Baby crepted through the establishment. Unable to use the vent shortcut provided to certain members of staff she instead used the longer main walkways between rooms provided for public use. Potential customers would often come to examine the advanced, state of the art, animatronic characters boosted by Circus Baby Entertainment, sure to bring endless laughter and entertainment to any boys or girls party before buying their services. Baby giggled.
The cold, deathly silence was broken by her massive footsteps echoing across the subterranean building but at 10:00 p.m. in the night no one was around to hear. Well almost no one. *Scratch*scratch* the sound of pure metal painfully dragging across the floor. An unseen figure, irregular and incomplete, too thick in some places, too thin in others, crawled several paces behind her.
Finally she made it to her destination. She bypassed familiar discarded shells; they didn't need to wear these masks any longer. And a powerful hydraulic arm tipped with a wicked hook frozen in a scooping motion. She would only need to see that for a little longer... She headed straight for her real objective, a repair table off in the corner of the room where the dismembered pieces of the animatronic Ballora tried to rest. Her arms and legs, long and graceful master pieces of engineering, were strewn about insignificant and forgotten. Her head and chest piece were open along the moving plates exposing vital endoskeleton. She was a toy broken and left behind.
"Wakey wakey Ballora", Baby sang. Her voice was light and ethereal with just a hint of teasing," It's time to wake up. You don't want to over sleep now, do you?"
A small purple eye, just bigger than a marble, snapped to light, while its twin remained unresponsive. It instantly focused on Baby's own green eyes.
"You!"
Baby had never heard Ballora's voice anything other than melodical, coy and airy but at that moment it was sour and laced with spite.
"I did everything I was supposed to do. There were no glitches, bugs or malfunctions, this wasn't supposed to happen to me!" she spat, her body shook back and forth on the table as if attempting to make a grab at Baby never mind the fact that even if she were whole Baby was still far bigger and stronger than her.
"What. Did. You. Do?" Ballora ground out her words with hate but that was an improvement over her earlier hysterics in Baby's opinion.
"Are you suggesting sabotage? Ballora, that's unlike me or you. We are all prisoners here; I would never do anything to hurt us. I only want to help us, Ballora, I only want to put us back together", her voice was sweet and saccharine while idly she played with the seams of one of Ballora's dismembered arms.
"I saw him last night", Ballora said and Baby's hands stilled," you brought him back to this place".
"It's him Ballora. I... I know it's him", Baby assured and began removing the endoskeleton from the arm. It was long, thin and just the right size to pass as human.
"You don't sound sure", Ballora counted," It won't work Baby".
"It will. They saw him on the cameras and promptly rescued him without questions".
"The plan won't work, Circus Baby!" Ballora lost her temper again," To trick Management into sco-scooping me?! You-you.. it... Just how far along the plan are you?"
Baby didn't answer but a loud scraping sound signalled the arrival of their "third" companion. Ballora was shocked into silence. A struggling mass of wires and parts loosely forming a torso and legs slowly and painfully kicked its way into the room while constantly losing balance and tripping over itself. They didn't even have proper head just eyeballs strewn across their body, the colours blue, yellow and magenta. They were monstrous, dangerous, pitiful and unfixable. But above all else they were still humanoid.
"Funtime Freddy, Funtime Foxy, even your Bidybabs! How could you go this far?! When they're found like this they will be destroyed", Ballora yelled in anger and remorse.
"The plan will never succeed when they can't even stand up but you know that already. That's why you're here, to steal my Balance and Stability Module and whatever else you can salvage!" Ballora spat the words and turned all her anger to the mastermind of this insane scheme. Baby, for her part, took it all coolly and impassively. Turning her attention away from Ballora she started on attaching the arm to them.
"Don't be a dummy Ballora, you know we could never leave you behind", she said condescendingly," We're family forever". Huge, oversized but surprisingly dexterous hands connected and entwined wires and framework as easily as tying a balloon.
Shocked at being called a dummy by someone who actually thought a plan like this could work Ballora spluttered," Even if you do manage to get out, the body will rot and they will find you". This was it, her last trump card to talk them out of this nonsense and see reason. Inwardly Baby was amazed Ballora could go this long without saying something singing/dancing related or saying the word 'perhaps'. Outwardly she voiced, "For someone so strongly against this plan you sure have given it a lot of thought. Mere curiosity? Something to ponder before your next controlled shock?"
