Epilogue: "Homecoming"
Scrapyard – November 15th, 1993;
"They should've been here by now." Leo watched as the moon in the sky started to dip down from its peak. It was now a new day, and their friends were nowhere in sight.
"I'm sure they'll be here soon." Puppet tried to calm them, but it was evident that he was worried too. His eyes were almost slits. His painted smile seemed to pain him.
"Maybe I should go see what's taking them so long." One virtue the lion had never possessed in either of his lives was patience. If he was expecting someone, they had better be on time. Not like he got mad, but he would often play the nice host and not even touch the long finished dinner on the table if the guests had not arrived.
"I'll go with you." Amanda immediately chirped up. Leo couldn't help but to smile. Ever since her transformation, she started to act like she had during their school years. Always carefree and ready to please everyone with a smile. Looking back to how stressed she had been almost two weeks ago, the lion felt guilty for not putting more effort into helping her when they first met.
Another thing Leo felt guilty about: His family. He'd been caught up in so much drama lately that he hadn't thought once about how his family was taking this. Never once did he think of his mother, father, sisters, brothers, aunt, grandparents, or soon-to-be-born nephew. He had been jerked to that realization when he had slept the other night when he had a dream about a figure walking towards his sister.
She lay on a hospital bed, completely asleep. The covers were pulled up to her neck and she snored lightly as she slept. Her usual golden lampshade of hair was pulled back tightly in a single ponytail. The figure stopped next to her and regarded her as if she were a fresh corpse. It then pulled a scalpel out of its pocket and brought it up to Bri's temple. Leo had woken that morning in a cold sweat.
"You'll have to find a disguise." He said. He had been standing there for a minute with a frown on his face, so the others were all looking worriedly at him. He looked around at all of the Toys, but his gaze ultimately rested on Fred. The bear looked away as soon as their eyes met. Leo knew what the bear deserved from him: Forgiveness.
Bon had told him of Fred's suicide-by-giant-car-crushing-machine stunt. In the beginning, Leo had been ready to hate the bear. That's usually how his mind went: Find flaws first, look at their good qualities post judgment. Leo hated how he did that, perhaps that was why something always ruined some of his most cherished friendships. Sometimes the smallest things could make him fantasize about hurting people for months and years until he finally wanted to give it another go.
Now, looking at Fred, he felt an urge to try to patch things up. Maybe being changed into an animatronic wasn't so bad, Amanda and he both seemed to be better people ever since their turn. But then again, Freddy and the others at the Pizzeria had all been innocent children. As animatronics, they had killed multiple people in a cry for revenge.
Amanda nodded and went to go look for something to wear. Leo was still dressed in the clothes he had found earlier. He just couldn't seem to get rid of them. Every time he thought about putting his stage pants back on, he remembered how strikingly similar his new outfit looked like his attire from Middle School.
As Leo watched Amanda wander off into the yard, he knew he wasn't going to wait for her. It would simply be faster if he went alone, plus the bus wouldn't cost as much.
Leo took one last look around before turning to go. Halfway to the gate, he looked back over his shoulder. "Fred." The bear looked up at him with some difficulty. "Don't worry about it." He left without another word. He didn't know that he would never see this place again.
The bus trip was as dull as normal. Nobody else was present except for the driver. Leo watched out the window at the passing lights of the city at night. When he was little, he would have stared in amazement at them. Now, however, he only wanted to stick his paw out of the window so he could cool down from the heat the driver had turned all the way up.
When the bus lurched to a stop, Leo thanked the driver and got out. He walked the rest of the way to Freddy's so that he wouldn't have to cope with that heating system. After about five minutes of thinking of all the people he left behind, Leo finally made it to the Pizzeria. The sign on the door said closed, but it was still unlocked. Leo entered the building.
He found it odd to see the stage empty. Freddy usually would stay up there even if Bonnie and Chica wouldn't. But now, it was completely empty. Looking over at his old stage, he noticed that the curtain was open. That meant that Foxy was out too. None of this would have been strange, if there had been noise. As it was, Leo heard absolutely nothing. No shuffling of feet, no hushed voices, just nothing.
Maybe he had missed the moving truck on his way to the Pizzeria. That would explain the atmosphere, but the lion figured he should check out the area in case they were just hiding. For some reason, he felt the urge to check the bathrooms first. He had no idea why they would be there, but it was like a force was telling him to go there.
As he approached, Leo noticed that the doors were boarded up. He had no idea how or why they were boarded up, but they were. He almost turned back, but that would've been a huge mistake. He entered the bathroom hallway and the sight he saw made him feel like he was dying all over again.
Amanda was furious. She'd finally reunited with her fiance for two days, and then he ditches her to go scope out the Pizzeria alone. Sure, he'd come back, but she was still angry with him nonetheless.
She'd actually found a suitable disguise. She had found a green shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and a turquoise hoodie. Since she didn't need them anymore, Amanda decided to just drop it off at Puppet's box where she was keeping all of her stuff. As she was setting the clothes down, her phone rang. She had a IBM Simon which had cost her a fortune, but Justin had gotten a lot of money from a job for a company that made them so they got a discount for the phone. She instantly grabbed the phone and answered it, hoping it wasn't anybody who thought she was dead.
