Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mike doesn’t mean to find the kid, and he’s pretty sure the kid didn’t want to be found either. They’re in a massive concrete room, devoid of color and life excluding the checkered tiles, with a solitary ball pit right at the center. Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizza Plex has a lot of unnecessarily empty rooms, but this was taking the whole damn cake. 

“What are you doing in there, kid?” Mike asks, keeping his flashlight away from the child’s eyes. 

“None of your business,” the kid retorts smartly. 

Quite the mouth on you. “Well, you can’t sleep in there. Or anywhere in the building.” 

The kid glares at him, amber eyes fierce. “I know what trespassing is, dumbass.” 

Mike rolls his eyes as he approaches the scowling child. As he nears something wells up in his throat, seeing the blue striped shirt and messy brown hair. It reminds him of a past he’d rather not remember. 

“I wasn’t gonna sleep here anyway,” says the kid as he stands. The lump in Mike’s throat grows when he spots the khaki shorts and red shoes. Abandoning the thoughts that linger in the back of his mind, Mike noticed something he’d somehow missed earlier. Slicing across the child’s left cheek is a long but shallow gash, bleeding sluggishly. Instead of grief, the lump returns as concern. Was there something sharp inside the ball pit he needed to fish out?

“You’re bleeding, kid.” He points gently as the boy steps out the ball pit. Said child frowns, reaching up to touch the cut on his cheek in confusion. “Oh,” is all he utters. “I didn’t know.”

“Is there anything sharp in there I should know about?” Mike inquires. The kid blinks, twisting his torso to gaze at the lonely ball pit before turning back, bewilderment written all over his round face. “No, I…I don’t remember anything.” He murmurs in shock. His eyes widened, boring into Mike’s with panic. “I can’t remember anything!” 

Seeing the oncoming panic attack, Mike is quick to reassure the scared child as best he can with his mediocre social skills. “Hey, kid. It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not!” The child wails, near to tears.

Mike tries a different tactic to calm the kid down. “Well, what’s your name?” 

Peering into Mike’s eyes, the boy’s panicking eases as he gives his question some thought. “…G-Gregory.” He eventually answers. “My name’s Gregory.” 

“Okay. Good.” Mike encourages. “We’ll start with that. Now let’s take care of that bleeding, hm?” 

Gregory nods, his breaths slowing. Mike reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a bandaid. Good thing he had several on hand. With his sleeve, Mike wipes the excess blood away from Gregory’s face and plasters on the bandaid, smoothing it out with a thumb. “There. All set.” 

“Thanks.” 

Mike only shrugs, unused to receiving kindness. “No big deal. Let’s get outta here, yeah?” 

Gregory nods again, this time more eagerly. Mike holds out his hand for the boy to take, but he doesn’t comply. “I’m a big kid,” is his reasoning. He’s honestly kind of surprised the kid is following him so willingly. Didn’t his parents teach him about stranger-danger?

Together they leave the drab room, into more lively and colorful areas. As the duo walks down a hallway with red doors and checkered bands lining the walls, Gregory pipes up, “What’s your name?” 

Right. He forgot to introduce himself. How rude. “I’m Mike.”

Gregory’s eyebrow jumps inquisitively. “Mike…?”

“Just Mike.”

Soon after, they enter the brightly lit lounge area donned with neon lights, checked walls and floors, and that giant obnoxious statue standing poised in front of the entry gates, fenced in by expertly sculpted palm trees. It’s been a while since Mike was in a Fazbear’s location, but he’s pretty sure none of them had California palm trees as part of its theme. Mike has also thought of burning it down before—it wasn’t the first time he’s committed arson. 

“Jesus,” the child groans, blocking the bright fluorescent lights with a tiny hand, “Why is it so damn bright in here?”

“Do you ever stop swearing?” Mike can’t help but ask in half-horror and half-amusement. Gregory gathers himself from blindness, snapping back, “I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

Mike is ready to retort when a sudden loud noise interrupts their little spat. Looking to the glass double doors he watches as a massive green grate lowers itself over the doors for the night. 

“Fuck!” Mike swears, “I lost track of time!”

“Wow,” Gregory drawls, though his wide eyes give away his nervousness, “Such an awesome babysitter.”

“Shut up.” Mike growls. God, can this kid get any more annoying? He approaches the grate blocking their way out, ramming on it with his fists. “Hey!” He calls, uselessly as it is. “Let us out!” Spotting a camera at a small corner pointing to the sealed grate, Mike waves his arms widely, but stops when he notices the red blinking light isn’t even on.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Gregory sighs morosely from behind him. 

“No, we’re not.” Mike whirls around to the kid, plastering a false smile on his aged face. “We’ll be just fine, I know it!” Gregory scoffs, rolling his eyes, turning away from him. 

“What now?” He asks impatiently, disappointment clear in his voice.

God, I fucked this up already? “Now we wait.” His words are trailed off like a question and Gregory picks up the implication immediately. His eyes snap towards Mike’s. 

“Wait for what?” 

He really doesn’t want to scare the child any further, but he knew in every Fazbear location he’s worked at, the animatronics always got a little quirky at night. Sometimes he wonders if it’s some curse that follows him at every step instead of just being plain haunted by the vengeful spirits of murdered children. 

Mike sighs, rubbing at his eyes in exhaustion. Let's not sugarcoat it for the kid.  “The animatronics are probably going to try and attack you and I at some point during the night.”

“What?” Gregory squawks, rightfully alarmed. “Are all the stories true?”

Mike blinks at him owlishly.  “I thought you had amnesia.”

Gregory blushes, caught out. “Well,” he chuckles nervously, “I kinda do. I mean, I don’t remember anything before the ball pit but I know some stuff!” Seeing that Mike isn’t satisfied with his answer, he patches on, “I’ve heard the rumors. Ghosts haunting the animatronics, right?” He wiggles his fingers for emphasis. 

So what he’s describing is textbook amnesia, but he can somehow still remember basic external things that don’t relate to his personal life? “Like the Maze Runner.” He murmurs to himself. 

“Maze what?” Gregory interrupts his train of thought, face screwed up in confusion. Mike only shakes his head, dismissing his own statement. Those Gen Alpha kids nowadays…

“Anyway,” Mike says suddenly, clapping his hands. “We need to find a hiding spot.” He spots the kid watching him, and quickly adds, “And maybe get some snacks.” 

“Shoplifting!” Gregory cheers, “Yes!”

Mike smiles lightly, pointing at Gregory playfully. “But we’re getting healthy snacks, not junk food!” 

Gregory’s responding groan echoes throughout the empty atrium. “Aw, man!” Mike only laughs at the poor kid’s expense. 

Chapter Text

After getting some Fazbear-themed protein bars (which Gregory nearly gagged at the sight), Mike and him set off to find a hiding place. While eating, they’d discussed where they would hunker down for the night. Gregory suggested one of the arcade rooms so he can play an infinite amount of old games, but Mike reminded him he’d have to find a pass card to access the machines, or even any other room that wasn’t for pure entertainment. 

“Why can’t we just use tokens?” Gregory whines dramatically, slumping against Mike despondently. Mike huffs, shoving the kid off his arm. “Tokens are the thing of the past, kid. Cards are its replacement.”

Gregory only grumbles, munching on his protein bar. He swallows, pretending to gag again, which Mike notes but chooses not to react. Kids these days are always so eager for any kind of attention. As they walk from one of the snack areas, an eerie creaking noise catches Mike’s attention, followed by the thud of heavy footsteps very unlike a regular person’s. Finally, he thinks, those buckets of bolts are awake.

“Who wants candy?” A familiar, high-pitched but distorted voice chirps from afar. 

“Oh, shit!” Gregory squeaks, and the thudding footsteps get faster. Oh, shit indeed. “Go!” Mike orders, gripping the kid’s bicep as they break into a run. “Go, go, go!” 

“I didn’t know they could run!” Gregory exclaims breathlessly. 

“Me neither!” Mike agrees, looking back to see Chica—in all her glittery pink, white, and green glory, trailing behind them, her form slouched and sluggish. Despite her poor posture, it didn’t stop the increasing speed she gained. 

Holy fuck that’s terrifying! Mike nearly shrieks like a little girl when Chica makes a close swipe at them, though strangely enough it doesn’t seem to be aimed at Mike himself. Instead her robotic hand grasps uselessly for Gregory’s much shorter form. 

Thinking only on instinct, and not wanting another unfortunate soul to be taken by the hands of Fazbear Entertainment, Mike scoops up the child princess style and picks up his pace into a sprint as Chica clucks discordantly behind them. 

“Hey!” Gregory protests, squirming, “I’m not a baby!”

“Doesn’t matter!” Mike wheezes, slowly losing momentum. In front of him, he spies an open door—red like all the others—and jumps inside just as Chica lunges for him. Inside, Mike slams the door shut with a good kick to the metal surface. Gregory squirms out of his arms and onto the floor.

As they recuperate, Chica rams herself into the door from outside the room, squealing like an animal, but the structure holds strong.

“Take that, Chica!” Gregory laughs, relief evident.

Mike wipes a hand down his sweaty face, regaining his breath once more. “Since when could they run like that?” He asks himself in disbelief, but gets no answers. Hands on his knees he takes several calming breaths before standing upright. 

Wobbling slightly from the adrenaline rush, Mike takes in the room they’d entered: it was an office, with a large desk holding a clearly outdated computer. Around them is some scattered furniture and papers, as if someone had left in a rush. 

“What’re you doing?” Gregory asks when Mike begins shuffling through sheets of paper, opening drawers, and looking under the desk. 

