Chapter Text
Gregory ran as Vanny chased after him. Her distorted voice rang behind him. Gregory sprinted past a corner and spotted a potentional hiding spot.
A ballpit.
It was gross, Gregory doesn't want to know how many kids vomited or pissed there because they wanted to keep playing and not stop to go to the bathroom. But he doesn't see any other options. So he jumps in, and hopes that he doesn't touch something disgusting.
Gregory listens carefully. He hears footstep going past the ballpit. Vanny calls out to him. Her voice gets distant. Then it's dead silent. Just as he was about to peek out to see if it was safe, sudden wave of shouts reach his ears. The shouts are full of laughter and joy, unlike Gregory first assumed. Gregory lifts his head.
He isn't at the Pizzaplex anymore. He's somewhere else. The place is small, but not tiny. Four rows of three tables with red and white checked tablecloths. Colorful plastic plates and cups are set on the tables. Confetti is sprinkled on the floor and balloons are hung all around the place. There's also a bunch of minigames. A stage had a band of animatronics that looked familiar and unfamiliar. But the most biggest difference is that it's daytime. Kids are running around laughing happily.
Gregory climbs out of the ballpit and looks around confused.
"Hey little man, you doing okay?" Someone behind him asks.
Gregory turns around to see a man probably in his 20's with brown hair. He's wearing a pastel yellow suit with a soft baby blue shirt underneath. He has a dark purple tie and a white bear mask. He's also wearing black gloves.
"You're looking a bit confused." He says. "Everything alright?"
Gregory decides to use one of his favorite tactics of getting out of situations.
"I can't find my mom." He mutters, tilting his head down and looking up at the man. Every adult with a good heart always falls for that trick.
"Did you come here with her?" The man asks, crouching down to Gregory's level.
Gregory nods.
"What does she look like?"
Crap. "She has brown hair and green eyes. She's wearing a yellow sweater with white dots on it." Gregory quickly says. He prays that no one here actually looks like it.
The man stands up and begins to look around the pizzeria. Gregory originally planned to slip away when the man is looking away but at that moment he gently grabs onto Gregory's shoulder.
"Is that her?" He point towards a woman sitting at the back wall.
Crap. Crap crap crap crapcrapcrap-
She looks exactly like Gregory described. Brown hair, green eyes and a yellow polka dot sweater.
"Yes!" Gregory quickly exclaims. "Thank you, sir!"
Gregory begins to walk towards in her direction, hoping to disappear into the crowd, but the man walks with him!
"Excuse me, miss." He says when they reach her.
The woman looks up. "Yes?"
"Your son got a little lost." He chuckles and gently nudges Gregory towards the woman. Gregory looks at the woman with pleading eyes, hoping that she'd get the message.
The woman however eyes Gregory with a confused stare. "But he's not my son? I don't have a son."
The man immediately stills. His hold on Gregory's shoulder tightens slightly before he let's go, only resting his hand on it. "Ah, my mistake. I apologise." He then pulls Gregory gently towards himself. "Come on buddy, let's go look for your mother."
Gregory doesn't want to cause a scene, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do in this situation, so he follows the man. Maybe he'll leave Gregory alone just long enough so he can run off.
"What's your name, buddy?"
"Gregory." Gregory mutters so the man won't be suspicious. Everytime he refuses to tell someone his name they get suspicious.
The man hums.
"And you?" Gregory asks.
The man tilts his head down slightly to look at Gregory. "Hm?"
"I told you my name, I want to know yours too. It's fair."
The man chuckles. "Well then, I guess that is fair. My name is Mike Schmidt."
They eventually reach a Staff only room. Mike opens the door and signals for Gregory to go inside it. He walks over to a desk and takes a pen. Gregory takes a few seconds to look around the room. There's two vents on both walls and a computer. A fan is next to the computer and a tiny animatronic that looks like Freddy, but just with a white and soft purple colors, is sat on top of the computer. Children's drawings are hung up on the wall.