"Hello?" She asked through the device.
"Amanda, you need to come quick. I don't have time to explain, just have the others gather their stuff." Leo's voice was heavily distorted, but Amanda knew it was him. "They need to take EVERYTHING. We aren't going to be back in a long time..."
"What are you talking about?" Amanda was scared. The tone in Leo's voice obviously showed he was distraught, but what could make him sound so heartbroken?
"Listen, I already called a bus to come pick you guys up." He said. "I'll meet you at the stop and we'll have to hurry to the Pizzeria if we don't want to be seen. Don't worry about disguises, I told him I'd pay him extra if he mentioned nothing about you guys." Amanda heard Leo choke back a sob before he continued. "See you at the stop..." The line went dead.
The lioness rushed over to the other animatronics in the 'living room.' They all could tell by her face that something was wrong.
"Pack all of your personal belongings." She said. "Something's happened at the Pizzeria, we're going to meet Leo there."
"How do you know something's wrong?" Mangle asked. Amanda held up the device in her paws.
"He called."
It took them five minutes to pack. The Toys didn't have much, just some supplies for beds. Puppet only took his box with him, and Amanda got a bag for her useless disguise and phone. They waited uneasily at the gate. They were all nervous about the driver's reaction, but the Toys were secretly glad. None of them wanted to stay in that place for another winter, and since they were taking all of their stuff they were probably going to stay in the Pizzeria for a while.
When the bus arrived, the driver's reaction was anything but thrilled. He stared at them as if wondering if they were real, or if he was hallucinating. The extra pay Leo mentioned must have been good because eventually he told them, "Get in."
They drove in silence. Something was wrong, and they didn't know what. They didn't look back as the yard slowly faded into the distance. Leo was waiting for them like he said. The animatronics all got out and Leo climbed in to give the driver his pay. Now she knew Leo meant business, because he handed the driver two Benjamins. They ran through the darkness, barely able to keep up with the lion as he ran through the streets. He didn't even try to be sneaky, he passed in front of cars and pushed people that got in his way aside.
When they finally made it, Leo pushed the doors open. He beckoned for the others to follow as he started heading towards the bathrooms. When he arrived, he knelt next to something that Amanda couldn't see. When the scene finally entered the animatronics' view, they all froze in their tracks.
"Don't look BB." Chi said, wrapping a wing around the child's eyes. But it was too late, the damage was done.
The four original animatronics lay dead. Oil spewed out of shredded endoskeletons. Their suits lay in tatters. The decapitated heads of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy stared at them with glowing, but empty, eye sockets. Somebody had torn them apart, and left them to rot.
Before they knew it, all of the animatronics were in tears. Amanda could faintly hear her fiance humming a tune that was familiar. She thought for a moment and decided that it was a tune that Freddy had shown the two after Fritz had repaired Leo. He had called it 'Toreador March'. It was Freddy's favorite song.
"It'll take me time to fix them." Leo said, his voice watery. He sniffled a few times before continuing. "We'll take refuge here while I work on them." He picked up Foxy's head. "Don't worry Captain. I won't abandon you..."
Amanda looked around at the assembled bots, only to realize one was missing. "Where's Puppet?"
Puppet found Goldie on the table. He was completely intact, which was good news, but the bad news was that he wouldn't wake up. Empty eye sockets only revealed a faint glow from the bear's eyes. Somehow, just like the others, he was gone. Puppet's eyes welled up with purple tears.
After everything that has happened, he leaves for two days to find his friends dead upon returning. It wasn't fair. His music box played in his arms, but he didn't want the thing anymore. He would give it up just for Goldie to be alright. He wanted it to stop playing so he could just lose it, go into a fit and destroy everything to avenge the bear, but the box still played. One lyric stuck to the animatronic's mind as he looked upon Goldie's corpse.
"Kiss me quick, and then I'm gone..."
The music had always been an important role in his animatronic life, but could the music possibly be shaping this? "No!" Puppet mentally slapped himself. "Don't be stupid!" In times of great loss, superstition normally ruled over reasonable thought. Puppet would not let that happen. There had to be a way to right this wrong. There had to be...
The door opened creakily from behind him. He turned to find Leo staring upon the scene. One quick look at Goldie told the lion everything. Puppet noticed the fox head that the lion cradled in his arms. Tears had matted a thin line of fur to Leo's face. They met eyes for a few seconds, and in those few seconds, a mutual agreement was passed. Leo left him in peace.
The rabbit scrambled to his feet. He felt so... Dirty. Was what even happened real? Maybe it had been another nightmare, he'd been asleep for so long...
No. The blood was still there. It wasn't a dream. He heard voices from the other side of the door. Maybe if he could get to them, they could help. He tried to make his way to the door, but stumbled and fell. He made hardly any noise when he landed, so the voices couldn't have heard him.
He was too weak to stand, too disturbed to think straight. All he could do was whimper as the voices became softer and softer, until they were no more. He dreamed again. He dreamed of the man. He dreamed of his partner. He dreamed of the children. The dreams washed away the pain, but they were only dreams. If he ever woke again, the pain would be back, only this time it would be much worse...