Chapter 9

Assault

He sprinted down the darkened hallway with no regard towards how much noise he was making. All Mike cared about at the moment was making sure he and Jeremy got out of this situation alive, and so far, that wasn't going very well.

With the younger guard in the hands of one of the animatronics, even though Mangle was asking for their help, he was still nervous. There was still something he didn't quite understand about the situation. But at this point, 'Father' seems to be the key to having those questions answered.

The prize corner is just up ahead. Whipping around the corner, Mike found himself facing a large, pitch black room. There were no signs of movement or life whatsoever. That is, until he heard a muffled noise, obviously a voice. The pitch was high, but not enough to be a small child, and not deep enough to be the Marionette. It was also muffled like someone had their mouth covered, and there was no static radio noise behind the words. It was most likely Jeremy.

Mike brought his index finger to his own mouth in a silence gesture before slowly entering the room. After Jeremy stopped making noise, it was completely silent again, aside from the occasional static from Mangle that was now making itself apparent.

He started to feel the way he used to, back when he was the night watchman at the old location. His body temperature rose and dropped quickly and dramatically as he slowly reached for his flashlight that was clipped to the side of his brown belt. Hot, cold, hot, cold. The unsettling feeling that he had was very prominent in his appearance. His eyes whipped around in their sockets, trying to see every corner of the room, even though the lack of light made it impossible.

His trembling hand eventually made it to his flashlight, but it was too late for him to react. Mike grunted loudly as he was thrown to the floor onto his back by a sudden force to his chest, as if someone had hit him with a truck. He thought that he heard Jeremy and Mangle shout his name, but his ears were ringing like an explosion had just gone off.

Once he had recovered from the blow, which only took a matter of seconds, he looked around again, but was still submerged in complete darkness. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as a long, low pitched laugh echoed around the room, making its source impossible to pinpoint.

"Back again I see." Mike picked himself up off the ground and finally was able to turn on his flashlight and begin scanning the room. "And you brought a new friend." The Flashlight's beam crossed the actual prize counter itself, revealing Mangle and Jeremy sitting behind it, peering over the counter at Mike with wide eyes. "Heard you and Father spoke." The voice surely belonged to the Marionette. What happened to him? "Seems like he might have you in check, huh?" The voice grew more and more menacing and psychotic with every word, prompting Mike to search the room with the small light more frantically. The beam of light shook noticeably as it scanned the walls.

Eventually, it came to rest on the upper corner of the room, just above the doorway from which Mike had entered. Marionette was tucked into that corner, long fingers digging into the walls, in a position that resembled a spider. All in one instant, everyone sprung into movement.

Marionette jumped off of the ceiling and was flying toward Mike, who was too slow to react. Have to move!, Mike screamed at himself in his own head, but his body just did not respond quickly enough. Lucky for him, Jeremy had jumped over the counter, and had avoided Mangle reaching out to secure him. The older guard was tackled out of the way by the full force of Jeremy's weight, just in time to avoid the screeching puppet.

Mike was left lying on his back with Jeremy on top of him, and the pair quickly recovered and got to their feet. As the Marionette shook some sense back into himself from impacting with the tile floor at a ridiculous speed, Mangle made her way across the ceiling and sat on the floor behind the two men.

"What are you doing, Mangle? You work with me, remember?" The Marionette slightly chuckled as it spoke. "Father won't be happy with you." An alarm suddenly went off in Mike's head. Marionette had been part of a small, neutral party, and was now apparently working with Father. Not to mention he was acting as if he were out of his mind. Something is surely wrong with him.

"Mangle, come here." Marionette ordered. The bundle of wires did not budge, but rather growled and increased the volume of the static noises that it emits occasionally. The groups were at a standoff. No one made a move of any kind. Mike and Jeremy could each hear their own heartbeat and stared at Marionette, unmoving.

Much to Mike's dismay, the loudspeakers of the room sparked to life, once again allowing Father to communicate with those in the room. "Check, 1, 2, 3. Aaaaaaaalrighty! Well then, Mr. Schmidt. Looks like Foxy spared your queen, lucky for you. And on top of that, your rooke has come to defend you." Mangle snarled at the camera, most likely coming to the conclusion that Father had the tablet as well. "However, that will not defend you against my knight, especially when you lose that rooke of yours."

The trio stepped toward each other, huddling in a group when he spoke. Mike shouted out in response.

"These guys have thoughts of their own and I've seen it! They may not be living creatures but they still have thoughts and feelings. They aren't just toys for you to control and neither are we!" Jeremy looked up at Mike, shocked as the older man pulled him in closer. The speakers in the room cracked out sounds of laughter, and Marionette glared over that them with an evil looking smile on his face.

"Unfortunately for you, Mr. Schmidt, that is incorrect. I do control these animatronics. And no one else can unless I give permission." Mike felt a boiling anger rise in his stomach. He really wanted to just punch this guy in the face. "For example," Mike suddenly felt the same way he felt just moments ago, and how he felt right before Father gave Foxy the command to kill Jeremy. Hot, cold, hot, cold. Both he and Jeremy began to panic at the thought of what he would do.

"Mangle," The pair whipped around and looked at the tangled mess. Her eyes had gone black, and had little white pinprick sized dots where her pupils were just moments ago. Mike immediately grabbed Jeremy's arm and dragged him quickly from the room and ran away from the room. They were just close enough to hear the last command given. "Attack."

