Hello once again, readers! Last time I left you all on quite a cliff hanger, so I am here to relieve you with a new chapter! Try not to hold your breath for too long as we progress through the chaos into the amazing conclusion of this struggle. Remember to sit back and try to relax as best as you can, and enjoy the next chapter!
The taser shocked Mike once again, his legs giving out as he fell to his knees. Inside his mind, Mike clenched his teeth as blood dripped from the corner of his lip and his nose. He grunted as he used all the strength he could to shove Purple Guy off of him.
"Everything you try will fail!" He shouted, Purple Guy levitating as he was about to lunge again. "It will always fail!"
"No... I will break you..." Purple Guy spoke, his voice deepening.
"After everything you tried, I'm still around. No matter what scheme you plotted, I've always come back too!" He pointed his finger at him then. "YOU'RE the one who's nothing! You're the one who HAS nothing! I have my friends, I have my REAL family!"
Back in the isolation room, Jeremy caught Mike as he collapsed, the fallen security guard muttering the next words softly.
"... I'm still here."
Calhoun snaked her arm under Mike's other arm, she and Jeremy dragging him down the hallway. "Alright, help me get him into the escape pod, put Mike in, lift the plastic cover, and the two of us have to push the red buttons inside."
"Calhoun, if this scheme of yours doesn't work, I swear to code I will-"
"Don't try to threaten me, just do what I say!" The sergeant snapped. Deep down, she knew how Jeremy was feeling and sympathized with that, but right now was the time for action.
Jeremy lifted Mike, placing him in the escape pod and sealing the door. He then went over to Calhoun, activating it so it would manually override his file into the code vault. She then got on her walkie.
"Kohut, do you read me? Over." Calhoun spoke into it.
"Ten four, I'm reading you, Sarge! Over." Kohut responded.
"You should be seeing Mike's file appearing any second now, confirm upon sight. Over." Calhoun said.
"Code identified, detaching now! Over." Kohut replied, pocketing the walking as he quickly got to work. Upon detaching it, he pushed it in an area where it was away from the main files of Hero's Duty. "Code has been detached safely, no other files were affected. Over."
"Good. Standby. Over." Calhoun sighed. "Now for the nail biter. Let's move." She said, leading Jeremy to the code vault. She hooked them up, giving the ropes a test tug before floating inside.
Inside Mike's mind, Purple Guy was about to attack Mike again when everything began to tremble, like an earthquake. Mike glanced all around him, gasping as he felt a lurching in the space. Purple Guy hissed, beginning to glitch as he looked down at himself. "What's happening...?" He asked himself as his code flickered, growling as his levitation became a bit unstable.
Mike took this opportunity to grab the IV pole, running towards younger Mike as he impaled nightmare Fredbear while he was distracted. He grabbed the boy's hand, pulling him back. Wind picked up, Mike holding the boy close to him.
In the code vault, Calhoun was working on Mike's code. "Jeremy, I need your help." She said, showing him its inner core. "That, is Purple Guy. I need you to remove only these extra threads... if you remove any others, it will hurt Mike. It's giving me a hard time... do you think you can do this?"
Jeremy took a deep breath, calming his nerves. "Yeah, I used to work on the code in my game's vault before it got unplugged." He said. "Just gotta be super careful with your fingers."
Calhoun moved back, allowing Jeremy to go up to Mike's code. He took a deep breath, cracking his knuckles before carefully working to extract Purple Guy's code from Mike's.
Inside his mind, Mike watched with his breath hitched as Purple Guy began to glitch violently, his scream becoming distorted as pixels began to fly off of him and dissipate. As his code began to be separated from Mike's, he grew more wrathful than ever before.
"NoOOOooOo! YOu wIll nOt wIN!" Purple Guy screamed, sending Nightmare after them. Little Mike screamed as he lunged right for him, Mike shoving him out of the way as he was taken into his sharp teeth instead. As Purple Guy burst into pixels, Mike was thrown aside, deep puncture wounds in his abdomen. His child self ran over to him, kneeling beside him as he frowned deeply.
"It wouldn't help..." The child whimpered, Nightmare advancing upon them. "I knew it wouldn't help..."
"It doesn't have to be this way unless you let it." Mike said to him, groaning lightly from his injuries. "It doesn't have to end..."