“I’m looking for a play pass card.” He replies. “Or something to use as a weapon against those clankers.” 

Gregory pitches in, helping Mike search for something useful, humming quietly under his breath. Mike can’t recognize the song, though it sounds familiar. Chica’s incessant ramming at the door finally ceases and they’re enveloped in blissful quiet. 

“Gregory…” Chica’s voice warbles through the door menacingly. 

Said child doesn’t waste a second. “Shut up, you stupid bird.” 

Mike snorts at the words. Who is this sassy lost child? Gregory would probably hit him if he called him “lost”, based on what he’s seen so far from his behavior. 

Thankfully, Chica seems to have lost interest in her rampage, and her footsteps grow quieter as she walks away. A triumphant noise escapes Gregory’s lips as he opens the right drawer and finds a pass card, the very words of its name etched into the plastic surface. “Aha! Found one!”

Mike grins, taking the card from the child when he hands it to him. “Good job.” And the child practically preens under the praise. “It looks like Chica’s gone, so I think we’re free to go.” 

But Gregory stops him from leaving the office with a hurried tug at his shirt sleeve. “What is it?” Mike asks worriedly, hoping Gregory wasn’t injured or worse. But that isn’t the case when he shows him a blue-and-orange watch with a tiny screen attached. “Oh, a Faz Watch! Lucky find, kid!” For emphasis, he ruffles the child’s hair, who giggles under the onslaught. 

Painfully, it reminds him of memories of another child, very unlike Gregory in personality, but sharing similar characteristics. Not now, he reminds himself. Turning his attention away from old pains of the past, he watches as Gregory fishes out a second Faz Watch, handing it to Mike, who thanks him. “Now we can communicate through the watches,” he says. 

Surprisingly, Gregory’s face is completely blank with confusion.

Mike sighs. “Do you know how to use these?” In which the child shakes his head. 

Quickly, Mike instructs the child on how to use the Fazbear watch, specifically how to access the maps, cameras, audio and video feeds. Gregory nods throughout it all and seems to understand the technology’s basic necessities. When they’re done packing away a handy crowbar, extra flashlight batteries, pocketing the pass card into an abandoned backpack, and snapping the watches onto their wrists, the duo makes sure no rogue robots are around before making their way to a door that gives them access with the card. During all this, Mike tells Gregory that they’re going to try and find an exit somewhere in this behemoth of a building, and reminds him they’ll likely be fighting the animatronics, and the emerging security bots as twilight nears. Mike insists firmly to not activate the security bots by staying well out of their range of sight, or else they will set off an alarm and alert the main attraction to Mike and Gregory’s location. 

“They can do that?” Gregory hisses under his breath, wide-eyed as they hide from a slew of the exact bots Mike is teaching him to steer clear of. “I didn’t know that!”

“Well, now you do.” Mike says. “They’re a lot more advanced than in the past, I’ll tell you that.”

Gregory’s interest is piqued. “What were the old ones like? I heard they could walk on their own.” Mike raises an eyebrow at those words, and Gregory huffs again. 

“I told you I don’t know anything about myself,” he rushes to explain, “but I remember things that… aren’t about me. Do you get it?” 

Not wanting an argument to spark, Mike nods in agreement. “I get it, kid. But yes, the older versions could walk on their own. It had been revolutionary back then.” 

Gregory has a small smile on his face. “That’s so cool.” 

A security bot rolls on its wheels past them, away from their vicinity. Mike signals to Gregory—Go! Run!—and they book it across the mall-like atrium. Mike is muttering under his breath as Gregory gasps beside him. Being older, Mike easily overtakes the kid but at the same time is wheezing. I need to get fit again and being sixty-something years old isn’t helping. Though he is thankful for the slightly youthful look, including a full mop of brunette hair, not a single strand of silver present. 

Another bot appears in front of them just at the most inconvenient time, and like clockwork an alarm blares from the bot itself, while several others of identical designs roll into the scene. Both caught and cornered, Mike and Gregory have nowhere to go. Mike, protectively, pulls the kid behind him, arm raised to shield him. 

The bots close in, clanky arms rising for a grab and creepy eyes wide with eerie attention. Growling, Mike flips the backpack from his back to his front and hurriedly pulls out the crowbar. He glances at the kid while keeping an eye on the amassing crowd of security bots. The main animatronics will be here any second. 

“Cover your ears, kid.” Mike warns, “It’s about to get real messy.” And the child obeys. 

He raises the heavy metal crowbar and just as one of the bots reaches for Gregory, he swings the weapon hard, and the bot’s arm is dislocated from its socket. “Let’s have some fun.” Mike snarls.

Chapter Text

“Holy shit!” Gregory exclaims after the fight is over. “That was…awesome!” 

Mike wheezes from exertion, holding the crowbar like a sword. Around him, several security bots are sprawled on the floor in pieces. It had been relatively easy to dismantle the bots, as they weren’t much of a threat compared to the band, but still a nuisance. 

Gregory continues to shout his amazement to the clouds. “You were like whoosh, bam, pow!” With these words, he mimes the actions Mike had done during the fight. The kid’s eyes are alight with joy, cheering for Mike, who laughs lightly. 

Stowing the crowbar back into his backpack, Mike grins at the kid, who stares up at him with stars in his eyes. Mike winces slightly, not used to being idolized. He’d spent most of his life being hated and an outcast, so this was uncharted territory. “Thanks, kid.”

“I’ll bet you’ll be even better with the other robots!”

“Eh,” Mike grimaces, “I don’t know about that.”

“Do you have a black belt in karate?” Gregory asks eagerly, still gazing at him intently. Mike chuckles, stepping over the strewn pieces of robots as he leads Gregory somewhere else. “No, I don’t. I have experience in fighting nonetheless.”

“That’s so cool!” 

Knowing the animatronics would surely be searching for them now, fully activated into hostility, Mike makes sure to keep guard on the kid and other rogue bots, not wanting a repeat of earlier. 

“What do we do now?” Gregory asks, struggling to keep pace with Mike’s long strides. But before Mike can speak, another voice erupts from nearby. 

“Hey!” Shouts a distinctly feminine voice. 

Gregory gasps, just as Mike twists around to see a rapidly approaching young woman—a fair-haired security guard based on her uniform—donning a fierce scowl on her face. Gregory’s face turns pallid with naked fear, surprising Mike. He’s then startled when Gregory immediately begins sprinting away from Mike, and the woman shouts a curse. 

Sparing a quick glance at the woman wielding a flashlight, Mike runs after Gregory and easily catches up to him, eventually losing sight of the night guard. With an arm at the kid’s shoulder he pulls him to a stop. “What is it, kid? What’s got you acting like this?”

“The lady,” Gregory gasps, “Something’s wrong with her.” 

Mike frowns. “What do you mean?”

Shuddering, Gregory stutters out a weak response. “I-I don’t know. She’s bad.” 

A smidgen of worry rises in Mike’s throat. “Bad?” 

Frustrated tears begin to well up in the child’s eyes. “I don’t know!” He says again. He looks absolutely petrified. Terrified of a mere woman scouting the place as part of her job. 

“She’s not good.” Gregory continues. “She’s evil.” At that, a flash of unfathomable fury flashes over Gregory’s face, the boy’s body trembling with intense emotions. Mike is frankly a little unsettled at the sudden change in behavior. “Kid?”

A shadow passes over Gregory’s face and his features return to normal, as if nothing had happened. “What?” He asks, blinking curiously at Mike, who stares at him owlishly. “What?” He snaps again, bringing Mike out of his stupor. 

“Nothing,” is all Mike says, not wanting to broach the subject anymore. How had the woman spooked Gregory so badly, if it was her doing at all? Mike had found this kid in a ball pit, and likely never saw the woman beforehand. So what caused his drastic behavior? Mike didn’t know. Had Gregory been traumatized by someone in his unknown past that elicited this response? He had no answers, and wouldn’t be getting any right now or anytime soon. 

Seeing Gregory is suddenly close to hyperventilating, Mike kneels to his level, keeping a firm hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Hey, kid.” 

Gregory glances at him, raw terror etched into his face. 

Mike remains calm. “Breathe with me.” Inhaling, he puts Gregory’s hand on his chest, and he starts following Mike’s rhythm. “Good. Now breathe in.” Inhale. “Breathe out.” Exhale. 

Eventually the kid’s breathing calms and Gregory nods to Mike’s encouraging words. “Thanks,” he says, looking away. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry. This is a scary place.”

“You think?” Gregory retorts, a sly grin spreading across his face. 

As they search for an exit, Mike can’t help but notice Gregory’s unusual silence. He usually would be crowing about fighting robots like Mike did, or whining about being hungry. Mike made sure to feed him another Fazbear protein bar, much to the child’s disgust, to stop the groans of hunger emitting from Gregory’s stomach. He’d even been completely silent about his own hunger pains, even as Mike gave him what he absolutely needed for a healthy growing boy. Mike himself doesn’t need as much as the kid, and he can go several hours to days without eating, even if it was a pain in the ass. 

Gregory seems to be thinking heavily, frowning at his own thoughts. Mike doesn’t know what he’s musing about, but he is sure that it’s about the woman from earlier. He also keeps thinking about that incident; how Gregory had gone so milky pale and had clearly been in fight-or-flight mode. Even with everything he knew, including this cursed place, Mike couldn’t fathom a reason why the kid had been so scared. He summed it up to untreated trauma of some sort. 

“You okay, kid?” Mike asks gently. 

“Mmhm.” 