It took Mangle mere seconds to catch up to the pair, running right at their heels, Marionette just behind her, laughing at the guards' panic. They ran a decent distance, until they found themselves bolting into the Parts and Service room. They had unfortunately cornered themselves.

"N-N-Nowhere to run now!" Mangle's voice sounded broken again, and much more threatening than before. Mike slowly backed into the corner, forcing Jeremy to stand behind him. This kid is going to have a chance even if I don't. He's got his whole life ahead of him, I won't let him waste it on something this stupid! Hot, cold, hot, cold. Mangle slowly crept closer and closer to the trembling pair.

"M-Mike we need to run!" Jeremy was almost in tears he was panicking so badly. Mangle chuckled and Marionette stepped up beside her.

"Game" Marionette's smile widened to the point where it looked as if the smile cut his head in half. "Over."

Mike clenched his eyes shut as the animatronic duo lunged forward, both screeching as loud as possible. He braced himself for an impact that never came. It was instead replaced with a loud, metal clang, and a pained screech from Mangle. The older guard opened his eyes to find himself being shielded by a wall of dark red fur.

"Foxy!" Jeremy shouted out in surprise as the pirate turned around to face them.

"Aye, lad!" His eyes were no longer blackened out. His yellow gaze fell upon the two cornered humans as he stepped away to allow them to move. Mike was completely shocked. He had come to their rescue. But they were attacked by two animatronics, so who-?

"You filthy mess! How dare you impede me in my duties!?" Mangle was screeching insults like nobody's business.

"Filthy mess? Have you even looked in a mirror lately?" Another voice sounded out, and it was no mystery to Mike who else had assisted in their rescue.

"Bonnie!" He called out to the large, purple rabbit and Jeremy looked over Mike's shoulder to catch a glimpse of the animatronic in question. As soon as Bonnie turned to face them, he let out a small gasp at the sight of his face. Oh yeah.

"His face had been torn off." Mike said to calm the young man. "I found that to help repair his face, and cover vital wires that could have been torn out that way." Jeremy simply nodded in response and looked back over to Bonnie again, who was now holding Mangle back with his pink cat arm as the Fox gnawed on the plastic of its shell.

"Foxy! We have to deal with this before Father checks this room!" Both animatronics were now caught in one-on-one fights with an attacker. If Father sees what's going on, he may take control of Foxy again and possibly even Bonnie. And with that, a brilliant idea crossed Mike's mind.

"Foxy! Can you get Marionette pinned down on his stomach!?" Mike shouted out as he ran to the corner of the room and snatched up the tool bag that he had been using to repair various animatronics. Without even a single word in response, Foxy grappled the Marionette to the ground, facing downward as Mike had instructed.

"Great job!" Mike called out as he ran to the pirate's side and dropped the bag, Jeremy kneeling beside the struggling puppet, who was yelling angrily at the group, but they simply ignored him. "Jeremy, hand me a phillips-head screwdriver." He immediately complied. It only took a moment for Mike to remove the access panel from the back of the Marionette's head.

Quickly reaching his hand inside, he yanked on something inside and Marionette stopped moving entirely. "Wow!" Jeremy whispered in surprise. "What did you do?" Mike looked back at him and was met with a wide-eyed, fascinated expression.

"I just pulled the main power cord and severed it. Once I fix whatever that guy did to him, I can reboot him by plugging this back in." Mike held up what looked like an old ethernet cable.

"Damn you!" Mangle had wrestled free from Bonnie's grasp and had lunged toward Mike, who had no time to react to her swift attack. Mid leap, she clamped her sharp tooth-covered jaw down onto his shoulder, and he cried out in pain as they flew across the room.

"Michael!"

"Lad!"

"Mike!"

Three distressed voices called out to him as Mangle forced him to the ground, thrashing her head around with his shoulder still ensnared in a mess of metal teeth.

"GAAAAAAAH!" Everything except for his right shoulder felt cold and numb. Where Mangle was biting him, nothing but white-hot agony was registered. His eyes were locked open in a blank stare toward the ceiling as tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

Jeremy, Bonnie, and Foxy had all converged on the situation, but he didn't notice them. All sound had disappeared and all was silent. In the fading focus of his vision, Mike saw Mangle being torn away from him, jaws dripping with a dark red liquid. Blood. Quite a lot of it. Foxy and Bonnie were trying to hold back the thrashing mess to the best of their ability. Everything started rapidly getting slightly bigger and smaller, and Jeremy was in his face. It looked like he was shouting and was about to cry, with a look of complete terror and anguish. He must have been shaking him, but Mike couldn't tell, everything had gone numb.

Bonnie's face suddenly appeared in front of him as well, but it looked as if he was trying to console Jeremy more than anything. That is all that Mike could discern. Right as everything went dark, the last thing Mike registered, were two tears rolling down either side of Jeremy's face.

Im completely disgusted with myself for not getting this done sooner. Even though I still don't have wifi and am uploading this off of my phone data, it's still a struggle, but I HAD to get the next chapter out to you guys by Christmas. My little gift to you. In between family stuff and computer issues, I got it out and am very happy. Well, thanks for being patient with me. Chapter 10 by new years? I hope so. If the wifi in my house doesn't get fixed, I cant guarantee it unfortunately, but I'll try. Peace out, bros and Happy Holidays! :3