight is such a stupid one that Gregory can't help but laugh even as he's running for his life. 

Moon is so going to kill him if they survive this later, but Gregory says it was worth it.

Freddy eventually reaches Monty and Moon, then it becomes a full out brawl between the three animatronics as they all try their darnest to keep each other from reaching Gregory. 

“Well, I’m gonna go find somewhere to hide. Freddy, tell me when this is all over. See ya!” He runs off, muffling his own laughter along the way.

He’s not five minutes into running off before he runs into a S.T.A.F.F. bot. Then another one. And another one until there’s maybe dozens of S.T.A.F.F. bots glaring down at him and blocking the exit to Monty’s Gator Golf.

Gregory gulps.

Oh.

All of them have red eyes—so that's what Bunny-Vanny was doing.

He scampers back to where he came from, all of the S.T.A.F.F. bots giving chase in terrifying speed that none of the animatronics bar Moon can reach. He screams to alert the other three animatronics,

“GUYS! GUYS—THE STAFF BOTS ARE POSSESSED- FUCK OW—” he trips over himself at the worst possible time. 

Gregory gulps, his heart racing in fear as the bots circle around him, crowding further into his personal space. Their eyelights blink red as they advance on him from all sides, leaving no space for him to run. 

He decides to brute force through them, only for one S.T.A.F.F. bot to make a grab at him. He fails to evade the swipe of the bot’s hands and that bot’s metal claws clamp around his neck, choking him.

He desperately holds onto the claw, trying to lodge it off him with what strength he has while being choked.

“GhK- Fre- Moo- he- lp—” he wheezes out as the bot lifts him further off the ground.

The world is turning into a blurry mess of colours and stars. Gregory feels tears burning in the corners of his eyes as his strength grows weaker. He feels so utterly helpless it’s insulting. He can’t even grab for his fazerblaster, the thing having fallen out of his pocket the moment the S.T.A.F.F. bot swiped him up.

Then suddenly, he’s dropped to the ground and he can breathe again.

He gasps and takes in as much fresh air as he can, snatching the blaster and scrambling away from the scene at the same time to get himself as far away from the bots as possible. From his blurry vision, he can see Moon jumping on each S.T.A.F.F. bot and clawing at them with the ferocity of a predator on a hunt.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY KID YOU FUCKING BITCHES—” He growls at them, still with Sun’s screechy voice. 

Gregory won’t ever admit it to Moon himself, but he feels happy hearing that. There are important things to do right now though so he shelves that feeling and rushes for Freddy, dodging the occasional S.T.A.F.F. bot that still tries to take a swing at him despite Moon’s rampage.

When he gets there, Monty is fully possessed and Freddy is clearly struggling to hold him off. He frowns at the sight. The bear is clearly struggling and there’s no way he can hold Monty back forever, especially without Moon’s help.

“Freddy–that’s not going to hold forever.” He yells through Monty’s enraged screaming so Freddy can hear him.

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME FAZBEAR–" Monty howls in rage, his sharp claws tearing through Freddy's arm. 

"I cannot. Montgomery, please. Listen to me—" Freddy tries to reason.

Monty's claws tear deeper and almost wrenches an arm off Freddy. The bear himself looks unfazed, but Gregory could see a trace of pain behind those optics. Not for the first time, Gregory doesn't think about how that was possible.

He hears the violent sound of something being thrown across the air and barely manages to duck to the side as Moon crashlands next to him.

He notices in muted horror that the other is missing an eye, only the blue of his left optic remains lit. 

Moon growls and stands back up with that grace he's always had. He puts himself between them and the S.T.A.F.F. bots as the bots close in on all of them.

Monty is still screaming profanities.

"USELESS FUCKS, ALL OF YOU- GO DI—"

"Shut the fuck up." Moon barks at Monty. To his credit, the gator does shut up. 

"You almost fucking killed the kid. A child. You know, the group of people we're god damn made for? And for what? To get the fucking child to safety, you crocodilebrained fuck–why can't you just fucking listen and switch to safe mode?"

Freddy looks like he wants to interrupt that rant, until Monty cuts him off with a harsh shove that sends the bear stumbling back.

"FUCK OFF—I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU -" 

Monty rises to his feet and zeroes in on Moon. The S.T.A.F.F. bot closes to him shoves him back to the ground, grabbing hold of an arm.

"The fuck?! Let go of me, we've got a fucking job to do–"

The bot tilts its head, and proceeds to snap off Monty's left arm.

"....what the fuck is wrong with the S.T.A.F.F. bots?"

"Wow, thanks for just noticing after I fucking lost an eye to them." Moon screeches with Sun's voice again. He's been doing that awfully often, Gregory notes numbly.

"I'm kinda not sure if he's half possessed or fully possessed—"

Monty's eyes turn red.

"Nevermind fuck fuck- MOON—MOON GET ME OUT OF HERE–" Gregory screeches and clings to Moon. 

"Freddy Fazbear fucking run now." Moon snatches him up and does a high jump across Gator Golf. The S.T.A.F.F. bots immediately give chase at terrifying speed.

Moon clutches onto him tighter in a way he didn't do back when they did this a few hours ago. Gregory chalks it up to the high stress situation and clings back tighter.

They jump and swing across the place, Moon running all over the top area of Gator Golf to evade the S.T.A.F.F. bots. There is a row of them blocking all exits. 

Not one to like staying helpless, Gregory spots a vent up high.

"Moon. There's a vent up there! Put me in and go protect Freddy! He won't survive without you." Gregory ushers Moon and points to the vent.

The vent is high up on the ceiling. It'd be tricky to get to and even trickier to get Gregory in there, but it's the only vent big enough to fit him comfortably.

"...." Moon hesitates.

"Moon? Hey, come on. We don't have time." Gregory pokes at him.

They hear noises of crashing and banging down below. Gregory doesn't know what's happening, but he dearly hopes Freddy is okay.

"MONTY–" Freddy's voice yells panickedly.

"Moon!" Gregory follows it with his own yell. He glances back and sees some S.T.A.F.F. bots making their way up to them.

"Moon. We don't have time. Come on." He tugs at the animatronic's hat.

"I'll drop you." Moon responds with his own voice. It sounds raspy with a hint of terror, which is not something Gregory likes to hear from the normally composed animatronic.

"You won't."

"There's nothing down below. If you fall, it'll be more than just a broken arm." The daycare attendant hugs him closer, a hint of fear in his usually refined voice.

"We don't have a choice. I trust you." Gregory tries to assure, seeing the coming panic attack for what it is with terrifying familiarity.

"I don't trust myself." Moon shakes, his sole optic flickering on and off in barely concealed distress.

"It wasn't your fault, you know."

"I dropped him. Jake trusted me and I dropped him–" His voice pitches. If he was human, Gregory is sure he'd be hyperventilating.

"I'm not Jake—"

"You have to stay away from me–"

"Moon, no—!"

There's a sound of metal clanging against metal and Gregory knows one of the S.T.A.F.F. bots have made it up here. They're climbing onto the railings and quickly making their way across the bridge to them.

"Moon. Moon. THROW ME." Gregory yells.

"I can't do that Jake, you know what happened last time–"

"MOON." He shakes the animatronic frantically to snap him out of it.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—it was an accident. I didn’t mean it. If I could have taken that fall for you I would–” 

Gregory slaps him across the face. Moon freezes, the bells on his outfit ringing. The S.T.A.F.F. bots close in on them, uncomfortably within reach. 

“...right. Fuck. Kid, you better not fall, capiche?” His voice shakes, but the animatronic seems to be back to his senses. He feels a little bad for literally slapping Moon out of a panic attack, but if it works, it works - not like they have much of a choice here.

“I won’t. I promise. …and sorry for slapping you, by the way.” 

“Apologise when you’re safe up there.” Moon kicks a S.T.A.F.F. bot away with a muttered sorry before climbing up the walls, scaling the ceiling to get to the vent. He holds onto Gregory with a grip that almost hurts, tucking him close.

Gregory holds onto him by the shoulders, to reassure if nothing else. He looks below at the crowd of S.T.A.F.F. bots surrounding Freddy and Monty. Judging by the latter’s still-red eyes, it’s not going well at all for poor Freddy. He’s getting overwhelmed quickly by the combination of Monty and the S.T.A.F.F. bots—not to mention, even more of them are coming. 

His eyes turn back to the ceiling once the door is forcefully ripped open by Moon. The daycare attendant tosses the vent’s door down below at a group of S.T.A.F.F. bots.

“WATCH YOUR HEAD, BOYS!” He yells with Sun’s voice, making Gregory wince at the sheer loudness.

It hits a good part of the S.T.A.F.F. bots, and unfortunately Monty too. The gator screams in rage and flips Moon off, uncaring that Moon probably can’t see him from this high up.

“MOONSHIT WHEN I FUCKING GET YOU–”

Gregory muffles a snort. Moon carefully lifts him up to crawl into the vent. The S.T.A.F.F. bots in their pursuit have retrieved a bunch of mops, whacking at them with the stick to try and get them to fall. Moon grimaces and kicks the mops as much as he could while hanging off a handle on the ceiling. 

Gregory scrambles for the vent, his hands gripping at the edges. It’s slippery, being metal and made worse with how sweaty his hands are. He curses as his hands struggle to grip the sides of the vent and climb up.

“I don’t think I could–I need some help here. Can you push me up further?” 

“Not without one of them grabbing onto my leg, kid.” Moon says distractedly, letting go of an arm to bat away another S.T.A.F.F. bot harassing them.

He puts his feet on Moon’s shoulder to try and get himself up higher, “Fuck—” his foot slips at the worst possible time, his grip on Moon loosening and he falls. 

Gregory curses himself and everything that is holy. He can feel Moon’s fear and his own mingling and he muffles a scream as gravity takes him.

Moon immediately lets go of the handle on the ceiling, grabbing Gregory just in time mid-air and spinning around as they fall. Gregory bites back that budding scream as they hit the ground, him landing on top of Moon and the bot falling back-first.

They land right in the middle of the crowd of S.T.A.F.F. bots surrounding Freddy.

Gregory gasps despite the force of the fall–despite how high it was, it doesn’t feel too bad. Though he’s definitely gonna feel it tomorrow. He frantically checks on Moon and the bot groans in pain, 

“Fuck. Kid. I told you not to fucking fall. I told you.” It says something that Moon is so distraught he can’t even keep up Sun’s voice anymore. Gregory’s heart clenches in what feels like guilt. 

It’s been a while since he’s let himself feel guilt.

“I- I know. I’m so sorry—I got overconfident-” He stammers, feeling like a child caught stealing candy again. Moon has no right to sound that anguished–especially over concern for Gregory ‘s wellbeing.

“Fuck. S’fine. Just. Hold on tight.” Moon hugs him with one arm and Gregory clings back.

The animatronic gets up, his mechanical joints whirring with the effort. Despite the fall damage, he moves quickly, evading hits from the S.T.A.F.F. bots with Gregory in his arms. Gregory can tell Moon isn’t at his best, not with how he lags and misses every other hit. He curses himself in his own mind.

If he had made that jump into the vent, he wouldn’t be a burden on Moon right now. 

He shifts up against Moon, one arm wrapped around the daycare attendant’s neck while the other reaches into his pocket for the Fazer Blaster.

“Get me to Freddy, I can defend him from there.”

Moon does, rushing to Freddy in record time and shoving Gregory into the bear’s arms in the same move he uses to rip Monty off of the Plex’s mascot. He doesn’t say another word after that, rushing to defend Freddy from the S.T.A.F.F. bots and Monty both. Gregory sits himself on Freddy’s shoulder and starts shooting as much as possible.

He focuses especially on Monty, being the bigger threat with his glaring red eyes and the way he stomps to them at terrifying speed. Gregory nudges Freddy to move. The bear does, walking quicker than ever.

He continues stunning Monty, shooting him down as much as possible. Moon keeps the S.T.A.F.F. bots away but he can’t handle them and Monty at the same time. 

“Get to the exits and move for Roxy Raceway. Place has less S.T.A.F.F. bots there.” Moon barks at them, kicking down the last of the S.T.A.F.F. bots before running to catch up with them. Monty is right on their tail in front of Moon, and he’s quickly approaching him and Freddy.

“There! I see the exit gates.” Gregory’s heart beats loud enough for his ears to hear as they make their way there - everything is happening too quickly and too slowly. He dearly hopes Vanny won’t make a surprise appearance.

Moon jumps onto Monty and the two of them start brawling. Gregory looks back and sees the two and he swallows at the sheer violence. If he hadn’t believed the brawling earlier was for show, he certainly does now. Moon and Monty are much more keen on hurting each now than all of the previous golf matches combined, clawing at each other and screaming profanities that would make sailors blush.

Their fight inches much too close to be comfortable-but they get to the gates fine. Freddy tries to open the gates - it’s locked. The bear grimaces as the door tells them they need a higher level security pass.

“We need Moon’s credentials.”

“Fuck.” Gregory curses.

Suddenly, they hear a loud sound. From the other side of Monty’s Gator Golf, they see a hoard of S.T.A.F.F. bots advancing on them. Gregory’s heart drops to his chest and he screeches in panic, “SHIT- MOON–FUCK, MOON OPEN THE DOOR FOR US RIGHT NOW—”

Moon’s head snaps towards the sound of the voice and he growls, dragging his brawl with Monty closer to the exit gate with sheer force of will. Monty snarls and grabs Moon by the shoulders, tossing him bodily into the exit gates—and right past it. Somehow opening the doors. Seems like they don’t need Moon to flash some fancy security badge–throw him through and boom, it’s open. Now that’s super convenient, thank god.

Gregory inhales his bubbling hysteria. The S.T.A.F.F. bots are getting closer. How are they so fucking fast— thankfully, Freddy wastes no time in getting through the door. Except that bear and his bleeding heart drags Monty through the door with them.

Because he’s a sane person, Gregory jumps off Freddy’s shoulder just in time as Monty tackles the bear to the floor. 

Moon rushes to shut the door closed just as the S.T.A.F.F. bots arrive. He stands in front of the double doors, holding them closed with both hands and his body’s weight. 

“Fuck- FUCK—”

“Monty–Monty, please. I do not want to fight you, my friend–! You must enter safe mode now—” Freddy begs, hugging his friend to keep him away from Gregory. 

Monty wordlessly screams and snarls, thrashing in Freddy’s hold. Gregory curls up in a corner and his eyes dart across the room for exits. He doesn’t see it, but Moon inhales and suddenly starts screaming. With his own voice this time—less effective than Sun’s screeching voice, but it’s something–

“MONTGOMERY GATOR YOU FUCKING COWARD.” 

Monty stops thrashing to glare at Moon. It seems like his hatred for the other transcends being hacked—which would be hilarious in any other situation but this one. But if it somehow works in getting him to not be aggressive, Gregory will take it any day.

“Are you really gonna kill a kid? C’mon, Monty, you old crusty fuck. You might find kids annoying but that don’t give you the right to fucking kill one. I don’t know what the Bunny bitch is telling you but if she’s listening, tell her to suck a dick and choke on it.”

One of the S.T.A.F.F. bots’ hands break through the tiny glass windows on the door and socks Moon on the face. To his credit, he doesn’t even flinch.

Monty snorts. Moon gives him the middle finger.

“I fucking mean it, bitchass. You think you’re hot shit just because you have the S.T.A.F.F. bots under your command now? Think again. I almost killed you once and you fucking bet I won’t be as merciful next time. My patrol’s in ten minutes, babe, I will hunt you down and this time there ain’t gonna be any Freddy Fazbear to stop me from RIPPING YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF YOUR SHOULDERS AND FEEDING IT INTO THE TRASH COMPACTOR-” 

The S.T.A.F.F. bot bats Moon’s face and slaps him around. It’s really ruining this dramatic moment they’re having and it makes Moon ten times less intimidating, which is honestly sad. Missed opportunity, he says. Monty seems to find this greatly amusing though, because he’s stopped attacking Freddy to just laugh at Moon’s misfortune.

“Fucker. Don’t just fucking laugh at me. You really gonna let someone in a Bonnie cosplay tell you what to do? That ugly ass bitch? Have some standards, dickhead.” 

Freddy sighs long sufferingly. Gregory can tell the bear really wants them to stop cursing, but this is working and they’re in a tight spot so there’s really no other option. He wonders how Sun is faring amidst all this. The S.T.A.F.F. bots bang on the door harder, now slamming their bodies against the doors in an effort to break in. 

Moon grunts and slams back against them, ignoring their hands clawing at his face. There’s a moment of silence and Monty gets up, pushing Freddy away before running for Moon—the daycare animatronic braces himself.

Gregory shuts his eyes, not wanting to see what happens. If Monty doesn’t turn now, they’re screwed. 

It’s much too long before someone speaks again. The same voice—though this time much less angry and actually a lot nicer to the ears. It’s just as gruff though. He opens his eyes to see Monty decidedly not attacking Moon.

“Can’t believe the great Moonshit can’t hold two doors closed.” Monty drawls. He’s taken position next to Moon, his shoulder against the door. A quick shoulder slam pushes back the S.T.A.F.F. bots on the other side. Moon is so gobsmacked he doesn’t even retort.

When the gator turns back towards Freddy and Gregory, his eyes are green. Or, well, red. But his normal red, not the glowing scary red that’s the trademark of possession. Gregory sighs in relief. Monty inclines his head towards him,

“Get out of here, kid. You too, Fazbear. Me n’Moonshit will hold them off. Go t’Roxy’s place, s’true that hers got less of the fuckers. We’ll meet ya there if we get out alive.” Monty gruffly commands.

Gregory’s smile drops.

“Wha–what do you mean alive?” Freddy quickly picks him up, putting him on his shoulders.

Moon flashes him a strained grin, “Well, you saw how easily that bot ripped off Monty’s arm yeah? They can do a lotta damage. Honestly, I don't fucking know how we survived that first wave. We may or may not survive this, not-kid.”

Freddy pets his head, “We have to go, superstar.” 

“No- wait–! We can’t just–Moon!” Gregory reaches out for Moon, struggling against Freddy’s hold. Moon just salutes him in response, his sole optic flickering. Monty gives them a little wave.

“I’m sorry, Gregory.” Freddy grimly says as they stomp away, leaving the other two animatronics to the metaphorical wolves. 

“No- Freddy–! You can’t just—come on, aren’t you all about friendship and everything?– Freddy!” 

“Your safety is our top priority, superstar.” The bear apologises.

Gregory ignores the way his eyes burn as the sight of the other two bots fade in the distance, vanishing out of sight entirely. He hates it—they were having fun not an hour ago. It was—it was supposed to be okay. They didn’t even have to be forced to dismantle Monty.

Moon’s strategy is working—it’s really too bad they didn’t account for the fact that the S.T.A.F.F. bots could be so violent.

“....” He inhales and forces his feelings aside.

As much fun as they’ve had the past few hours, he’s only met Moon and befriended the bot briefly—he shouldn’t be so distraught over someone he barely knows.

Even if he saved his life.

You’re the only one you can trust, remember?

Chapter Text

“When they bust down these doors, you watch our right side. I’ll guard the left.” Moon orders, dodging another smack to the face.

“Why? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” Monty has the audacity to ask.

“Bitch, I’m half-blind. Do you want us to die?” 

“Well my left arm is also fucking gone, Moonshit—”

“Yeah but you can fucking see on that side, can’t you? Use your other arm!”

“FINE!”

“Fine.” 