"What was your mother's name?" Mike suddenly asks.
"Claire Miller." Gregory stutters. He's proud of how quickly he made up a name.
"Are you here only with your mother?"
"Yes, dad stayed home with my little sister."
Mike writes something on the paper. He goes back into the main pizzeria and Gregory follows. He puts up the paper onto a wall near the entrance. Now Gregory can read it.
"Claire Miller, please come to the Staff only room. Your son, Gregory, got a little lost and he'd appreciate it you'd return to him. :)"
Mike had doodled a cartoony styled Freddy head next to Gregory's imaginary mother's name.
"Come on, Gregory. Let's go wait for your mother." Mike says. "She'll see that soon and then she'll return, alright?"
"Can I go play on the minigames? I get bored easily." Gregory says. Mike will say yes because he doesn't want to babysit a random lost kid and Gregory can slip away.
"I'm sorry, kiddo." Mike chuckles. "I'd love to let you play around and have fun, but I gotta keep an eye on you until we find your mother so you won't get lost again."
Damnit! This guy is ruining Gregory's plans. It's nice to see that he does seem to care about children's safety, but now it's ruining everything! Defeatedly Gregory follows Mike back to the Staff only room and sits down on a chair Mike pulled for him. A few seconds pass and Mike hands him a sketchbook and bunch of crayons.
"You might not like drawing or you might think that you're too old for crayons, but if you want you can draw to pass the time." Mike said, turning towards the computer.
Gregory at first thought he could just leave the room, but the door would make a noice and alert Mike. The next option was to lie and say that he had to go to the bathroom, but then Gregory noticed that there was a bathroom in the Staff only room. Gregory had no other option but to draw and hope that Mike would leave the room. Time went on and Gregory doodled on the paper. He decided to be a little childish and draw himself and Freddy.
"Isn't this slightly used?" Gregory wondered when he noticed that the pages were slightly bent. Gregory flipped to the first page, and would you look at that! Going from the first page to the page before Gregory's drawing were drawings of different characters Gregory only recognised as previous versions of the Glamrock animatronics.
"Did you draw these?" He speaks up, holding up one page for Mike to see.
Mike glances at the page. "Yeah, I doodle and draw whenever I'm bored."
"You're quite good at drawing." Gregory blurts out while staring at the drawing.
"Thanks, kid." The smile in Mike's voice is clear.
Gregory stares at the page for a moment before going back to his own drawing. Mike was okay to be around. He wasn't annoying and let Gregory be alone in his little corner, but he also genuely seemed to care. He wanted for Gregory to be back with his non-existent family, even though he doesn't know that Gregory happens to be an orphan.
The day goes by, Gregory draw a drawing after another, Mike does boring work stuff. It isn't long until Mike glances at the clock on the wall. It's already 10 PM.
"It's closing time already." He mutters. He goes back out and looks around. Then Gregory hears Mike speak. "Is Claire Miller here?" No one responses. No one speaks up.
"Gregory, are you sure that your mother is here somewhere?" Mike asks as he peeks into the room. "Most have already left and the rest are leaving. Yet your mother isn't around."
Gregory avoids Mike's gaze. he looks down at his hands and fiddles with the blue crayon he's holding. Mike inches closer.
"Gregory, did you come alone?"
Gregory nods.
"Then why did you lie?"
Gregory notices how Mike's voice is calm. He doesn't sound angry.
"Are you safe at home?" Mike suddenly asks.
From Mike's perspective Gregory might look like a kid who's desperately trying to escape from an abusive home. Little does he know that the last time Gregory even had a roof over his head was almost over a year ago.
"I'm an orphan." Gregory mutters out. "I came here in hopes of free pizza."
That part technically wasn't a lie. He went to the Pizzaplex in hopes of free pizza. Gregory waits for Mike to start angrily shouting at him. But Mike doesn't. He simply sighs.