That’s not really a yes or no.

Sensing the stubborn nature of the boy, Mike decides to let it go and leave the kid alone. He didn’t want to be bothered, it seems. 

They make their way down the mall atrium, past the Fazbear band themed restaurants and snack bars. Notably Mike doesn’t see any places serving alcohol, thank god. Soon the hall evolves from sleek tile to the classic arcade carpet flooring, neon bands of light streaming across the walls, too high for either Mike or Gregory to reach. 

“What now?” Gregory asks quietly after several long minutes of radio silence. Honestly Mike is glad he’s talking again. He doesn’t know the kid very well but he knows his current behavior is odd. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Mike begins slowly after a moment of quiet, piecing together his train of thought. “Chica tried to attack us. The security bots, too.” 

“Yeah? I was there.” 

Ignoring the snipe, Mike continues thinking aloud. “Either the animatronics are haunted again, or something is fucking with their servos.” 

“Dibs on haunted robots.” Gregory deadpans. 

A snort escapes Mike’s throat. “I’d rather have a servos malfunction than deal with hostile entities.” 

“I was joking.” Gregory groans, “Take a chill pill, jeez.” 

“Anyway. What I was thinking is we could trap one of those guys and restart them to cut out whatever is messing with their heads.”

“Okay… how are we gonna do that?” 

It did seem like an impossible situation, dealing with aggressive animatronics that are at least a foot or two taller than the average adult and much stronger than even the buffest bodybuilder. “Well,” Mike says carefully, “Plan A is brute strength. I’ve never wrestled down an animatronic but it wouldn’t hurt to try. We do have the crowbar in handy.” 

“Sounds like a death wish.” Gregory snarks. Mike shakes his head. Ha, har. Very funny, kid.

Mike raises his eyebrows, staring down at Gregory. “Sounds like a plan. And Plan B is for later.”

Chapter Text

Mike shields Gregory from approaching Chica, who still walks with that horrible hunched posture, eating trash of all things. Those poor mechanics are gonna have a hell of time cleaning out the rotten food from her endoskeleton. 

They had tracked her down using their Faz Watches, eventually finding her by a locked door that likely led to a dumpster, based on the heaps of stinking garbage bags piled next to the entryway. Mike can hear Gregory gagging at the pungent smell of decaying food. Likely tossed away pizza bits and the toppings that come with them. 

Gregory, before they enacted their devious plan, had suggested tackling the animatronics while they were distracted. Mike had countered that, saying it was too risky. Instead they both agreed on knocking one of the band members down with a swift swing of the crowbar. And here they are now, Mike psyching himself up to knock down one of these Fazbear creations. 

“Are you gonna do it yet?” Gregory whispers, much to Mike’s annoyance. 

“Stop asking me that.” Mike scowls at the child, who isn’t fazed by Mike’s irritation—hell, he seems to be reveling in it; to be the most annoying bratty child in Fazbear’s. Lifting the crowbar, Mike stands from his crouched position, trusting Gregory to stay in his place. Slowly he inches his way toward Chica, who at a closer range, is quite a bit taller than Mike’s 6’1 height. 

And with quick efficiency, Mike pummels the back of Chica’s head with the metal tool, earning a loud shriek from the robot. Quickly, he makes work of beating Chica to smithereens, bashing the pointed edge of the crowbar into her head. An old anger rises, familiar but unwelcome. It reminds him of his father. His father—who beat his own creations with the same exact tool Mike has, in order to release the spirits within. 

And how did he know that, having never been witness to the event? His father told him. 

He had spoken of his tales at the original locations: Freddy’s Fazbear’s Pizzeria, Junior’s Pizzeria, Fredbear’s Family Diner, and even the sister location, all the while Mike stood to survive a whole week against the phantoms. He wouldn’t stop talking, droning on and on in the original voice of the retired Spring Bonnie. Dear old dad confessing to his terrible deeds in a cartoony, friendly voice had been very strange. He’d also said other things that Mike refused to admit that affected him deeply. 

You’re worthless, Michael. 

You couldn’t save them, and you never will. 

You cannot stop me. Ever.

I will always come back. 

“STOP!” 

Mike freezes in place. He realizes he’s gasping for breath, arms aching and hands shaking. In front of him is Gregory, hands raised, teary-eyed and scared all over again. Raised high above Mike like a knife about to plunge into Gregory is the crowbar. 

See? His father’s voice whispers, All you do is fuck everything up. 

Mike’s vision retreats from the decomposing visage of his father’s prison, and he finds Chica motionless on the floor, beaten so badly she’s nearly unrecognizable. Sparks flicker from her damaged servos, her endoskeleton twitching with its last remains of life. 

“Gregory?” He rasps. 

“Yeah,” says the kid, “It’s me.”

Swinging his arms down, dropping the crowbar, Mike nearly falls to his knees from the adrenaline crash. “Oh, god.” he groans. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

Gregory steals a glance at the completely ruined corpse of Glamrock Chica before turning back to Mike. “I…Yeah, kinda.”

Collapsing to his knees, Mike tries his best not to weep in front of the child, him being a grown man crying like a kid! Despite this, a few tears do escape his eyes, trailing down his flushed cheeks. There’s a sniffle. 

“Are you okay?” Gregory asks gently, having sat down beside him. 

Mike shakes his head. “No, I’m not.” 

“I think it’ll be okay, though, right?” Gregory implores hopefully. Mike looks at Chica’s metal corpse, knowing there was no use extracting whatever was causing her to malfunction. She’s good as dead, as dead as an advanced AI robot can get in this day and age. 

Mike composes himself, standing from where he’d kneeled, sniffling a bit. Picking up the crowbar, he stuffs it into his backpack and brushes off dust from his pants. “Doesn’t matter.” Mike mutters, “We’ll have to find another one of the band.” 

Gregory frowns at that proclamation. “Are you sure?” 

No. “Yes. Let’s get going.” 

He doesn’t look at Gregory as he walks away from Chica’s remains, though he can hear him struggle to catch up. He doesn’t care. He needs a moment to decompress. 

Walking away from the carnage, Mike breezes his way into another large atrium, this time with massive statues of Sun and Moon—the Daycare Attendant in charge of children dropped off by their parents at the Fazbear daycare. An idea blooms in his mind and Mike begins to walk faster, hearing the huff and puffs of Gregory struggling to catch up. 

“Where are we going?” The boy wheezes. 

“Monty’s Gator Golf.” Mike answers promptly. “I figured we’d get the hardest animatronic first.” 

“You mean the second animatronic, right?”

“Chica doesn’t count. Her servos are destroyed. She won’t be activating anytime soon.”

As they walk steadily in the direction to Monty’s Gator Golf, a security bot suddenly wheels its way into their path. “Ah, shit,” Mike grumbles, “Here we go again.” He’d forgotten about these guys.

Fishing the crowbar out of his backpack, he readies his stance as the robot spots them and starts blaring that same stupid alarm. “You’re gonna fight them again?” Gregory wonders eagerly.

“Yeah. I’m going to see if I can attract one of the animatronics over here. Successfully, that is.” 

“What? Why?” At the question, Mike peeks at Gregory with a pointed look. Quickly the child understands, making an agreeing noise. They were going to enact Plan B: use the security bots to lure one (hopefully not two) animatronic to their location to reset their engines. 

“Get behind me, kid,” Mike orders as more security bots emerge from wherever they had been hiding. Gregory plasters himself to Mike’s legs, weary of the bots once more. 

Mike thought this would be a good exercise to release all that pent up anger in himself. Raising the crowbar as the bots near, he takes a swing at the closest one, roaring aloud. “Get buggered, motherfuckers!” 

For several long minutes, Mike bashes down an endless stream of security robots, screaming and yelling out his frustrations, all the while Gregory holds tightly to his legs. His arms ache from the beating he had given Chica, but the renewed emotions help keep his stamina intact. 

A sudden thunderous thudding from somewhere outside the crowd of skinny bots stops them from trying to rip Mike and Gregory apart. Distracted, Mike grabs Gregory and runs toward the incessant thudding of massive robotic footsteps. Bingo. Target acquired. 

Monty the Gator stands menacingly by the statue of Sun and Moon, jaw unhinged and claws at the ready. His star-shaped purple sunglasses reflect off the neon lights striping their way across the walls. 

“How’d he get all the way over there?” Gregory asks curiously, as the security bots roll away, their mission accomplished. 

“Beats me,” Mike replies, grinning, “It’s Foxy all over again.” 

“Foxy?” Gregory parrots, but Mike pays him no mind, telling the child to go hide before the gator could grab him. Mike approaches the robot as he lunges for Gregory, and swings hard, knocking off the starry sunglasses right of his ugly green mug. “Ha! Let’s begin, shall we?”

Chapter Text

The fight isn’t going well. Monty is far stronger and faster than Mike expected, almost as fast as old Foxy himself. Mike had been able to get a good few hits with the crowbar, but Monty had snatched the hand holding the weapon and tossed the tool far from either of their reaches. So that meant he’d have to resort to his fists. Balling up his hands and covering them with his jacket to prevent serious damage against Monty’s hard casing, Mike began to fistfight the robot, as ridiculous as it sounded. 

Unfortunately, Monty isn’t interested. His eyes turn to Gregory, who’d been silently cheering for Mike. Said child gulped at the murderous glare the animatronic sent him. Mike, sensing the danger, jumps on top of Monty, effectively distracting him. Monty, roaring like an animal, twists around again and again to try and grab Mike, who does his best to stay out of range of the gator’s sharp claws. Gregory, understanding the distractions at hand, grabs the crowbar and steps up to Monty as he utters kid-friendly curses. Just as he’s about to raise the tool to bash Monty’s head in, the gator suddenly grabs a hold of Mike’s shoulder and pulls.

