Chapter Text
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William sits completely still outside the vents. He can hear Molten Freddy screeching as he retreats, and Lefty muttering things under her breath.
Or should he say someone else entirely when he refers to Molten?
He knows that Funtime Freddy couldn't leave the underground, unless he used the body of a human. Nobody would allow an Animatronic to escape the underground. While he seems possessed, that seems unlikely either way. The scooper could possibly have been used as a weapon to be able to crawl into the stomach of a human and possibly take control like a puppet... but Funtime Freddy was too stupid for that, and he doesn't traverse the facility anyway, so he doesn't even know if the control rooms or the other auditoriums. Circus Baby? Sure, she could've. She was smart enough, too, but this thing wasn't Circus Baby. He knew how he designed her personality. Ballora? Ha. She probably wanted to escape the underground, but she wouldn't resort to straight stealing and murder just for that useless goal. It was just how she was designed. Funtime Foxy? Hmm... probably not. She would be like Circus Baby, but she wouldn't be able to pull it off, and she wouldn't sacrifice the other Funtimes for her goal.
So who this robot really is, William doesn't know. If it isn't the four, it had to have been another robot who came in and sacrificed at least Funtime Freddy for its own goals as it somehow escaped the underground. If it had a human form... it should been using one now. So that means that it should've gotten a skinsuit, but somehow lost it, so it became reduced to this form again.
William sighs. Why is he attacking this nightguard anyway? Thinking about it seriously, there isn't a point to continue killing all these nightguards. What would it acomplish? An extra death under his belt. That's about it. He doesn't need more of those, does he? Thatd why he's here in the first place, after all. "What goes around, comes around," Henry would say.
"Are you gonna move, or should I?" Lefty hisses beside him. "You know what, I don't care. I'm going anyway." She doesn't wait for a response, as she crawls into the right vent in a hurry and speeds down it.
William's alone, with nothing but his thoughts to occupy him.
Lefty hates him, that much was clear. And it's very obvious as to why.
How Lefty ended up in this dump, William isn't sure. He is sure, however, that the robot had done its job. The Marionette is inside of it, meaning that Charlie is most likely controlling it.
Then why is she trying to attack this nightguard? Well, William doesn't know that either. Sue him, he can't read people's minds. He doesn't know why humans do half of the things they do. Maybe she's taking out her anger on the nightguard. Or at least trying. Maybe... just maybe... there's a short possibility Charlie isn't controlling it at all, and Henry had programmed the thing to hate him. Another thing he doesn't know. He hates not knowing things.
His mind wanders to his family next.
His family. The family that he crushed with his desires and obsessions.
Evelyn, his wife. Who'd gone missing in 1987. He hasn't seen a trace of her since. He still misses her now. He still feels guilty for ruining her life. It wasn't her fault.
Michael, who probably hates his guts and was thinking of a plan to exterminate him from the shadows. Maybe William went too far with the Nightmares. Yes, he thinks this. Maybe he was a little too angry for Evan's death.
Evan...
Evan, the fragile and easily breakable child that had gotten his frontal lobe chopped off by Fredbear's teeth. William hadn't seen him since, either. He thinks his experiment with him and Goldern Freddy didn't work. That irritates him.
And Elizabeth, the child with his stubbornness and imagination. He didn't see anything of her after the day Evan was bitten... he assumed she'd gone to see Circus Baby after all. If she did, would she possess the animatronic like William intended. Hopefully she did. Though she wasn't the best child, either, she was William's favourite, and that has to mean something at least.
I suppose that's my fault. William sighed. Just like everything else.
"Hey, shit-for-brains."
William opens his eyes and searches immediately for the female voice. He frowns (as much as he can inside this thing) as he sees a figure standing by the door to the maintenance room, where the two were. She had shut the door behind her.
"Who are you?" William hisses back. Unknowingly, she'd shut off the only exit to him. If the place burned like his last one did, she better get out the way-
"Is that important?" The girl (teen?) frowns. She stepped into the sight of the barely working light in the room, and William looks her over more closely.
She has messy, curly ginger hair, tied into a ponytail around the back. She wears a zipped up blue jacket, and fingerless gloves (is that a style these days?). She has a dirty red tie on. Her bright green eyes seem to glow slightly as she smiles creepily.
"Yes," William narrows his eyes. "Moreover, why are you here? And who are you?"
"Now those are the questions I was hoping to answer!" She laughs as she grabs her wrist, tilting it to face her. "Now, the nightguard probably doesn't know anything about this, but meh, who cares?"
William watches the teen's movements very carefully. She presses down on her wrist, and William frowns at the small 'click' that resounded in the room.
"Illusion Disk, powering off."
William freezes in place as the teen in front of him morphs into someone he knows all too well. She becomes shorter, her clothes changing into a dark pink jacket instead, the sleeves pulled up to reveal bandages and purple skin - rot (she rotted?). He backs up slowly as he looks into her glowing eyes, now a heterochromatic blue and red. Her red eye has a black sclera, probably caused from the rotting. She glares into his eyes. Her horns look sharp enough to murder someone smoothly.