"Did you lie because you didn't want to get caught?"
Gregory nods.
"It's alright, I'm not mad at you." Mike says, stunning Gregory. "I assume that you're not in a foster home then?"
"No I ran away from there. They weren't nice."
"Then why aren't you back at an orphanage?"
"I don't wanna go there." Gregory grumbles. "I hate it there."
Mike sighs again. "Okay..." He stands up and begins to mumble to himself. "What the hell do I do in this situation.... There's an orphan in my pizzeria and..... is going to try and kill him...."
"Who?" Gregory speaks up. Mike's head whips back to look at Gregory. "Who's going to try and kill me?"
"Ah shit." Mike curses. "Listen- Buddy, no one's going to kill you-"
"No you said that someone's gonna kill me! Who is it?"
Mike tenses for a moment, quickly glancing at one of the vents before sighing. "A man named William Afton. He's gonna try and kill you. He killed those kids who went missing."
The missing kids. Gregory has seen a bunch of missing posters.
"How do you know this? How come you know who the culprit is but the police don't? Why haven't you told them yet?"
Even with the mask covering his face, Mike seems really pained. "It's not that simple, kiddo. You wouldn't understand."
You're too young to understand.
"I would. I was chased by a psychotic murderer just earlier!" Gregory shouts out.
"You- you what?" Mike stutters. Suddenly his voice is raspy.
"Yeah whatever." Gregory grumbles, shrinking in the chair. "Some crazy bunny lady chased me around with a knife. I hid in a ballpit and suddenly I was here."
Mike stays quiet. Then he asks Gregory a bunch of random questions.
"A bunny lady?"
"Yes."
"Was the bunny yellow or green?"
"No, the bunny costume was white."
Gregory sat in Mike's office quietly as the guy mumbled to himself. He walks in circles while sounding very distressed. Gregory taps his Faz-watch in hopes of being able to message Freddy, but the watch refuses to work. It won't turn on no matter Gregory does. Gregory glances up and spots a calendar.
5th of April.
No- That- that can't be right. It's 20th of June. Not-
"Mike what year is it?" Gregory suddenly asks.
Mike turns to look at Gregory, confusion clearly written all over his covered face. "2023, why do you ask?"
2023? April 5th 2023? But Gregory remembers seeing a calendar in the daycare. It was June 20th 2033.
Did-
Did Gregory somehow travel back in time?
"2023?" Gregory mutters out. "Are you pranking me?"
Gregory is sure that if Mike wouldn't be wearing that mask he'd be looking at Gregory with a confused filled expression. "Why would I? How come you don't know what year it is?"
April 5th 2023. It sounds familiar.
Gregory picked up an old newspaper from the ground and decided that it was good enough to work as a blanket for him. He distantly eyed the headline as he settled in his little cardboard box.
"Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaplace burns to the ground only after a week of being open!"
The date of the accident was 7th of April 2023.
"Gregory do you know where you are?" Mike asks.
Gregory stays quiet before answering. "No, I dont."
There's a moment of silence before Gregory decides to speak.
"Am I in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaplace? The one that burned ten years ago?" Gregory asks. His question basically screams that Gregory is from the future.
"Ten years ago?" Mike mutters.
Gregory stares at the black holes in Mike's mask, hoping that he's staring right into the man's eyes and not slightly off. He wants to seem as serious as he can be. Mike slowly crouches down so he and Gregory are at the same level.
"You're from the year 2033?" He asks slowly, his voice filled with disbelief.
Gregory nods.
Mike looks down at his feet. A few minutes go by, Mike runs his hands through his matted hair and Gregory thinks he sees a flash of purple between Mike's white mask and brown hair.
"And the ballpit somehow transported you here?"
Gregory is honestly surprised at how calm Mike sounds at the moment.
"Well I hid in a ballpit back at the Pizzaplex and then I was somehow here." Gregory answers.
"Pizzaplex?"