A scream rips from Mike’s throat as Monty violently dislocates his shoulder from its socket, forcing him to let go of the gator’s back and fall to the floor, earning another scream from his throat. Monty, no longer distracted, turns his attention to Greogry. The kid is brave, wielding the crowbar but his body betrays his fear, knees knocking and hands trembling. 

In a flash, Monty looms over Gregory, claws raised to strike. Unshed tears pool in the kid’s eyes as he waits for the blow. Mike panics, lunging for Monty but the robot is too strong a match against his lanky human body. For a moment, his mind flashes back decades, the blue of Gregory’s shirt turning a smoky grey, his hair a darker brown, and his skin paler. 

No, no, no. Not again. 

“Evan!” He shrieks, absolutely terrified. 

Monty’s jaw unhinges, readying for a bite. 

Who wants to give Fredbear a big kiss? 

Gregory cowers, tears streaming down his cheeks. And Mike bellows through the pain in his shoulder a word he’d only heard from his father, his faded British accent returning in full force, “DISENGAGE!” 

Monty goes still. For a moment neither of them move, until Gregory crawls out from under the gator, gasping in relief. Mike slides off Monty's frozen form, heaving. Cradling his injured arm, Mike kicks at Monty until he crumples into a heap of limbs and metal, his eyes blank and lifeless. 

“How…” Gregory chokes, “How did you do that?”

Mike takes a moment for the awful emotions of fury and guilt to subside before he answers Gregory’s question. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

The kid’s eyes flash with anger as he stands to his feet. “I’m not stupid!”

“Gregory—” Mike really doesn’t have time for this, being injured as he is. His arm and shoulder are on fire, flames licking up his skin like massive snakes. It reaches deep into his bones, boiling his blood alive. But the kid is persistent. “You told him to stop! You made Monty stop!” 

Through the fiery haze of pain, Mike sees the blatant betrayal etched onto the boy’s face. “Are you working for—for whoever’s doing this? Did you do this?”

For Mike, as a reasonable adult, that would sound like utter bollocks. Him, working for whomever made the animatronics batshit insane? Animatronics that belong to his father’s legacy, his father’s own blood-stained hands? Mike’s hands were bloodied, too, but that didn’t mean he would willingly follow in his footsteps. But Gregory is just a kid. Only ten years old, it would be reasonable for the kid to make such a conclusion. And it certainly wasn’t time for that kind of argument.

“I’m not, kid.” Mike insists gently. 

“You are, aren’t you?” Once more, tears rise in Gregory’s eyes. He’s utterly convinced Mike has been lying to him the whole time. Mike sighs in defeat, “I swear to you: I’m not in cahoots with whoever’s causing this.” 

But it’s too late. The hooks have sunk into Gregory’s young mind. He can see it in the faint change in the kid’s amber irises as he begins backing away. “Liar.” Gregory spits out. “You’re a liar!” 

As Gregory dashes away from him, Mike doesn’t even bother calling his name, urging him to return to his side. He’d be safer with him than by himself. But at the same time he can’t stop him; that kid’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide. 

Slumping against the wall, he slides down until he’s seated. His arm remains held in place by his good hand, a wildfire still licking away at his burning skin. “Fuck.” 

Several things happen over a course of several agonizing minutes: First, Mike relocates his shoulder, popping the bone back into its socket. It hurts like hell, but it is necessary. Second, he locates where the repair room is using his Faz Watch. Third, he then takes Monty deactivated form to said room, which takes the longest due to his ruined shoulder. After a few hours of lugging Monty’s heavy metal body, Mike makes his way to the repair room. 

In his honest opinion, despite being meant for adults, it appears to function for a child—like Gregory. The colorful buttons are an insult to mechanics who aspire to fix things, like Mike. Monty lays motionless on the large gurney-like slab of steel built for heavy weights like him. When the automated voice starts speaking, however, Mike startles. He can’t help but think of Hand-Unit, the companion from Circus Baby’s that always messed up his name until Baby herself took over. He’s glad he has Hand-Unit again, instead of the clown animatronic’s creepy voice leading him to false leads and ultimately to his death. 

Shaking his head, Mike returns to his task: resetting Monty to see if he’s either haunted or malfunctioning. During his sweep of Monty’s massive metal body, he finds a USB drive plugged into one of the robot’s outlets, and yanks it out. Monty himself shudders, strange purple sparks emitting from his endoskeleton and lighting up the room in an eerie glow. A shiver travels down Mike’s spine at the sight, reminded of his father’s favored color: purple. The very color that haunted his dreams, and haunted the unlucky souls that he now isn’t even sure have been laid to rest when he’d burnt down that disrespectful Fazbear’s Frights horror show ten years ago. 

Eventually the sparking stops and Monty goes limp. Inspecting the USB drive doesn’t wield any results, unfortunately. It’s like any other USB drive, plain steel grey with a covering to protect the files within. Clearly some sort of virus has been implanted into each animatronic through the USB drive. How interesting.

Mike is given the fright of his life when Monty abruptly bolts upright, eyes wide without the safety of his starry shades. “What the heck…?”

Mike stares at the activated animatronic, heart rabbiting under his ribs, a wrench clutched in his hand aimed at the robot. Monty spots him and simply stares for a long minute before speaking. “Who’re you?” His voice is deep and gravelly, in a way a child might imagine a dragon’s voice to sound like. 

“I’m M-Mike.” He stutters. Monty scoffs. “And what am I doing here?” 

Huh. It seems I was right. They weren’t haunted at all. “I fixed you,” he says stupidly. 

“Okay. Why?” Monty puts a clawed hand to his head. “Mty memory bank is going haywire. Have you got something to do with that?” His eyes flick to the wrench in Mike’s hands. “You can put that down. I’m not gonna attack you.” 

Mike lowers his good arm, dropping the wrench where it hits the solid floor with a clatter, breathing out. “Thank god.” Running a hand through his hair, Mike continues, “You had some virus inside you. I took it out with this.” He shows Monty the USB drive, but keeps a safe distance. He’s never really trusted any type of robots, especially ones owned by Fazbear Entertainment. Monty, being bigger and taller than him, easily takes the drive from Mike and gives it a good look. 

“Interesting.” Monty says, “We’re gonna have to run this goober through a secure system.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Mike agrees reluctantly. 

Mike carefully unlatches the restraints from Monty’s wrists, steering clear of his deadly claws, stepping back when the massive animatronic stood up on his own, no longer slouched like Chica. Mike had a good guess the two remaining bots would appear the same way. “Well, I can lead the way. Just let me find the map on—” Monty stops him, “Don’t worry, kid. I’ve got a map installed in my harddrive. No need to use those flimsy things.” He taps his own temple. Still not trusting the bot, but him being his only way out, Mike knew he’d have to listen, no matter what. 

Chapter Text

Mike follows Monty, who makes no effort to hide the sound of his thunderous footsteps. Mike, annoyed and still upset with losing Gregory, snaps at him to walk quieter lest he attracts more hostility to their position within the pizza plex. Monty asks what they’re doing, and to shut him up Mike tells him they’re going to be looking for Gregory—who might be anywhere in the building, or god forbid left it entirely. 

Mike holds the crowbar in the open now, uncaring of whoever might spot it. Plus it would be more of a hassle to take it out of his backpack when he’s under attack by unpredictable robots. He does his best to steer clear of the security bots, while Monty doesn’t bother to hide his hulking form, but at the same time doesn’t bother the bots. 

Mike is surprised by Monty’s calmness, vastly different from the rage that consumed him earlier. Of course, he could be judging Monty’s book by the cover, and this just is how he acts normally. He suspects a virus, and surmises that it had made the gator unusually violent, made to attack people, or just children, based on what he’s observed. 

Said gator leads him to another office with a similarly outdated computer. He doesn’t sit on the wheel chair as he is too big and too tall. Instead he slouches over, claws clacking on the keyboard. He holds a hand out impatiently. “I need that goober.” 

Huffing, Mike hands him the USB drive, watching as he plugs it into the computer as it starts up. 

“Are you sure this is secure?” Mike wonders. He’s not a computer or engineering whiz like his father (though the man used far more outdated computers before he disappeared) but he knows that just popping in the drive like that could invite a virus into the monitor. 

“Yep.” Monty replies shortly. He taps a single key and the monitor beeps, signaling the computer has been dialed in and is accepting the USB, Monty explains. Knowing he would have a while to wait, Mike begins to wander the area, pulling open drawers and cabinets.

During this search, Mike doesn’t find anything too interesting in the contents. One drawer he opens, however, stops him in his tracks. Resting on the floor of the drawer itself is an old, yellowed newspaper clipping dating from 1985. A shudder rolls down Mike’s spine at the familiar bold words of the Missing Children Incident scrawled across the clipping—all from nearly fifty years ago. Mike himself had only been sixteen years old, still reeling from the death of his brother, along with the boy’s only friend, Charlie. 

‘I got it, kid.” Monty barks from behind him. Mike jumps, unused from the gator’s sharp tone. On the computer’s screen is a series of random numbers on glowing green font, taking up most of the screen.

“This doesn’t look like you got it.” Mike says. 

“It’s binary code, brat.” Monty responds. “You can’t read it, but I can.” 

Mike signs in irritation. It doesn’t seem like they’re going to get along anytime soon. “What does it say?”

