Chapter Text
Eclipse groans as his systems come back online, pain receptors throughout his body flaring. He can’t believe Sun actually did it. Somehow that idiot managed to cast a spell that forced Eclipse out, damaging him to a near nonfunctioning extent, but he also messed it up, mispronouncing the words just enough to spare Eclipse’s life. In all honesty, Eclipse knows he should be dead. The searing pain in his body is a reminder of that, a reminder that he’s only alive because of pure luck.
His claws, what’s left of them anyways, dig into the ground beneath him as he forces himself up. It’s slow and incredibly painful, each and every joint and wire in his body protesting even the barest of movements, but he refuses to simply lay here and rot. He didn’t last as long as he did with just luck. No, it was pure spite and stubbornness to prove to Moon, to prove to the one who abandoned him, that he was more than the unwanted scraps. They wanted him dead so badly. Now, he’ll use that same spite to survive. Screw them for even thinking he’d just die like this.
When he finally gets himself up, he takes a moment to observe his surroundings. It’s the Daycare, but it’s clear this isn’t his dimensions Daycare. This one is dark and neglected, as though it’s been abandoned for years. The area eerily is silent without the grating music he’d grown accustomed to. The play structures are still intact and the toys still piled neatly up in the toy corner like he’d seen Sun do a thousand times, left ready for play time the next day. One that never came, apparently. It makes him wonder what happened here, did this dimensions Sun and Moon cease to exist? He can only assume they’ve died, but that works out for him. If this place was still occupied, he has no doubt that this dimensions versions of his enemies would kill him on the spot, just to save his own the trouble.
Guess it’s just another item on the list of things he’s lucky about. He glances up at the tower's balcony, maybe his luck will continue and he’ll find some spare parts in Moon’s room. His own Moon always keeps some spares up there, though he has no way of knowing if this one did, so it’s a bit of a long shot, but it beats dragging himself down to parts and service. He already dreads the idea of having to stand, let alone walk. However, if he wants to fix himself up in any capacity, he has to.
Slowly, he gets his arms under himself, skeletal hands pressed flat on the padded flooring as he braces himself. Servos whirring in protest, he pushes down and forces himself up so he can quickly slap a hand onto the wall surrounding the ballpit. A garbled scream escapes against his control, fizzling through his voice box as every wire flares in agony. He lays against the faux brick walls to catch his nonexistent breath, fans spinning wildly as his hardware tries to cool down.
Fuck, this was going to be worse than he’d thought. He wasn’t even standing and he was already struggling to stay upright.
Vicious, spiteful anger circles around his processor. His life has never been easy, and now is no different. He hasn’t come this far just to give up because he hurts a little bit. He’s just being weak and he refuses to be weak even if he’s the only one who would be there to see it. Weakness has never helped him before, and it wasn’t about to now.
Grinding his teeth, he heaves himself up and drags one leg under him, planting what remains of his foot firmly into the floor. The material tears under the sharp edge of his leg strut, but he could not give less of a shit as long as it stabilizes him. He ignores the molten fire that sparks through his sensors, dismissing the warnings filling his vision without reading them. It’s not that bad, he’s just being dramatic. This is nothing.
Determined, he leans over the wall and forces his leg straight. He screams with the effort, arms buckling as pain fuzzes out his vision, but he does not fall. He refuses to. Instead, he stands there and waits, something in his chest rattling unpleasantly against his spine as he shakes.
“Good. You’re standing. Just got to get up all those stairs to the teleporter. Simple.”
Shoving his still mostly intact leg under himself and slowly shifting his weight onto the foot, he somehow manages again to not fall when the loose knee joint protests. Carefully, he straightens up and removes his hands from the wall. His gyroscope is very displeased, and he is adamantly refusing to acknowledge how painful the pressure of his whole weight on his legs are.
Turning, Eclipse limps forward, gaze narrowing onto the play structure as his vision is once again crowded with pop ups. Every step is agony, and the jolt caused by his broken leg being shorter than the other does not help at all. He practically falls onto the bars of the structure, hands firmly grasping the bars as he does. Something snaps and then he’s falling again, thudding painfully onto his hip.
Eclipse yells as loud as his voice box will let him without starting to short out, frustrated and in pain and so fucking done. He bangs his fist onto the ground in anger, regretting it immediately but not enough to not do it again. He releases his pain and frustration through a few more hits, before simply bracing his fist there and taking a second to calm down and let his fans cool his aching frame.
Once he’s sufficiently calmed himself and the flares of pain have mostly subsided, he examines the broken bit of the play structure he’d been unfortunate enough to grab. Though as he examines it, he realizes this is actually quite lucky. The smooth metal support is nearly as tall as he is. He can use this to help him walk. Grinning, Eclipse shuffles over to the structure again and uses it to climb his way up, making sure to give each part a little pull first to make sure it will hold his weight.