"It's the name of the pizzeria. Freddy Fazbears Mega Pizzaplex."
That seemed to be what finally made Mike snap. Mike stood up so quickly that Gregory was startled at the sudden movement. Instead of raging at Gregory, Mike went the complete opposite way. He walked over to his desk, grabbed an innocent cup and smashed it at the wall. Gregory could see Mike tremble from the anger. Mike stayed in that throwing position for a moment before he sunk to the floor.
"Ten years? Even after the goddamn fire?" Mike mutters. "Henry's plan is supposed to be foolproof. Why the fuck is the company still going then?"
Gregory stares at Mike's back. Now this is confusing. Mike didn't seem to be surprised by the fire. Heck, it even seemed that the fire was planned! Mike and whoever Henry was have planned this and Mike is fully aware of the future of his pizzeria. What makes Mike so frustrated is the fact that Fazbear Entertainment is still around in the future. Even having so much money to build a giant pizzeria!
"You-" Gregory speaks up. "You're fully aware that your pizzeria is going to burn?"
Mike looks at Gregory. "That's the whole point of this place." Mike stands up, sighing quietly as he does, and leans on the back wall.
"What do you mean 'The whole point of this place' ?" Gregory asks.
"The whole point of this pizzeria is to burn everything in Fazbear's name. Animatronics, blueprints, ownership, all of it. By the end of this week everything is supposed to go up in flames and destroy everything. Even the only people related to the company."
"Tragically both the owner and the manager of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaplace were trapped inside the burning building and burned alive."
"You- You know that you're going to die?" Gregory stutters out. "You're just going to accept that?!"
"It has to be done kiddo." Mike simply says. "I gotta make sure that none of them escape."
"None of them?" Gregory echoes. "But why not just lock the doors or something?! And why do whoever they are need to burn as well?"
Mike looks off to the side. "You sure you want to know?"
"If I wouldn't want to know I wouldn't be asking." Gregory glares.
Mike sighs. "They are possessed animatronics. They've lost themselves in bloodlust and they kill anything that has blood and a beating heart. The only way they can be laid to rest is by burning them."
"Then why do you need to burn with them?"
Mike reaches up to his mask and pulls it away from his face. "Because there's no other way for me to die and pay."
Mike's face isn't normal. Nowhere near normal. His face is purple and scarred. Both of his eyes are just empty black sockets with neon pink light shining from them. He has robotic eyes. A part of his cheek is complitely gone, showing his slightly yellowed teeth inside his mouth. He's a corpse.
"I've been like this for so long. The only way for me to die and pass on is to burn, just like them." Mike drops the white bear mask onto his desk.
"Is- Is Henry like this too?" Gregory manages to ask.
Mike chuckles lightly. "No, he isn't. Henry's still normal, but he doesn't want-"
A sudden thump interrupts Mike. In a flash Mike had grabbed a flashlight from his desk and shined it at the left vent. He then goes onto his computer and clicks something. The thumping gets distant and dissapears quickly.
"What was that?" Gregory asks.
"That was a posessed animatronic trying to kill us." Mike answers as he sits down at his desk. "This place just got thousand times more dangerous, espechially for you. Gregory, I want you to stay on the back wall and be as quiet as possible. The less noice we make, the more easier it is to trick them."
As Mike shined the flashlight at the right vent Gregory pinned himself to the back wall, as far away from the vents as possible. Gregory glances at the clock.
12 AM.
The whole night repeats the same progress. Mike does some kind of task on his computer, they hear the computer and the fan ("Could this damn thing be any noisier?" Mike grumbled as he shut the computer for the fifth time.), Mike shuts everything down after he uses Audio lure, he shines a light at both of the vents, the animatronics are lured away and Mike turns the computer back on. The night follows this pattern, though as the hours pass the animatronics become more and more agressive, trying harder and harder to slaughter Mike and Gregory.
