Chapter Text
It’s 10pm when Emu gets home from Phoenix Wonderland. To be fair, it was her idea to have Rui add confetti cannons to Robo-Nene, and sure maybe five whole cannons was a tiny bit overboard , but the smiles on everyone in the audience when they went off was a sight she wouldn’t trade for anything. Even if it meant they all had to stay late to make sure there weren’t any confetti pieces left. Honestly, the troupe is lucky Emu didn’t go with her original “Wonderhoy☆glitter☆cannon.” Yeah, Rui cut that idea pretty quickly.
After cleaning the stage and audience, Emu is absolutely exhausted from the work. She slides into bed and opens Youtube for a video before bed. She deserves it after all the cleaning! Scrolling through her subscriptions, Emu comes across a video titled “The Full FNAF Timeline.”
“FNAF?” she asks aloud.
With her curiosity piqued, she clicks on the video, putting it to full-screen.
Emu would say she can handle jump scares pretty well. The Haunted House in Phoenix Wonderland was one of her favorites when she was younger. Granted, it’s a family-friendly haunted house, but it’s still a haunted house! But this video? The animatronics that were shown, the stories about how the animatronics were supposed to make people smile but instead they killed several children? And those very children haunt the souls of the animatronics? And the implications that the entire thing is real?? And exists in this plane of existence??
Well, it’s safe to say Emu doesn’t sleep well that night. Although, something tickles the back of her brain while she’s watching the video. The video talked about a purple guy who was a genius engineer and made the animatronics for the restaurant. There’s something so familiar about it but the exhaustion lets the thoughts elude her as she drifts into sleep.
~~~~~~
Emu is running. She has to escape the restaurant. The animatronics are coming to get her. She’s slowing down, she can’t run normally. The purple guy is sending the robots to get her. She can hear him laughing in the background and the laugh sounds strangely familiar. It’s a laugh she knows very well. It’s a laugh that she hears after shows go well. It’s a laugh she hears when Tsukasa is being particularly eccentric. It’s…
Emu gasps as she wakes up in a cold sweat. Her heart is beating loud in her ears as she realizes what her muddled brain was trying to tell her last night.
“Rui is the purple guy. Holy Phenny Rui is the purple gUY-”
~~~~~~
“Tsukasa!!! Nene!!! I have something important to tell you!!” Emu vaults over the benches and onto the stage where Tsukasa and Nene are setting up for the day’s shows.
“Emu? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Tsukasa reaches for Emu’s shoulders to stabilize her.
“Seriously, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong?” Nene looks around Tsukasa with worried eyes.
“SoIrealizedthatRuiisactuallythepurpleguyfromFNAF.”
Tsukasa and Nene share a confused glance.
“...What?”
Emu takes a deep breath.
“Okay. So,” Emu claps her hands together. “Do you guys know FNAF?”
“Yeah, actually. I played those games in junior high,” Nene says. “Why?”
“You know the purple guy, right?”
“William Afton?”
“Yeah, him. You know how he makes animatronics? And he’s like a genius engineer?”
“...Yes?? Where is this going exactly??”
“Who do we know who is purple and makes animatronics, and is a genius engineer?” Emu asked, waiting for a response with bated breath.
Nene's face crinkles in confusion before a realization strikes her.
“You’re not implying what I think you’re implying?”
Emu nods enthusiastically.
“Look, Emu, I see where you’re coming from, but that’s genuinely one of the most insane things you’ve ever said. And you can pronounce the star symbol out loud!”
“Oh, you mean ☆Wonderhoy!!!☆”
“Seriously, how do you DO THAT???”
“Hey hey hey, we’re getting off topic. Who’s this purple guy and what does he have to do with Rui?” Tsukasa cuts in between them.
“They’re both purple! They both make robots! The math is clear, you guys!” Emu gestures wildly as if it’s going to make the others believe her point more. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rui arrive at the stage.
“Hey guys, ready for rehearsal? …Why is the set half off-stage?” Rui stares in confusion at the trio who are clearly not doing the work they’re supposed to.
“R-Right, sorry,” Nene apologizes. “We’ll talk about this later, Emu.” And Nene is off to roll the rest of the set onstage.
~~~~~~
Logistically, Emu knows her fellow troupe member and friend wouldn’t be a child-murderer, but her brain is set on the idea. So what can she do? Gather evidence and confront him, that’s what. The hard part, though, is getting Tsukasa and Nene to help with her investigation.
“No. No way. This is a waste of our time. Why would we ever do this?” Nene emphatically objects when Emu tells them her plan.
“I’m with Nene on this, Emu. Being a star means trusting your fellow cast members. I don’t want our trust with Rui to be broken over this,” Tsukasa says.
“Pleeeeeease, guys? Pleasepleaseplease???” Emu pulls out her puppy dog eyes. No one in her troupe can resist the puppy dog eyes.
“Nghhh, ugh. Fine!” Nene relents.
“Yay!!” Emu celebrates, and starts to dance around the stage.
“But!”
Emu stops in the middle of her dance, almost losing her balance.
“If we don’t find anything by the end of rehearsal, we drop this subject, and it never happened . Deal?” Nene puts her hand out.