William swallows. If she's here, then-
"William!" Elizabeth Afton greets with a wide smile, clearly fake. "Father, dad, psychopath, etcetera etcetera, should I move on to why I'm here?"
"I'd rather you didn't," William chokes out. He already knows.
"Well, I'll do it anyway!" Elizabeth chirps, reaching into her pockets. She pulls something out, and makes sure to let him see what it is.
A box of matches. And a lighter.
I knew it.
"I'm sure you're smart enough to understand?" She tilts her head innocently, not waiting for a response.
"You're going to burn everyone else, too?" William hisses.
"Meh, I don't think any of them care. Michael? Definitely not, he wants this to happen anyway. Henry? Burning this place down is his intention, too. Charlie? She wants to rest, so I doubt it. Not that she has much choice anyway. Ennard? Mmm... maybe they don't want it, but they'll be fine. You? You don't want to burn, but sue you for being an asshole. And me? I'm willing to die 1000 times if it means you get to die with me," Elizabeth chuckles. "You look surprised."
"Michael? And Henry, he's here too?" William asks. "They trapped us here on purpose?"
"You didn't know that?" Elizabeth looks up, surprised, before her expression smooths back into a smirk. "Jeez. You've devolved."
"So I'm going to burn anyway," William mutters.
"Pretty much." Elizabeth shrugs like it's nothing, with a heavy sigh. "I just want you to know, I regret nothing."
"You played right into our hands," Lefty suddenly says to the nightguard - Michael, he now knows - in the room a couple meters away. Elizabeth grins.
What is she saying?
"Did you really think this job just... fell out of the sky for you?" Lefty continues. Elizabeth flicks the top of the lighter off, and William feels himself tense. Elizabeth grins wider at his suspense.
"No. This was a gift, for us." Lefty insists. William wants to tell her to shut up. To stop talking. That there's more to worry about.
"You gathered them altogether, in one place,"
William moves back. Elizabeth snaps her gaze back to him, holding up the box of matches. A threat.
"Just like he asked you to. All of those souls... in one place."
"Charlie, shut up," William hisses under his breath. Elizabeth lights the lighter. The place lights up with a menacing orange tint.
"Charlie?" She asks as she tilts her head. "Does that sound like Charlie?"
"You're saying that she isn't possessing Lefty?" William snarls back, ignoring Lefty's next line in her monologue.
"She's in there, but she can't possess Lefty," Elizabeth answers. "Uncle Henry created it that way. Stupid, if you ask me."
"Though, Lefty has her memories for some reason. Why else would she say it was for Henry?" Elizabeth thinks aloud for him.
"Watch. Listen. And be full," Lefty finishes, and William notes that Elizabeth's right - Charlie wouldn't say these things. As the Marionette, she had been trying to release all of the souls chasing him down. Maybe she did. He didn't seem to notice them inside Molten - which means injecting the Funtimes with their remnant didn't work. That's annoying.
He feels his body freeze as Elizabeth lights the first match, and releases it to the floor. She's really doing this.
"Connection terminated."
Henry.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, LEFTE," Henry says coldly. He probably regrets nothing. "But I'm afraid you've been misinformed."
He hears Lefty mutter, "Dad?" Elizabeth is correct - Lefty has Charlie's memories. It's another mystery for William to solve. Though he thinks he doesn't have long to solve it.
"Shit," William rears back as the room starts heating up. Elizabeth scrunches her nose.
"You are not here to receive a gift."
"Fuck it," she hisses. "He's stealing my spotlight."
She grabs the whole box of matches.
"Elizabeth wait!" William calls out. Desperation.It was the only emotion he's feeling right now.
Elizabeth stops.
But only to revel in his desperation.
"Nor have you been called here by the individual that you assume, although you have, indeed, been called," Henry continues.
Elizabeth's eye twitches.
"It sucks that only this room is gonna burn by my hands," Elizabeth sighs sarcastically. "Eh, Henry will burn everything else anyway."
"Wait-" William says again.
"I'm not waiting," Elizabeth interrupts with a snarl. "Say goodbye!"
And she lights the whole box of matches, the box included. She specifically tosses the fire towards him, and he scrambles to get as far away as possible. He doesn't hear the rest of Henry's speech, the sound being covered by his own screaming and snarling for Elizabeth to let him out of this hell. Elizabeth simply stands there and watches, grin on her face as she gets to watch her wretched father burn. She's burning too, of course, but she would do anything to make sure William falls into the deep pits of hell and despair.
Henry continues through his struggles, complimenting Charlie for her efforts and calling William a monster a couple of times. Congratulating Michael for his help and letting everyone else know that they're working together to set everyone free.
By that point, William had already passed.
And he had no preparation for what was happening next.
"Welcome to the depths of your personal hell, Father."