Finally Mike finishes the last task and logs out from the computer. He quickly stands up, grabbing his mask and his bag near his desk. A small blocky device then appeared from the left vent. Mike pressed a button and the machine immediately started generating sounds that sounded a bit too similiar to children laughing. Almost immediately the thumping in the vents become louder. "Come on Gregory. Don't want to spend more time here. They're gonna reach this place soon." The machine then rolled back into the vents and the thumping followed it.
Gregory follows Mike outside. Mike locks every door on their way out. Mike places his mask back on his face as he continues walking and Gregory follows.
"Where are we going?" Gregory asks.
"To Henry's place." Mike answers. "I live with him, but if you don't wanna come, I won't force you."
Gregory does think about walking away, but he's in an unknown place. He's somehow ten years into the past and the only one who's going to believe him is Mike. So Gregory follows him.
Henry's house was only a five minute walk away from the pizzeria. Mike opened the door and was almost immediately greeted by a man who looked to be in his 70's. He must be Henry. Henry stares at Gregory for a while.
"Michael, who is this?" He asks.
"I'm Gregory." Gregory answers before Mike can.
Mike drops his bag on the floor. "You're probably going to assume that I'm going insane-"
"Must run in the family then." Henry interrupts with a soft smile.
Mike doesn't pay attention to Henry's joke. "But Gregory is from the future."
Henry eyes Mike with suspicion before shifting his gaze to Gregory. "From the future?"
"Your plan of destroying Fazbear won't work." Gregory says.
Mike almost chokes on air at Gregory's bluntness while Henry just stares at him with an amused stare. "Fazbear is still around in your timeline then?"
"Yup." Gregory nods. "Infact they've built a giant mall called The Mega Pizzaplex."
Henry takes a moment to process this information brought to him by a random child. Then he takes a deeb breath and sits down at the nearest chair. "I shouldn't be surprised. Everything just goes William's way these days. Nothing goes our way anymore." He mutters.
Mike walks over to Henry and places a hand on his shoulder. "Henry, don't worry. If that old man is going to try and be around ten years later, we'll make sure that he dies for real then."
Henry nods distantly. "I won't doupt that. You're just as stubborn as him, Michael." Mike makes an offended sound at that("Are you seriously implying that I'm like him?" Mike grumbles playfully.). "But I'm not sure about myself."
Mike's shoulders drop.
"I'm confident that your soul won't find peace if William continues his reign of terror, you're simply too angry to pass on." Henry continues.(Again Mike makes an offended sound.) "But I on the other hand... If my plan fails, but their souls would still be freed, I'd pass on. I wouldn't stay behind. I can't. I'd go with Charlie..."
"Well then, me and Mike will beat that William guy's ass for you and the others." Gregory decides to speak up.
Mike and Henry turn to look at Gregory.
"I mean, I'm pretty confident I'm already annoying the shit out of his follower or something." Gregory shrugged and looked off to the side.
"Follower?!" Henry shot out from his seat.
"Goddamn it, how did I forget that you mentioned that bunny lady?" Mike mutters.
"What?!" Henry shouts out.
"Yeah in the future I got locked in the Pizzaplex and this crazy lady in a rabbit costume started chasing me around with a knife." Gregory explains.
"You didn't mention the locked up part." Mike mutters under his breath while Henry looks like he's going to pass out.
"Okay..." Henry sat back down. "How did you get here?"
"Pretty sure by a timetraveling ballpit."
At this Henry looses all of the shock and confusion from his expression and it's all replaced by unamusment. He then turns to look at Mike. "Michael how do you manage to attract the weirdest type of people?"
Mike cackles. "Hey I'm not doing it on purpose!"
"Who are you calling weird, old man?!" Gregory shouts out over Mike's laughter.
"Are you sure he isn't just you from when you were little just with some vivid imagination?" Henry asks.
Mike snorts. "Still bitter that I called you 'old man' instead of 'uncle' when I was three thanks to William's influence?"