“Just random stuff repeating itself. Give gifts, give life. Save them, you can’t. Sounds pretty ominous to me.” 

“Yeah, it does.” Mike murmurs quietly, mind straying to other things. It sounds like something his father would say, the obnoxious douchebag. “Do you know what it means?” 

“Nope. Not one lick.” Monty says. “Though, there’s a signal emitting from elsewhere.”

Mike is instantly alert. “What? Where?” 

Monty peers at the screen, reading the jumble of nonsense numbers. While Mike’s father learned how to read binary, Mike—refusing to follow anywhere close to what his father left behind—never bothered to learn it. Seems that choice has now come to bite him in the ass. 

“Hm…the maintenance room! Not far from here.” 

Mike frowns. What would be sending signals from the maintenance room to this random office? Was it pure coincidence? He wasn’t sure. “Is it intentional?”

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Monty says, “There’s no fluctuations or anything. It’s all at a steady pace.” Mike wonders if Gregory is pinging the signal to them. Was it a call for help? 

“We need to go there,” Mike insists. “Maybe Gregory is asking for help.” 

Monty shrugs. “If you say so.”

They both aren’t sure if it is Gregory—it might be a false lead, a malfunction in the computer, or someone else other than the kid sending out the signal. Someone with malicious intent. But at the same time they likely couldn’t make any guesses; they are going in blind. Unless…

“Can you figure out who’s sending the signal?” Mike asks the gator. 

“Sure can.” Monty clacks a few keys on the keyboard before letting out a disappointed noise. “It’s too out of whack to get any identification on the signal. Sorry, kid.” 

“It’s fine.” Mike takes the newspaper clipping and stuffs it into his backpack. He and Monty leave the office and head back to the repair room. Monty, to Mike’s surprise, helps him steer clear of the security bots and makes an effort to be quieter. Mike isn’t sure what caused that change of mind, but he finds he doesn’t mind it. 

(It does not mean they’re friends, though.)

The doors to the maintenance room are wide open, with an unconscious Glamrock Freddy strapped to the gurney. Gregory is wide awake, standing next to him and pressing those stupid buttons that Mike is still offended by. Mike nearly has a heart attack at the sight. 

“What the hell are you doing!” He shrieks. 

Gregory jumps and almost–very nearly–presses the wrong button. If he had, Freddy would’ve reactivated and attacked the kid, with no hope of rescue. Mike scrambles to grab the kid and pull him out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, Gregory is resistant to his help. 

“I was fixing him, asshole!” He yells, scowling. It seems he still hasn’t forgiven Mike for “betraying” him. Mike does wonder if that will ever happen. 

Squirming out of Mike’s grip, Gregory instead draws closer to the danger. Mike resists the urge to snatch him up and away from all the evil in this terrible world. 

As he backs up, Gregory spots Monty who stands awkwardly behind Mike and growls, “You’re really working with them, then? I knew it.” 

Monty raises an eyebrow, thrusting a thumb toward Mike. “Kid, this Mike brat wanted to help you.” 

Gregory blinks in surprise. “Help me?” 

Mike sighs in exasperation. “I’ve been helping you the whole time, kid! I wouldn’t just up and abandon you in the middle of all this!” 

“Then what’s he doing here?” Gregory points at the gator, who only snorts. 

Mike steps into Gregory’s view to block the green animatronic. “Kid, I helped him because he had a virus inside him.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the USB drive. Gregory peers at it curiously. “He helped me, too,” Mike continues to explain, “It was just some malicious malware that had weird words in it. Nothing crazy.” 

Gregory only stares, before turning back to Freddy still motionless on the gurney. “Okay.” Mike, still panicked at the lack of regard for safety, steps up to the kid. “Wait, back up, kid. That’s not safe for you.” 

“So? I’m almost done anyway.” Gregory presses the buttons in a pattern before Mike can intervene. The automated Hand-Unit congratulates Gregory who eagerly removes Freddy’s main hard drive from the machine and the bear sits up slowly. “Thank you, superstar.” 

Superstar? Mike parrots incredulously. 

“Okay,” Gregory claps his hands together. “Guys, this is Freddy. I found him turned off in here with his fucking head removed and fixed him, as you can see.” 

“Hello, everyone!” Freddy, shockingly friendly and non-violent like the others had been. 

“What the fuck?” Mike blurts out in the awkward silence.

Chapter Text

“What was I doing?” Gregory asks. 

“You were signaling us through the malware.” Mike explains, rubbing his sore shoulder.

The kid’s nose scrunches up in confusion. “I definitely wasn’t.” He turns to the large orange-and-blue colored animatronic. “Were you doing that, Freddy?” 

Freddy seems to think about it for a moment, possibly searching through his memory banks. “I do not believe so, superstar. I cannot find any records of pinging through digital systems.” 

Again, Mike groans inwardly, with that stupid nickname. Freddy calls Gregory a superstar while Monty calls Mike a brat? Though it is kind of unfair to whine about that—he’s a grown man, well into old age. 

“Did it say anything? Like a message?” Gregory asks. 

“Aye,” Monty spoke for the first time. “It kept repeating itself with words like give gifts, give life; save them, you can’t. It was pretty darn weird.” 

Mike expects to see recognition in either Gregory or Freddy’s eyes but nothing lights up. That’s to be expected; they don’t fully know what’s causing all this chaos. It seems they’ve reached a roadblock with this mysterious virus. 

“Were you able to find where the virus originated?” Mike asks Monty. 

“No. It’s too scrambled.” Monty sighs in disappointment.

For a few minutes, there is nothing but awkward silence, Gregory shifting from foot to foot; Monty crossing his arms in frustration, Freddy simply waiting for anything new, and Mike himself impatient for any news. Mike looks at the inhabitants of the room: Freddy, Monty, Gregory, and himself. Chica is out for the count. Another… “You know what?” Mike starts suddenly, “We’re missing someone.” 

Gregory frowns. “Who?” 

“Roxy,” is all Mike shares.

Gregory suddenly lights up, as if he’s realized something important. “Oh, yeah! I remember now! I found Chica and put her voice box into Freddy!” 

“Pardon me?” Freddy exclaims in shock, clearly unaware of Chica’s fate until now. Realizing his mistake, Gregory winces and stutters out an apology. “I-I figured it would be good to have defenses against the other bots and stuff.” 

“The kid’s right,” Monty pipes in, “Freddy isn’t affected by the virus, so having a voice set to stun would be a good thing. In hindsight, it’d be good for him to have Roxy’s eyes too!” 

Mike is close to agreeing to the gator, but Freddy’s astonished tone pauses that train of thought. “Gregory, are you telling me you purposefully hurt my friends?” 

“No!” The child denies, “Mike beat up Chica!” For emphasis, he points at him. Rude. 

Seeing the rising anger in Freddy’s eyes—how an animatronic like him could be nearly capable of emotion is beyond him—Mike quickly tries to save the coming argument. “I did beat up Chica, but only because she had been infected and was attacking Gregory and I. I’m sure she can be fixed in no time.” 

Freddy stares at Mike for several long seconds, before relenting. Mike almost gasps in relief, not used to being stared down by a robot far smarter than his original creation.

“So what it seems like,” Monty begins carefully, counting on his fingers, “is that we corner Roxy, take her eyes, remove the virus, and then what?” 

“We are not taking her eyes, Monty.” Freddy refuses in a rare moment of emotion, fists clenched.

“We’re totally taking her eyes.” Gregory squeals in excitement, grinning widely. Mike only rolls his eyes. 

“She’s probably either in her room crying or at Roxy Raceway.” Monty points out helpfully, as they trek their way to the Glamrocks' green rooms where they stay to rest and recharge. 

“Speaking of rooms,” Freddy begins, ignoring Monty’s groan, “I am in need of recharging.” 

Gregory’s grin falls right off his face. “What? Now?” 

“I’m afraid so, superstar.” 

Mike knows what the deal with recharging is. See, the animatronics of today, instead of being powered by old heavy batteries and using floppy disks for their music of yesterday, are powered by internal batteries that they have implanted inside their endoskeletons. And every now and then, they need to be recharged for a few minutes in a charging station. 

“Fine,” the kid grumbles before facing Freddy, who opens a stomach hatch Mike didn’t know existed until now and he nearly faints at the sight of the child climbing inside Freddy. 

Mike, before he can reboot to think straight, snatches Gregory right out of the hollow insides and into his arms, safe and sound. In his ears, he hears his sister’s final screams echoing faintly. 

Didn’t you make her just for me, Daddy?

“What are you doing?” Gregory snaps at him, fighting in Mike’s arms. 

“Never, ever go inside an animatronic!” Mike shouts, “Do you hear me?” 

Gregory startles so badly at Mike’s raised voice he goes still. Absent-mindedly, Mike notices he appears frightened. “Do you hear me?” Mike demands again, setting down the child and gripping him by the shoulders. 

“Mike, it is perfectly safe—” Freddy starts, but said man stops him. 

“Is it? Is it perfectly safe? What if, say, your battery ran out and he was inside you?” He looks away, the vision of his sister’s missing person poster fluttering in the breeze. “It doesn’t matter if you have springlocks or not, it’s still very dangerous!” 

“Okay!” Gregory finally relents, eyes wide at Mike’s bared fury. Quieter, he adds, “You’re hurting me.” 

Mike immediately lets go and the child rubs at his no doubt sore shoulders. “I’m sorry.” He apologizes, “I…I don’t know what came over me.”