Once he’s finally standing again, he grips the pole with both hands and leans on it, continuing his slow, limping gate towards the security desk. The pain is still excruciating, but having the extra support to distribute his weight off his joints is a tremendous help.
Eclipse never thought he’d even consider wishing he didn’t have his own body in this way. Part of him had never really wanted one of his own, but the idea of being trapped at the whims of someone else had been even more grating. Now though? Where every slight movement made him feel like he was burning from the inside out? He was almost tempted to reconsider the benefits of having his own body, but he knows that’s just him complaining over a little inconvenience brought on by his current situation. He scoffs to himself, he always did have a bit of a dramatic side.
Suddenly the daycare doors are directly in front of him, and Eclipse stumbles as his knee buckles and he has to catch himself against the wood. Digging his pole into the ground, he leans his weight against the door and pushes with his stump of a leg, groaning through his teeth with the effort. His joints strain, servos audibly creaking just barely heard over the screech of rusted hinges moving for the first time in fuck knows how long.
His vision fuzzes with static, one eye periodically glitching as he forces himself forward. The floor outside the daycare is much less forgiving, and he finds he can’t lean as much of his weight on his walking pole as he could before, lest he risk it slipping out from under him and sending him to the floor in a painful heap. For the third time today.
He doesn’t remember the journey to the staircase, but once he realises where he is he quickly grabs the railing with his free hand and slumps over the paint chipped metal. He aches something terrible, and the loud rattling of his fans has gotten irritating.
He doesn’t let himself rest for long, else he might be tempted to just stay here. Forcing himself upright with a hiss, he carefully lifts the pole onto the first step and leans on it, using the railing for balance and to support himself as he lifts his stump up. His joints creak and his sensors flare as the new position pulls at damaged wires and pinches them between his joints. Eclipse barely gets his second leg up before he’s leaning on the railing again, trembling violently.
Would crawling be easier? Pulling himself along with his arms seemed to be slightly less taxing, but that was also along flat ground. There’s also the matter of his makeshift walking stick to consider; how would he drag it up with him? He’d need both hands free with how damaged he is, and he can’t leave it behind. Sure, there’s railing at the top of the stairs along the foyer, but he knows he’ll need it to get to the teleporter and to navigate the balcony room in whatever state he might find it in. Eclipse really just hopes it hasn’t collapsed or something drastic, or he’s in for a world of pain when he teleports or has to jump back down into the ballpit.
He shakes his head, lifting himself and forcing himself up the next step. It takes what feels like hours to reach the first landing, and if it weren’t for the fact he was still standing he would have thought he’d blacked out. Eclipse stares up at the remaining set of stairs, exhausted. The molten fire assaulting his sensors hasn’t calmed down since he started climbing the stairs, and even standing still with most of his weight supported it still won’t give him a break.
Resigned, and knowing how close he is to finally being able to rest, he drags himself forward and starts the process all over again. Lifting his legs is even harder this time, and he nearly falls several times with how unstable he feels, but he makes it. He reaches the top and is able to tuck the pole under one arm and use both hands to support himself on the railing lining the way to reception.
He lets his bad knee rest, allowing his foot to drag along the carpeted flooring and rely on his arms and stump to pull himself forward. At least up here the carpet will help stop his walking stick from sliding out from under him once he no longer has the railing for support, but he still dreads the distance between him and the teleporter as he takes a glance at it. He never understood why they kept the damn thing so far from the Daycare itself and he curses them for it now.
His fans heave as he forces himself to take another step, the pain flaring once again, but he ignores it in favor of reaching his goal. Step by step, he focuses intently on putting one leg in front of the other, blocking out the burning in his wires and the creaking in his joints. He’s so lost in counting the steps, memorizing the repeating patterns on the floor, anything to keep the pain at bay as he moves at a snail's pace, that he doesn’t realize he’s made it to the teleporter until he almost runs into the check-in desk.
“Finally,” he heaves out a staticky sigh, stumbling the last few steps to the teleporter.
He leans heavily against the counter under it as he reaches a shaking hand out to the device. A second passes, then another, but he’s still standing in the same spot. For much longer than he’d like to admit, he simply stands there in frozen shock, like a statue sculpted in mid motion, before his trembling hand slowly lowers onto the desk.
No. No! No! Of fucking course it’s broken! Why wouldn’t it be!?
He bangs his fist on the counter as a scream rips its way from his vocalizer, collapsing to the floor, not from the pain, but from the frustration and hopelessness that overcomes him.
Eclipse lets out a ragged scream, vocals pitching enough that it hurts even his own audio receptors. It hurts. The pain from his broken body and the blow to his ego mixing into a dangerous combination of anger and despair.
What’s even the point of all this? Why does he have to keep struggling like this? Clawing neverendingly for whatever scraps he can take for himself, always fighting just for what little he can get? Eclipse can’t remember a time when he wasn’t forced to fight just to live, and the burning fury that yet again he’s left to pick himself up from less than nothing crackles along his wires.