"Absolutely."
Gregory wipes the slight annoyance from his head to ask a question or two. "Who is William to you? You both talk like you know him personally."
Both of them look either pissed or annoyed.
"He was my best friend, until he decided to murder my daughter, Charlie." Henry says.
"I'm unfortunate enough to call that bastard my father." Mike crumbles, leaning on the chair Henry is sitting on.
"Okayy... And is your name Mike or Michael?" Gregory asks, pointing at Mike.
"My real name is Michael Afton, but Mike Schmidt is a fake name I use." Mike explains. "Though Mike has always been my nickname too, I prefer it over my actual name nowadays."
"Gregory, where are your parents?" Henry asks.
"I don't know." Gregory glares at the floor. "I'm an orphan and I've got no memories of my parents."
An awkward silence falls into the house until Mike breaks it. "So are you two hungry?"
"A little, yes." Henry chuckles.
Gregory's stomack growls as an answer.
"I'll take that as a 'Yes'." Mike chuckled as he took off his shoes and skipped to the kitchen.
Gregory has to admit, for a dead guy, Mike's cooking is quite good. At least for Gregory, who has survived the past year off of food scraps, stolen can food or free pizza from the Pizzaplex. After eating Gregory began to doze off and without noticing, he fell asleep.
When he woke up the next day, it was a bit past 2 PM. Gregory was laid on the sofa with a blanket covering him. Henry was sitting on the kitchen table with a newspaper in his hand. When he noticed that Gregory was awake he smiled softly at him.
"Good morning. Mike left a few hours ago, if you're wondering." He said as he went back to the newspaper.
Gregory sat up, the blanket falling off of him in the process.
6th of April
"Tomorrow." Gregory said out loud.
"Hm?" Henry looked up from the newspaper, setting it down.
"The fire happens tomorrow."
Henry looked off to the side. "It's the only way, Gregory. Only fire can kill them."
"Then why is that William guy still kicking around in the future?"
"Not sure." Henry said. "My best guess would be that he somehow either manages to escape the fire or Hell itself."
"How can I get home?" Gregory asks.
Henry folds his newspaper. "I don't know, buddy."
Gregory frowns. He spent the rest of his day watching movies that Henry had until at 9 PM he got an idea.
"If I somehow came through the ballpit, wouldn't it be logical for it to take me back?" Gregory wondered out loud.
Well, Henry's opinion didn't really matter, since Gregory had already bolted out of the house by the time he processed Gregory's theory.
"I'm surprised at how I actually managed to remember the way back." Gregory thought as he pushed through the crowd of leaving quests.
"Mike!" He shouted when the man came into view.
Mike turned to look at him. "Oh, hello buddy. Did ya need something?"
"Can I try if the ballpit could send me back into the future?" Gregory asks.
Mike looks a bit stunned, but he nods nonetheless. "Of course, this place wouldn't be very safe for you anyway."
Gregory skips to the ballpit. Before he jumps in he turns to look at Mike. "Thanks." He says before he jumps in to see if he can go home.
Gregory was able to see a glimpse of Mike waving goodbye to him before his head disappeared beneath the colorful balls. It goes silent for a while. Then a familiar music plays in the distance. Gregory lifts his head up.
He's back at the Pizzaplex!
His Faz-watch beebed into life and Gregory immediately called Freddy. The animatronic bear came running from the second floor.
"Freddy!" Gregory exclaimed when the bear spotted him.
"Gregory! Are you alright?" Freddy asked once he reached the boy.
"Mhm, Vanny chased me a bit, but I'm fine now." Gregory nodded.
"That is good to hear, Superstar." Freddy gently patted Gregory's head. "It is almost 6 AM! You'll be able to go home in no time!"
Gregory made an agreeing hum as he climbed into Freddy's chest cavity. Gregory couldn't however shake the unnerving feeling.
William Afton was still on the loose.