“Sounds like trauma to me.” Monty snarks inappropriately. Freddy’s admonishment goes unheard. Gregory gives him a tentative smile, weak but genuine. “It’s okay. I kinda get what it’s like being fucked up.” 

Freddy’s second reprimand goes unheard, as usual. Monty cackles lightly at the sight. He sighs, before speaking again. “My battery is low so I will need to find a charging station. For Mike’s sake, Gregory can stay with you—”

Gregory instantly changes tactics. “I wanna go with you, Freddy!” Cue his big amber puppy eyes trick on Freddy. Mike remembers when he used to do that, too, with his mother. His sister eventually picked up the habit and he had to stop. 

“Superstar…” 

“Please?” 

“I’m afraid I won’t be much protection for you while charging.” Freddy explains, and that is sound logic. Gregory wouldn’t be able to fit in a cramped station with a bulky animatronic and wouldn’t be safe against whoever wishes to harm him with Freddy inactive. 

“He’s right,” Mike pipes in gently. Honestly, he doesn’t want the kid around Freddy or his godforsaken stomach hatch that is ripe for the killing, but at the same time, Freddy makes a good argument. Gregory would only cause problems if he stayed with Freddy while he charged. 

Thankfully, the kid takes the disappointment like a champ. He doesn’t whine or complain or throw a tantrum. He’s quiet, thoughtful, and accepting of his offer being rejected. “All right.” 

“Good.” Mike stands, and holds out his hand for the kid to take. “Now let’s go find Roxy. Monty, you can come along with us.” Monty nods, smiling slightly, before following the duo down a different path than Freddy’s. 

“Hope our luck doesn’t run out,” Gregory murmurs. Mike hopes so, too, thinking of his slowly-healing shoulder. He really shouldn’t be using it like this, but he had no choice.

Chapter Text

With Freddy out of the picture, Gregory is clearly a bit grumpy and downcast about his new friend’s absence. Sometimes he mutters under his breath, but doesn’t scream and shout for the animatronic, which is heaven for Mike’s ears. 

“It’ll be alright, kid,” Mike tells Gregory, ruffling his hair like he did a while back. A snort escapes the kid, disbelieving. Yeah, right, his body language says.

“What’re you thinking about?” Mike tries again, knowing the kid probably won’t want conversation, but Mike wants to cheer up the despondent child. 

Gregory peers through his brunette bangs, pondering the question before answering quietly, “Stuff.”

Mike isn’t deterred. “Like what?”

“…I’m starting to remember things.” 

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, and when they do register, Mike grins widely. “That’s great! What do you remember? It’s fine if you don’t have a definitive answer.” 

“Um,” Gregory thinks about it before replying. “When I saw the night guard lady earlier I remembered someone else like her.” 

Someone like her? Would that have been Mike himself? Or another Fazbear employee? Or, hell, even just a random guard he’d had an encounter with at a mall? 

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” Gregory says, “I only got flashes. They had dark clothes on, I think.” 

Well, that narrows things down, doesn’t it? Mike hums softly, pondering Gregory’s explanation. “I don’t think I can be much help without more information.” 

“Well, I can’t help you,” Gregory says sharply, “That’s all I’ve got.”

Sensing the irritation in the child, Mike simply lets it go. It was obvious the kid was still upset about being separated from Freddy and Mike didn’t want to poke that with even a ten foot pole. 

Together they—and Monty, who’d been listening quietly to their conversation—walk in silence past the green rooms when Mike checks to see if Roxy is there. Monty himself checks for her, knocking on the door, tapping against the large glass windows. Most telling though is the lack of loud weeping from within the room and an empty vanity.

Without a word, all three agree to continue their journey to Roxy Raceway, though Monty warns them it is under construction for unknown reasons. He does assure them the three can still access the play area. Yet the raceway’s unsure state of function worries Mike. There is a possibility the place could be dangerous for Gregory and might cause him some sort of harm, including Roxy. 

“Say,” Mike begins after another beat of quiet, “I never even asked you but where are your parents?” 

The kid is quiet, too quiet. Mike frowns. “Kid?”

“I think they’re dead,” he whispers.

Mike stops, not expecting such a depressing answer. “I’m sorry, kid. Do you have anyone to stay with? Relatives? Friends?” 

Gregory simply shakes his head. Damn. 

“Well, at least you have us!” He tries to cheer helpfully, in which Gregory chokes out a laugh. “Yeah, you guys are pretty cool.”

After a while of comfortable silence, the duo comes upon Roxy Raceway, and there are clear signs of construction, with orange cones, caution tape, and working machines sitting motionless, turned off for the night. 

In the distance is faint crying. 

Monty snaps his fingers. “There she is.” 

Gregory shudders. “Oh, boy.” 

Mike agrees with Gregory’s reluctance to face the animatronic. He’s had a lifetime of dealing with them, along with the vengeful children’s souls that lay within them, waiting for the clock to tick 12 AM so they could begin their relentless hunt for their killer. Unfortunately, every night guard looked like him: wearing purple and an unidentifiable face, and thus most ended up dead before 6 AM. 

“Alright, let’s be careful, okay?” Mike warns, watching every nook and cranny of the deconstructed raceway, tensed for a jumpscare by Roxy or another one of those stupid security bots. He hated jumpscares, but since he’d started working at the Mega Pizza Plex, they have been very underwhelming. 

Looking at Gregory, he takes in the scrappy, dirty child, small and unassuming. Like a ghost, his appearance changes from reddish-brown hair to a darker color, his shirt switching from blue to a gunmetal grey with silver stripes. 

“Mikey?” 

The old nickname snaps Mike out of his reverie, noticing Gregory waving a hand over Mike’s eyes as best he can with his short height. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t ever call me that again.” Mike demands hotly. 

Gregory nearly jumps at Mike’s tone, eyes wide. “Um, alright. Sorry.” He turns away, casting an untrusting side-eye. Jeez, this brat still didn’t fully trust him? Sure, he had secrets but it wouldn’t hurt the kid if Mike kept his mouth shut about a few things. Didn’t want to spill his gory bloody past to an unsuspecting child, right?

“Why don’t you like that name?” Ah, speak of the devil. 

“None of your business, kid.” Mike says shortly. 

“Come on.” Gregory prods, “Just tell me why?” 

Feeling the old ache of his brother’s death and his responsibility in causing it, Mike shuts his eyes tight. “Enough, Gregory.” 

“Kid.” Monty interjects warily. “I think you should stop.” 

Gregory grumbles. “Fine. Keep your secrets.” 

Mike doesn’t respond, instead turning his flashlight on to chase away the darkness that seems to have infested the entertainment area. Around them rats dash away from their approaching footsteps; Gregory groans in disgust. 

“Not much of a raceway, eh?” Monty coughs. “Bad upkeep for a place like this.” 

Mike pipes in. “I’ve seen worse. Way worse.” 

Monty rolls his eyes disbelievingly. “Uh-huh, sure.”

Putting the flashlight under his arm, Mike takes the crowbar out from his backpack, hefting it in his hand and testing the weight. No need to worry about its good use—it was pretty efficient dismantling the others. “Let’s do this.” 

Just as he guessed, Roxy is by the stationary go-karts, pacing in circles while crying her eyes out. Monty moves to comfort her, but Mike stops him, shaking his head. She could be aggressive.

And at the worst possible moment, Gregory steps on a lone piece of metal, sending a loud clanking noise echoing throughout the disorganized go-kart parking lot. Immediately, Roxy’s eyes snap straight for the kid, eyes wild. 

“RUN!” Mike shouts, grabbing Gregory’s arm and bolting in a random direction, leaving Monty to fend for himself. He’s much stronger than us, Mike tries to argue, He can fight her. 

“Roxy! I don’t want to fight you!” Monty’s voice emits from nearby as Roxy begins to howl. 

Or not.

Hiding behind a cardboard figure of Roxy herself, Mike yelps when Gregory lets go of his hand. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Mike shrieks, to no avail. Running on fumes, he goes after him.

Chapter Text

Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! 

“Get the fuck back here, you brat!” 

Behind him is the clash of metal against metal. Great, the robots were fighting. Mike’s teen self would kill to witness the sight. He can almost hear his whiny voice yelling at the top of his lungs, ‘Robot fight! Robot fight!’

“Roxy!” Monty suddenly bellows, and the fast unfamiliar footfalls of an animatronic are now quickly gaining up on him. Seems like the fight between the failed. 

As Mike chases the kid, who runs toward the go-karts parked further away, with Roxy chasing Mike himself, and Monty behind her, it looks like a chaotic game of tag or some other children’s game and Mike hates it. 

Somehow the kid is running ridiculously fast for a ten-year-old or Mike is too fucking old as he struggles to catch up. The kid hops into one of the smaller go-karts, the ones with the helper robot as a companion. He watches as he races toward the kid as he somehow starts up the go-kart, lights flashing. 

“Watch out!” Gregory calls, turning the vehicle toward Mike. Is he seriously about to ram Mike with a kiddie car? He’s got to be joking. Seeing Mike’s hesitance, Gregory waves an arm wildly. “Move out the way!” 

Mike obeys, sweeping himself to the side as Roxy screams again, unsuspecting of the child gunning the gas engine of the go-kart several feet in front of her. 

It only takes seconds, but it feels like hours for Mike. Gregory presses the gas so hard the tires squeal from the friction of rubber against a hard surface. Smoke steam from the tires as Roxy barrels right for Gregory. But the kid is faster, and smarter. 