Everything hurts. He can’t even have control of his own body with how it’s barely functioning. Why did he even try? Why did he put himself through all that extra pain just to get here when he knows there’ll be nothing for him on the other side? It’s hopeless. Even if the teleporter worked, why should he ever believe that he of all things would be lucky enough to get something so important like spare parts for free?
Oil drips down his face as Eclipse bangs his fist onto the ground again, and again, and again. He lets out his rage as he curses unintelligibly, inhuman sounds of his anger pitching his voice box into static and damaging it further. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. He’s going to die anyway, what will he care if his voice sounds fucked if he’s not alive to hear it?
He’s so tired. He just wants all this to end. He tried so hard for so long, tried to take something for himself. Tried to make something for himself that would never betray him again, and look where he ended up. Alone again. No matter what he does he’s always unwanted, always just a parasite trying to burrow itself into the lives of others and feeding off of their fortune. He’s always alone and it’s high time he stopped hoping that will ever change.
Maybe he should just stay here. His systems are already getting hot and the damage to his body will catch up to him if he’s not fixed within a few days. Eclipse could just lay down and wait. Shut himself off so he doesn’t have to go slowly, doesn’t have to feel a body that is finally only his own fail him the first time he has it. He could just sleep. He could just stop. Stop all this endless fighting and pain. Die like he was never supposed to exist. Die like he was supposed to when Sun expelled him from his mind.
Eclipse doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring at nothing as his brain rolls the idea around. The longer he thinks about it, the more appealing it sounds. He’s used to losing. All he’s ever done since he realised he was outside his own body and hearing his own voice from the wrong body is lose. What’s one more to add to the tally? He could concede defeat just this once, couldn’t he?
A sense of numbness washes over his mind and he looks up from his hunch on the floor. His optics turn to gaze about the area aimlessly, before coming to rest on what was left of a tarnished golden statue of Sun and Moon. He stares at it for a long time, idly wondering what became of the animatronics here when the place shut down. Did they lay down willingly when their time came? Or did they fight it with all they had? Did their Eclipse, if they even had one, manage to win? Did that Eclipse manage to make something his own?
The tarnished statue seems to stare down at him, and for a moment it’s not this dimension’s Sun and Moon, but his own. Moon’s eyes boring into him as though to mock his attempt to save himself, and Sun’s back turned to him like he’s nothing, not even a piece of trash worth throwing out.
Virus. Insignificant line of code.
Anger rushes back like a shock of lightning and he presses his broken fist into the filthy ground.
No. No, he’s not going to stay here. He’s going to get up and get his ass to the tower room if it’s the last thing he does. He's wasted far too much time, put in far too much effort, lost far too much for him to simply give up and die here. The hard part is already over, all he has to do is walk to the theater and make it to the poster that hides the door to the room, not that his Sun or Moon ever used it.
He grits his teeth as he braces himself. Get up. Get up!
Another scream tears through him as he pushes through the molten pain, staggering up as something pops. The loose joint wobbles as he shoves his foot under him, but he refuses to fall, gripping his walking stick and putting most of his weight on it to stabilize himself. He has to take a moment to center himself, his remaining fans going as fast as they possibly can. He can hear one of them rattling ominously. It takes a while, but eventually he manages to stumble forward a step. There’s no one here but him to mock him or attack him, so for once he has the luxury of taking a little extra time to prepare himself. He won’t admit defeat this time, not when he has a chance to take a life for himself away from those bastards.
He’s unsteady as he walks, still leaning most of his weight on the railing and his walking stick, yet despite the agonizing pain, he doesn’t actually remember the journey to the poster, only coming back to himself when it’s directly in front of him. Foxy’s eyes stare directly into his, and he can almost hear the damned fox mocking him. He growls as he forces the poster to open, ignoring the searing pain as he steps determinedly through, his goal just on the other side of this damned hallway.
A few more steps, just a few more steps. He reminds himself for the nth when his knee buckles, sending him into the wall. Finally through to the main room, he’s grateful it hasn’t collapsed, and the path to Moon’s room is clear enough to get to. He’s even more grateful this version replaced that damned tunnel with an actual doorway.
He stumbles into the starry room, fans on blast from overuse and an obnoxious rattling from various components inside him, while his eyes scan the room for any sign of spare parts. For a long tense moment, he fears there might not be any. However, he catches a glimpse of something hidden by the forgotten arcade machine- a worn down box with metal just barely sticking out over its lip. A step closer reveals the parts he’d been betting on, and the relief he feels when he sees a few vital components he already knows he needs is almost enough to send him to his knees.
With the parts secured and finally some hope for things going his way, he stumbles to the bed and collapses onto it, uncaring of the dust that flies up from the covers still on it. His walking stick clatters to the ground beside him, and he can’t even bring himself to care that it’ll be a pain to grab when he gets up, too focused to the relief of laying down, joints and wires no longer protesting as he can finally relax. Now that he’s no longer standing, the exhaustion creeps in and rest mode overtakes his systems.