"I can't make it work right..." The boy cried, choking out a sob as he held his head. "It hurts... it hurts so much I don't know what to do... my brain is broken."
Mike smiled weakly. "Then I'll tell you what an old friend said to us once... I'll put you back together... I'll put us both back together."
Little Mike looked up as Nightmare charged towards them, when suddenly, several plushies appeared before them in a circle; Freddy, Chica, Bonnie, Foxy, and Fred Bear, levitating as their invisible force sent a powerful wind to fight against Nightmare. The horrifying monster roared ferociously, trying to claw at the plushies as he was blown back.
For the first time, feeling protected as his small friends came to his aid, he stood up tall, wiping his tears as he inhaled deeply.
"You're not my friend! My friends would never hurt me! I'll always have them! They will never forget me!" The little boy shouted, and soon Nightmare also burst into black, charred pixels that dissipated after a few moments.
Back in the code vault, Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief when he extracted Purple Guy's phantom code from Mike's, placing it in a container which Kohut brought to what Calhoun called the furnace, disposing it and destroying it. It was then that their relief was cut short, Mike's code beginning to spark a bit.
"N- No... what's happening?!" Jeremy exclaimed.
Everyone gasped when from the code box popped out a second code box, the label blinking as it read Little Mike Schmidt. Jeremy blinked, shaking his head in confusion.
Calhoun floated forward. "Alright, come with me and help me get these codes uploaded. I'm going to attach them to this game, so if Mike survives, he can regenerate within this game-"
"Wait, IF he survives?!" Jeremy choked.
"Yes, we have to wait for him to get past the critical phase." Calhoun answered.
Kohut returned then, hooking himself up to the rope and floating towards them. "Sarge, the phantom code is destroyed."
"Good riddance to him." Calhoun spat. "Alright Jeremy, reinstate the codes and attach them to the main hub."
Jeremy nodded, Calhoun helping him to get them over as Jeremy rewired them. Once connected, the two codes gave off a dim glow, illuminating with the other files. It was then that a distant, small voice came from outside the code vault.
"Help! Someone, please help!" The voice shouted.
The three hurried to the vault room door, unhooking themselves and Kohut closed the door and sealed it as Jeremy followed Calhoun towards the source of the voice. When they turned the corner, they saw little Mike standing over Mike, who was lying unconscious on the floor.
Everyone stared at the little boy, not knowing who he was of course. Jeremy got over the confusion the quickest, bolting towards the unconscious Mike. "Mike! Mike, can you hear me?" He shouted tearfully, shaking his shoulders. "Mike, please be alive, wake up!"
Upon the doors into headquarters being unsealed, Vanellope, who dragged Ralph there as soon as she was dropped off at Fix-it-Felix Jr., ran down the hall towards her friend.
"Mike!" She knelt beside him as soon as she reached him. "Everything is okay now, Kohut said the doors would open as soon as Purple Guy is gone, so you have to wake up, okay?" Vanellope shook him lightly, biting her lip anxiously as Ralph slowly approached.
"Just give him a second, Vanellope." Ralph said, hoping to codes he would wake up.
When the moments passed by and nothing happened, Vanellope hung her head, her bottom lip trembling as she began to cry. She blinked through her tears when she saw something out of her peripheral vision, glancing over to see little Mike holding something out; his Fredbear plush.
"He always helps me when I'm crying." He smiled sadly.
Everyone watched the sweet gesture somberly, and it was a small light of hope to dispel the darkness. Vanellope gave him the smallest of smiles, taking the plush with the hand not holding Mike's. When she did, she gasped when it began to glow, everyone watching in astonishment as Mike also was enveloped in it. When the glow dimmed, he slowly blinked his eyes open, glancing over at Vanellope as a smile grew in her features.
"Hey... no more crying." He smiled weakly. "That goes for both of you." He glanced at little Mike.
"Sweet mother Hubbard, he's alive!" Ralph exclaimed happily.
Calhoun hissed when Kohut asked if she was alright. "I'm fine, just... I just got some debris in my eye earlier..." She wiped at her eyes, trying to keep her composure.
Jeremy crushed Mike in a hug, making him cough a bit. "Gee, was I gone that long?" He joked lightly, patting Jeremy on the back.