Just as the go-kart is ready to pummel Roxy, Gregory hops out of the vehicle in a complicated yet simple maneuver, inadvertently flinging the go-kart itself right into Roxy’s decorated face. Mike watches, almost in slow motion, as the roaring machine slams so hard into the animatronic's face that her metal casing splinters and cracks into pieces. 

“Holy shit.” Mike hasn’t seen a child so damn savage.

As Roxy finally deactivates one final time, twitching weakly, Gregory lets out a victorious war cry, laughing exuberantly. Mike gets up and walks over to where the kid hovers over Roxy’s lifeless form. “You,” he says slowly, “are batshit insane.” 

Gregory preens, puffing out his chest. “Why, thank you!”

“Don’t milk it, kid.” 

Monty pulls up, inspecting the damage Gregory had inflicted, whistling low. “Freddy won’t like this.” 

“Which is why we’re not gonna tell him,” Gregory interjects, hands on his hips. “Let’s keep this between us.” 

Mike chuckles, thinking of Freddy being completely oblivious while they schemed to destroy whatever was left of the hostile animatronics. Remembering Greogry’s unusually quick thinking, Mike pipes in suddenly, “Wait, hold on.” He addresses the kid still riding the high of adrenaline. “How did you manage this so quickly?”

Is it him or does Gregory look a little sheepish. “Well. I, uh. Had Freddy help me.” 

“You told him?” Monty blurts accusingly. 

“No!” Gregory says quickly. Too quickly. “He told me on the watch that he’s still charging and I asked him how to start the go-karts. That’s it, I swear!” 

Mike raises a skeptical eyebrow but lets it go. Monty only scoffs. “Well, let’s get her eyes, now,” the gator says promptly, “Before we get surprised by something else.”

Monty is the one who plucks out Roxy’s eyes, the enhanced type that can see through walls. They already have Chica’s voice box replacing Freddy’s—though Mike is thankful the bear animatronic does not sound like her. He does have his voice set to stun other bots. Monty, being removed from the virus, is out of the question. 

Mike, if he had battled Monty or the bot had gotten dismantled in some way, would have considered putting his massive claws onto Freddy’s wrists, effectively replacing his original hands. But he is too useful to be scrapped. 

Monty stashes the eyes into Mike’s backpack, not mentioning the crowbar inside. They leave Roxy Raceway, side-stepping various construction items and machines, into the wide open atriums of the Pizza Plex. 

As they walk past several doors, evading security bots, Gregory contacts Freddy, who says he’s done charging and is ready to roll. Using the map, and the animatronic’s instructions, the trio head their way to where Freddy waits by the daycare. 

Mike is first to spot the bright orange-and-blue paint of Freddy’s shell, and Gregory is second, shouting out a greeting while sprinting his way to the robot. Mike tenses automatically, waiting for him to try and climb into Freddy’s stomach hatch. He tries not to remember his wasted efforts in searching for his sister. The memories are painful. 

As Mike watches Freddy greet Gregory and Monty, he hangs back. It seems, in light of the misunderstood betrayal orchestrated by Mike himself, Gregory had let go of the budding friendship between him and Mike, and instead latched onto Freddy. The bear is certainly more friendly and caring than Mike ever was, reinforcing the unfair jealousy that simmered inside him. 

Mike has always had attachment issues, likely because of his upbringing with a neglectful father and absent mother. His friends weren’t much help either, being the bullies that unwittingly joined in Mike’s “prank” that killed his brother. 

Sighing, he banishes those old memories, focusing instead on the three talking excitedly to each other. To grab their attention, Mike claps his hands together loudly. “Let’s take a quick break. Who wants pizza?” 

Gregory instantly lights up, raising his hand. “Me! I do! I-I mean, yes please.” 

Mike chuckles. “Alright, let’s go to the kitchens.” 

The moment they step into the kitchen, Mike knows something is wrong. Terribly wrong. Gregory is oblivious, and he has to stop him from entering the dark room. 

“What? What is it?” Gregory asks curiously. 

“Something is wrong here.” Mike says carefully, not wanting to disturb whatever was hiding inside the walls. 

“Aye,” Monty agrees, with Freddy nodding along. “My servos are out of whack again. There’s interference happening.”

“Well,” Gregory starts, “I don’t sense anything.”

Of course you don’t, Mike thinks, You’re a kid. Though are kids more prone to paranormal activity compared to adults? 

Mike steps into the kitchen, keeping his steps as silent as possible. Scanning the area doesn’t reveal anything important. It’s all the same stuff: kitchen appliances and some garbage bags that haven’t been thrown out yet. 

“Uh,” Gregory suddenly speaks in the tense silence. “Mike?” 

Tense as a bowstring, Mike turns to face Gregory who points at something past his shoulder. His face is ghostly white, eyes wide. Behind him, the animatronics watch the child in confusion.

“What do you see, Gregory?” Freddy asks gently. 

“I-I don’t know. He looked like me.” 

He looked like me. Unprompted, a slew of memories flood Mike’s mind. A boy crying on his bed, clutching his favorite toy, wearing a grey shirt and blue shorts. An older boy staring at himself in the mirror, bloodied Foxy mask held in his shaking hands.

“Evan,” Mike whispers. Gregory blinks, face shifting oddly. “Who?” 

And, just their luck, a new voice burbles from within the depths of the kitchen. “Who wants candy?”

Chapter Text

Shit. “Why does this keep happening?” Mike asks aloud, putting aside his trauma to deal with later. Out stumbles a wrecked Chica, barely holding herself together. But it was clear someone had patched her up—not enough to be fully functional, but enough to walk and talk. 

“How is she walking?” Gregory yelps. 

“How should I know?” Mike snaps back, pulling the crowbar out of his backpack. Ignoring Freddy’s saddened protest, Mike lunges for the broken animatronic, who somehow dodges his swings. Out of the corner of his eyes, Mike spots Gregory aiming to help him and barks out an order for him to stay out of the way. 

“We need to distract her!” Gregory continues to shout unhelpfully as Freddy and Monty simply stand like useless hunks of metal. 

Even though the kid’s advice is unnecessary, Mike still takes note of Chica’s appearance. Her beak is completely gone, revealing a gaping hole where it used to be. Around it, however, is remains of trash that she is clearly continuing to eat. Thinking quickly, Mike drops the crowbar, hurrying to one of the instant pizza dispensers (seriously, who made these?) and starts punching random buttons. “Greogry, grab some trash and toss it in the disposal!” 

The kid obeys, grabbing two small bags of rotting garbage, and trudges his way to the massive trash disposal at the end of the kitchen, as Mike pulls out a frozen pizza and hoists it high. “Who wants pizza?” He calls to Chica, who snaps her head in his direction. 

Unfortunately, when Gregory throws the bags into the disposal, the sound is so damn loud. Mike grimaces when Chica’s attention is instead drawn to the child. Without her voice box, nothing comes out of her throat except the grind of ruined metal parts. 

Gregory leaps out of the way when Chica grabs at him, the bird animatronic stumbling into the unused disposal. The child spots the very obvious button in the wall beside it, and gives it a big push. And Mike can’t help the laugh that escapes him when the wall on Chica’s left hums to life and rams into her. Hard. 

It pushes at her, squeezing her so tightly her face joints pop. Even an eye comes loose. When the machine releases her, Chica falls limp, servos and endoskeleton near-completely destroyed. Mike hears Freddy and Monty approach. “This is not like her.” Freddy murmurs. 

“Well,” Gregory says, standing and brushing off his shorts. “At least it’s over.” 

For a moment, Mike is relieved, but watching Chica, he spots the minute movements of her limbs, the twitch of her functional eye. And Gregory is far too close to her, ripe for the taking. Just as Mike opens his mouth to warn him, Chica lets out a squealing screech of metal against metal, latches onto Gregory’s leg and pulls him with her as the disposal opens wide. 

It’s too fast, too sudden. The kid yelps in fright, but Chica’s grip is too strong. 

Mike tries to rescue him from her grasp, but her slide is too quick for him to get any purchase; his bad arm is still too weak to use. Chica slithers down the trash compactor, and Gregory follows, utterly helpless. 

“Mike!” He shrieks in terror, descending down into the depths of whatever was under the Pizza Plex. Mike gives one last futile attempt to save the kid, but it is no use. He disappears into the darkness, his screams ringing in Mike’s ears. 

And all Mike can do is stare. 

Hopeless, Mike kicks a random empty box. He let another kid die. The internal injury of his shoulder feels like it has been dislocated all over again, though he knows it hasn’t. Mike shouldn’t have tried to pull Gregory out with that useless arm. 

Internally, Mike is berating himself over and over again. You’re a failure. You couldn’t save him in time. He remembers his sister vanishing one day, him and his brother mourning her loss, though his brother had been too young to fully understand the concept of death. And then what had become of her—how Circus Baby’s programming corrupted her spirit trapped inside the animatronic, twisting her into a monster very unlike when she’d been alive. And his brother—It took years to find out what truly happened to him, how his traumatic death had turned him toward vengeance against Mike himself. And it wasn’t until decades later they finally reconciled and the little boy’s spirit passed peacefully into the afterlife. 

He hopes whatever god out there has allowed Gregory to rest in true peace.

“Mike—” Freddy starts, but Mike stops him with a raised hand. 

“No platitudes will help me, Freddy.” Mike growls. “He’s dead.” 

Monty hisses through his teeth. “About that—”

Mike glares at the gator and the bear. “Shut up. It’s useless.” 

Monty huffs, putting his claws on his hips. “You sure don’t seem the kind to give up.” 

“I’m not!” Mike protests. He turns to Freddy, raising his voice. “You’re supposed to be the protector! Not to revert back to your original programming!” 

