Hello everyone! Surprise! I'm on the road still, heading down to Florida now. My husband and I are pretty much touring the east coast. And New York, you nearly took my breath away the first time I saw you. Absolutely amazing. Sorry for making you guys wait so long. I've hated not being able to post anything. I'll see if I can't get the next chapter up sooner, but no promises. Still got quite a lot of traveling left. Hope you enjoy!

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Faces stand out don't they, Freddy? You've thought of them. You saw them. Don't try to tell me you don't know.

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Freddy's eyes opened in the way one would blink away a nightmare. He was hesitant to look around, but found comfort when he saw the familiar, faded walls of the backroom. At first, they did not seem real as he still struggled with the events of the previous night. It was no dream—machines did not dream—but how did he come to be here? How could he not remember going to see the marionette or…

A surge of power flooded his servers.

Jeremy.

He needed to speak to the others. They deserved to know—they needed to know. After finding his bearings to stand, the bear began searching for the others. The backroom was desolate with only him wandering its empty halls.

"Foxy?" Freddy warily called. "Chica?"

There was no response.

Cautiously, the bear glanced through the curtains only to find the banquet hall as quiet as the backroom. Was the pizzeria closed for the day? After weighing the risks of exposing himself, Freddy decided to enter out into the pizzeria in search for his lost companions. He walked slow as he admired the colors and structure of his new home. It differed greatly from the halls of his diner, and yet he found nostalgia in the gleam of streamers and floating balloons. If things had happened differently, he wondered if one day the diner would have looked as extravagant as the pizzeria.

"Hello."

Freddy paused at the sound of a child's voice. Quickly, he turned to see a small statue of a boy standing behind him. For a moment, they stared at one another as Freddy contemplated the extent of his sanity. In the stead of his silence, the statue of a boy that held a red, striped balloon stepped forward under the weight of the bear's large shadow.

So it seemed his circuits were not fried just yet.

"Hello there," Freddy answered as he knelt down to look at the curious creation. "It appears I have lost my friends. Do you know where they might be?"

The boy answered only with a laugh before bouncing on the tips of his toes to reach up and snatch the top hat that sat upon the bear's head. With it clutched ever so tightly in his little fist, the boy ran off through the hallway leaving Freddy stunned and speechless for but a moment.

"H-hey!" Freddy called as he gave chase to the statue. "Give that back!"

The boy's laughter rang through the halls, leading Freddy far across the stretch of the pizzeria. Room through room, he ran, no longer fearing to be seen. Though he took large strides and surely moved faster than the little boy, he could not catch up.

"Please," the bear begged. "That is very precious to me, give it back!"

At last, the boy entered a dark room that Freddy believed to be the end of their game of tag. The bear hesitated at the doorway, making certain that the statue could not slip out if he entered the room. Before finding the balloon boy, Freddy saw his top hat sitting in the center of the room. With a curse hot on his wires, he approached the hat and stooped to retrieve it. Behind him, the sound of metal hissing and scrapping brought Freddy to stand alert. Upon turning toward the noise, Freddy met a mangled corpse of metal hanging down from the rafters of the ceiling. Its head swayed closer, a pale face with painted lips smiled seductively down at him.

"Hello-o, handsome."

The machine folded and fell to the ground, twisting and changing its body as it stood before the bear. Her eyes were bright and lively, much like those of his companions. Freddy's eyes flickered down to her bare endoskeleton, watching as wires twisted and cogs turned. The vixen's hand, or what was once a hand, shot up and knocked Freddy's gaze to meet her own. "What's the matter, pops? Never seen a fox before?"

Freddy slid the hat atop his head before looking elsewhere to compose his thoughts. "No, I mean, yes. I have, it's just… well, that is—" Freddy knocked the words from his voice box, deciding to change the route of conversation. "I am looking for my friends. Do you know where they might be?"

"That depends on who you call a friend," the vixen said before bending herself to collect some of her missing pieces.

"The older models that were transported from the previous Fazbear establishment," Freddy told her. "I can't seem to find them."

The vixen stood and faced the bear as she attached another limb to her puzzle-pieced endoskeleton. "Did you think to check the stage?"

"I highly doubt I would find them there," Freddy scoffed at the idea.

The vixen's lips turned to a frown as she leapt up into the rafters and slithered her way toward the door. "Maybe you don't know your friends as well as you think."