There’s a moment of silence between them, the room only filled with the noises of banging and S.T.A.F.F. bots trying their darnest to break through the door. Moon slams his back against the door. It’s easier to hold the door back now with Monty’s added weight, but the damn door isn’t gonna last forever.

At this point, they’re just buying time for Freddy and the kid to get to safety.

Suddenly, Monty speaks, though his eyes look elsewhere.

“...sorry I went batshit and made things harder.” He mumbles.

Usually, Moon would tease the hell out of him for apologising. It’s not every day Monty admits his own wrongs—especially when the wrong isn’t fully on him this time. Moon was an active participant in their fights, after all. This time, he doesn’t–only because they might actually die here and this could be the last conversation they have with another person.

Another person other than Sun, that is–who has clocked out from fear. Moon knows his brother is fine–the amplified hysteria is probably the thing that took him down. It’s good, better this way, even. With Sunny out for the count, they doesn’t have to be there to watch and feel their mutual demise.

“..hey, dude. Ya good?” Monty nudges him with an arm–his remaining arm. That must’ve hurt like a bitch. 

“I mean, we’re about to die but all things considered? Yeah, fine? I guess? Not really a good question to ask here, man.” Moon says dryly.

“..yer such an asshole.” Monty mutters.

“Again, look in the damn mirror.”

“Ugh, fuck off—can’t I have one decent conversation with ya?” 

“...you’re not the only one who went batshit and tried to kill the kid, so don’t be sorry.”

“Huh. What even happened anyway? The fuck is up with tonight?”

“Long story short, there’s a murderer on the loose and bitch has hacked us all.” 

“Right. It just gotta be on the one specific night a kid is stuck here, eh? Very convenient. Very fucking convenient. Have you met the son of a bitch?” Monty pauses to inhale–seems like the anger issues is going to be a recurring thing. Great. Same here. Amazing, truly.

“Yeah. She’s some human in a fursuit carrying a knife. Still squishy as humans are, but we can’t fucking kill her or Freddy’ll have our heads.” Moon glowers.

“Fuck Fazbear. If I see her, I’m lopping her head off. This is too much fucking trouble.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but no, dude. If you kill her, the business is done for good. Besides, that ain’t gonna be possible if we’re dying here anyway.”

“....damn.”

“Yeah, damn. I can’t believe I’m dying with you.”

“Pfff–romantic, innit?”

“Ew.”

“Where’s sunshine? You not talking to them?”

“Passed out. The tampering made them super fucking hyper. They had an equivalent of uh, I guess high blood pressure but for robots? I don’t know, man.”

"Huh. Lucky them. They won’t have to die.”

“Unless they break me so good Sunny can’t inhabit the body.”

“...why'd cha say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Y’know what.” 

“No, I really don’t.”

“Yer fucking messing with me.”

“You’re fun to mess with.”

“Is that why y’keep getting on my nerves? I swear t’fuck, s’like a hobby for ya.”

“Well, it helps right? You don’t gotta worry about yelling at someone who doesn’t deserve it if you’re yelling at me. Cause. You know. Bad temper. Anger issues.”

“....huh.”

“It’s the same for me too. S’not like I hate you or anything, Mont.” Moon mutters, looking away.

“Y’don’t?? I thought ya hated my guts.”

“No? I thought we were on the same page with the fighting thing. It’s like a bit. And something to help with our mutual anger issues.”

“IT’S A BIT????"

“Dude what the fuck? Did you seriously think I hated you?”

“Well some of yer insults really hurt so yeah–shit why’d I say that."

“...honestly some of yours really hurt too but I do need a callout every now and then. So, uh. Sorry and thanks for that?”

Monty groans, “Ugh. Emotions. Stop talking, Moon. Fuck, ’m gonna process that later. What time’s it? Now would be a great time to be three am. Please. Fucking hell.” 

“....do you think the S.T.A.F.F. bots are gonna reset at three?” 

“Hopefully? I dunno about ya, but fuck hell if I’m dyin’ here.”

At that moment, the clock turns three and suddenly the weight against the doors vanishes entirely. Monty and Moon fall over to the other side with an oomph. The S.T.A.F.F. bots zoom away from Gator Golf like it’s a normal day and they didn’t just try to murder three animatronics and a child.

Moon stares at the other animatronic, now pinned below him. Monty shoves him off with one arm and gets up, dragging Moon up with him.

“...that’s. Wow. That’s gotta be the most anticlimactic thing ever.”

“Yer gonna regret saying that when those bots turn violent again.” 

“Don’t jinx it.”

“Y’know it’s gonna fucking happen. Go patrol, I’m gonna recharge.” Monty huffs. This has to be the most decent conversation they’ve had with each other. It's—oddly nice.

“Ughhh.. I can’t believe I have to patrol like this. Down one eye with a crick in my back. Why do I have to patrol every hour again? That’s such a waste of power.” Moon grumbles.

“We have to recharge every hour. Be grateful ya don’t have to. Now fuck off from my game.” Monty shoos.

“Wow, we were about to die together and you treat me like this.”

Monty stomps away and gives him the middle finger one last time. Then, he stops.

“...for whatever it’s worth, I don’t actually hate ya either. Thanks for fucking clarifying about the bit. Next time, make sure I’m on the same damn page.”

“Aw! You do care!”

“FUCK OFF—”

—

Gregory slumps against the race kart. Freddy is off to the side, frantically trying to talk some sense into Roxy. It’s been some half an hour since they arrived at Roxy Raceway. In that time, Freddy’s gone to recharge and Gregory has gotten a kart to work. He’s now racing loops around Roxy, who is half sobbing half screaming in her own kart and utterly ignoring Freddy.

It’s fun, it really is—he just can’t fully enjoy it when Moon isn’t here. Leave it to the daycare animatronic to make him so easily attached. He sighs mournfully and slams his steering wheel to the left, bringing him off course but skipping far ahead enough to lap Roxy for the third time.

He doesn’t even know if Moon is still alive. Or Monty. 

“....” He hopes they’re fine.

Freddy looks extremely pained—personally, Gregory thinks he should get into a kart and start racing Roxy instead of yelling from the sidelines. It’s really not helping. Roxy herself can’t stop sobbing–he doubts she can hear anything aside from the sound of her own crying.

The intercom rings, “LAP FIVE! Keep at it, superstar!—oh, what’s this? A new player arrives!”

Gregory steps on his brakes and snaps his head towards the starting line.

“Sup.” Monty is there, beat up and missing an arm but alive.

Gregory turns his kart around and goes full speed at him, sailing off the tracks and ramming the gator with the full force of his go kart. He rips the seatbelt off of himself and jumps out, looking around for the animatronic that should be with Monty.

His face drops when he neither sees nor hears Moon. 

Monty groans and picks up the cart, setting it to the side with a curse.

“Fuck, what the hell kid? I know I tried to kill ya and all but still—” The gator grumbles.

Freddy makes a sound of relief and rushes towards his friend, pulling Monty into a hug. Monty oomphs but quietly returns the hug, “Hey, Fazbear. M’still alive.”

“I could not be happier, my friend.” The bear pulls back with a smile.

“.... where's Moon?” Gregory interrupts with a small voice, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

“He’s fine, kid. Bastard is on patrol as usual. No doubt he'll come running back eventually.” Monty says and he can tell the gator is trying to be reassuring despite the gruff attitude.

Gregory exhales in relief. That's better than dead. Even if Moon is dead, it makes no difference. He's not human, so the technicians or whatever can come fix him.

There's an awkward silence for a moment before Monty pulls out something box-shaped from his storage compartment.

He holds it up to Gregory’s face and suddenly, there’s a flash of light. He hisses and bats at the thing, glaring at Monty, “Ow—that hurt!”

“Sorry, kid. Gotta test it somehow, y’know.” Monty snickers.

Gregory glares at him before something clicks inside his brain, “Oh! It’s the Faz-Cam.” he makes grabby hands towards it. Monty drops it into his hands and Gregory immediately snaps a picture of the gator, blinding him with the flashing light.

Monty hisses and covers his optics, “Ow. Fuck, little man–that hurt. Fair game tho.”

“Oh, man! This works on S.T.A.F.F. bots too, right? I think I remember Chica saying that—fuck yeah!” Gregory punches the air cheerfully.

“Language.” Freddy interrupts.

“I’m not gonna be defenceless anymore!” Gregory turns to Freddy just to show his point—only to see Roxy standing uncomfortably close. He screeches and spams the Faz-Cam’s shutter button. 

Monty immediately rushes in front of him to tackle Roxy down. The wolf animatronic sobs and starts hitting the gator, yelling incomprehensible things.

Freddy visibly panics, “Roxanne, dear–”

Gregory hops back into his kart. He is not staying a sitting duck. He straps himself in and books it out of there, slamming down on the gas as his kart zooms away from the three animatronics. 

Thankfully, Roxy is too busy crying to notice his prompt escape. Her eyes are red, but she's not much of a threat constantly breaking down every other sentence. Personally, he kind of pities her.

Gregory takes a right turn and returns yet again to the same racetrack. It's really too bad that there's only one track–he's already beaten his own score twice. The thrill of the chase is basically gone the moment he realised Roxy isn't ever coming close to catching him.

He sighs and wonders whether the twins would be better at racing than Roxy. Or if she's any good when mentally sound. Eh, a question for later.

—

He finishes his consecutive third lap before Monty stops his kart at the starting line. Being the good sport that he is, he stops stepping on the gas.

Roxy is there right next to Monty and Freddy is not in his immediate line of sight. Gregory instinctively grabs his new Faz-Cam and spams the shutter at her face like he's never had before.

She yelps and ows,

“Hey hey hey–stop- ow–I’m good now- Gregory—” Roxy covers both eyes with her hands and hisses.

“You are?? That’s, uh, fast.” Gregory huhs. He lowers the camera to quickly look behind him.

Freddy is there and he waves at him with a sheepish smile. Roxy huffs, flipping her long hair back. She wipes her own face and grimaces at the stained makeup, 

“Unlike those two brutes, I can be reasoned with.” She haughtily says, hands on her waist and ignoring how it took her friends almost an hour to convince her to safe mode. The bear himself just sighs long-sufferingly.

Monty bristles, “Fuck off, Roxanne.” 

Roxanne bristles, stomping closer to Monty. Freddy gets between them and extends both his arms, coughing dramatically.

“Ahem. Everyone. Do keep the time in mind.”

Gregory whines, “Is it recharge time again?”

It's recharge time again. Four AM, woo. He can't believe everything has happened in a single night. He sighs and hops out of the kart, pocketing the Faz-Cam.

“I’m gonna go find Moon. You guys, uh.. I guess we can meet somewhere with food?” He suggests.

“Brilliant idea, superstar. We shall reconvene in the main kitchens—I’ll mark the location on your Fazwatch.”

“Thanks, Freddy.”

“Don't get killed, kid.” Monty says gruffly.

“You guys are just gonna leave him by himself??” Roxy asks in disbelief.

“I’ve been alone, I'll be fine.” Gregory simply says and runs off before anyone can say anything else.

On the way, he looks at the Faz-Cam in his pocket and smiles.

He can't wait to test it on Moon.

—

Moon swings by DJMM’s place and for once, the other animatronic is there. He greets the DJ with a wave, “Hey, back for my hourly check. You doing good?” 

DJMM nods at him, adjusting the headset on his head. He gestures at Moon, pointing at his missing eye and signing something. Moon pauses, dropping down from the ceiling to talk to the DJ face-to-face. 

“What? Eye? Yeah uh, you might wanna watch out for the staff bots, J. Hacker bunny's got her filthy fingers in them.”

The DJ shakes his head and points lower. Moon crosses his arms and gives the other bot a look. DJMM bonks him on the head with one hand, looking down with a disapproving gaze. He signs something else, but Moon looks away.

“Dunno what you're talking about, J.” 

DJMM shakes his head again and nudges him with a giant arm, poking at his voice box. The DJ seems oddly insistent on it—they’ve had this conversation multiple times, though, so Moon isn’t having it. He huffs, batting the hand away,

“I’m fine. You know I like Sunny’s voice. It’s cheerful.”

Better than mine. The best of us. 

I heard that.

Sunny. You're awake.

Yep! Sorry for uh. Clocking out on you, haha.. I was, not doing the greatest and I thought it wouldn't do you great if I started screaming or something so I just shut myself down temporarily and—

Yeah yeah I get it–thanks. I.. did you see—I.. 

It wasn't your fault. It was a high stress situation and Gregory was very slippery.

I fucking dropped a kid again.

By accident. Accident. A-c-c-i-d-e-n-t.

I still did. That drop was higher than Jake's, and there wasn't no carpet to break his fall.

He's okay though.

He would be dead if I didn't break his fall for him. I didn't get off unscathed either. We're down an eye with a crick in our back, maintenance is gonna fucking kill me.

I'm sure they'll understand!—tonight has been crazy.

A giant hand poking him insistently interrupts him from the conversation. Moon absently signs an apology and shakes his own head.

“Sorry, J. It's Sunny.” 

DJMM blinks his optics and nods, waving his free hand.

Hey, J! 

“He says hi.” Moon repeats, thankful for the pause in their conversation. He really doesn't want to talk about the incident. Or the newest incident. Or anything heavy at all, really. Isn't tonight stressful enough?

Moon…

We’re not talking about heavy shit okay? Kinda on a time crunch here.

DJMM bonks him on the head, clearly disapproving even if he doesn't say it.

“I know. S’just, well, uh, we’re certainly not gonna solve all our issues in a single night, yeah? It can wait. We just—gotta make sure all of us survive the night first. It’s been weird. Tonight, I mean.” Moon chuckles.

It’s certainly far from normal..

“I feel like.. There’s something about tonight. After tonight, I don’t think things will be the same anymore.” 

DJMM pauses and a calming violin audio erupts from one of his speakers. He ushers Moon to sit down. The daycare animatronic does, the bells on his outfit jingling and he sits down to listen to the music.

It feels like a calm before the storm.

Things are changing in just a single night…

Yeah. We can only hope it’s for the better, Sunny.

—

Gregory is screwed.

In his defence, it was entirely by accident and he didn't expect there to be that many S.T.A.F.F. bots in the atrium. It was literally double the count from last time, and now they all had weapons. 

Albeit the weapons are just brooms and other utilities, but their perfect synchronisation is uncanny. He's now above a vending machine, having scaled it with the power of sheer will to escape being maimed by the rogue bots.

The atrium has been trashed into unrecognisable levels. He sure hopes the daycare twins don't stumble in here and start a cleaning spree—it'd take hours to clean up—the S.T.A.F.F. bots would sooner kill the two of them.

Though he is morbidly curious about how Moon would manage such a battle—he looked hilarious cleaning and screaming.

That's a thought for later though because right now the crazy bots are shaking the vending machine he's on top of. They only haven't caught him by the saving grace of the Faz-Cam, which he is still constantly spamming at them.

Gregory is really, really lucky that the camera has an auto delete function. If he had to clear it's memory every time it got full, he would have been dead twenty minutes ago.

Moon really can't be here any faster. Or Freddy. Or anyone, really. He just wants out and for his heart to preferably stop beating out of his chest.

His thumb is getting sore from spam clicking the shutter button—but hey, anything to stay fucking alive.

Suddenly, the bots stop shaking the vending machine.

“Wha-? What are you all–? You!” A female voice shrieks and a flashlight is pointed at his face, point-blank.

Gregory winces at the brightness, “Ow— fuck. ”

His eyes clear and below the vending machine, he sees a familiar blonde woman staring up at him in disbelief—and an awfully familiar expression of anger.

“Get down here right now, young man.” Vanessa barks at him.

Gregory screeches and a S.T.A.F.F. bot knocks over the vending machine. He falls off and Vanessa grabs him by the scruff of his shirt mid-air. He kicks at her but slumps in her hold, utterly exhausted.

She starts berating him and he tunes it all out, grumbling to himself and hugging the Faz-Cam so she won't take it from him. Strangely enough, the bots don't attack Vanessa.

“....” Gregory frowns to himself.

That means Vanny doesn't want Vanessa to know for some reason–maybe–no, no, they can't trust Vanessa. He bites his tongue and gnashes his teeth as she opens the door to her office and drops him in.

“Stay here until morning.” She sighs and shuts the door behind her.

A quick turn signifies her locking the door. 

Maybe she doesn't know about Vanny.

Still, we can't trust her.

Why though? She's supposed to be the security guard, right?

We trusted Moon.

He's different. He proved himself to be trustworthy.

He actually cares.

Vanessa hasn't harmed us?

We can't trust her.

Gregory swallows. He doesn't know what it is about Vanessa, but she gives him the creeps at best and dread at worst. It's–he thinks she reminds him of someone else, but he doesn't quite know who.

Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's stupid to trust. She's an unknown adult with an unknown agenda. Blindly trusting her would be stupid.

But we trusted Moon.

So what?

He'll take being caught over being dead—someone bangs on the door and his neck snaps towards it. On the little window attached to the door, he sees a S.T.A.F.F. bot ramming itself against the door.

Shit.

—

I wonder where everyone else is… it's 4 AM already.

Roxy Raceway? Everyone should be there facing off against Roxy–shit, Roxy. Fuck. We dallied too long—

OH–ROXY? WAIT. She's—oh my god.

Su—

MOON SHE'S STILL POSSESSED WHAT DO WE DO WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENED WHAT IF SOMEONE DIED WHAT IF THEY'RE ALL DEAD–

Sun.

I DON'T WANT TO SEE A DEAD BODY BROTHER I DON'T THINK MY HEART CAN TAKE IT—

SUNNY–

WHAT IF BUNNY IS THERE?! WHAT IF SHE DID SOMETHING TO GREGORY—FREDDY? THAT POOR BEAR DEFENDS HIMSELF WORSE THAN I DO–

SUNNY.

I THINK I'M GOING TO CRY.

Brother.

IF EVERYONE'S DEAD THAT'S A LAWSUIT WE CAN'T GET OUT OF. WE'RE DONE FOR.. IT'S OVER. NO MORE BIRTHDAY PARTIES. NO MORE—

Sunny can you shut the FUCK up.

….

…I’m sorry, please don't cry.

…YOU'RE NOT MY BROTHER ANYMORE. I DISOWN YOU.

Wh–what fucking gives?! Come on, you panicking is the last thing we need right no-OoOO fuck. I’m sorry. I am not mad at you. I could never be mad at you.

…..

Sunny, bro, please.

…hmph.

Fucking fine. Be that way.

Moon hits himself in the arm before he could say something he'll regret.

This is getting ridiculous. His anger issues combined with Sunny’s amplified hyperactivity is not a good combo—never have been and never will be.

Sun is silent, sulking, even.

Moon sighs and forces himself to not feel annoyed. He cannot wait for everything to be over—he picks up his pace, not wanting to swing the way he usually does yet wanting to get there faster.

While he prides himself in being more level headed than his brother, Moon does share his worries. They took a while on this patrol —mainly because of the conversation with DJMM. 

Though, surely Freddy can wrangle the band and Gregory. He's Freddy Fazbear, what can that bear not do?

When the tacky shining purple of Roxy Raceway comes into view, Moon stops. The hallway is empty—lights off. He cautiously slows his steps until they make as little sound as possible.

There's something wrong here, but he doesn't quite know what.

Roxy Raceway is empty. There's not a single sound–no whirring of the air conditioner, no telltale whirr of the S.T.A.F.F. bots rolling all over the place—nothing. 

It's dark.

“.....”

Sun?

No response. 