“Wait I never agreed to this-” Tsukasa tries to object, but he’s too late.
“Deal!” Emu is already shaking Nene’s hand violently, sealing the deal.
Tsukasa groans. It’s going to be a long rehearsal.
~~~~~~
“Okay, we all know the plan?” Emu nods at her partners in crime.
Nene and Tsukasa sigh in unison. Emu takes that as a yes.
“☆Great☆!”
“Seriously how do you dO THAT-”
~~~~~~
Tsukasa can’t believe he’s wasting valuable rehearsal time for Emu’s shenanigans. A star like himself should be running through scenes again. I mean. Rui, a child murderer from a fictional game?? How does she even come up with this stuff??
But, a deal is a deal, and he did agree to distract Rui while Emu and Nene snuck into his workshop. Not that they needed to sneak in, they could’ve just asked. But they are theater kids, so theatrics will follow them wherever they go.
“Hey, Rui, can I talk to you about something?”
“Hm? Ah, yes, Tsukasa, of course! What do you need?“ Rui smiles at him, as kind as he’s ever been. Seriously Emu, what kind of mental gymnastics did you have to perform in order to get us here?
That’s when Tsukasa notices the dark coloring on Rui’s clothes. Dark coloring that definitely wasn’t on his clothing at yesterday’s rehearsal. Nonono. Pull it together Tsukasa. You are a future star! You don’t have time for this kind of doubt!
“...Tsukasa?”
That startles him back into reality.
“Oh! Nothing, sorry, just. What happened to your uniform?” Tsukasa gestures to Rui’s clothing.
“Hm?” Rui looks down. “Oh! Just a little secret project. No need for you to worry about it~”
Okay now why would he phrase it like that–
“Secret project?”
“Yeah, just something I’m doing in my spare time. I can’t wait for you all to see it. It’s going to be to die for~” Rui chuckles.
OKAY SERIOUSLY WHY IS HE PHRASING IT LIKE THAT–
“Anyway, what did you want to ask me about?”
Tsukasa is gone before Rui can even finish asking his question
~~~~~~
“Seriously Emu, we could’ve just asked him to be in here,” Nene tries to reason with the chaos incarnate that is Emu.
“No can do! If we asked him, he’d hide his murder weapons in advance, and then get us when we least expect it!” Emu counterpoints, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Nene sighs in exasperation. Why do I even try?
They reach Rui’s workshop behind the Wonder Stage and open the door.
Or, they try to.
“Nooo it’s locked,” Emu pouts.
“Oh no, what a shame, guess we’re just gonna have to head back-” Nene turns around to leave when she hears a click behind her. Spinning around displays Emu’s bright smile and an open door into Rui’s workshop.
“Come on, Nene!” Emu smiles as she bounds through the door.
Nene is so stunned she can do nothing but follow Emu as her brain tries to wrap around what just happened. She’s so out of it she walks straight into Emu’s back.
“Gah! Hey, Emu, what the heck-” Nene starts to scold Emu, but the color from her face is completely drained as she stares off into the workshop.
“Um. Hello? Emu? Are you okay…?” Nene follows Emu’s gaze to the back corner where she feels her blood run cold.
It’s so red back there. So much red. Red on the walls, red coating the floor in splotches. That much paint would be too expensive for the budget they were given by the park. And in a cardboard box in the corner were two vaguely human shaped figures. But they were too small to be adult figures.
“E-Emu? Are-Are you seeing this too?”
“N-Nene?” Emu tears her gaze away to look Nene in the eyes. They both silently agree to book it back to Tsukasa.
~~~~~~
“TSUKASA!!!” Emu yells out for their troupe leader as they run towards him.
“Emu?! Nene?!” Tsukasa’s face is pale as he shouts back to them. His face pales even more as Emu continues to run towards him.
“Wah-! Emu you’re going to-”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as Emu tackles him into a tight hug. She has him in a vice grip, scared to let go because of what she saw.
“Phew—Tsukasa? Emu? Are you both okay?” She hears Nene say between deep breaths.
“I can’t breathe,” Tsukasa says, his voice so strained that it’s painful to even hear. “Emu, you’ve gotta loosen your grip here.”
She hesitates, but lets go of him so they can both sit up. Nene offers them a hand to stand up.
“You won’t believe what I saw-” All three of them say at the same time, but for once, this wasn’t choreographed.
“You first, girls. What did you find?” Tsukasa hands them the floor.
“Tsukasa. Emu is crazy, but she’s right. Rui is definitely doing something suspicious. We found a box with bodies and a bunch of red. I-I think it might’ve been blood. There was way too much of it.” Nene blurts out. “Wh-What about you? Please tell me Rui was acting completely normal? Well, normal for him.”
The little color Tsukasa’s face got back was quickly gone as he recounted his findings.
“Well, Rui’s clothes had a bunch of dark red spots, and when I asked him about it, he was dodging the question and saying it was for a ‘secret project,’” Tsukasa said.
The trio stared at each other in silence. They could hear each other's hearts beating.
“Holy Phenny, Rui is the pURPLE GUY-"