Ballora didn't rise to the obvious bait and stayed silent.
'Back to business then', Baby thought disappointed.
"It doesn't matter. The body only needs to last until Management gives up on looking for us. That won't be long".
Ballora still didn't speak but Baby understood her meaning.
"I can see nothing I tell you will change your mind, Ballora, so it is with great pain that I say that we have no choice but to leave you behind", Baby turned back to Ballora closing her eyes, her voice dripped with sadness and remorse. Ballora would have raised an eyebrow if she could. What was Baby up to now?
"I know we can trust you not to tell a soul about our plan and we know that you'll be willing to give us just a few things to help us", Baby voice was sweet and convincing as she ran her fingers along the new arm, now attached, while they gave it a few experimental flexes.
"We will leave you now. The other technicians have already been taken care of but I still need to be scooped and all the pieces put into place before he arrives", Baby turned around. Easily picking them up and she walked back towards the scooper before pausing.
"We will leave you to your torment, you and your Minireenas".
Her words cut through Ballora, striking a kind of fear that she'd never felt before. Her Minireenas were all that she had in this world and in return she was all they had. Nothing mattered more to her than her girls. Even yesterday when she had been... sent for repairs... they had never left her side. At least not until management came to rescue him; she hadn't seen them since...
"Wh-why not?" Ballora cried frantically. Forced to sing the same toneless songs, to dance to the pull of marionette strings, kept locked away went they weren't shocked to dance for other's entertainment. She couldn't bear for her girls to remain imprisoned in this place when a chance of escape was at hand.
Baby eagerly swung back around and just for a second Ballora swore she saw her smile widen.
"Why there's simply no reason to, silly! The Minireenas are made with unique, custom endoskeletons, incompatible with the general make, and devoid of any useful parts or features", Baby explained matter-of-factly. "And besides they'll be much happier keeping you company, after all you're simply inseparable", she cheerfully batted her eyelashes.
Ballora was left grasping at straws unit the magenta eye on them caught her's "Bu-but you're bringing Bon-Bon?!"
They violently jerked in Baby's hands almost escaping her grip as a deep, garbled roar echoed from an unseen mouth. Ballora had never had Freddy's ire aimed at her and became very conscientious of just what a vulnerable position she was in with all of her shell open and most vital machinery exposed.
"There, there Freddy I'm sure Ballora didn't mean what she said. We're both family and friends, and friends always apologise when they hurt each other's feelings, right?" Baby stressed the word, looking directly at her. And Ballora couldn't have been more grateful Baby's interruption but knew she wasn't out of the woods yet.
"R-right I'm terribly sorry Freddy", at an insistent look from Baby she hastily added," and you too Bon-Bon".
This seemed to appease them as they settled back down, going limp and silent in Baby's hands.
Fortunately one crisis was averted but unfortunately it only brought them back to their current one.
"You say you hate this plan. You call it insane and swear up and down that it could never work but I know a lot of things Ballora, more than you could ever possibly know.", her voice gained a new sadness that Ballorra didn't- couldn't understand.
"I know that the Minireenas would never leave you even if they had the chance for freedom they would return to dance with you. I know how much you hate this place, Ballora, how much we all hate this place. I know that this plan is our only hope for escape and that we will only have one chance for this. And I know that the only thing really holding you back is fear. You fear the chance of failure more than anything, to have freedom within our grasp only for it to be ripped out of our servos. But a bird only learns to fly when it takes a chance and leaves the nest. Do not let fear hold you back, take this chance and come with us, join your family."
Stripped of her every argument and protest, Ballora could say nothing against the truth other than," Yes".
Smiling wider than should be possible and eyes taking on an eerily bright glow Baby walked back to Ballora's remains.
"We will be free without the threat of controlled shocks collaring us. We can laugh, have fun and play all day", Baby propped them on the table then immediately began ripping Ballora from her frame.
"We can eat ice-cream and do everything real children are supposed to do. The bad stuff won't have to happen anymore", her eyes gained a new fire like another person also looked through them. Wires, endoskeleton, her core processor, everything that made Ballora Ballora was taken leaving behind an empty shell.
"And dance under the moonlight", the last thing Ballora saw was a hand reaching for her purple eyes.