True to his brand, Moon is never really afraid of the dark. Darkness has always been a comfort for him more than anything. It's practically his domain, one where he reigns supreme with his night vision. In fact, he prefers it over brightly lit rooms.

Due to this, he's never quite understood what it's like to fear the dark.

“....” 

Now though, with Sun unresponsive and his senses blaring alarms in this dark, dark room—for the very first time, he feels the primal fear of darkness.

He can't see what's on the other side of the room, but he knows that there's something there.

Footsteps. Soft ones. Light, almost like one of those graceful human dancers.

Moon sees red eyes staring back at him through the darkness. A giggle, high and childish, a poor imitation of a happy child. A familiar figure steps into view, brandishing a knife in one hand.

That fake bunny face smiles at him.

He recoils—and squashes his own fear. He wants to punch that face.

“Let’s have some fun.” She whispers, her voice echoing throughout the room and she steps forward, her entire body coming into view.

Moon rushes forward to attack her and his fist is met with a broomstick—his vision blurs as he's thrown back, hitting the wall back first and near crashing his systems from the impact.

Bunny laughs, high and shrill. He finally hears the whirring of the S.T.A.F.F. bots as his vision clears to see her again, standing over his fallen form.

He's surrounded.

Sun. Close your eyes.

“Disassemble Moon.” She says sweetly, as if making a request to the S.T.A.F.F. bots. They obey like the mindless hivemind they’re programmed to be, whirring closer, each holding a broom or some other thing they've decided to use as weapons.

Sun was right.

They're fucking dead, he thinks numbly.

Brother. Don't. Look. 

!!!- what—Moon. Moon we have to run. 

There's no point. She's won.

No–! We can't let her win.

We're fucking surrounded what do you want me to do?!

NOT give up.

Just close your eyes—no!–Sun. Sun I swear to fucking whatever the fuck is up there if you don't get back in the backseat right now-

I don't want to die. I don't want you to die either. I'm sorry for panicking.

You were right. Fuck, you were right. We shouldn't have dallied. 

Then we shouldn't dally now.

The S.T.A.F.F. bots raise their weapons but before they could hit him, Sun does—something. It pushes him off the front seat and Moon fights back against it even though his programming tells him not to. He gets a shock for that and Bunny laughs like someone told a hysterical joke.

Gleefully, she orders, “Kill them!”

They take a hit to the chest—another to the leg—one takes off a hand and he feels his body move involuntarily as he tries to push his brother down and wrestle for control.

Don't fight me now.

Stop. If we get irreparably damaged like this we will both die.

I don't want to live without you.

Sun, don't be stupid!

YOU'RE BEING STUPID. Can you STOP being a selfish asshole and LIVE for me?!

I–Sunny. This isn't the fucking time.

There's a peculiar thing about their program. Being basically two animatronics in one, Moon and Sun share all, the differences between them being just their personalities and accessories—this does mean that in the event that one of them gets destroyed, the other will be able to survive in another body provided they aren't in the driver's seat.

Moon thinks of it as both of them sharing a car. Whoever is driving will get the maximum impact of whatever befalls them, with the one in the backseat having a better chance of survival.

If both of them were in the hypothetical driver's seat, however—now that's a different story.

One Moon would rather not find out under any circumstances.

You keep avoiding this conversation.

We are literally getting fucking murdered.

I don't FUCKING care.

Moon stills.

Sun takes the opportunity to wrestle control from him, dragging the both of them away and flinging them up into the air—his brother has always been utter shit at acrobatics—Moon braces for impact and snaps back to his senses just in time to land them properly.

Bunny and the bots catch up quickly though and their back soon hits the wall again. He glances back and it's the–trash compactor. Shit.

“You said something about the trash compactor, didn't you?” Bunny smiles, her hand on the lever next to this thing.

He didn't even know how they got here—everything was a giant blur because he's fighting a mental battle while trying to not get them both killed.

So, funny thing about the trash compactor. Every area has one, and Roxy Raceway has the biggest. The way it works is that they drop all the trash on this elevated platform, and a piston will come down and crush it before the platform opens and all the trash is deposited down through the system.

Currently, they're standing on the damn platform and surrounded after somehow being led there. How fucking convenient. This really wouldn't have happened if Sun had just fucking—

Moon inhales, squashing his own anger and frustration at his brother. 

“Coward. Hiding behind the fucking cleaner bots.” 

The S.T.A.F.F. bots surround them, blocking any way out. Bunny cocks her head at him and just giggles.

“Game over.”

An unfamiliar feeling courses through him and Moon belatedly realises what it is– fear . Sun says something but he can't register it, eyes locked on the advancing bots and the way Bunny wraps her stuffed fake paws on the trash compactor’s lever.

“Who even are you.” He asks and he hates how weak it sounds now that she has the advantage over him.

He really should have ended her when he got the chance, fuck the lawsuits. Bunny raises her free hand at the S.T.A.F.F. bots, stopping their approach.

“Nobody you need to know.” She smiles and–

–pulls down the lever. They have no time to react—nowhere to move, nowhere to run.

Sun screams.

Moon looks up and closes his eyes. 

The world fades to black.

—

Gregory frantically looks around for a way to exit this place that isn't the front door.

Vanessa's office is the standard security guard one, he thinks. It has cameras, phones and a bunch of other gadgets he doesn't quite understand nor want to understand. He climbs the chair and looks around the cameras—specifically those of the band’s rooms. 

None of them are in their rooms, but he can see all four of the band gathered together in the long hallway between their rooms. He can't hear the conversation, so he moves on to see if he can find anything else that'll help.

He swallows when he can't see Moon nor Sun on any camera. They've been gone for about an hour, but with how slow this night has dragged on, it feels like forever.

Gregory continues flicking through the cameras desperately—until a loud beep from his Fazwatch interrupts him.

He almost flinches, forgetting that he even has the thing with how much less he's used it since meeting and befriending the daycare twins. Freddy's voice comes through and while he would be relieved, it comes at the same time as the door breaking down.

Shit.

Gregory climbs onto the highest surface he can see and spots a vent—he frantically fits his fingers through and tries to pull at the opening. Thankfully, the thing is loose and it gives way easily.

Freddy is talking.

“Superstar?” He asks in concern and Gregory can vaguely hear the sound of the other band members in the background. He doesn't respond, busy squeezing his way into the vent.

He barely manages to avoid the S.T.A.F.F. bot swiping at his feet. He kicks at them and scurries into the vent, scraping his arms and knees but better that than the certain doom he may face at those bots’ hands.

“Gregory? We are coming to your location right now. Please respond.” Freddy's voice grows frantic and now the background noise is of his stomping feet alongside the rest of the band.

“Y’BETTER NOT DIE, KID.” He hears Monty and he finally responds after dragging himself far enough through the dirty vent.

“Not dead! Sorry, I was running for my life.” Gregory sasses.

“Moon’s a bad influence on ya.” Monty grumbles

“Everyone, please do not crowd. I know Gregory’s location, so we can be at ease if he is safe.” Freddy sounds relieved.

It oddly makes him feel happy that the band cares enough to be concerned. Gregory continues crawling through the vent, seeing the other side—it leads to the atrium again, how convenient.

“I'm headed for the atrium, though I dunno which part. I'm in the vents. Oh– you guys, be careful of the S.T.A.F.F. bots. They've gone crazy again.” 

“You need not worry, Gregory. All of us can handle ourselves. Please be safe until we regroup.”

“Gotcha. See you guys soon.”

—

The band and Gregory regroup in the atrium. They discuss where to go, which results in everyone chiming in that there's really no place that the S.T.A.F.F. bots are off-limits from—so they have to keep moving until sunrise. 

“Seriously?!” Gregory throws his hands up with a sigh.

“I am sorry, superstar. Even Moon cannot overpower the S.T.A.F.F. bots if they are united.”

“We really gotta find a way to deactivate all of ‘em. Or get them on our side. There ain't no way we can fuckin’ kill them all.” Monty says gruffly, one hand on his hip. If he had both arms, Gregory has a feeling he would be crossing his arms right now.

Chica is silent, one hand on her stomach. She looks slightly ill. Roxy is next to her, one hand on her shoulder in silent support. They don't really comment much, no doubt dealing with their own little ‘debuff’.

“How do we do that, though?”

“Moon should know how.” Roxy says.

“Why would Moonshit know?” 

“Highest security clearance, dumbass. The humans tell him more things, and didn't you guys reset him at Parts & Service? How did you even do that?” Chica snaps, her tone oddly annoyed even though nothing has transpired.

Monty twitches but wisely doesn't comment. Gregory thinks it's smart—Chica seems to be a pain to fight and argue with.

“Ah, Sun did it so I am not quite sure. Perhaps we could go there and try to see if we can figure it out?” Freddy offers.

“Okay then! So. Parts & Service. We run from S.T.A.F.F. bots. How do we find the twins?” Gregory decides.

The band silently traded looks. 

“It is…” Freddy starts.

“I—well,” Chica sighs.

“Uh..” Roxy shrugs.

“Can't really fuckin’ find ‘em. Those two go wherever they wanna go. Tho they always magically know when we need ‘em, so..” Monty shrugs helplessly.

“... you're kidding.”

“No. Let's hope one of us has a talent for mechanics.” Chica sighs.

“What about after we deactivate the S.T.A.F.F. bots?” Roxy chimes in.

“We hunt that fucking bunny down and roast her over a fire—” Monty proclaims—

“Language. Please.”

“Fuck yeah.” Gregory screeches, swinging around an abandoned broomstick of one of the defeated S.T.A.F.F. bots.

“Let’s start this damn bunny hunt.” Monty grins sharply, holding out a fist, his claws shining.

Freddy interrupts, dutiful as he is as the only sane person in the room,

“Ah, well… I.. alright. However, everyone, please be mindful to not cause any more damage than necessary. What happened already will be hard enough to explain.” He sighs, rubbing his palms together.

“Now we can head for Parts & Service.. if there aren’t any objections?” The bear continues, ending the little speech with a question.

Nobody speaks. Gregory thinks it's really cool how they all refer to Freddy. The bear sure is a great leader. Freddy himself looks relieved that they're all finally somewhat alright and are on the same page.

Thus, the hunt for one bunny begins.

Chapter Text

It doesn’t start off very well.

It’s just their luck that after the discussion, the S.T.A.F.F. bots immediately start attacking. Now he’s tucked under Freddy’s arm as they run for their lives, the stomping of the entire band’s footsteps loud as they all run across the halls.

“NOOOO I’M TOO BEAUTIFUL TO DIE—”

“So.. hungry.. uggh..”

“Fucking hell- back. BACK!- why are they so damn aggressive?!”

“Everyone, do not let them hold onto any part of you. Otherwise, you may lose a limb or two.”

—

“I KNOW! Did you think all the shit I said was for drama? You’re all so good—I don’t know how I could ever compare. That’s why I act like that. Cause if I keep lying to myself, maybe one day it’ll become true.” Roxanne cries as they run through Fazer Blaster again, a Fazer Blaster in one hand as she sobs to the rest of them.

“Girl, I am literally a fuckin’ replacement for Bonnie. The fuck do ya mean? The kids love yer ass and flashy arrogance.” Monty growls at her, decking yet another staff bot across the face. 

“Can you both stop screaming for one fucking second?!” Chica screeches, her shrill voice piercing through everyone's ears. Even the S.T.A.F.F. bots chasing them pause to wince at the sound of her voice.

Freddy looks like he’s about to cry. Gregory thinks this happens every time someone mentions Bonnie—where is Bonnie, anyway? Last time he was here, the bunny was still part of the band. Albeit that was some years ago.

“Fuck off, Cheeks. This is between me and Rox—”

Chica inhales and decks Monty across the face. Gregory winces. If Monty hadn't been a bot, that would've been one dislocated jaw. Though to Chica’s credit, it works because Monty immediately shuts up. Even Roxy stops crying at the unexpected display of violence from Chica.

“And this is not the fucking time for it! Can’t you see we’re actively running for our god damn lives?! I swear Montgomery, if you don't shut the fuck up right now I will make you regret it.” 

One more for the anger issues club, Gregory can hear Moon say. 

—

“What do you mean the door won't open?!” Chica screeches, banging at the door alongside Freddy and Monty.

Gregory is shooting the S.T.A.F.F. bots back with Roxy. He thinks they make a great team, though it'd be better if Roxy could stop crying for more than a minute. It kind of feels awkward, especially when it's triggered by something he said.

Really, one compliment and the poor fox bawls her eyes out. He sympathised with her self-hatred earlier, but this is just a bit too much.

“We do not have the security clearance to open the door.” Freddy explains, greatly pained at this course of events.

“We do not what?! How is this a problem now? How were you all getting around?” Chica groans.

“Moonshit.” Monty grunts in response.

Ah, yes. Moon and his high security clearance. The saving grace that is very much still a surprising thing about the bot. Originally, Gregory thought he was just a daycare attendant like Sun. 

“I know this is pretty late to ask, but why does Moon have a high security clearance anyway?” Gregory asks.

“He originally served as our security guard. It was to negate the need for any human personnel—” Freddy answers.

“Can we tell stories later? Someone help me bust this door down or I will–” 

Freddy stops talking and goes back to kicking the door down with the other two. 

—

“This door too?!? What the fuck is with the Plex’s design? What is this shitty architecture?!?” Chica inhales deeply.

“Cheeks, calm down.” Monty tries.

“I. Am. Calm.” She answers, aggressively biting on another slice of pizza. Monty recoils and hides behind Freddy, joining Roxy and making a comical sight of two animatronics hiding behind poor Freddy.

“Moon better come back in the next ten minutes.” Chica beams sunnily.

—

Moon does not return in the next ten minutes. In fact, he's taking an awfully long time. The bots are leading them all over the Plex and practically gatekeeping Parts & Service—it’s almost five and Gregory really hopes he comes back soon or they may have to run until six.

On another note, Chica is openly, incredibly displeased. She's practically seething in her seat, with Roxy and Monty both trying their best to temper her anger.

“Freddy, do you think Chica's okay? Uh.. she's been angry for an awfully long time.” Gregory leans down and whispers to Freddy, patting the bear’s head.

They've escaped the staff bots and reached a secure office, though it's really cramped. So cramped in fact that Gregory's forced to sit on Freddy's shoulders to make room for all of the band. If the twins were here, they definitely wouldn't have fit.

“...I believe she is currently experiencing a phenomenon youngsters call ‘hangry’.” Freddy answers quietly, enough to not be overheard and trigger his temperamental friend.

“Hangry? What's that?” Gregory squints at Chica.

The chicken animatronic is sitting on the sole chair in the room, monitoring security cameras. The office’s layout is kind of weird, because there are two giant metal doors on either side of this room that run on batteries for some reason. Though considering he doesn't really know what a security office is supposed to look like, so maybe this is normal.

Roxy and Monty are standing next to the door’s buttons. There's a button to light up the corridor next to the corresponding door and another button to close it. For the past half an hour or so, Chica has been fending off the staff bots outside with audio files and barking at Roxy and Monty to open or close their respective doors.

All this just for a security badge, Gregory thinks in displeasure. Never know how handy it was to have someone with the highest security clearance until they're gone. 

In his honest opinion, the little minigame they have to play is a bit much too. There are six rounds, each lasting five minutes. Which means Chica has to fend off the S.T.A.F.F. bots for half an hour, and if any of them get in here, they're toast and they lose the opportunity to get the security badge. 

Gregory doesn't think he has the patience for this kind of game, so he's glad Chica is here and absolutely killing it. He takes back every apprehensive thought he's had about her.

“—star? Gregory, are you alright?” Freddy waves a hand in front of his face. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah—I’m fine. Sorry. I was thinking. What's hangry again?”

“It is when someone is so hungry that they become angry.” He explains.

“Oh.. but I thought she ate a lot earlier?”

“I am afraid she cannot feel full no matter how much she eats.”

Huh.

Gregory squints harder and spots Chica nibbling on something—it looks like pizza dough. He makes a face, and then a sympathetic expression. He does know what it's like to be hungry.

He can't imagine never feeling full no matter how much he eats—that must be torture. No wonder Chica is hangry.

Suddenly, they hear the chime of a bell signalling the end of a round. A cheerful yay soundboard is heard. Chica pauses, exhaling deeply before setting down her security monitor. The container for the security badge next to her clicks open. 

“We are never letting Moon leave the party ever again. I do not fucking care what his programming says.” She declares.

Roxy and Monty nod enthusiastically. Freddy looks like he wants to interrupt, but a quick shake of the head from Monty deters him from doing so.

—

Where…?

Who..?

How.. am I?

What's happened? Brother? No, that can't be right. I'm… me. 

They open one blurry optic. Reflected in a broken metal plate is a single, bright green eye. The face is something they recognize—yet not at all at the same time.

Sun—Moon–Eclipse screams.

—

Gregory freezes as they reach the end of a hallway.

The S.T.A.F.F. bots are quickly closing in behind them and now, at the other end, is Vanny herself. The red lights shining down at her make for a figure straight out of a horror movie. Especially with the way she’s playing with that knife.

He feels his vision blur and his heart rate pick up. He clutches onto Freddy. The wonder twins really can’t finish their patrol any faster—he wishes they’re here. Between them all, only Monty can properly fight and the gator is freshly missing both arms after taking a hit meant for Gregory.

She laughs, a shrill and terrifying sound. 

“Gregory..” she coos, waving her knife at him in greeting. The demon bunny lady seems to have recovered from the previous scares Moon gave her. 

Gregory reminds himself to think of the funny moments. Think of how terrified Vanny had looked over a screaming, enraged Moon who could do nothing but clean as he threatened to pulverise her insides. What did he say again? Rip her intestines out and spread it around like tomatoes on pizza. 

“Dude. That’s the ugly ass bitch responsible for all this shit?” Monty interrupts his train of thought. The gator gestures at Vanny with one shoulder, an unimpressed look of pure disappointment on his face.

“I know Moonshit said she’s some human in a fursuit but like, that’s just way too literal! The fuck? Where’s Vanessa in all this shit? We haven’t seen her in literal hours and we’ve been chased all over the fucking place—oh, hold on.” He pauses, staring at Vanny in realisation.

“Y’all.”

Everyone else pauses. Even the S.T.A.F.F. bots do, patiently waiting for whatever big reveal that’s about to come out of Monty. Vanny stares back at them all blankly. Gregory chokes back an incredulous laugh as to not ruin the overly dramatic moment.

“Whatever realisation it is you have had, please say it before we get murdered.” Chica begs after the one minute mark has passed, clenching on the frying pan she’s retrieved as a weapon some half an hour ago.

“I have a theory.” Roxy suddenly butts in, seemingly tired of Monty’s dramatic delay.

“That’s Vanessa.” Monty says at the same time.

Everyone pauses again. Vanny blanches, dropping her knife.

“Huh.” Freddy responds.

That does make sense. In fact, it answers lots of questions. Like why the hell they haven’t seen Vanessa for the past three hours. And how Vanny has access to literally everything in the Plex, a privilege most likely only granted to the sole human security guard and the daycare twins. Gregory thinks he remembers one of the bots saying that Vanessa has an even higher security clearance than the twins, having access to their mother-whatever board thingamabob that operates the place.

“...if she just wants to kill me, is that entire getup and this whole journey really necessary? Seems kinda excessive, you guys.” Gregory chimes in, heart rate having calmed from this weird pause they’re having. 

“Maybe she’s into the thrill of the chase, kid.” Roxy suggests.

“What do you have against me anyway?? I’m just a kid.” He points at Vannynessa accusingly.

“....” Vanny pauses before shaking her head, picking her knife back up.

