Charlie had always been a very kind, gentle girl. She was quiet, polite, intelligent, and unnaturally mature for someone so young. All of these qualities, which were considered rare treasures by all the adults who knew her, made her incredibly likeable. Nearly anyone she ever met ended up falling in love with her because of how balanced her sense of selfless compassion and intelligent rationality was. Charlie was fully aware, too, of the charm she possessed, but unlike most people with such a strange talent, she never flaunted it. She never boasted about how great she was, nor did she ever use it for personal gain. Instead, she used her goodness only to propagate more goodness, but perhaps that was part of her charm. She was very unselfish, which was impressive for a child. Most children, even the best of them, had a rather selfish streak, simply lacking the mental capacity to think about others, but Charlie was a rare case. She had been blessed with that natural maturity and she used it well.
Once again, the adults adored Charlie simply because she was so well-behaved. She was one little girl they didn't need to monitor all the time. But the children? Well, they loved Charlie just because she was so much fun! They weren't quite intelligent enough to realize just how special Charlie really was, but they didn't need to know all that in order to know that she was something of a hero in their circles. She always seemed to know just what to do and never shied away from hanging out with any of them. That was why the children loved Charlie. She was just so caring and open with them. She seemed to genuinely like hanging out with them. There was no pretension or patronization in her voice when she asked a few of the younger ones to play a game with her. And if any kid ever needed a shoulder to cry on, Charlie was there, and never once did she judge any of their feelings or fears. She was a very naturally protective girl and it certainly showed in her interactions with the really little ones.
"Hey there, hey there, hey now!" Charlie cooed one particularly young child. He was unable to find his mother and had since started to cry with fear that she might have abandoned him. For a normal person, perhaps, such a fear was ridiculous! His mother would never abandon him. But he was only a little boy. To him, being unable to find her after a mere two minutes of searching meant that something bad must've happened. But no, Charlie swooped in to reassure him that this was not the case at all.
"She doesn't hate you, she didn't leave you!" Charlie promised the little boy, hugging him gently and caressing his silky brown locks. "Maybe she just went to the bathroom, or is going to get more pizza!"
"But why wouldn't she tell me?" the boy responded, still sniffling a bit.
"Maybe she couldn't find you," Charlie suggested. "Think about it. If you don't know where she is, that means she doesn't know where you are. She might be looking for you right now!"
"You really think?" the boy sounded a bit hopeful now because of how matter-of-factly Charlie spoke these words to him.
"Absolutely!" Charlie promised passionately. "How about we go look right now?" she stood up from where she had been kneeling to comfort him, then she took his hand in her own and led him along the tile floors of the pizzeria in which they stood.
That was only one of many times in which Charlie acted as a protector or savior, especially to a younger child. That little boy, as Charlie was pleased to say, was properly reunited with his mother in only another four minutes after Charlie had helped him look for her. Charlie's thoughts had been totally correct as well! Turned out that the little boy had wandered away from her, into another room of the pizzeria, but since all the rooms looked relatively the same, the little boy had forgotten how to find his way back to her. This had, like Charlie thought, created a lot of worry on both sides. Once the two were reunited, however, the mother was nothing but grateful that Charlie had been so kind, caring and wise. She thanked the girl over and over again despite Charlie insisting that being a protector was just in her nature. And she continued to prove this fact time and time again because, once again, this was neither the first nor the last time Charlie helped a lost child or parent find one another.
But it wasn't even just reuniting families. Charlie had also helped with injuries (typically because someone was running in a non-playroom and ended up falling into a chair or skidding across the hard tile floors) and messes. It wasn't hard to see why sweet little Charlie had become such a hero to the other child patrons of the pizzeria, and she loved them. She loved them all. More than all the praise from the adults or all the pizza in the world, Charlie loved all of those children. People were so certain that she would grow up to be the world's best mother.
Sadly, life had a way of overturning expectations. And sometimes life did this in the cruelest way possible. Poor Charlie would never become a mother because she wouldn't even live long enough to leave her childhood. How it happened was horribly ironic as well. The young girl had somehow gotten locked out of her pizzeria and since there was a party going on that day, no one was able to see or hear her banging on the door to be let back in. In addition, it was pouring outside. The rain drowned out her voice. Despite all her efforts, she was left alone, locked outside in the cold downpour. Only one person noticed her misfortune, and he was the last person she would've wanted to know...
