Mangle fell on the floor, exhausted. She struggled to find the parts of her that had fallen off but found that most of them were scattered in the Kids' Corner. "Huh," she muttered as she straggled to pick them up with most of them not being intact. "Crazy kids. Can't have any respect these days." A mother looked at her strangely and she smiled and waved with her remaining hand. But as soon as she turned away, she felt deep anger bubbling up in her metallic chest and glared at her back. Those adults had no idea how the children were treating her.
She gritted her teeth and found her other hand, attaching it to the metal stalks of her slightly showing endoskeleton. "Marionette would never have to deal with this," she grumbled. "She would just give the children coins so that they could get plushes for themselves." And yes, she thought Marionette was a female. One time, Marionette had described to her how it felt to cradle a child in her arms.
Although the eerie puppet couldn't cry, Mangle could see her painted black eyes moistening on her face. "I don't remember how to do it now," she had said, turning away bitterly and cruelly thrusting a coin into a kid's hand. The kid looked shocked but turned to the Arcades after merely a moment's hesitation.
Marionette looked like she had nearly climbed into her Gift box when she realized she had to do her job. She then gave another child a token as they offered another dollar bill. Mangle got startled from her memories of that day as a small hand patted her side. She refrained from biting their frontal lobe off; eh, they would be brutally injured but they would survive.
She slowly turned her head around and replied in her sweet mechanical voice, "Yes?" It was a little girl with light blonde hair and a dark complexion. "Hi," she said shyly, clasping her hands behind her back. "My mommy told me to stick with you when she and Devon went to see Freddy and Chica and Bonnie and Foxy….."
Foxy. The name struck rage and jealousy into her metal heart. Always taking the stage, the older, scruffy animatronic always seemed to attract more customers than her. Me, Mangle thought bitterly. I'm just a thing to be dismantled and put back together again. "Okay," she said through her sharp mechanical teeth that would grind someone to bits.
Suddenly, she noticed Marionette sitting in her Gift box staring wistfully at her with a calm expression. "What's your name?" Mangle asked distractedly. "Oh, it's Lucy," she said proudly. "My momma named me after a Beatles song." She grinned like that was something to be happy about. Being named after something may not be good, you know, the Toy Fox thought viciously. Especially when you're named after your torn apart appearance.
"Come on, little Lucy," she urged the girl in a cheerful voice. "We're going to visit a friend of mine." Lucy looked up with surprise in her eyes. "What's their name?" she asked curiously. "Her name-"Mangle stopped herself. The kids and adults knew Marionette as a male, not a female. "I mean, his name is Marionette," she said. "He's a cool puppet, you know."
Lucy's gaze lit up. "Ooooh, I know who Marionette is," she squealed excitedly. "Devon told me he played with him once." Then she stopped and looked at the ground in wonder. "He said he was a faulty Anema-animaa-"Mangle smiled. "Animatronic," she said softly so Lucy wouldn't suspect that this machine had any idea how to pronounce words and that her voice was just her thoughts.
"Oh, yeah," the girl continued. "Devon said he was a faulty Animatronic. He said he couldn't even work right." Mangle clenched her spindly fists behind her back. She knew a lot of people said bad things about Marionette because of her odd way of walking and bending the little metal joints, but hearing this from an innocent child's mouth was too much to handle.
She could feel the machinery inside her going haywire, clicking, batteries banging against the endoskeleton. Lucy noticed, too and was confused. She looked at Mangle and poked her. The white fox animatronic turned on her, feeling the wires click and whir. She opened her mouth wide. The teeth were sharp; they would slice through anyone's skin easily.
In that blur of rage, she didn't notice the others screaming at her. She lunged forward and in a snap….It all disappeared. Mangle saw her teeth sunken into the head of the little girl. She tried to struggle her way out but they were rooted deep. She was panicked. What had she done?
Lucy was twitching and suffering in pain, letting out sudden wails, "MOMMA!" A woman rushed forward and batted away the animatronic. Free of the girl's sickening skin, she sank onto the floor, her endoskeleton in a bunch after attacking Lucy.
Her mechanical eyes spun around, watching the horrified people look around as the security guards on the day shift rushed forward, one calling the ambulance and one grabbing the twitching child to bring forward as they waited for the ambulance.
Again…..The word echoed through her mind over and over. I've done it again. I've caused another Bite.