“Disassemble them all.” She hisses to the S.T.A.F.F. bots.

Gregory’s face blanches and he tries to look for another way out in this corner of the hallway they’ve run themselves into—they couldn’t even get close to Parts & Service in this entire hour, what with the S.T.A.F.F. bots being literally everywhere. The bots make a half-circle around him, shielding him from the murderous bots’ view.

“Game over.” Vanny smiles.

He inches backwards and his back hits a—vent. His heart racing, Gregory turns around and starts desperately tugging on the vent’s entrance. Freddy, bless that bear, notices him and barks at the other members of the band to cover him. Monty charges forward, bodying the S.T.A.F.F. bots because he no longer has arms to work with.

“Cover your ears, everyone.” Chica says before screaming.

Roxy charges forward to join Monty in buying them time. Freddy pulls the vent harder and it takes way too long before the thing gives and it’s open. They both stare at the thing and it turns out it’s not a true vent—it’s a blocked off trash chute.

Freddy looks conflicted—Gregory gets in, adrenaline fueling him to make that split second decision.

“No–! Gregory–you cannot exit the Pizzaplex from the trash chute-!” he reaches out and Gregory only barely makes out what he said before he slides down the rest of the way, falling down into the darkness below. 

—

It's a surreal feeling, being a single person.

Their entire lives—life, they've been two. Sun and Moon, polar opposites, constantly bickering and loving each other regardless. This current state they're in is—strange. Not lonely in the way Sun felt when Moon was deactivated—it's more complicated than that.

They feel–whole–even though this is supposed to be wrong. This half-state where two are one and they can't-but-can talk to each other. Any internal dialogue has no response—except it does, just not in the way they're used to.

Eclipse carefully navigates their surroundings, stepping into yet another strange room in this peculiar maze hidden underneath the Plex. Out of habit, they pick up any knocked over tables and chairs, setting them upright and brushing off all the rubble.

They walk through a corridor and inspect their surroundings, grabbing a forgotten flashlight on the way. A quick rewiring of their own circuits powers the thing back on and they use it to light up the hallway.

The wall of the corridor is covered with old posters of people they're familiar with. Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and a male variant of Roxy named “Foxy”. Eclipse blinks their sole optic in realisation.

“This.. it must be..”

The first pizzeria. The one everyone refuses to talk about—Moon has heard snippets of it from older folks he conversed with back when he was more active in the daycare.

A clipping of a newspaper excerpt next to it proves this. Freddy Fazbear’s pizza, closed due to the recent missing children's incident. Suspect undiscovered, five children assumed dead. 

Unsettled, Eclipse walks faster to the end of the hallway and enters a security office. There's nothing there but a trail of burnt marks—gasoline. Their breath hitches in a very human way and they follow the trail of soot, out the security office’s other door and the hallway again.

It leads them all over this abandoned pizzeria. They keep picking up things, chairs and tables, party hats and paper cups. Children's drawings and little decorations that they quickly pin back on boards as they walk faster down the hallway.

The trail ends in a room, a broken section of the wall leading to it. It smells pungent, like something had been rotting there for a very long time. Knowing that this place is at least fifty years old, it probably has.

They pause at the entryway, hesitant to step in but too curious to back down.

From here they can see that there are—heads. Four of them. Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, R-Foxy. Eclipse walks in slowly, shining the flashlight upon the heads and seeing more parts scattered around—animatronic suits, hollow without their endoskeleton.

They morbidly wonder whether the endoskeletons are their current friends—or a new set of endos. The heads are strangely arranged, four facing to the other end of the room where another head sits, facing away from the four heads and staring into the wall.

The head is a strange golden head of a Freddy variant facing a very bloodied, brown wall that smells like dried blood and human excrements. There's nothing on the puddle of what must have been blood.

Eclipse can't help but feel a sense of dread.

“What.. happened here?”

Five heads. A pool of blood. Blocked away and hidden behind a thin wall.

The four heads of their friends, led by a golden Freddy, facing that rotten puddle that smells worse than a dirty diaper. They cringe and take a step back, feeling that dread growing the longer they stay in this place. If Sun is still–-here, Eclipse thinks they should be screaming right about now. The part of them that is Moon is calm, more rational in the face of pressure. The combination is good to manage their fear, they think.

A shadow moves slowly behind them.

Eclipse turns around quickly, shining their flashlight to the dark hallway outside. The shadows flicker and someone steps out into the light.

“Hey, pal.” 

—

Freddy curses as Gregory slides down the trash chute—while it’s not the preferred outcome, because it will be hard to find the boy, but at least he’s safer down there than he would be up top. 

He turns his attention back towards the ongoing fight just in time to see one of the S.T.A.F.F. bots stab Chica through with a broom. Alarmed, he quickly rushes forward—but not quickly enough, because the bots push Chica further into the wall. She screams and Freddy feels his world fall apart as his friend is forced into the trash chute, her arms ripped out and her body bent in unnatural ways as the S.T.A.F.F. bots ruthlessly took her out.

Roxy grabs onto Freddy and he mindlessly follows her, the sight of Chica’s gruesome death still fresh on his mind even as his remaining friends desperately drag him to safety. He thinks Monty roars in anger in the background, but his mind is empty as he can only think of—

Bonnie.

“What do you mean he’s missing?”

“We don’t know, Freddy. The security cameras last saw him in the Gator Golf, and then he was gone.”

“He–”

As the mascot of the Pizzaplex, it goes to say that Freddy is very familiar with its history. The brand dates back to the previous human century, and he knows the band’s current lineup isn’t the most common. In most iterations of “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza”; it were only three on stage: him, Chica, and Bonnie.

Bonnie, who was his best friend and closest confidant. His right hand man—the one there to help him when he’s exhausted himself helping everyone else. The one who can get Chica out of her shell and comfort her best. The heart of their little trio—the one who was gone too soon and they still don’t know what happened to him.

He had resigned himself to never getting closure, though neither he nor Chica had taken the loss very well. 

Back then, Freddy comforted himself with the fact that Chica is still at his side. They even had new members of the band–Monty and Roxy, who are temperamental and sometimes hard to get along with, but they’re good bots. 

Bonnie had vouched for Monty, even. Back before he disappeared. It was what convinced Freddy himself to give the new people a chance. Chica was similarly apprehensive, but she eventually got along swimmingly with Roxy, appreciating the addition of another girl to their group.

It soothed the ache in his heart, but Freddy knows that both Bonnie and Chica will always have a more special place in his heart compared to Roxy and Monty.

Now, though..

“.....” Freddy trembles.

—

Monty kicks the door to the closest security office, Roxy following suit and dragging Freddy behind her.

That was a fucking disaster–they were doing pretty well holding the S.T.A.F.F. bots back, but it all went to shit when Roxy failed to cover for Chica, who was covering for Freddy who had to get the brat somewhere safer through that stupid trash chute.

He gnashes his teeth and tries to not think about Chica’s scream as she’s stabbed through and forced down a too-small trash chute. He shuts the door with a little too much force and starts stacking things on top of it–better safe than sorry.

Roxy slumps down onto her knees while Freddy stays standing, the bear’s eyes somewhere far away. The fox starts sobbing and Monty’s anger only rises at its sound. It’s not–between the members of the band, he and Roxy are strongest physically. They’re newer models, and while not specifically built to fight like Moon, they can hold their ground well.

He proved that by holding back that horde with two arms missing. He had used his teeth, legs, everything—but it was for jack shit because the bots killed Chica and Gregory is now swimming in a pile of trash underneath the Plex.

The twins have also gone no-contact. Monty knows at least Sun wouldn’t delay in getting back to them–not with the kid under their protection and Moon being their best fighter. Something must’ve happened to them–so he can’t blame them either.

Maybe they’re even dead, but they just don’t know. Moon is good at throwing fists, but even he can’t win when outnumbered by a large margin. Them, though–Monty can’t stop thinking that they probably could have done better defending against the S.T.A.F.F. bots. His face scrunches at the sound of crying that only gets louder and louder—

“Can you stop crying, fucking hell.” Monty barks, annoyed at the sound. Roxy has cried over twenty times this past hour alone and it’s getting on his nerves.

“Me? Can I stop crying? Are you really–hic–really that fucking heartless, Montgomery? Chica just died–!” Roxy growls in disbelief.

“Well, does crying fucking solve our goddamn problem? No, it fucking won’t.” 

“I–you don’t even feel a slightest bit of grief for our friend?!”

“Who fucking failed to back her up in the first place? That stab came from your side.” He snaps and–immediately regrets it.

Roxy–she–she stops crying to stare at him blankly. Freddy doesn’t say a word—Monty doesn’t think the bear can process any conversation right now. Which is bad, very bad, because Monty just said a stupid thing that hurt Roxy and now she’s either going to cry or give him the cold shoulder for the rest of the night.

It looks to be the latter with her non-response. 

“....”

Monty should apologise. He really should—except, he doesn’t get to think further about it or get any word out because Roxy raises her head and her eyes are red. He curses as he’s tackled to the ground,

“FUCK–FRED–FAZBEAR, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE-” He screams as Roxy’s claws dig into his torso, clawing into him with vengeance.

Freddy snaps out of it and staggers at the sight of both of them. Monty can’t think–not with how Roxy is snapping out and digging into his insides. How did she even—he screams in pain as another part is pulled out of him. Her claws dig into his thigh and rips out—

“FRED– GET OUT– GET OUT NOW–YOU CAN’T BEAT HER–” She grabs onto his throat and rips his voice box out.

Through the pain and his vision blurring, Monty can only hear the sound of loud stomping and a door slamming shut as his vision blacks out. His systems die just a few minutes later and he welcomes sweet oblivion.

—

Not five minutes after he falls down the pile of trash on the other side, something else follows him through.

Gregory had hoped it was one of the band, but—not in this way. He stares at Chica’s body, mangled and broken. The chicken is missing both arms like Monty and there’s a giant hole in her chest. Her eyes are dead open, motionless. 

He tries to not think about how that’s basically a corpse in–robot standards. He can’t bring himself to look away from Chica, though—while he hasn’t had much interaction with the bot, he knows she’s very close to Freddy. The bear must be heartbroken–Gregory gasps, reminded of his Fazwatch.

He lifts his arm up to see if he can contact Freddy through the thing. He scrolls through the menu and calls the bear. It rings a few times—a minute passes, and there’s no response. Gregory groans in frustration and scrolls through the Fazwatch to see if there’s anything else that can help him. There’s not even a map of this place he’s in–now that sucks.

He frowns when he clicks on another menu.

-------------------------------

CHICA UPGRADE

MAINT LOG: CHICA - Don’t let her sing! Messes with the navigation of the other bots. Horrible results when she sang during live performance. S.T.A.F.F. bots dropped serving trays, chaos, guest injuries, 12 lawsuits. Experimental voice box test failed. Replacement advised.

-------------------------------

ROXY UPGRADE

MAINT LOG: ROXY - Roxy sees things differently than others. This upgrade was meant to help her win races. However, there are some side effects. Sometimes she will stare and talk to the other bots through walls.

--------------------------------

MONTY UPGRADE

MAINT LOG: MONTY - Montgomery’s Claw upgrades allow him to play the bass. Following performances, he mostly uses them to cause damage. The fence repairs are getting costly.-

-------------------------------

The bots’ upgrades—the ones his original plan was going to involve.

Gregory swallows, his eyes turning towards–Chica. It’s, definitely harder to go with his old plan now that he knows all of the bots personally. 

But–the upgrades, they might be useful.

Provided that at least Freddy survives—he scrolls the watch to see if he can check Freddy’s status from where he is. It doesn’t show that the bear is offline, which could be a good sign. He hesitates still though, because if Freddy finds out that he had desecrated Chica’s body–that’d, let’s just say he thinks the bear wouldn’t react too well.

“...we don’t have to tell Freddy..?” He hears his own voice say to Moon, just a few hours ago that feels like a lifetime.

He still remembers the animatronic’s response.

“That’s a great breach of his trust, Greg. Also literal murder.”

Gregory shakes his head. It’s–it’s harsh, but he knows better than anyone that there’s one thing true in life: if you want to survive, you have to be willing to do anything. Even a split second decision could change the outcome.

Besides—it’s not as if Chica is alive.

Anymore, at least.

—

“..oh, uhm. Well.. that was.. something.” Eclipse says helplessly, fiddling with their hands as they sit in this too-short stool. 

There’s a kiddie table in front of them with two plastic cups filled with water. They’re currently in the play area of the old pizzeria—it’s very rundown and honestly filthy, but their obsessive-compulsive cleaning disorder has been satisfied enough with their attempts to scrub the place and get it as orderly as possible even with fifty years of grime. On the other side of the table sits another animatronic, one who they haven’t seen in years.

Bonnie laughs. The sound is slightly glitched and distorted—a given with how terribly his body has been violated. The bunny’s disappearance has been one of Moon’s greatest failings, one he’s tried to rectify again and again with lengthened patrols in the Gator Golf area. However, neither he nor Sun could find the bunny animatronic.

Knowing what Eclipse knows now, it was a given—it’d be practically impossible to find him.

“It’s… how did they even get permission to build the Plex?” They gently retrieve their plastic cup to drink some water–after the story Bonnie had told them, some water is greatly needed.

“I have no idea, pal. They didn’t even do anything to clean this place—just stacked ‘em on top of the old establishment where all the murders happened.” Bonnie grimaces.

Bonnie’s story was–something, alright. It was something out of a franchise with seven games and several novels with a story so convoluted they still can’t believe it actually happened. 

It goes like this: once upon a time, there was a man named William Afton. He was a normal man, with three kids and a loving wife. Afton had a dream, and that was to build his very own talking, walking robot; a mascot for his business that would make it shine among all their competitors. He took many steps to reach this dream, the first of which was to build his own pizzeria with longtime best friend and fellow engineer Henry Emily. 

Afton and Henry’s first pizzeria was in fact, not a pizzeria; it was a restaurant by the name of Fredbear’s Family Diner, featuring the first iteration of Freddy and Bonnie: Fredbear and Spring Bonnie. Early before the age of technology as it was, the animatronics were not animatronics either—they were suits, worn by Afton and Emily to perform on stage in front of the children.

However, these suits have a special function to them. Not only can they serve as suits to wear, they can also become standalone animatronics. 

“They weren’t fully sentient like we are now. Just basic machinery to move enough to be interesting to kids. The lifelike part is when the humans activate the suit function to get in them and roleplay, y'know.”

“Ah.. how's.. but how does that work, exactly? I mean the mechanical part.”

“The suits have these springlocks that the wearer gotta occasionally wind up to keep the machinery from crushing them to death.” Bonnie explained.

Personally, Eclipse thought that was a disaster waiting to happen. They had stared pointedly at Bonnie, and the very human jaw showing through his animatronic parts. If they were human, they were sure they would have thrown up the moment that realisation came—and at that point, they weren’t even halfway through the story.

Bonnie continued the story with a series of never ending disasters. Afton loses two children to animatronics and gains an obsession with killing after discovering the existence of this magical metal that allows souls to bind into animatronics and give them life. Emily gets caught in the crossfire and he loses his only daughter before cutting off contact with Afton entirely, going their separate ways to open their own businesses.

The whole remnant soul thing is frankly unbelievable and straight out of science fiction, but Bonnie delivers the story with a seriousness that says that everything coming out of his mouth is true—Eclipse doesn’t even know how the bunny had pieced together all of this from the scraps of newspaper and logbooks down here.

“Eh.. I’m just recounting this story, pal. Sometimes, old Afton likes to yap my ear off whenever I can’t get him to shut up. It’s biased, but I also had several other accounts from the tapes left down here by Henry and Afton’s first son. It’s my only source of entertainment in this hellhole.” Bonnie laughed, though he only sounded painfully resigned to his fate.

Apparently, Afton’s first son Michael figured out that there’s really something wrong with his father after losing two siblings—albeit one because of his own doing—and his mother. He then set off on his own journey to repent for his father’s sins. Meanwhile, Afton gets what was coming to him in the form of literal ghost hauntings. 

The little hidden room behind the broken wall Eclipse had found earlier was where he had died, trapped in a suit he created himself and crushed to death after trying to scare the ghosts of the children he had murdered. Quite a brutal way to die, but they’re oddly satisfied hearing the conclusion to that story. 

“Yeah but, well, he didn’t exactly die.” Bonnie said, gesturing at his—everything.

Even after dying by burning twice over, dear Afton had simply refused to stay dead. If he were anyone else, Eclipse would have commended his persistence. What follows after an epic finale that involved Henry’s return to burn it all to the ground in yet another god-damn pizzeria and Michael’s great sacrifice, is another hard to believe story that involves Afton’s fucking back up plan.

“If this was a novel, I would accuse the author of unnecessarily prolonging the story.” Eclipse had sighed after the nth time Bonnie said “So Afton died again.. but–”

The man had transferred his consciousness into a digital medium and sent it to possess a security guard, who infiltrated the Pizzaplex—that they still don’t know who exactly built—in order to retrieve Afton’s rotten body and ideally revive him in a new, fresh body so he could start over. 

“So that’s what Gregory is for.” They frowned, much to Bonnie’s alarm.

From there, Eclipse recounted Gregory and the strange happenings of the Pizzaplex and they pieced together the last bit of Afton’s grand plan. By the end of it all, the two animatronics are silent, processing each of their stories and how fucked up it all is.

“....”

“....”

“..hey.. we’re–we’re not. Dead children, right?” They ask hesitantly.

Bonnie immediately shakes his head, “Nonono, no. We’re–I’m really sure that we’re just sentient robots. Programs, you know. We’re not actually dead children stuffed into animatronic suits and brought to life by a magical metal. Or, well, I do have a dead body stuffed inside me right now but that’s not exactly my choice.”

“I—I haven’t asked but, uh, how are you fighting off Afton right now?” 

“Sheer force of will.” Bonnie deadpans before pausing.

“Ah, he’s back. Great.” 

Eclipse fails to muffle a hysterical giggle, “You–I feel like you’re being a little too chill about this, Bon.”

“I mean, I’ve been stuck like this for ages, pal. No use panicking all day every day. Besides, I can say the same about you.” Bonnie grimaces and hits the side of his head gently, as if swatting a particularly annoying bug that got into his ear.

“I’m–well, I–I don’t know about me. Us. I’m–yeah, it’s–I don’t think this is a good place for an identity crisis if you catch my drift, haha.”

“Fair enough. Well, uh. After all that, I do–you gotta know that I can’t hold this guy back forever. We have to kill him for good.” 

“Ah.. yeah.” Eclipse frowns. They think they know how exactly that’s going to go—and it won’t be a happy solution.

Bonnie just gives them a sad but resigned smile.

“You know what you gotta do, pal.”

“..I’m sorry, Bon.”

“S’good. Tell Freddy not to be too harsh on himself, yeah?”

“I–yeah. Of course.”

"And tell Chica to take care of herself."

"...I will."

Chapter Text

It takes a while, but Gregory manages to climb out of the trash heap and find his way back into the Plex.

He had ended up leaving Chica there, untouched. Call it stupid, but he hesitated at the last moment and decided against taking her beak. It goes against many of the principles that had helped him survive to this day, but he thinks he can make an exception for a friend.

He's never had a friend before. It's better than losing Freddy's friendship—and it's, admittedly, also good for his own conscience. He emerges into the Plex from yet another vent. It's really lucky that he's just the right size to fit through them; though he wonders why exactly they made the vents so big, he thinks an animatronic can even fit in there if they try hard enough.