"Don't you ever... EVER... scare me like that again." Jeremy told him in a very serious tone despite the shakiness, not loosening his grip at all. "And especially never make it to where I have to shoot you or dig around in your code again."
Mike exhaled gently, hugging Jeremy back. "I promise."
Calhoun walked over to them then. "Alright, enough of this emotional sh-"
"Uh, pardon me, Sarge..." Kohut interrupted, discreetly pointing over to Vanellope and little Mike as they talked to each other.
"... SHOW. Emotional show." Calhoun finished, giving Kohut a nod. "Mike, I'm just going to give you a good check over to make sure you're in good shape. Jeremy, keep giving me that look and I'll sock you one." She helped Mike to his feet, patting his soldier. "You are undoubtedly the craziest, but bravest person I've seen in my days, Mike. Cybugs would be nothing for you." She said as she led him into the monitor room, using a handheld scanner to double check for any kinks in his code.
Ralph smiled, crouching down by Vanellope as she handed Fredbear back to little Mike, the boy hugging the plush happily. "Made a new friend, huh?"
"Yeah! I can't believe that it's a second Mike!" Vanellope chirped. "He's just as awesome as the first one, only bite sized." She laughed.
"Yeah, it's like having a little brother that's actually just yourself." Ralph said with a confused scratch to his head. "Where the heck is he gonna live?"
"Maybe once the apartments are done, he can live there... either that or my castle." Realization hit her then, thinking of Sugar Rush. Just as little Mike had become paranoid of his friends because of his troubled history with them, she vaguely remembered the incident with Candlehead, frowning lightly. "I have a lot of making up to do... don't I?" She frowned. "How do I get back into a group that I'm still... afraid of?"
"Well... maybe you should talk to them about it." Ralph suggested with a shrug. "Clear the air between you and start over."
"I just don't get it, Ralph." Vanellope said as Calhoun escorted Mike out of the monitor room, deeming him perfectly fine. "Taffyta has apologized more than once... so why do I still feel like an outsider around them? Like... maybe they still don't like me, or don't want me around?"
"I dunno, kid... is there something they do that makes you still feel that way?" Ralph asked.
Mike, overhearing the conversation, approached them and crouched down near Vanellope.
"Listen... when that King Candy guy was around in your game, he poisoned everyone to hate your guts for so long, and made you feel so horrible, that... to get over an experience like that, I guess... it takes time. That's what Purple Guy did to me. He poisoned all of my childhood friends against me." He glanced over at little Mike, hugging his Fredbear plush. "It's not easy to move past something like that. If the Sugar Rush racers really care now... they'll know that it's going to take a lot pf patience to get over something like that. That's why I go with Ralph to his meetings... in a way, I still feel afraid sometimes too. You never really forget experiences like that. You just learn how to cope with them."
Vanellope listened to him, soaking the words in. "You're right... I guess I'll never truly be able to get over what happened to me. I just have to learn to stop letting the past keep me from having a future."
Mike smiled then, gently hugging Vanellope. "You know... I think I just got an idea. I want us to go and talk to Clyde about it... all three of us." He glanced up at Ralph.
Ralph smiled. "Sure thing, let's go. Hopefully he's not too busy with Toy Chica." He added with a chuckle, picking both Vanellope and Little Mike up easily to sit on his shoulders.
Jeremy hung back, rubbing his arm. He was busting at the seams to talk to Mike, but he didn't want to get in the way of this. It was more important anyway, he convinced himself.
Mike stopped as Ralph went ahead with Vanellope and little Mike, smiling at him. "Hey, are you coming? You should probably hear this too."
Jeremy's nerves jumped, turning a little red when Mike looked at him. "Uh... y- you sure?"
"Yeah." He smiled. "Come on, you'll hear what I have in mind when we see Clyde." Mike said, patting his back as they followed Ralph and the kids.
Well, can you believe it? Purple Guy is destroyed, perhaps once and for all, and everyone managed to survive! Will the aftermath be a sign of better times to come? What does Mike have in mind for Clyde? Have they finally put the horrors from within the Fazbear food chain behind them? There is still more to this story, so don't fret yet! Thank you again for reading, and stay tuned for the next chapter!