Technically, Freddy hadn’t picked up the original Freddy’s programming, he’d just been useless. He and Monty had just stood there like bumbling idiots while Gregory fell to his death. How hadn’t they helped Mike save the kid? Weren’t they supposed to stick to protecting children instead of harming them (indirectly as it is)? 

Mike hadn’t been able to save Gregory either; it isn’t just the robots’ faults. He hadn’t been able to save his sister, his brother, the children that had vanished within the old Fazbear locations. Now they haunt him every waking moment, their final breaths beating into his head like drums. The empty rooms, the constant crying, the voids they left behind—

“FUCK!” 

“For gosh sake!” Monty bellows, cutting Mike off from his shouting. “Look at me!” 

“Did you just say ‘gosh’?” Mike asks, nearly hysterical. 

“No swearing protocol. Anyway, what do I look like?” Monty gestures to himself, tilting his head. Mike simply stares. “Stupid.”

“No! I’m a freaking gator, dimwit!” Monty taps his temple with a claw. “Think about it! What’s the stereotype of gators?” 

“Hostile? Aggressive? Always angry?” 

Monty looks like he’s about to explode. Freddy places a calming hand on the gator’s shoulder, who breathes deeply. “There’s legends and myths about gators like me living in sewers. As a gator, I have special mechanics embedded into my servos. I can navigate whatever is underneath the Plex. None of the others have that ability.” 

Mike gives it some thought. “Huh. What do you mean by ‘underneath the Plex’?” 

Monty shrugs. “I’m pretty sure there are tunnels under the building. Though, I’m guessing at best; Roxy had the ability to see through walls.” 

“He is correct,” Freddy adds helpfully, “There is a tunnel system under the garbage disposal and a sinkhole under Roxy Raceway.” 

Mike nearly screams in frustration. “Why didn’t you tell me that sooner? We could’ve died!” 

Monty chuckles meanly. “I wanted to keep you on your toes for a little longer.” Mike just groans. Great, more tunnels. Tunnels were always a theme in this whole mess. Under his childhood home, within the old sister location—tunnels fucking everywhere. 

“Okay. So, what? We go down the tunnels to find Gregory’s body?” He really didn’t want to face the corpse of the kid he was supposed to be protecting. Who knows what had happened to it, with tunnels leading nowhere. Had rats already started picking at it? Or was it lost forever to the sinkhole? “Pretty much.” Monty shrugs. 

A part of Mike is furious at Monty’s callousness, but he figured it needed to be done. Somehow they’d need to collect the kid’s body and give him a proper burial. Fuck, it’s 1985 all over again. Again, like so many times before, Mike’s father’s voice echoes in his mind. He whispers poison into Mike’s ears; terrible, abusive words. 

He sighs. “Fine.” 

Monty grunts in satisfaction. “Alright. Follow me.”

Chapter Text

As expected, when they near the tunnels after traveling down dozens of staircases, restricted areas, places under construction like the raceway, the smell is the first thing that notifies Mike that they’re approaching the caverns. 

“Ergh,” Mike groans, covering his nose with his shirt. “Could this get any worse?” 

“It can,” Monty says casually, unaffected by the smell of rotting garbage. Mike can almost imagine him walking calmly with his hand in his proverbial pockets. Freddy trails behind the gator, glancing at everything like it’s his first time seeing it all. It certainly is for Mike, even though he knows the place like the back of his hand, it is clear he doesn’t know everything—like fucking tunnels under this place. 

Why does everything related to Fazbear’s have tunnels underneath? 

“What did the virus on the computer tell you again?” Mike blurts suddenly, voice muffled by his collar. Monty perks an eyebrow but answers anyway, “It said give gifts, give life; save them, you can’t.”

“Huh.” Sounds like something his father would say. “And where was the signal pinging from?” 

“The maintenance room.” 

Mike sighs heavily. “No, where specifically?” 

Monty only shrugs. “Don’t know. It was bouncing all over the place.” 

“How so?” Mike continues to prod. 

“Uh…It seemed like it was trying to escape.” 

At that, Mike stops and turns to face the gator robot. Behind them, listening idly, Freddy stops in his tracks. “Escape? From what?” 

“Dunno.” Monty shrugs again, much to Mike’s irritation. “It was in a hurry.” 

A signal in a rush to escape? From what, Mike doesn’t know. How would an electronic signal be pinging from the maintenance room? Had it been attempting to communicate with them, with the odd words? It’s at the tip of his tongue, but for the love of God, he couldn’t discern what it was.

“I got to ask…” Monty speaks suddenly, drawing Mike from his thoughts. “How exactly did you restart my system?” 

Not expecting the question, Mike stops walking again, forcing the two animatronics to halt in their tracks once more. “What?”

“You said something.” Monty continues, eyes distant. “That completely reset my servos. Everything inside me shut off.” 

Mike stares at the gator in astonishment. “You remember that?” 

Monty wiggles his hand in a so-so gesture, while Freddy listens patiently. “Not really. My circuits notified me of the shutdown after you rebooted me. Said there was some outdated stuff in my servos.” 

“Out—What the hell are you talking about?” For all Mike knew, all outdated mechanics had been scrapped decades ago, all deemed unsafe for use. How had these animatronics—which are more like androids in a sense—gotten such things installed? Mike remembers his father using voice commands for his newer animatronics, such as the ones hidden underneath his rental robotics company, but Mike hadn’t given much thought to his voice command against Monty because of all the adrenaline, but thinking about it now…

“That’s what I mean.” Monty says simply, but too vaguely for Mike. “I have some outdated devices in my endoskeleton.” 

“But how?” Mike demands. “I should’ve detected it while you were under. How did I not see it?” 

“I suppose the machines for maintenance don’t recognize old stuff,” Monty reasons, “Maybe it’s because I’m newer and thus able to recognize such things, while the machines are not.” 

“But that doesn’t—” Mike tries to counter, before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fucking Fazbear’s. Always mucking everything up.” None of this makes sense.

“I am sorry, Mike.” Freddy interjects abruptly. “I did not know that had been a problem. I can let the higher-ups know about the situation.” Monty nods in agreement. Mike just waves them off, trudging further into the darkened halls. 

“Can we remove it?” Mike asks hopefully. 

“Nope.” Monty says with disappointment. “It’s too engrained within me.”

“Damn it.” 

Thinking further, the horror in Mike’s throat rises. He remembers accusing Freddy of reverting to his original programming, and how he had failed to protect the kid. Had they genuinely returned to their base designs? The mere thought sent shivers down Mike’s spine. 

Mike recalls his journey into the old robotics lab that his father owned, where he finally discovered the horrifying truth of his old man’s schemes, and how deeply ingrained they were into his creations and the cursed Hurricane town itself. While he never truly understood his father’s reasons for creating the original springlock suits—Fredbear and Spring Bonnie—he did know that in his later years, the old man turned his creations from purely children’s entertainment to children’s worst nightmares. Honestly, with the powerful biting strength of Fredbear’s springlocks, Mike doubted his father had good intentions in mind during those years either. 

The man had been smart but arrogant, and Mike knows arrogance always gets you killed. With Circus Baby’s guidance across the old vents and maintenance rooms, Mike had gradually learned of his father’s misdeeds and added up the math himself. In the beginning, the businessman had created the springlocks as a revolutionary invention, disregarding the safety hazards. He likely knew his springlock suits were inevitably going to maim or kill an employee, but he had utmost confidence in his own mind and smarts, so much so he believed he had been incapable of meeting the scythe of Death. 

And that had been his undoing.

Mike still doesn’t know how it happened, but when he began his job at Fazbear’s Frights and one of the springlock suits had been found after decades of being considered officially lost, he knew immediately who was in that suit when they met face to face behind a pane of bulletproof glass. 

His father, despite all his hard-earned efforts to escape his end and to continue his rotten deeds, had finally met an unfortunate end in the very thing he thought he was able to slap away the cold bony hand of the Grim Reaper. And Mike knew he’d been stubborn in life, so he wasn’t surprised to see his father reanimated once more, even more stubborn in death—determined to live as long as he can without failures. An iron will to live. A fear of death. An insatiable crave for immortality. Mike’s father had been cruel in life, ruining all the lives he met, including his children’s, and had become even crueler in death with nothing left to live for but himself. 

And now his legacy, Fazbear Entertainment, continued its bloodstained path into infamy. Somehow, even without him in the picture, or even pulling the strings, the company continued to roll along the wheels of Fate, crushing everything and everyone in its path. Hell, there even had been a series of video games created by some madman uncaring whether he disrespected the victims or their surviving families. While the narrator themselves told the viewer to disregard the rumors hiding in the shadows, no one bothered to do that. Somewhere out there, out of sight, the rumors persisted, and the Fazbear company’s reputation continued to decline. 

Turning back to his previous chain of thought, Mike recalls what he had said to the bear animatronic. Had they really turned back into the aggressive bots their predecessors once were? Or, Mike realizes with a pang in his chest, had the virus awakened that outdated machinery and allowed it to overtake them? “Wait,” he spoke suddenly, pivoting to Freddy. “How are you not affected by the virus?” 

Freddy blinks stupidly for a long moment. “I had unexpectedly shut down during our performance several hours ago. I suppose something must have malfunctioned.” 

“And Gregory said he found you, how?” 

“Vanessa the security guard had found me and tried to fix me in the maintenance room. That is where Gregory found me.” 

“And he told me he found you decapitated.” 

“Well, yes—”

“Guys,” Monty interrupts, “We’re here.”