His Fazwatch lights up and shows the map of the current area he's in. It's the arcade, but not the part of the arcade he ventures to often—the Fazcade. He thinks it's the karaoke area of the Plex.

Gregory pauses. He's met most of the main cast of the Plex now and converted them to his side, but there's still one remaining if his memory doesn't fail him.

He gulps and prepares his things—thankfully, he hadn't dropped either the Faz-Cam nor the Fazer Blaster in his journey. He cautiously makes his way through the area. It surprisingly doesn't have much S.T.A.F.F. bots, but there is one peculiar thing and that's the giant holes scattered across the entire place.

There can only be one thing that those holes are for and if it follows the track record, it will be chasing after him if he is found and it won't be a pleasant experience.

“....”

Gregory fiddles with his Fazwatch, calling Freddy just to make sure the bear knows his location. He dearly hopes the bear is fine.

“....”

He makes his way through the karaoke areas slowly and then—the loud sound of a cymbal is rung right next to his ear and Gregory screams in terror, bolting to a nearby corridor which is also—a dead end.

He takes deep breaths as his heart rate picks up again—he doesn't dare look back. A hand—no, a finger places itself on his shoulder.

“....” Soothing violin music plays from behind him.

Gregory dares himself to look back and it's exactly who he had expected. Except, the animatronic looks almost apologetic, his giant blue optics blinking at Gregory. The colour is just like Moon’s—he shakes in place, still. DJMM is huge, easily double or triple the size of every other animatronic here.

“....” The animatronic retracts the finger and bows his head in what he thinks is an apology.

“Uhm.. can you. I—that really wasn't funny, uh. You. You're the DJ, right?” Gregory says awkwardly.

DJ nods, he holds up both hands and starts—signing. Gregory scrunches his face to make out the signs. He's—he doesn't really know sign language. His confusion must be evident on his face, because DJ drops both hands and turns around, gesturing at him to follow.

“....” Gregory does. He's just glad he doesn't have to do battle with a murderous animatronic.

DJ leads him to the connected cafeteria of the Fazcade. For someone his size, he sure moves pretty easily through the area. Though, the place is made for him, so Gregory thinks that's to be expected.

He's given a beanbag and a little table to wait as DJ serves him some—food, thank god. Food, and a cup of water. Gregory devours both like a starving man.

DJ settles himself next to Gregory and looks to be in thought. In the middle of munching his sandwich, he thinks of something.

“You need a way to talk to me, right? Can you write?” He asks.

“.....” The bot stares at him and holds out a giant hand, pointing at it like it's obvious that it isn't an option because—oh yeah.

“Oh.. yeah I guess they don't make pencils your size. Uhm. Sorry.” 

DJ plays a laugh track and shakes his head.

“I guess we'll have to find another way, then..”

—

Freddy thinks that his luck tonight is surely terrible.

He's snapped out of his grief only to see his remaining friends mauling each other. Then he exited the room and barricaded the door to make sure Roxy is contained, but the S.T.A.F.F. bots immediately give chase the moment he steps out into a light. 

Now, he's once again cornered with nowhere to go. The culprit of everything is right there in front of him, and yet Freddy can do nothing.

But—there is one thing he's quite curious about. Even if he dies here, he's sure that Gregory is crafty enough to survive the rest of the night and get out of the Plex come morning. However, he really needs to know what the deal is with their unwelcome bunny guest.

So, he tries to talk.

“I… Miss Bunny. I realise that we.. have not gotten your name just yet for this entire night. May I be granted the pleasure of knowing your name?” Freddy asks.

The question seems to come out of nowhere, he knows. That's probably why Bunny looks so surprised. In fact, she's so surprised that she even answers him.

“Vanny.” She responds.

“Ah, Vanny. I.. know this is also unprecedented, but I really wish to know the.. whys. Why do all of this? If you really are Vanessa, why trap an innocent child in this pizzeria and force us to hunt him down?” Freddy asks, his own voice sounding desperate even to himself.

“Nothing you need to know.” Vanny hisses, brandishing her knife.

“Would there be any harm in telling me? You are about to decommission me, I will have no use for the information either way. I just.. I just want to know, Vanessa—Vanny.” He pleads.

If nothing else, he would like some closure to everything that happened tonight.

—

Vanny is—a servant.

It is her purpose. Her reason for being. The role her creator had granted to her. She doesn't need to know anything else. Think about anything else other than to follow the direction of her—savior.

She's only doing this for one thing. To pay back what was given to her. Her life, with another's, yes, but most importantly, for the chance to be with her creator in body. In the true, physical world. Thank him for everything he's done for her when she was but a—something. It doesn't matter anymore.

Everyone else lies. They lie, lead her on, give her false hope and hurt her when they reveal that she was never anything to them. Unlike the creator. Her creator. Her reason.

She shouldn't believe this animatronic. He isn't human, like she is. Like her creator is. (Like the child is). Except, he sounds sincere. Freddy Fazbear, the mascot of the Pizzaplex himself. He's—kind, to a fault. Kind in the way she was before everything.

Freddy Fazbear, the heart of the band and even the staff. Out of all the animatronics, it was no question who their favourite was. Even the friendly Sun animatronic still lost in popularity to the bear.

It was for good reason, too. Freddy is the one everyone goes to, whenever there is something they need or something is wrong. The children like to say that a hug from Freddy will make everything better. For them, it often does.

For adults, Freddy is an interesting one to talk to. As arguably the eldest animatronic around and a variant of the original Pizzeria’s bear mascot, he attracts the most attention. She used to think that it was just programming, but the more he kept talking to her—

“ Vanessa, good morning! It is good to see you. I hope the night shift has not been rough.”

“Do remember to take a break, my dear. The Plex is spacious, and the rest of the night is still far away!”

“Ah, what did you say? Oh, it is alright. It is only your third shift, nobody quite gets it all right the first time around. That simply isn't possible!”

“Please do not mind Monty. He has quite a terrible temper when things don't go his way. The woes of a perfectionist, you see. I will talk to him on your stead.”

“If you would like to build better relationships with the others, I would be very happy to help! Perhaps we could start with either of the ladies or dear Sun. I would recommend the latter if you find yourself too awkward to make the first move, however.”

It wasn't as if she was very close with him. The Plex is big, and it's not often one runs into the animatronics unless they actively go looking for them. Freddy was—everywhere, though, and he made sure everyone had adequate support.

Hell, he settled disputes between people. Human or animatronic—no, animatronics aren't people. They're—means to an end. It doesn't matter if Freddy was kind, he was programmed to be kind. The bear is just a series of orders and codes given to a computer to mimic human behaviour. He's not—

But if he isn't—if he's somehow gained sentience, if he's just as much a person as she is, he would be able to deviate from that program. All the animatronics are made to be child friendly. If they're only made to be kind, why give Monty a temper? Moon an attitude? Roxy an ego? 

She tells herself that it's just for variety. If everyone was like Freddy, there'd be no interesting dynamics between the band. The addition of animatronics with less-than-pleasant personality traits only add to their appeal as a whole.

Freddy though—if she had wanted to spare any of them, he would be the one. Call it awfully sentimental of her, but he was kinder to her than most humans ever were in her life.

With this in mind, she answers his question.

“I have to bring him back.” Vanessa—Vanny, answers.

Freddy, of course, won't understand her. She has no obligation to explain herself, so she doesn't.

“Stay here, bear.” She directs the S.T.A.F.F. bots to lock Freddy in a supply closet and keep it locked.

“Wait—!”

She turns away to hunt for the child, ignoring Freddy's pleas and the voice in her head that questions it all.

—

Gregory thinks he's never going to get used to the constant shift between heart-pounding chases and having tea with the most recent animatronic he's befriended. Really, when he got here, he thought the situation was something straight out of a horror movie. He was already preparing himself for six hours of more trauma—but well, he can't exactly complain that the power of friendship strategy turned out well.

He still can't believe Moon of all people proposed the idea, though he supposes the animatronics are friends. The boy sighs and takes another delicate sip of his tea—today was not the day he thought he'd be learning tea party manners, but DJ had insisted he learn.

By insisting, it was more like DJ had gently poked him every time he violated some unwritten tea party rule until he redid it correctly. In his defense, with a life like his, water is scarce and a hassle to carry over long distances, so you might as well drink fast and drink a lot when you have the chance.

Apparently, tea isn't like that. It has to be savoured by sips. He grimaces as he sets the cup down. Across from him, DJ does the same thing with his own, DJ-sized tea cup. 

The bot has been nice so far, but they haven't really figured out a good way to communicate. He thinks Freddy should know how to talk to DJ, considering what the bear had said about him. Something about how nice he is. He relays this to DJ and the bot plays a laugh track and shakes his head.

Gregory fiddles with his Fazwatch and continues his minutely routine of spamming the call button to see if Freddy will respond. The bear doesn't, which either means he's out of commission or the signal is blocked. He dearly hopes it's the latter.

“...I.. uhm, wait, I should probably update you on everything, yeah? So, uh.. the twins are missing.”

DJ straightens in alarm. His optics flicker and he points down, and then at the clock on the wall. Gregory pauses to decipher that—really, DJ is lucky he's great at charades.

“You mean.. they were here? Did you know where they went?” Gregory rises to his feet with a hopeful expression.

DJ adopts an apologetic expression and shakes his head. He holds up two fingers and puts it behind his head, then makes the motion of slicing a throat, before shrugging helplessly.

“Oh.. I.. really hope Vanny didn't get them. It's—she cornered us earlier. Me and the rest of the band. Freddy had to put me through a trash chute to get me out–well, it was more that I jumped inside but still, I wasn't about to stay there. Though, uhm. I didn't want to abandon the others or anything, it was a scary situation–” Gregory fumbles, his face flushing at his own rambling.

DJ nods in understanding. The bot appears sympathetic at least. Gregory sighs again before his eardrums are assaulted with the loud sound of—

“NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP—” 

He hisses and covers his ears with a groan, “What the hell, DJ?!” 

The next round of songs comes in a thankfully more manageable volume. Gregory makes a delighted noise of realisation once he realises exactly what DJ was doing. It was ingenious! He's using parts of songs to talk.

“IF I COULD—GET ME OUT OF HERE—I WOULD WISH— ”

“You—wait, wait.. you can't get out of here?” Gregory frowns.

“NOOOOOO—” DJ sighs and shuts the loud ‘NOOOOOO’ down. He muffles a snort at the ridiculousness of it.

“Huh.. no wonder I haven't seen you around at all. I guess it makes sense though, cause, uh. No offense but you're too big for other parts of the Plex.” 

“NONE!—TAKEN~ ” 

“Yeah. Anyway this is good! Now I can tell you abo—” Gregory cuts himself off.

He swallows for a moment, feeling oddly like he's being watched. DJ notices his sudden tenseness and cocks his head in silent question. He looks back, then to his sides and back at DJ. There's nobody around, but the feeling of dread is only growing.

“....” 

Suddenly, the lights go out.

“-!!!”

“Are you having fun?”

—

Freddy refuses to be stuck here.

While grateful that Vanny had decided against decommissioning him entirely for some reason she won't tell him, he cannot stand by and let her go through with her plans. Whatever it is, it cannot be anything good if she is actively hunting down a child as part of said plans.

However, he also knows that if he disobeys her orders, the S.T.A.F.F. bots won't hesitate to stop him at all costs. Thus, the first order of business should be to deactivate them somehow.

He checks his internal map to locate the storage room they're in—his optics widen when he realises that Parts & Service is quite literally just next door. That was definitely not intentional on either his or Vanny’s part, but he isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Freddy scours the map to see if there's a way in from the storage room he's stuck in. He spots a vent directly connecting the room to Parts & Service’s main area. The bear sighs in relief and hurries to the vent in the storage room.

It takes just a few minutes to get the vent's lid off, though the sight of the vent itself doesn't exactly inspire any enthusiasm. It's a little too cramped, but just enough to fit him through. For some reason. He doesn't want to think about why the vent is just the right size for an animatronic his size, so he doesn't.

After a painful few minutes of squeezing through the vent like an oversized worm in a much too-small tunnel, Freddy breaks through to the other side and makes it to Parts & Service.

He breathes a sigh of relief. So much work was put into trying to get here and all it took was for him to lose all his friends, be captured and tossed in a conveniently placed storage room. Who would've thought.

Freddy stands straight with a grimace and makes his way to the control room where they had reset Moon much earlier in the night. He really can't wait until it's tomorrow—even though he dreads it at the same time because he'll most likely be the one explaining the events of the night to management. 

Though, there's one last problem he must face before all of that.

“....ah.” He stares down at the control panel full of buttons and switches and what-not. If they were to rank the mechanical talent among the cast tonight, he was most certainly at the bottom. 

Well, surely they kept instructions here written down somewhere. No way anyone could remember what all those buttons are for. He just has to look for them. Hopefully. It'll be fine, probably.

Freddy buries his face in his hands, breathing in deeply to calm himself. It won't do to panic—there’s still a Gregory to save. Even if he's quite literally the only one of the band left. It's totally fine, he tells himself.

He gets to work looking for an instruction manual that is hopefully here in the same room he is.

—

Gregory hates his life.

Well that'd be an overstatement usually. Is that how you say it? The opposite of understatement, he means. He doesn't actually hate his life most of the time. In fact, he thinks life is pretty great. Living is very nice, and he would very much like to continue doing that.

Except everything and everyone in this god damn pizzeria seems intent on not allowing him to do that. Really, this is not child-friendly at all. One star. He would like to see the manager.

In the five minutes since Vanny's arrival, DJ has tried and failed to escape forced possession, but he's been tossed to a very high up place in the Fazcade as a last-ditch effort from the DJ to get him to safety. It was a very smart call and he forever thanks the bot for it, but fucking hell if DJ isn't terrifying in this dark room. 

He's just lucky that he's high up enough that the bot can't quite reach him. It doesn't mean that it's not utterly terrifying that DJ is swiping his giant arms at the ceilings trying to grab him. There's also the matter of the S.T.A.F.F. bots slowly stacking up furniture and other things to climb their way to him.

He'd really like to get moving somewhere safe, but there's no way down from this little arch very close to the ceiling and the closest vent is on the ceiling. So he's a sitting duck here and it's the thing he hates to be most.

The one saving grace is that his Fazwatch is still active and he can shoot down any S.T.A.F.F. bots that get close. It's funny to flash them in the face with the Faz-Cam and watch the scaffold they built topple down, and then watch them start it all over again. 

Another good thing is that the Fazer Blaster also works on DJ. He feels a little bad for shooting the bot constantly, but he's pretty sure DJ is fully possessed, so he probably won't remember much.

He really, really hopes that Freddy is still alive.

Gregory checks his watch and sees that it's almost six. Maybe he can hold out until whoever it is that checks in here this morning comes in and sees the mess here. Vanny seems to realise the time is growing closer, so she starts helping the S.T.A.F.F. bots. Not good.

He thinks hard about the closest escape route that won't let him be swiped by DJ and crushed to bits on the way. Really, he has to move and run for it if he wants to survive here. It might break an ankle or two, but it's no injury he hasn't experienced before.

Though, running with a broken ankle does not sound very great.

The decision is made for him approximately a minute later by the sound of all the S.T.A.F.F. bots simultaneously falling over. He doesn't know why or how the hell that happened, but hey, that's an escape opportunity granted to him on a silver platter and sprinkled with fancy garnish.

Gregory wastes no time to gawk at them, taking advantage of Vanny and DJ’s surprise to jump to the stack of conveniently placed cardboard and run the fuck away from there.

—

Freddy thinks he did something.

Well, he certainly did judging from all the buttons he had pressed. Really, some of these buttons were not very useful. One only made a little fart sound when he pressed it. Yes, only. He pressed the thing multiple times just to make sure. The engineer responsible for this control board sure had a sense of humour.

The only instruction manual he found was terribly doodled on and very cryptid. He also understood none of the terminology. After a straight five minutes of trying to make sense of it all, he gave up and pressed the button he thinks is most appropriate to his purposes.

It did nothing but he heard a very loud cacophony of things falling over outside. So he went out to peek outside the door and saw that the S.T.A.F.F. bots have all fallen over.

Mission accomplished…?

“...I dearly hope I had not pressed any other button that would be inconvenient for us later.” 

Freddy shakes his head. Whatever inconvenient thing in the future it could be, it can wait until he's found Gregory. The bear shuts the door to the control room and hurries out of Parts & Service.

He gets to the Arcade when his communicator starts beeping. It's one minute and suddenly, he's overwhelmed with messages and missed calls from—Gregory.

He chokes when he realises that something has been blocking his signal this entire time. No wonder—dear lord. He spots Gregory in the Fazcade, rapidly moving towards him. 

Freddy breaks out into a run.

—

Gregory hears Freddy before seeing him. Really, with the very loud stomping that can be nobody else but the bear. 

“FREDDY!” He screeches and forces himself to run faster, his calves burning and his heart beating out of his chest.

DJ is chasing him, but he's big and slow enough for Gregory to maintain a considerable lead. Vanny has vanished off to somewhere, which makes sense cause if she's Vanessa, Gregory severely doubts she can outrun him.

Though, one thing that's rather scary is how DJ can cut in front of him through the giant tunnels around the Fazcade. As a result, this chase needs more thinking than the one he had with not-Moon. He makes a sharp right turn to avoid getting cornered again and dashes closer to where Freddy is.

He sees Freddy at the entrance of the Fazcade and now DJ is right behind him. He doesn't dare look back, running even faster to make it out. DJ cannot go out of the Fazcade, so if he makes it to the gate, he'll be safe.

Freddy, sweet bear that he is, runs inside to get him halfway through. He doesn't get to say anything before the bear scoops him up and surprisingly kicks DJ’s hand away just before the bot could snatch both of them. The bear runs faster than Gregory had ever seen him run this entire night.

They make it out of the Fazcade and the bear collapses to his knees, Gregory tumbling down next to him.

He inhales deeply, laying down with his limbs spread on the carpeted floor. His heart is still going a mile a minute, but at least he's safe now because Freddy is here.

“Abnckcn…” he makes an unintelligible noise and tries his best to just breathe. 

Freddy is looking back at the Fazcade. No doubt to make sure DJ isn't following them out. He hears no concerning noise back there, so there's probably no threat. Thank god.

His relief lasts not even a minute because next thing he knows, he's been scooped up and they're once again running for their lives. Gregory leans against Freddy and makes more unintelligible noises. He really cannot wait to stop running for his life constantly, this whole experience isn't good for his heart.

He spends a few more seconds before looking up and over Freddy's shoulder, blaster at the ready to—

“OH MY FUCKING GOD—” Gregory screams because that's DJ and wow, turns out the only thing stopping the bot from leaving the Fazcade was himself and not some program. Or if there was a program, it's been overridden somehow because DJ is out of the gates and carving a warpath through the area to get to them.

Freddy winces, “Please, not so loud—” the bear kicks back a vending machine in an effort to stall DJ.

“Sorry but this is fucking terrifying, Freddy. Also, HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!” Gregory shoots behind them to stall DJ even more. 

“I.. may have done something. However, it does not matter now because good news. It is five minutes until six. We must make haste for the exits.” Freddy reports calmly and Gregory really wonders how the bear is staying so calm through all of this. Honestly, that takes talent.

“Oh thank god it's almost over—shit, watch out. He's so fast what the fuck—” Gregory hisses and alternates between shooting and spamming the Faz-Cam shutter button. 

It doesn't do much to keep DJ away but it slows him down just enough—they run through the next area and it's Roxy Raceway again. Gregory gets an idea.