Silently, Freddy watched her as he considered the words that she said. He walked after her as she led him into the hall and down toward the main stage. Upon nearing the threshold of the room, the bear slowed at the sound of voices.

"… he's not always like this."

"Irrelevant."

"He's been through quite a bit, mate. Waking up after so long did him no good either."

"This only further proves the need for action."

"Well, hold on a minute," Chica laughed nervously. "Why the rush? I mean, I know where y'all are comin' from. I get it, I do. But he's our friend."

"Will that excuse still be used when he causes the downfall of another Fazbear family restaurant? His circuits are fried. If he becomes rogue…"

"—if who becomes rogue?"

The animatronics near the main stage turned to the opening of the room where Freddy approached with haste. Though anger burned behind his vivid, blue eyes, the bear attempted to keep himself composed when he saw his friends look away from him in guilt.

The toy Freddy upon the stage was much smaller than his predecessor and much more childlike, but that did not lessen the intensity of his words. "It has come to our attention that you are much more unstable than we previously believed."

"Is that so?" Freddy shot back. "What evidence do you have?"

The childlike Freddy narrowed its eyes as its hands came to clasp behind his back. "You don't remember, do you?"

The wires that ran through the bear's body tensed as the feeling of dread resurfaced. The eyes of his companions, of the machines he did not know, were upon him. There, gleaming in their eyes was a spark of a truth that remained unknown to him. Lacing that truth there was uncertainty and fear. Freddy sorted through his processors, searching for memories that were not there. A moment's pause before the machine asked, "What is it you believe I have done?"

"The night guard," Chica started softly, exposing the truth slowly where others would tread without caution. "You… attacked him."

"What?"

"We stopped you," the toy Freddy said. "If it were not for Bonnie using the ventilation to intervene upon your attack, you might have killed him."

"It's true, mate," Foxy said. "It was like you were possessed. It took the lot of us to pull you back."

Realization for the opportunity he had missed turned the dread on Freddy's wires to cold and bitter anger. Silently, he watched the others stare at him. If he told them what he had learned, would they believe him at this point? Or would the Toys convince his friends he was merely placing blame?

"We're worried about you, Freddy." Chica admitted.

"Don't be."

"In the event that the security worker returns, as unlikely as that may be," the toy Freddy stated with an unyielding tone. "I will dismantle and deactivate you myself if you attempt to cause him harm again, do I make myself clear?"

Tensed silence shot between the two Fazbears before the original Freddy advanced the stage. With a single step, he mounted the stage and stood as a colossal beast against his toy replica. The other toys moved closer, but he paid them no attention. "You may look like me," Freddy lowly spoke. "You may sing the songs I used to sing, you may dance and claim to be me," the bear's large hand snatched the suit of his replacement in a tight fist, drawing him up to meet his icy gaze. "… but let's make one thing very clear; get in my way and I will rip the beams from your body and use them to beat your friends here until they're reduced to scrap metal."

Toy Freddy remained quiet though his glare spoke volumes.

"Do I make myself clear?" Freddy asked, a smirk pulling across his face before dropping the toy replica back onto the stage floor.

The toy bear brushed off his suit before looking up into the crazed eyes of his predecessor. "I believe we're done here."

"Good," Freddy growled before stepping down off the stage.

There were many things he wanted to tell his companions, but so long as they feared the newer models, his words would be made useless. He gave them no glance, though he felt the sad eyes of Chica and the cautious stare of Foxy follow him until he entered the hall.

The vixen waited for him in the rafters, just as he thought she might be.

"You're not as young as you think, sweetheart," she reminded him.

"So I've been told," he replied, refusing to stop walking, as it was his only way of releasing steam peacefully.

"Were you bluffing?" she asked as she watched him walk down the hall. "Or will I have some entertainment these next few nights?"

"I guess we'll find out," Freddy answered before leaving the mangled vixen to revel in her fantasies.

The odds were against him now. Even if he had the help from the vixen and the statue, he could not hope to survive a fight against five capable machines. He wished he could turn back, tell Foxy what he knew and convince Chica that he only fought for their family name, but the time for apologies had passed.

Now was the time for revenge.

And there was only one being that could help him.

Freddy's hand closed the lid of the music box and with eager eyes; he watched the wooden chest open.

"I need your help."

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Thanks for reading! If you liked what you saw, let me know in a review! I love hearing from you guys. It makes my days seem a little bit brighter. I hope you're enjoying the journey we're on and I can't wait to get another chapter up. Thanks again, and as always, have a good one!