He was tall and lanky, but surprisingly muscular and only needed one arm to whisk her away, hand clamped tightly over her mouth. The very last word she ever said was when she was still in the middle of trying to get back into the pizzeria. After this mysterious man, who intentionally kept his face hidden from Charlie, had whisked her off, he took her to the back alley of the pizzeria and murdered her. In cold blood, for seemingly no reason at all, he killed her. But to make it clean, it was done through simple strangulation, and since she was only a child, it wasn't very hard for someone like him to do. Then, once the dark deed was done, the man left her there alone in that alleyway. That was her cruel fate. The girl who was so kind, caring and selfless was left to die alone beside a pizzeria dumpster, full of moldy cheese and all manner of worms and maggots. Those were her only comforters as she passed from life into death. Barely 10 years old and already dead. The girl who always made sure to comfort those in need was left to die alone.
Or was she? Because even though Charlie was dead and hidden, someone finally noticed her absence. That someone was one of the pizzeria's animatronics. Somehow, it had seen her get locked out and tried to let her in, but its programming forced it to remain at its post. It was only when that strange man, whom the robot saw as a Purple Guy, came along that the robot found enough willpower to break its coding and try and save Charlie. It arrived too late, Charlie dead and the Purple Guy gone, but the robot still did not give in. Instead, despite the rain and its programming insisting that it go back inside, the robot knelt down by Charlie's already freezing body and reached out to her. Then its wiring went out just as quickly and quietly as Charlie's life had gone just a minute earlier.
But maybe life did have some strange, twisted sense of justice, because Charlie did not stay dead. Instead, somehow, she came back. Perhaps it was a vengeful spirit, the work of God or Satan or some other deathly deity, perhaps it was black magic or karma or chance or some strange scientific phenomenon that had never been observed before. But either way, it didn't matter. Charlie came back. And so did the robot that died trying to save her. They came back as one entity, two minds in one body, and their personalities intermingled. As Charlie would come to know, this knew body that her soul had chosen to possess belonged not just to any old animatronic, but to the Security Puppet. The Security Puppet had been designed to protect children, so that was why it had been able to break protocol long enough to try and exit the building to save Charlie. Once again, since it had not been built to go outside, the rainwater had shut it down, but Charlie's possession of the Puppet's body gave it new life. Charlie became the Puppet, understanding the humor of possessing the most protective animatronics of the lot, and she took her job with pride.
For the next few decades, Charlie continued her work of caring for the pizzeria and any innocent visitors, but for those who were not sanctioned or forgiven, she would dispose of mercilessly. With the same lack of pity that had been shown to her, Charlie disposed of the unclean and unwelcome. Only children were protected, but any and all adults, especially those in the pizzeria's uniform, would not be trusted or spared.
"Keep the music box wound up," one of the old nightguards had instructed the new nightguard. "It's the only thing that keeps the Puppet soothed." Well, this had only been a half truth. Actually, it was more complex than that.
After Charlie took over the Puppet's body, she was able to move with more freedom than it ever had. Apparently, soul overrode electrode. But even so, since the body was not entirely her own, she was still somewhat beholden to the Puppet's old programming. For that, it wasn't necessarily that the music box soothed her, because it didn't, that tune got real annoying to listen to all the time, but the box basically acted as a trap. Literally, any time the music played, the Puppet was programmed to stay in the box. The only way Charlie could escape was if the nightguard forgot to wind up the box, allowing her time to escape the room. Once free from the music box's scope, it never took her more than a minute or two to end the nightguard as per her promise to never allow another pizzeria employee to survive her wrath.
But why did Charlie give such attention to employees? Well, she finally learned the truth about her death. Her killer, this Purple Guy, had been none other than the pizzeria's creator: William Afton. And William didn't just stop after he'd killed her. At least five others perished under his hand. Charlie had to witness every single gruesome and heartrending murder while William got away with it every single time, totally free and unrepentant, happy that another kill had been pulled off so flawlessly. Seeing these continual murders drove her to extremes and now she had since decided that it would be better to kill too many nightguards in her determination to stop William than it would be to try and discern which was which and risk letting William take more innocent lives. It was strange to see Charlie like this. Poor, sweet, innocent Charlie who had made it her life's goal to protect the innocent. Now here she was, so full of vengeance and desperation that she was taking her job too far, so fixated on the hope of preventing more murders that she willingly killed any worker who came too close.
But then at last, she'd found him. Charlie had found William.
"I recognize you, but I'm not afraid of you... Not anymore! And seeing you powerless is like music to me!" she trilled sweetly from the ferocious form of the Puppet. William Afton, who stood before her, barely reached her neck. In a wonderfully satisfying role reversal, it was she who towered over him with every intent to kill while he could only stare up at her with those wild and deranged eyes. He still had that God-awful purple outfit.
"Ah, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! I should've known that if anyone would've tried to stop my plans, it would've been you!" he cackled, totally unafraid of her despite how different and murderous she was now. Whether he was foolishly brave or foolishly stupid or somehow could still only sweet the good little girl Charlie used to be was up for debate. What wasn't was the fact that he was more than willing to taunt her, even now.