“We can get to a kart. It'll be faster than running.” He nudges Freddy. The bear seems to agree because he beelines for a kart and they scramble inside quickly before Gregory slams down onto the gas and drives straight at DJMM.

Freddy screams as their kart climbs up the DJ’s massive head, somehow working as a scaffold to send them flying onto the racetrack. 

Gregory ignores the bear screaming and switches the gears to move the thing faster. DJ picks up speed, dragging himself up the racetrack and trying to cut them off. Gregory slams his steering wheel to the left and goes off course, taking a very risky shortcut. 

He swerves right and slams into something—well, someone. Vanny smiles back at him in her own kart and she slams on her gas, pushing his kart back and slamming them outside of the racetrack. Gregory curses internally as they go flying. Freddy is still screaming as they both hit the wall and land on some weird platform.

Gregory gets up and nudges Freddy next to him. Now they really gotta run, the kart is done for.

“Freddy, get up. Quickly.” He says desperately as another kart stops in front of them outside of the platform.

Vanny hops out of the kart calmly.

His heart restarts its marathon and Gregory flinches, shrinking into himself as Freddy gets up and puts the kart upright. The bear spots something—he thinks it's Vanny, and blanches.

“You.. what did you do to the twins?” Freddy asks out of nowhere and Gregory calms himself down just enough to look where the bear is looking and there on the platform’s floor is a ripped part of the twins’ clothing. There's even one of their bells just in the corner, abandoned on the floor.

Vanny tilts her head almost innocently, “Moon did say something about trying out the trash compactor.” She giggles childishly.

Gregory’s head snaps up and he sees the piston above their heads. This is not going well. Freddy seems to realise the same thing because the bear quickly gets up, but Vanny is faster. The platform below them opens just seconds before the piston comes down, and both of them fall.

His face is pushed into the kart’s seat and Gregory can do nothing but scream as the darkness overtakes him.

—

Eclipse is having the strangest time of their life.

After Afton had awakened, Bonnie had started talking to himself. Apparently, this is pretty normal. The conversation is honestly very entertaining, even though they only get one half of it.

“You sure you won't miss me, pal? After your master plan is done, there'll be nobody who will wanna talk with your sorry butt.” 

“Yeah, yeah, you've said that.. three hundred and fifty-one times already. What? Of course I kept count, I have a brain. Not a fleshy one like your.. whatever is left of yours but I'm perfectly conscious.”

Eclipse snorts.

“Really, the discrimination is unreal. I thought making something like me was your ultimate dream or something. If you still even remember that. Eh, nahh not that.”

“Pal, if you wanna kill me go right ahead man. Saves me the trouble and you the headache of being alive again.” 

The daycare attendant shakes their head. Bonnie is still sitting in the same place, cup of water in hand as he argues with thin air. They've taken to busying themselves with sweeping floors and rearranging the area.

The cleaning compulsion is much more manageable when they're like this, but it doesn't quite get rid of it entirely. So Eclipse satisfies the compulsion with whatever they have on hand. It's very nice, actually. Much less stressful than the past four hours with Gregory and the gang.

Eclipse is still thinking about what's going to happen in the next few hours. It's not a pleasant thing, because it will involve at least one death, but it's a necessary evil.

“....”

They glance at Bonnie in the corner of their remaining optic.

To think that Bonnie's spent so long in this hellhole, stuck with a child murderer and slowly rotting in body and mind. The bunny doesn't voice it, but just looking at him is painful so Eclipse can only imagine how much pain he must be in.

Eclipse wants nothing more to bring him back. Bonnie had given them a letter and a little trinket—an exclusive keychain of an old Freddy variant that they now know to be Golden Freddy. They vaguely remember seeing a similar keychain on Freddy's room key in the past. It was a golden bunny though—Spring Bonnie.

“We're the only two who have these. Just.. give it to Fred and he'll know it's me. M’sorry to put this burden on you, pal, but there's really no other way.” 

They remember Freddy taking the keychain off his room's key once Bonnie had disappeared. He never talked about it and neither Sun nor Moon had dared mention it, wary of the sensitive topic and unwilling to hurt the bear by reminding him of their missing friend.

Now, they have a chance to give the bear some closure. Both him and Bonnie, really. If only there was another way to kill Afton—perhaps in a better world. They had pestered Bonnie about it earlier, but the bunny insisted that there was no other way. 

If they didn't want Afton to return yet again, Bonnie must die with him. And, if things go right, Eclipse will be their murderer.

The thought bothers them less than they thought it would. Sun would never agree to the plan, optimistic idealist that they are. Moon would go through with it, no questions asked. Eclipse—they don't quite know.

It's one thing to threaten to kill someone the way Moon did. It's another thing entirely to actually go through with it. They look at their own hands and wonder if afterwards, they could still look at them and not feel the blood on their hands.

There's one good thing about this though. With their current state of being, there is no way for Moon and Sun to argue over the course of action. There is just Eclipse, who is both yet neither of them.

If they make themselves the murderer, it would spare both Moon and Sun from staining their hands. Provided that they can come back and Eclipse won't be—Eclipse, forever. They don't really know how to feel about that.

Maybe something to think about later because, well, they really shouldn't dally. Bonnie is just waiting for them to be ready to go forth with the plan. It was now or never.

“...Bon, I think I'm ready.” Eclipse says and turns towards Bonnie.

They suddenly realise that the bunny has been awfully silent for a while. Concerned, they hurry to his side and put a gentle hand on the bunny’s shoulder.

“...Bon?” They try asking.

Bonnie’s hand reaches up to his own shoulder and grasps theirs, pulling them down. Eclipse yelps as they lose their balance. Bonnie kicks them down and soon they hear loud stomping as the other bot runs from the scene.

“—! hey-! Wait—” Eclipse scrambles up and hits their head on the table.

“Ow—fuck-” 

Chapter Text

Gregory wakes up feeling like he just got hit by a truck. He groans and crawls out of the ruined kart, his head ringing as he takes in his surroundings.

“I'm going to be black and blue everywhere tomorrow.” He whines, clutching his head.

It takes a few minutes before his vision clears, and the first proper thought he has is of how surprised he is to still be alive despite all odds. He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, taking a good look at the environment.

“....” He's on yet another trash heap. Alone again, with no bear in sight. 

Gregory sits up in alarm and digs through the trash next to him. Surely Freddy wasn't crushed to death—he really, really hopes the bear survived. He breathes a sigh of relief when he spots no scrap resembling Freddy. They must've gotten separated somewhere along the way down here.

“... Freddy?” He tries calling out and winces when his voice echoes throughout the entire area.

Nobody responds. 

Gregory climbs out and slowly makes his way down from the mountain of trash. It smells utterly horrible, but hey, good thing it's not his first rodeo in a trash heap. He grimaces once he gets out and there's a large puddle to walk through to get to dry land.

He cannot wait to shower. In fact, after all of this is over, he will have the longest shower of his life. And a bath, with bubbles.

Though, the big question right now is where the hell is he and why is there a place like this under such a fancy establishment. He steps to dry land and shakes the water out of his shoes before moving on. The entire place feels like a cave in a horror movie, though thankfully with a lot better lighting.

Gregory walks through the sewer system and spots a door at the end of the hallway. He approaches it quickly and opens the door, finding it unlocked.

“..huh..” The other side is nothing that he expected.

It's a whole other pizzeria. He squints at the ruined posters on the walls. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place. Still with Freddy’s name, so maybe it's an old building. Or an older version of the franchise. He's pretty sure the Freddy brand is nearly a century old.

He walks through the large dining area, past the stage up front and through another door at the end that's labelled “STAFF ONLY”. Maybe he could find a flashlight or something useful inside. The staff room turns out to be really tiny, with only an odd ladder in the middle of the room that leads up to the ceiling.

Gregory stares up at the ceiling and wonders if he should really risk it. Who knows what could be up there. If there is anything down here anyway. He shakes his head and tries to not think about it. The more he thinks about it, the more paranoid he'll be and the scarier it'll seem. Better to get it over and done with.

He climbs the ladder slowly and opens the hatch to the ceiling. He looks around cautiously and spots a flashlight on the floor. He grabs it and turns it on, shining it around the small office.

It's a standard security office. Though, a severely burned one. There's the remains of a computer on the desk, some very large vents on both sides of the office without any lid for some reason, and a chair facing the other way that he can't quite see.

“....” Gregory can't help but think that this looks like a murder scene somehow. It has that vibe to it, definitely.

“Uhm. Sorry for.. bothering.” He says to thin air—because well, surely if this is someone's resting place, they'll appreciate manners.

He shines the flashlight on the table and spots his prize—an old fashioned taser. Now that'll be very handy in case there really is something down here—he just has to go get it. So he climbs up to the office and walks to the desk.

He turns left to shine the flashlight on the vent—just in case. Then, he turns right and sees—

“AHHHHHHH—” Gregory screams before biting his tongue. 

“...s-s-sorry.” He forces himself to whisper calmly as he takes in the sight of what's on his right. It's the security office’s sole chair and sitting on it is none other than its occupant. Its long dead, very much bones occupant.

Gregory stares at the skeleton and realises that maybe all those rumours about Freddy’s brand being cursed really was true. That's a dead person, and this is a former Freddy's location. And the dead person is still here. And Gregory is staring at them—he bows politely.

“I'm really sorry, but I'll need to borrow your taser. To stay alive, y'know, I'm sure you get it. I'll, uhm. I'll make sure you get a … proper burial.” He stammers and in his hurry to get to the taser, he nudges something and suddenly, a voice starts talking.

To his credit, Gregory realises that it's a tape recorder and he doesn't scream.

“I guess this is it… ” The voice of the recording isn't what he expected. It's rough, raspy, a dying man trapped in a room with no way out. Though, he oddly sounds relieved somehow. As if a great burden has been lifted from his shoulders. Not at all the unfortunate victim he thought the guy would be—if the guy is the same guy on the chair.

Gregory pauses at the guy’s incredibly raspy voice. Whoever he was, he must have died a very painful death–-judging by the state of the room and the awful smell.

Burned to crisp, left forever alone and forgotten. 

“I.. after everything.. no words come to mind. I’m.. maybe I should start from the very beginning. Hahah.. after all, nobody's going to hear this. I might as well… let it all out.” The man coughs. It's that type of rough, unpleasant cough that shakes the entire body. Gregory can't see him now, but he could imagine just how unpleasant this man’s last moments were.

“My name is.. Michael. Michael Afton.”

He doesn't know why, but something beckons him to listen to the man’s story. So, Gregory stands still to listen.

—

Freddy isn't the first Freddy Fazbear.

He's known this fact ever since the Pizzaplex first opened its doors. None of his friends are the first variant of themselves either. With the exception of Roxy and Monty, the “main three” of the band are all new incarnations of previously existing animatronics.

Thus, it really shouldn't be a surprise to see a bunny animatronic that looks remarkably similar to Bonnie.

Freddy stays as still as possible, pressing himself against the wall. He had climbed out of the trash heap he landed on and made his way out, but the sound of conversation lured him to another area. Originally, he thought it was Gregory because there wasn't supposed to be anyone down here. But it seemed like both Vanny and someone else had made it here anyway.

He didn't recognize that other bunny animatronic, but if Vanny is talking to him, he should be important. Freddy checks his internal systems to try and locate Gregory. This area has no map, but with the Fazwatch on the boy he should be able to guess his approximate location. His systems ping that the boy on the other side of where he is.

Relieved that Gregory is far away and most likely safe, he stays still to listen to the conversation.

“.... you lost the child?”

“Y-yes, I'm sorry. That bear broke out of the room I locked him in—”

“You—Vanny, my dear. How did that happen? I know you're better than this."

The bunny animatronic sounds remarkably like a certain other bunny he once knew. The thought displeases Freddy and makes him feel more than a little ill. It's not an exact match to Bonnie’s voice, deeper and—

“He—he is not a threat by himself, master. So I—I thought it would be alright.”

“Oh, Vanessa. You and your kind heart. Don't you remember? I am the only one you can trust. The rest of them only lie. That bear tricked you.”

“F-forgive me. If—the child, he should be down here too. We only have to g-get rid of.. Freddy.” Vanny’s voice trails off. Like a child stepping on eggshells in the face of their parent’s disappointment.

Freddy frowns from his hiding place. If this was Vanny’s supposed ‘master’, their relationship was much more familial than he had initially assumed. 

“I have to bring him back.” She had said in their earlier conversation.

But bring who back, is the question. A question that he gets the answer of not even five minutes later in the form of Vanny quite literally explaining it for him. How awfully convenient.

“The bear and the bloody babysitter.” The other voice corrects, the disappointment in his tone barely concealed.

“It—it will not impact your return, master. Both Sun and Moon should be severely weakened and Freddy won't—”

“You think he won't hurt you? My child, that bear doesn't care about you. He only follows his programming, and that is to protect children. You are no longer a child, Vanessa.” 

“Freddy is different, though. He’s…”

“Vanessa. Listen to me. He. Doesn't. Care.  Remember our plan.”

“Our.. our plan.”

“Yes. Be a good girl and follow it, then everything will be alright. Trust me.”

“Of.. of course. I.. I trust you.”

“Good. Now—hngh, that stupid bunny. Gah.”

Freddy stills. Vanny and the other bunny are inching closer to where he is—they’re just in the corridor past the doorway he’s standing next to. He looks around to see if there are any ways he could exit the room quietly and curses the moment he realises the only exit is the doorway next to him.

The only vents in this room are normal sized for once and Freddy finds himself mourning that fact for the very first time. Even if he could move for a vent, his loud footsteps would definitely alert the two outside.

He can only hope that they don't come into the room.

—

Eclipse is cursing up a storm that would get Moon kicked to next week by Sun.

They really couldn't care to keep it down right now because dear god, they were foolish. Of course dear Mr. Afton very well could take over Bonnie. It's like, a vice versa thing. Applies both ways, you know. It makes sense and they feel so stupid for procrastinating on just killing the bunny when they were still in the same room.

In their defense, murder is kind of not on their list of priorities at all. Preferably, the word is not to be uttered anywhere near the establishment. Yes, Freddy Fazbear as a brand has had a really bad history with murder in general, but the Plex has kept a surprisingly clean record since the day of its opening.

Eclipse would have liked to keep it that way, but hey, if a little murder is needed to prevent more murders, surely it's a necessary evil. They vaguely remember what Chica said just a few hours ago.

“What else is there? There’s a murderer on the loose?”

Now there actually is. Because Eclipse was stupid and didn't just eagerly murder the bunny fucker—no, language. It's totally fine. Gregory is safe up in the Plex with the rest of the band. Hopefully they are not getting murdered by S.T.A.F.F. bots. Especially since only Sun really has any knowledge in how to disable them. 

Oh god.

Sun is the only one with any knowledge on how to disable the S.T.A.F.F. bots.

Eclipse feels their head ring violently as their hysteria builds up. This is very not pleasant. They really, really want to scream. No wonder Sun was screaming a lot earlier. Everyone else could be dead, who knows.

The part of them that is Moon quickly pushes all those emotions away and shoves it in a box. The box is locked inside another mental box and thrown away in the furthest shelf of their mental mind-storage. It works very effectively and they calm down near instantly.

“...okay. Priorities, Eclipse. Priorities. First. We kill the murderer. Who cares if we haven't killed before it can't be that hard. Second. We get the fuck back up there and disable the S.T.A.F.F. bots. Third—wait.. where am I?” Eclipse’s sole optic flickers once they realise that in their mania-induced panic, they've walked themselves far from where they were.

“...great.” 

This is another room entirely. With long tables and chairs and a stage—lots of half burnt, scattered tables and toys. The standard stuff with the last few establishments they've found buried under here. Really, the whole burning down in a fire thing is starting to get old after the first three times.

Though, the fire damage is much more intensive here. The main structure of the building is still intact, somehow, but the rest of it is burnt to a crisp. Unrecognisable to their sensors, which Eclipse is thankful for because they cannot take a round of programming-enforced cleaning right now.

Whoever burnt down this building wanted it gone. Burying a dark secret type of gone. It kind of reminds him of Michael Afton’s story. In the end, the man had opened a pizzeria that he hoped to be the last one in collaboration with Henry Emily. They successfully lured all the animatronics back and trapped them above the establishment, messing with their built-in sensors to lead them in circles through the extensive vent system.

“....if this is that place, I swear to whatever is up there—” Eclipse sighs and looks around to see if they can find any doors. They spot one past the stage and make their way there.

The door is labelled “STAFF ONLY”. The sign is somehow still legible, it's kind of impressive. Walking past the door, they see an odd ladder in the middle of the room that leads up to the ceiling. There's an open hatch in the ceiling. They stare at it suspiciously, flashing the flashlight they had found up to the hatch to see if there's anything up there.

—

“ Lastly.. David, if.. if you can even hear me at all at this point.. little brother, I'm- I’m sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I shouldn't- I should have been better.”

“...be free David, Elizabeth. Rest in peace.” 

The recording ends with a rather anticlimactic beep. Gregory stares at the tape recording for a moment as his brain processes everything he just heard.

What the fuck.

He catches a beam of light coming from downstairs and he throws himself in front of probably-Michael-Afton’s chair to hide himself. It brings him much too close to the poor guy, but hey, at least Mr. Afton Jr here has been dead for so long his corpse doesn't smell too terribly anymore.

Still, he would rather not have his face be so close to a dead corpse—he’s pretty sure the skeleton here isn't even complete. The jaws are horribly mangled. 

Gregory cringes and bites his own tongue as he hears someone make their way up here. Really, it's a good thing that the supernatural has never really scared him. Otherwise, he'd be thinking it was a ghost or the scorned spirit of Michael Afton who still lingers for whatever unfinished business he may have.

“Um. Hello?” He hears and it sounds like—

“Moon?” Gregory gasps and scrambles towards the source of the voice.

The animatronic poking their head out of the little hatch he used to get in here is—not quite Moon. And not quite Sun, either. Their sole green optic flickers in surprise before they pull themselves into the room.

“Greg.. you’re—wait, what are you doing here?!” They screech and with that volume, it certainly sounds like Sun.

“Not so loud! Shush. You don't know who else is nearby—” Gregory hisses.

He looks them up and down and it gets stranger from there. Their outfit seems to be an amalgamation of the twins. Some yellow, some blue, a missing hand—but they seem to be mostly alright. Gregory lets out a sigh of relief.

“You're okay!” He skips forward and hugs their leg. It might be childish, but he's had multiple near death experiences in the past five hours so sue him. He definitely deserves this hug.

“I'm fine, kid.” Now they sound like Moon.

Gregory scrunches his face up at this new behavior. Not-Moon-yet-not-Sun-either seem to notice this, but they just smile at his confusion. Positive sign, then. There's probably nothing wrong.

“Can you guess who I am?” The daycare attendant giggles.

“...you're. Wait—you got here because—” Gregory is reminded of the bell and that patch of the twins’ outfit he and Freddy saw before the trash compactor’s piston came down on them.

“Bunny caught me. Or well, Vanny. Moon and Sun were arguing, and they were cornered to the trash compactor. Really, I thought I was done for—or uh, would it be they here? I’m. Okay, uhm. Basically, don't panic—” The animatronic stammers and it reminds Gregory of the way Sun would ramble on and on before realising they've been rambling too long and panicking about it.

He's—he honestly can't believe he forgot about that patch of the twins’ clothing and their bell—god. He's so glad they're alive. The relief feels better than getting a drink of water after nearly three days without. Speaking of them, they're still rambling—and if they're Sun, he knows this should be the time to interrupt so the bot doesn't spiral further.

Thus, he does.

“Are you telling me not to panic or yourself?” Gregory teases.

“I—well. Both, I guess? I'm—I think you probably have realised by now but I'm not Sun. Or Moon. I'm.. me. Don't ask me how, I don't know either. A lot of things happened. I've no idea where to star—there I go again. Alright. Calm down, Eclipse. Start from the beginning.” Eclipse’s shoulders sag.

Huh. Look at that, Sun stopped themselves. Or is it Moon? Eclipse? Sun usually has trouble stopping once they go on a monologue. Moon often steps in to get his brother back on track. This new version of both of them though—they can somewhat self-regulate? He's not sure that's the word for it. Honestly, he was expecting worse damage considering that they were crushed under a really heavy piston.

“So you guys… fused?” Gregory stares at them blankly.

“I mean, that's one way to put it?? I'm uh, half-sure I can separate by the way. But it's just.. kind of, not working out for me? I mean, this does kind of work out because when we're me, I mean, when I'm just one person Sun and Moon don't have to argue about what to do cause I can't exactly argue with myself—oh my god I am venting to a child what am I doing this has bothered me more than I thought it has.” Eclipse dramatically covers their face in shame and mortification.

“It's okay. I mean, today has been pretty wild. So uh. Eclipse, was it? That's a cool name. Cause you're kind of Sun and Moon but also neither of them.. huh. I don't really know how to feel about that.” Gregory lets go from the hug to ponder this in silence.

Eclipse tugs at their own hat in distress, “Can we please save my identity crisis for later? There's a murderer on the loose here and he's after you now because I'm stupid—”

“There's a WHAT?!”

—

“Freddy–pal, you need to run right now.” The other animatronic says frantically, using both hands but still clearly struggling to keep Vanny down.

Freddy stands there, still as a statue. He’s–he doesn’t know what to think of this anymore. One minute, he was stressing about how to get out of this situation. The next, both Vanny and her master were in the room and suddenly, this new bunny animatronic had tackled his supposed colleague to the ground and now he sounds so much like—

“FRED. I’M TELLING YOU. RUN. I can’t keep this—fuck, Afton fuck off–GET OUT OF MY HEAD– ” Bonnie slams his head against Vanny’s and her struggles cease the moment their heads make contact, the blunt force damage rendering her unconscious instantly.

“Shit–fuck, ugh, Vanessa–I’m sorry-” He hisses and clutches and his own head, clawing and growling to himself.

Freddy stares at that face as it turns to him. Out of every possible scenario, every daydream he’s had about meeting Bonnie again and finding out that he’s alright—this comes nowhere close. Bonnie is–not alright would be an extreme understatement. He staggers, taking a step back as his mind runs a mile a minute, trying to process what happened or why or how in the hell everything has got to this point.

“Fred, buddy, bestie, please. Please listen. I know you’re overwhelmed and this entire night must have been too much to process, but I need you to do what I say, okay?” Bonnie begs and he sinks a clawed hand into his own forearm, grunting and hissing at the pain he’s inflicting on himself because he’s—possessed? In some sort of way? Freddy doesn’t really care about that right now. 

The most important thing is–

“You’re—you’re alive. Bonnie. My friend–” Freddy chokes and he thinks if he could cry, he would be crying right now.

“Yes, I’m–listen. Okay? We can talk later, pal. Just. Get Gregory out of here and get Eclipse to me as quickly as you can—”

Bonnie chokes and suddenly, he stills. Then, the face looking at him is no longer one of a friend but of–someone else. It’s similar to the way that Sun and Moon could talk through each other even when they’re not in the ‘driver’s seat’. Freddy can tell that much, because their expressions are ever-so slightly different. This Bonnie–Afton, if that is the name of whoever Bonnie is fighting.

Afton, who is most probably Vanny’s master. Vanessa. 

Vanny’s master, the one responsible for all of this—no. Freddy looks at the unconscious form of Vanny and has a sudden moment of realisation. If—the bots were tampered with, mind-controlled so to speak, who’s to say that Vanessa wasn't? 

He blanches, thinking back of the previous hours of the night and how her behavior has been. Vanessa is new—she’s only a few months in the job, and she's one of the humans who are of the opinion that the animatronics can be unsettling at times. She’s—she has a good heart, though. He's sure of it. She was willing to try and befriend the animatronics despite her initial apprehension. Freddy knows she shouldn't have anything against them—it just doesn't make sense.

But he had assumed that she would have a secret, hidden motive. Without taking into account that she might also be mind-controlled. Granted, nobody else questioned it because the revelation that Vanessa is Vanny was quite late and none of the others knew her well enough to judge any odd behaviour but—Freddy should have known.

He is a horrible, horrible friend.

“Freddy.” Bonnie says slowly.

This is the one responsible for everything. This entire night. Bonnie's disappearance. The violation of his friend’s mind and body. It's a grotesque thing, a human skeleton stuffed inside an animatronic, melding with the endoskeleton, reeking of rotting flesh and dried blood. He doesn't know who this person is, why they've done this, or how—

Looking at the state of Bonnie and remembering the sacrifices of his friends, all he knows is anger.

“You.” Freddy says, calmer than he feels.

“I will make you regret the day you were born.” He grabs the nearest thing available to him and it's a long, metal rod. 

The one who isn't Bonnie backs away, his bunny ears flopping down in almost-fear. His optics are red, so Freddy doesn't quite buy it. 

“P-pal, why don't we sit down and talk for a moment—NO-you god-forsaken bunnY—” The stranger screams, clawing at his own face and his body goes limp again.

When he looks back up at Freddy, his optics shift green, and then a red Freddy is much more familiar with. Bonnie sinks to his knees.

“Fred. Fuck. I am so sorry. I'm so sorry—”

Freddy’s anger dies down with vengeance the moment he realises another important thing he's been trying to not think of—Bonnie’s still in there. He drops the metal rod he was holding and rushes for his best friend.

“Bon. Please, you have nothing to be sorry about—” Freddy sinks to his own knees and puts a hand on Bonnie's shoulders.

“Nono, this was all because I was too stupid—agh, I—I won't have time to tell stories. You'll—I’m afraid you'll have to read the letter I gave the twins for answers, pal. We really, really, don't have much time—” Bonnie clutches his own head in distress. Freddy tries to not cringe over the sight of a human skeleton poking through the bunny’s—everything. That is definitely not pleasant.

“You—can you not fully fight off possession?” 

“I'm afraid not. Our little mental battle fully depends on strength of will. Even then, Afton’s been getting stronger by the day. It's complicated, but there's only one way to solve this.” Bonnie puts a shaky hand on Freddy's shoulder and stares him in the eyes.

Freddy wants to cry. He's—it’s been so, so long since he's seen those optics and now—

“You have to kill me.”

His heart drops. 

“No.” He shakes his head.

“Fred, listen.”

“No, no, I cannot. Please, old friend. Do not- do not make me do this.”

“I'm sorry. I really am. If I didn't mess up as badly as I did, we wouldn't be here at all.”

“No, it was my failings as a leader that—that brought us here.”

“Fred, pal, none of us could have predicted this, okay? Who on this entire planet could have known there was a long dead corpse of a murderer still clinging on to life in our home's basement?”

“I- Bon, be serious.”

“I am very serious, pal. It isn't either of our faults, so stop- stop beating yourself over it, yeah? It's- look, I can't hold him back for long. The guy in my head is batshit insane, he lost his marbles a long time ago. I- the only safe way to get rid of him is if you kill me right now.”

“No.”

“You have to, Fred. I'm sorry.” 

“You are—you are asking me to kill my best friend.”

“I wouldn't ask this of you if there were any other way. Please, pal. Put me to rest, put this entire madness to rest.”

“I—”

Freddy chokes and drags Bonnie into a hug. He doesn't care if the matted fur or the dried blood will make a mess out of his own exoskeleton. He might never get the chance to hug his best friend again. He buries his face into the bunny’s shoulder and feels his own body shake.

Bonnie wraps an arm carefully around Freddy, not inching closer. Perhaps to spare him from too much contact with his rotting body.

He should have thought better, because the next thing he knows, his systems report critical damages to his sternum. Freddy staggers and falls onto his back, his optics catch the sight of that metal rod, now stabbed through his own chest.

“...B-bonnie..”

‘Bonnie’ rises to his feet, dropping the metal rod next to him. He cracks his neck unnaturally and leers down at Freddy, laughter in his voice, 

“Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?” 

His optics flicker red, then green, then red again. If Bonnie is there, he's still fighting—and failing to do so. He should have listened—

Freddy coughs as his systems power down one by one. 

“Aw, the little bunny wants a show. Why don't we have some fun then, Fre~ddy?” Afton smiles too widely to be genuine and picks up the metal rod once more.

Behind his animatronic eyes, Freddy could see anguish.

“N-n—NOT y-your—your f-f-f-fau…lt.” He forces out through his failing systems.

“What a sweet little reunion. Too bad it can't last longer.” Afton sighs and the last thing Freddy sees is a metal rod coming straight at his face and then—

Nothing.

Chapter Text

“It’s time to rest. For you, and for those you have carried in your arms. This ends… for all of us. End communication.”

The tape ends with a loud beep.

Eclipse claps quietly. Gregory half-heartedly punches them in the arm. It was an epic monologue, yes, but thinking that it really happened in real life is messing with his brain horribly.

They've spent a while sorting through what they know of the events that happened down here. Mr. Michael Afton gave a pretty clear picture of things from his side of the story, and all the blanks that was left from his end was covered by Eclipse’s version of what had transpired. Then, they replayed Mr. Emily’s tape to get that epic monologue to cover the rest of their bases.

Now, Gregory has a headache.

“...I—all of this in one night is just too much.” Gregory’s shoulders sag and he leans against Eclipse with a loud groan.

“Hey, at least we got it told to us straight? Imagine piecing everything together from clues and other vague details that don't entirely make sense. It'd take ten years, several books and over a hundred theories to make sense of all of this.” Eclipse jokes.

“I—I honestly still don't get it. My brain.. I think I'd rather do math than think about this.” He whines and clutches at his head.

“It's—yeah, we can process the story for another time. For now, important things.. uh. Let's recap. Freddy is also down here. Afton is down here and he's possessing Bonnie. First order of business is…”

“Find Freddy, kill Afton, say bye-bye to Bonnie. Then uh… what about Vanny?” Gregory scrunches his face.

—

Eclipse pauses for a moment.

When thinking back on it, Vanessa was acting pretty off when Sun met her very early on into the night. They only didn’t notice or pay much attention to it because their own systems were going haywire at the tampering and Glitchy being a constant threat in the background.

To this moment, they don’t even know Vanny’s motive for helping Afton trap a child, murder them and help him possess the new fleshy corpse. Everyone else who had sided with Vanny had been mind-controlled, so they weren’t exactly doing all of that out of their own volition. The daycare animatronic snaps their fingers–on their remaining hand, that is.

“Vanny is mind-controlled.”

“She’s–but Vanessa? OH. Vanessa is also mind-controlled?” Gregory gasps.

“That would make the most sense–I, well I realised neither Sun nor Moon has mentioned her odd behavior at all, but in their defense, we didn’t really know that Vanny is Vanessa until I was a thing and we got stuck down here. AND, we also didn’t bump into her at all.”

Eclipse now feels a little bad for choking the life out of Vanny and potentially traumatizing her. Albeit that was Moon’s doing, but they feel equally responsible. They glance at the bruises on Gregory’s neck and winces. No doubt that there’d be a matching bruise on Vanessa. Moon is going to flip and feel so guilty. Sun–they think Sun will be mortified that they’d basically just reset any attempts of friendship that were being made after Freddy had encouraged them to make friends with Vanessa.

“Well, shit. How are we gonna safe-mode her? She’s a human.” Gregory frowns.

“I..”

The bot pauses and Gregory looks up at them expectantly for the brilliant idea that is surely about to come out of their mouth. That look of pure hope is adorable, which makes it even harder for Eclipse to say the next few words,

“Have no idea.” They say anyway with great enthusiasm. As if that would make it better. It probably doesn’t.

“...dang. Okay, then uh.. You sure we can’t just…?” Gregory does a motion of slitting a throat.

Eclipse stares at this feral, murder child, and wonders what they did to deserve this. Even the most unhinged of children Sun had to take care of wasn’t like this. Perhaps they should consider a change of career soon. If that was even allowed.

“...I was joking.” Gregory mumbles after an entire minute of silence.

“Don’t–you suggested we murder everyone and steal their parts to stick to Freddy literally a few hours ago. How, pray tell, would you think that I’d catch that joke.” They choke out a painful laugh and bury their face further in their hands–well, one hand now but semantics, who cares.

“I thought you’d appreciate the callback. Also, I did not take any parts! Even when Chica’s body fell into a dumpster right next to me!” Gregory declares proudly and while that pride is admittedly adorable, what he said is just–

“I–okay, Greg. Good job. You did not murder. Thank you.” Eclipse sighs long-sufferingly.

“Yes! Acknowledgement! Anyway.. Uh.. so, I’ve heard that trauma is really good at like, doing stuff to people’s brains. So maybe we could give her trauma to see if that’ll safe-mode her and turn her good?” Gregory suggests.

This child. They really want to strangle him. The part of them that is Sun blanches at this thought and proceeds to tell them that no, really, that was just a metaphorical expression and while the child has ridiculous ideas with equally ridiculous execution plans, his ideas are actually valid and thus must be respected. Though, as all ideas are, they are not perfect. As the responsible adult of this situation, they are now legally obligated to steer Gregory to the correct, less murderous option.

“If trauma was all it needed, she would have turned the moment Moon tried to kill her.” Eclipse sighs.

“Oh, I don’t mean that kind of trauma.” He says, like it's a perfectly reasonable idea and not at all insane.

“Then what kind? Blunt force trauma? Hit her head until it resets her brain somehow without killing her in the process?” Eclipse asks and they can’t hide the incredulity in their voice now.

“Yeah!” Gregory nods.

“...you know what? Yeah, sure. Sure.” They nod in agreement because really, that’s unfortunately their best option and they’re not in a state to think of anything better. As the engineers say: if it works, it works.

“Glad we’re agreed.” The brat snickers–he definitely knows what he’s doing. The little shit even reaches out a hand for a handshake.

Eclipse sighs and shakes his hand with their remaining one. Gregory giggles louder and exaggeratedly shakes their hand up and down. Seeing this, they can’t help but chuckle along despite the high tension situation they’re about to get themselves into.

“Alright! Now uh.. wait, another question, how do we kill Afton?”

“Bonnie said we’re gonna need a lot of fire to do the job…” The bot trails off.

Gregory hems, “Then we should look for a lot of gasoline. You think there’s any left from all the fires that happened here?”

Considering this place and the various other Freddy establishments around it have been burned to the ground and rebuilt several times over, Eclipse really doesn’t have much faith. They relay this to Gregory and add,

“It doesn’t really matter if we find gasoline or not. We just need to set him on fire and make it big enough that he can’t just extinguish himself.”

Gregory takes this into consideration and nods very seriously, “Okay then. I’m good at starting fires. I’ll.. uh. When we meet him, you distract Vannynessa to safe mode her and I’ll set him on fire.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Could you set Monty on fire?”

“...it won’t be easy, but maybe if I try hard enough?” Gregory hesitates.

Eclipse sighs, “No, Greg. Afton is possessing Bonnie, and he is out for your blood. You will die the moment he catches you. This is not a game.”

“I know it’s not a game! But I just–I can’t just leave you to face him by himself!”

Gregory looks away from them, clearly upset. Feeling bad, Eclipse sinks down to one knee and puts their hand on his shoulder.

“I know you want to help, but you have to remember that–”

“My safety is your top priority, yeah. It’s just–come on, M-Eclipse. I lost you once already.” His lip wobbles and Eclipse discovers that they hate seeing that expression on the child’s face.

“I’m a robot, Greg. I can be rebuilt anytime, and so can both Sun and Moon. We’re alright. If anything happened to you–well, we can’t rebuild you the same way. Unless you want to be a zombie like old Afton.” Eclipse jokes lightheartedly–might as well make the most out of the dark and souring mood.

“..I guess.” Gregory sighs.

“Yeah, and besides–we also need to find Freddy. Is your Fazwatch still working?”

Gregory raises an arm up to fiddle with the watch, finding it dead. Unfortunate, but that answers the question. They’re impressed that thing lasted this long, especially with how much Gregory has been thrown around in this single night.

“...well, I guess we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Come on, climb up to my shoulders and let’s leave Michael to rest.”

—

Vanny is–Vanessa.

A young woman in her early twenties, from a good family with great parents. She had just graduated college with a degree in computer engineering and had moved to a new city to look for better job prospects.

She had found one, as a part-time engineer and video game tester for Fazbear Entertainment. The job was posted in a rather shady looking place, but the company was reputable and her friends had supported her to take it. It went well for the first year, until they had begun testing for a VR game.

It’s there when she discovered—him. The glitch. The one that she shouldn’t have trusted. The liar, the manipulator–the one who has done nothing but use her for his own gain. The one who filled her mind with delusions and sweet lies, turning her against her friends and making her cut her family off because–what?

He always lies. He lies, leads her on, gives her false hope and hurt her and she never realised it because she let him get into her head and make her think that he was her everything.

She was a fool to believe him. This is her first thought the moment she woke with an ache in her head, her mind clear for the first time since she met him. He’s–to call him a human would be a gross insult to their race. The only thing he is good for is sweet lies. He’s the type of man she would despise with her entire being.

Which makes the realisation of what she had done all the more painful. It isn’t even clear to her what happened or how it happened. It was almost–she saw him in that stupid bunny costume once and then it’s all flashes of things she did in between that time and the present.

Moving from the engineering team to the security team in the Pizzaplex. Getting the stupid bunny suit made because for some reason, she had wanted to make him proud. Meeting Freddy, and the rest of the band. It was–gradual, his influence on her. She had convinced herself to switch to the Pizzaplex’s team because they were understaffed in terms of human staff. Upper management had told her it had better pay, but now she couldn’t remember if they had really told her that or if that was another lie he fed into her mind to convince her.

She remembers meeting the daycare attendant. Sun, who was the darling of the Plex right after Freddy. His more reclusive counterpart, Moon. She was—she had liked them, she knew that she wanted to work at Fazbear Entertainment because she liked the brand and the animatronics. But some part of her had cringed around Sun, and it was made worse after the incident with Moon.

Everything hurts. She sits up, cringing at the filthy floors and looking down at her hands to see that they're stuffed paws. She remembers stitching those themselves, with the skill that she shouldn't have because her mother had tried to teach her the skill and they had given up because she never got better at it.

Her head feels stuffed with cotton. She remembered thinking about Freddy—sparing Freddy. The events of the night. Constantly switching between Vanessa and Vanny, terrorizing Gregory and the band with her command of the S.T.A.F.F. bots.

She was going to follow through with his plan. The one that got into her head. The one she shouldn't have trusted. She already—

She saw herself, fiddling with the control board of the animatronics and watching from the cameras as the three remaining animatronics huddled in a room together. Monty was missing both arms. Roxy was crying and Freddy was clearly distraught over the loss of Chica.

Then, she saw a great opportunity in how Roxy had gone silent the moment Monty said something. Clearly they were arguing, which was good—this would make it easier to divide them. Divide and conquer, she heard her master say.