"I should have known it would be you, who had so much strength and determination, that would figure out a way to undo death itself! So what are you going to do now? Kill me? My work is not finished yet, and I defy you to stop me!" William brandish his flashlight with a mad laugh. "I killed you once, I can kill you again and again!" he promised. "I will come back, I will always come back!"
"I don't hate you," Charlie replied simply. Just for a second, this seemed to turn William for a loop. He was a man of vengeance, hurt, injustice and anger, after all, so to hear that even now, Charlie was still capable of forgiveness astounded him. But then what she said next snapped him out of his surprise. "But you need to stay out of the way..." it was a clear warning.
"Or what?!" William scoffed, confidence returning to him.
"The others are under my protection," she replied cryptically. "They are like animals, but I am very aware..." Charlie tilted her skull-like head.
"The others?" William demanded, eyes narrowing in suspicion in awe as he tried to guess what she meant.
As if on cue, five animatronics appeared in the dim light of the pizzeria. The Puppet extended one long, spidery black finger and pointed behind William. William turned around and gasped in pure awe at the sight of five of his creations, standing before him with eyes a-glow.
"Fascinating! To see what they have become!" William was sincere in his amazement as he cautioned one step closer to the five robots. In response, they all snarled at him in perfect unison and took one threatening step forward. William jerked back, but was still undeterred. He kept rambling on about his intrigue about how his creations had become vessels for the dead.
"Impossible! How?" he muttered.
"I," the Puppet replied calmly. William whipped around again.
"You?" he was incredulous.
"I gave the gift of life," the Puppet replied. "You thought you won, but you never won. I brought them back. All of them! Every life you selfishly took away, I brought back. You have yet to truly succeed in killing even one of us!" then the Puppet waved that awful, spindly hands again and the animatronics began to growl and hiss. For the first time ever, William seemed nervous.
"Wait, now. Hold on. This is impossible! I still killed all of you snotty little brats whether you want to admit it or not!" he almost sounded like a little boy, trying desperately to hold onto the belief that victory was in his hands and that he had not been outsmarted after all.
"Your time is up, Mr. Afton. Accept your fate, accept your death. It is time you atone for your sins..." the Puppet's voice had gotten steadily deeper and slowly, the five animatronics began to limp towards William.
"No! You rusty buckets of bolts! Do you really think you can stop me?!" he demanded, then he made a mad dash from his office and down the hall to the storage room. The main five animatronics went after him with the Puppet leading the charge. Not the regular one, but one that had been hidden long ago. Inside lay a golden bunny suit. It would be a good place for him to hide. Those animatronics were stupid. It wouldn't take much to fool them and convince them that he'd somehow escaped the pizzeria. He would just hide in a suit until they were gone, or until morning came, and then he would be free to go again.
Or so he thought. What he forgot, though, was that a suit so old was surely to be in terrible disrepair and would not function the way he expected. The springlocks in the suit went off, killing him by crushing and impaling him to death. He, like the five children and Charlie, had seen blood and bone fuse with wire and metal, though on a far more visceral and graphic level, but since the nature of his death was the same, he was able to make good on his last vow to Charlie. It seemed that, whenever a particularly determined person were to die in the presence of an animatronic, life would surely be restored to them, and William was no exception.
But Charlie would be back as well. Just like always, even though the spirits of the other five children were finally ready to go home, Charlie remained. She continued to watch over the pizzeria because she, unlike the other five, had realized what the danger of William trying on the golden bunny suit had been. Charlie already knew that a determined person could fight their way back to life. Those five didn't, since she had to bring them back herself, restoring to them the lives they lost too soon.
But they hadn't realized that maybe William had had an ulterior motive for climbing into the Spring Bonnie suit. Maybe he had done it in case he was killed, so that he could resurrect just like Charlie had. Maybe William had intended to die all along so he could come back even stronger than before. But whatever the truth was, Charlie knew that William was not gone forever and as long as he existed in this life, a terrible scourge upon humanity, then she would be here too, ready to fight and defend. She, ever the protector, would be ready...
The Puppet stood quietly in Prize Corner, the music box playing its boring and repetitive tune, but the box was starting to slow down. No one was there to wind it up again. Then at last, the music ceased. Suddenly, a new melody, far more alarming than the first, started up. But it did not come from any music box. It came right from the Puppet, and the Puppet slowly, but surely, left Prize Corner and headed for the office.
AN: So, here's the fic for Darkgamer FNAF. I hope it meets your approval. I'll do the William one in a few days. For now, here's Charlie's little descent from a sweet protector into a horrifying vigilante.