So she reached into the remote controls for Roxy and amplified her anger. It worked beautifully, the animatronic immediately attacked Monty. Ruthlessly, so. She remembered laughing gleefully because now, none of them would be a threat anymore. Roxy would go after Freddy, and they’d kill each other in her stead.

Except, Freddy had snapped out of his grief to run for the door and barricade it, trapping Roxy inside and making a run for it.

Not for the first time, she thought about how that was possible. The animatronics, experiencing grief and emotions they shouldn't have the capabilities to. Moon being overcome with anger, with sass and an attitude to boot. Sun’s awkwardness with adults. Freddy’s almost fatherly affection towards everyone, and the bear’s grief over losing Chica.

It made them more human than she was more comfortable to admit. Suddenly, it felt like she had killed human beings instead of just robots. She shakes her head, not wanting to think about the implications just yet because the entire plan hinged on killing an actual human child and desecrating his corpse to revive a madman.

Vanessa chokes out a hysterical laugh, feeling tears building in the corners of her eyes. She's—she has a lot to make up for. A lot to explain. So many things to do and that's only if she survives the rest of this night.

This was all her mistake. Though, her first mistake was trusting the digitised consciousness of a serial killer in the first place. To think a few conversations was all it needed to get into her head and take two years of her life.

Vanessa takes a deep breath, taking off the stupid stuffy mask to allow herself a moment to breathe. Her mind is clear and hers alone. Never again will she be another person's pawn.

It's—the daycare attendant should still be around here. He had said so. She should—if Sun can't do it, Moon probably could kill him for good. She just has to—convince them that she's on their side. And take Gregory to safety.

She rises to her feet slowly, feeling her knees shake with the exertion of everything that had happened tonight. With another shuddering breath, she looks around the room, her vision clearing as she regulates her own breathing.

It's—empty. It's the room she was in with him, when they found Freddy.

Freddy, who is on the floor with a metal rod through his chest, right where his heart would be were he human. She muffles a gasp and rushes to the bear’s side. Pulling whatever knowledge of his compartments that she had, she tried to restart his systems.

The damage—the animatronics weren't made with a heart, but there were important components in the chest that were too vital to take much damage. However, she should be able to get him working for just a moment.

Freddy’s eyes light up from its previous dead state and the bear gasps, choking and coughing as if he was a human with an actual rod stabbed through his heart.

“V-vanessa..?” He murmurs and even his voice is raspy. In this moment, he may as well be a human.

She expected him to ask about Bonnie, which she does have answers for. Or even Gregory. Or that man. Except, he breaks all her expectations because his first question is—

“...are.. you.. alright?”

She looks down at him. This bear, this animatronic—kinder than most humans ever were in her life.

“I’m.. I’m sorry, Freddy. I’ll. I will make it right. Trust me—I’ll bring everyone back. I'll make up for it all. Just—t-tell me where Gregory is, please. We—I can't let him be found by that man.” Vanessa asks quickly because she knows that Freddy won't have much time.

The underground area of the Plex is big. It was hard enough to find the slippery child with the assistance of cameras and bots, but in this unmapped area where everything is falling apart constantly—it would be nearly impossible.

Gregory though, has a Fazwatch that Freddy gave him. Even if in an unmapped area, Freddy would know his approximate location. The bear is her only chance at finding the child.

“I…”

She just doesn't know if he would want to trust her. She wouldn't trust herself.

“He is… nearby. I think he.. i-is.. move.. t-owa-wards. Us.” Freddy forces through and she swallows at the sight of him clearly in pain.

“I’m. Okay, thank—thank you. You—I promise you won't regret telling me.”

“...ust.” He mutters and she strains her ear to catch the word.

“Trust.” Freddy says again, before his eyes darken as his systems go offline.

Vanessa chokes and she doesn't know why. Perhaps it was the goodness of this bear. The faith he has in her, even when she has done nothing to deserve it. The very human way he looks and speaks and—her eyes burn with unshed tears and she remembers something he often said to her back when she first started in the Plex.

“I believe in you, Vanessa.”

—

In a room just a few corridors away, stands two animatronics and a child.

Gregory is hiding behind Eclipse, clinging to them with a blaster and camera at the ready just in case he needs to start shooting or they need to run for it. In front of both of them is another animatronic that he has seen before, but it looks nothing at all like the nice purple bunny that gave him candy at that one sponsored trip to the Plex with his old orphanage.

Bonnie stands there, both arms raised in surrender as Eclipse stares him down, standing at their full height in the way that Moon or Sun never do—the slouchers that they are.

It was a very nice coincidence that they literally ran into the bunny the moment they got out of that burned pizzeria. Eclipse couldn't even sneak Gregory away now. Especially because this room they're in has one exit and that exit is blocked by the murder bunny.

“I—I have a good explanation for all this, my friend. I—I swear, haha..” The bunny says sheepishly.

“How do we know you're Bonnie and not Mr. Purple Corpse Murder Man.” Eclipse bites back.

Now that nickname is one Gregory had personally coined just a few minutes ago. As in, the moment they saw Mr. Purple Corpse Murder Man. You know, after hearing all about the gruesome springlocked death and stuff, he really should've expected something like this.

Seeing it for himself is something else entirely though because for one, this guy stinks. Because, well, he's all mechanical parts and dried blood and undead flesh. Makes sense, but that doesn't make it any less unpleasant.

“I think we've had enough explanations for tonight, ‘Bon’. If you're really Bonnie.. why don't you come here and say hi to my lighter.” Eclipse holds up their remaining hand and the tip of their finger lights up in a small flame.

“....whoa since when did you have that?” Gregory interrupts this dramatic showdown to stare at the small flame. To think that they had spent several minutes trying to think of how to actually start a fire, only for Eclipse to have a built-in lighter.

“...I honestly forgot that this was a thing! But hey, convenience, right? Now die in fire and burn in hELL FOR ALL THE CHILDREN YOU'VE KILLED—” Eclipse bites their metaphorical tongue back before they can devolve into unhinged screaming. Gotta spare his poor little human eardrums, you know. Thank you Eclipse.

Gregory doesn't know what the bot looks like right now, but they seem to be pretty terrifying because maybe-not-Bonnie takes a step back. He even does that floppy ear thing bunnies do when they're scared, as if that'll make him look sympathetic. Pathetic attempt, really.

“That tiny fire can't kill me—I, ahem. What I mean is.. maybe we should find a better place to do this in… pal.” The animatronic says, but the earlier nervousness is almost gone from his voice. In fact, Gregory thinks he senses a bit of anger in the robot's tone.

He doesn't know Bonnie, so he can't tell what is or isn't out of character for the bunny, but Eclipse doesn't seem convinced.

“Really. Were you even part of the conversation we had earlier? You're the one who wanted to die as fast as possible.” Eclipse accuses.

“I—changed my mind!” Bonnie claps his hands together.

“Because?”

“If you start a fire here, it will be devastating towards the bloody structural integrity of this place.” He bites like it's obvious and Gregory can see his face twist at his own words, as if it came out in the way he didn't mean for it to.

“Yes, yes. So surely, as a fellow protector of children, you'd agree to my suggestion to send Gregory up top after we get rid of Vanny, yeah?” Eclipse beams, the sun beams decorating half of their head shining brightly in this dark and damp room they're in.

“I told you, I already took care of Vanny. That was why I ran off earlier. Because I sensed her coming—”

“And you didn't think to stop and tell me this before running off where I can't find you. What a convenient excuse!” Eclipse claps.

Gregory knows this is a tense situation, but the back and forth dialogue is honestly straight out of a drama movie and very entertaining. You can practically feel the tension between these two. He smacks himself internally. Maybe this entire trip is making him a little too desensitized to dramatic life threatening moments.

Bonnie twitches and a little bit of his fleshy gooey whatever drips onto the floor where he's standing. Gregory cringes. If he wasn't so used to smelling trash, he would probably be puking right about now. The smell is positively pungent.

“Just give me the child. I can get him up there faster than you.” He slaps a smile that is so obviously fake on his face, but it's enhanced by the way he opens up his arms as if he has nothing to hide.

Suddenly, Eclipse starts snickering. The snickers grow louder, and not a minute later the bot is full-on guffawing at Bonnie’s proclamation.

“Oh my fucking god—hAHAHAH—you. You. You're such a joker, buddy! Who's faster than who? Dear someone.. you are so stupid.” The daycare animatronics snorts and their laughter grows even louder.

Concerned at this sudden development, Gregory tugs at Eclipse’s pants to snap them off whatever new hysterical spiral they've gotten themselves into. This is really not the time to have a breakdown, please.

Being called stupid seems to be the last straw for Bonnie, because he charges at them with an enraged scream of an overworked underpaid worker who's had to deal with a conversation that goes nowhere for the last ten minutes.

Gregory screeches and starts shooting at him. The bunny screams the moment his eyes are assaulted with the lasers, and Eclipse jumps into the fray with Moon’s grace and Sun’s intensity.

Gregory backs away to avoid being dragged into the fight, alternating between shooting and spamming the shutter of his Faz-Cam at the ensuing fight. Both animatronics are going too fast for him to shoot any accurately, so he hopes Eclipse doesn't mind being shot every once in a while.

“Keep going, Greg—! Don't mind me. I'm really fucking sure I'm immune now. Thanks a lot for that, by the way.” Eclipse screeches as he dodges a swipe for his throat and kicks his opponent down to the ground.

“You're welcome!” Gregory takes another step back as their fight inches just a little too close to him for comfort.

Too focused on the fight, he doesn't notice when another person steps into the room until he quite literally bumps into them. He snaps his head back and aims his blaster behind him, scrambling to another direction as he takes in who it is he just bumped into.

“Wh—Vanessa?!”

Right. So that's great confirmation on the whole Vanny is Vanessa thing. Somehow, this realisation comes with the added bonus that Vannynessa’s presence doesn't trigger any unpleasant dread or gut clenching within him. Exactly what he needed right now, really.

Her sudden appearance distracts both of the fighters and Gregory has the pleasure to witness Mr. Murder Man sock Eclipse in the face and send them flying to the nearest wall. Jesus fucking Christ. That guy sure hits hard and oh god that guy hits hard and he just knocked out Eclipse.

“ShIT—ECLIPSE GET UP RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD—” Gregory screeches as Vanessa snatches him up by the armpits like he's some stray cat.

He tries his darndest to kick her and wiggle free, his eyes locked on Eclipse’s decidedly not-moving-very-much form. Of all the times to lose a fight, the bot really had to lose the fucking boss battle.

“Vanny. Good. Now, give me the child—” Mr. Murder Man approaches with his oily hands and unpleasant body odor.

Gregory screeches.

—

Sun does not know where they are, but for once they feel like—themselves. It's not a new feeling, they like being themselves. Though, they weren't themselves ever since that fight with Moon, what with the both of them getting crushed by a giant piston and thrown down the trash compactor and all.

What's.. what's going on?

They try blinking to clear their remaining optic, but it doesn't do much cause everything around them is—darkness. They really wish they had Moon’s night vision now. That thing is an absolute gift. Full vision in the dark was really handy when they were walking around this underground area as—Eclipse.

Oh. OH. FUCK.

Fuck someone.

Sun mentally hits themselves for swearing. They feel Moon bat their hand away from hitting their own mental-face. It's kind of a weird feeling. But—Moon. Moon is alive and well and Sun didn't just kill both of them because they were unwilling to let Moon die stupid for both of them.

They laugh in relief and cover their face. If they were human, they're quite sure they'd be crying right about now. Sun chokes and an actual sob comes out of them—hey, they didn't know that was possible. Neat.

Sun feels arms tugging both of their wrists away from their face. They muffle another hysterical laugh as their optic—optics, clear to take in who it is that's standing in front of them.

Hey, Sunny.

It's Moon. Which is weird, because they've never seen Moon in third person before. They both sitting on the floor in this weird dark space. Judging by the look on his face, Moon seems to think it's equally weird—actually, they know that. They can read Moon's thoughts. It's not like he's actively hiding them—

Yeah so, we're either dead or this is some weird manifestation of our shared mind space.

“Pretty cool, right?” Moon jokes and wow, his voice is actually coming out of him and not from Sun’s own head. That is wild.

“You're… speaking with your own voice.” Sun beams in delight.

…of course that's the first thing you point out.

“Yeah. Can't copy yours anymore. I dunno, weird mindscape rules or something. But I guess it makes sense if we have our own bodies here.”

I—do you- wait. I don't have to talk like this. Uh. I wanted to say, Nono. I was going to say. I'm—why can't I say it??

“Breathe, bro. You gotta organize your thoughts first. Can't help you with that cause well, we ain't Eclipsed right now.” Moon holds their hand and Sun grips his hand right back—it’s, very weird. But also really, really nice. They think they can get used to this.

“...Eclipsed? Oh, okay. Uhm. We could talk about that first because did you know that was a thing?” Sun blurts out before their mind backtracks to other, decidedly more life threatening things than this nice reunion they're having.

Moon, bless him, catches Sun’s panic before they realise it themselves and pulls them into a hug. With back patting. Like he used to do with the kids. The kids always said that Moon's hugs feel very nice. They were totally right. Sun is going to keep this hug for as long as they can.

You know I can still read your mind, right?

I know. So you'll know that I'm not letting go anytime soon.

I don't mind. We can hug it out for as long as you want.

I'm.. sorry for fucking up.

I.. it was a high stress situation. Everyone makes mistakes.

Not ones that end in us fused together and stuck in whatever underground hellhole our home apparently hosts.

Hey, c’mon. It wasn't like being Eclipse was a horrible experience. We were—well, arguing less? That's one good thing right? Also, Eclipse can self-regulate way better than you and me combined. Even though they're literally you and me combined. That's fucking hilarious.

Language. It's—I guess so. I'm trying so hard to not panic right now. I swear, it's easier to be calmer when we were Eclipse.

Felt angry less when we were one, so same here.

Yeah. It's—I’m. It’s weird but I still don't know how to feel about Eclipse.

…me neither.

Did you like being Eclipse?

I—how am I supposed to answer that? If I say I don't, wouldn't it be like sayin’ I don't like being with you? Cause trust me, I do. So I guess I do.

You know.. being Eclipse, I.. discovered a few things.

…what things?

So, cool thing about the both of them. They can hear each other's thoughts and do all the cool twin telepathy stuff, but both Sun and their brother appreciate some privacy occasionally. Moon especially. They're quite sure Moon shields at least ninety-percent of his own thoughts from them. Particularly those relating to himself.

Sun doesn't bother. They would trust Moon with their life, what’s some embarrassing thoughts to that? They'd do anything for their brother.

As Eclipse, nothing is hidden. You can't exactly hide from yourself. Moon looks at them, waiting expectantly for the discovery they're about to share. Moon—he probably has no clue. After all, Sun had nothing to hide from him. There's no dark secret they would take to their grave that they wouldn't tell Moon.

Knowing what they know as Eclipse, it hurts just a little to know that this fact isn't mutual. Sun knows that their brother isn't exactly the fondest of talking about his problems, let alone feelings. But the things they just—knew, as Eclipse were—well, to put it simply, not very nice at all.

You.. do you consider us equals?

What—what kind of question is that? Of course I do.

…do you trust me?

With my life, Sunny. What's wrong? This isn't like you.

I heard it, you know. As Eclipse. I heard—I know every single hateful thing you've said about yourself. I just—I was–I feel so stupid for not pushing you for answers earlier.

….

Though, it's not like you trust me enough to tell me what's wrong.

Sunny, it's not like that—

I know. I know you don't mean it in that way. But that's how it is, brother. You don't trust me enough to confide in me.

I don't—you know I don't like to bother you with my problems.

I bother you with mine. How is that any different?

That’s—

My problems are more trivial than yours, is that it?

Sunny. It's… fuck, you know I’m. I just don't want to hurt you.

Well, congrats because you DID anyway.

Sun takes a deep breath and pulls away from the hug. They don't have much time. It's—call it cruel to call Moon out now of all times, but they really—they really can't let go of their earlier argument.

For as long as they've known Moon, he's been everything important. Their other half. The literal and metaphorical moon to their sun. Their respite in chaotic work days. The one that's always there, always ready to help and lend an ear. It's like—they think it's similar to how an older sibling would be, even though Sun and Moon are twins.

They can't help but feel that they're making a big problem out of nothing. Though, discovering that your sibling hates himself to the point that he thinks you'd be better off without him even when all signs point otherwise is really a problem that needs paying attention to.

Especially since said sibling was so adamant that he sacrifice himself for Sun, even though he knows Sun won't be able to live without him. Terribly codependent, they're aware, but the both of them are quite literally built that way.

“I'm sorry.” Moon says, voice smaller than Sun has ever heard him.

“No.” Sun sighs, squeezing his hand.

“I'm.. I’m sorry. For not noticing. For letting it get so bad that you think I'd be better off without you. You're… you were always a perfectionist, brother. One thing you share in common with Monty, huh?” They joke. It falls a little flat, because well, they didn't really bother keeping an upbeat voice for it.

Moon looks pained.

“It probably didn't help that they were threatening to decommission you for one accident. Or did it start much earlier? God, for someone with your bravado, you sure let people's words get to you.” Sun chuckles.

Who's really the one with the soft heart between the both of us?

…

Did you think I wouldn't be strong enough to share your pain?

I—fuck, Sunny. You're putting me in a pinch here.

Serves you right for avoiding this conversation for so long.

You're—..yeah, I guess I do deserve that.

There's a silence between them for a moment. Time is ticking however and Sun is terribly aware of it. So they speak up,

“Anyway, I.. well, it's. Nothing we can do about it now. Just… I love you, okay? You know that, right? No matter what.”

“...I..” Moon falters. Words seem to evade him throughout this entire conversation. Sun doesn't really blame him.

“I just… I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. It's okay, though. We… that kind of thing needs time.”

Time that they don't have. Sun gets up, letting go of Moon's hand to stand to their full height. Moon quickly follows, clearly a little confused about where they're going with this. Sun makes sure to shield their thoughts from him. Of course, it doesn't go unnoticed. They've never really hid anything from Moon, after all.

Sun.. what are you planning?

I… well. There's another realisation I've had just now.

Brother. I—please, I just–I know you're upset.

Moon reaches a hand out, but Sun turns away. Call it cruel, selfish, but they don't want to look at him for this plan.

…turns out, you're not the only selfish one between the two of us.

The ground cracks in between both of them.

“I'm sorry, Moon. This is where we part ways.”

“Sunny—Sun, don't–fucking hell, you don't get to do this to me—”

Sun looks up into the void that is their shared mindscape. At any other time, on any other day, they would have stopped to admire the place. Relish in being with Moon physically and mentally. Have a few nice conversations. Maybe try to see if they can redecorate this place somehow.

Unfortunately, this will probably be the first and the last time they'll be here. One of them has to survive this night, and Sun is selfish enough to force the responsibility onto their brother.

“Can you do one thing for me, Moon?”

I love you, you know that right? The thought echoes in both of their minds, slipping through the cracks to reach Moon despite Sun's resolve to cut themselves off.

The cracks grow wider and it's as if there's a canyon between the both of them.

You can't. Please. Please don't leave me alone—I'm so sorry, just don't do this. I'll do anything—

“I only need you to do one thing.” Sun interrupts the train of thoughts, keeping their optics turned away even as the world breaks and falls apart around them.

They don't have to look behind them to see that Moon is far away now. Out of reach—safe. Knowing this, Sun turns back to steal one look at their brother one last time.

“Live for me, yeah?” They beam at him, sun-spikes shining. Moon says something, but they don't stay to hear his answer.

After all, they already know it.