Hey, everybody! I'm back and ready for more!

I had a pretty nice hiatus. I think it really helped me get everything in order so I could return fresh. I've decided to dedicate myself to this story full-time until I can get it done and completed, so expect more updates in the future.

As always, enjoy!

After Hours

The Cold Outside

One last, fluid scoop filled the plastic cup about half-full with snow. Mike pressed a little more snow into the cup and tucked it into the bag hanging from his shoulder, where three other cups, identical in both appearance and contents, were nestled. Four cups meant one cup for each animatronic – just as planned.

Mike chuckled. They should have been more careful when asking him to show them what snow was like. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of this sooner.

He stepped through the already unlocked door, set all four of the snow-filled cups down onto a table, and got to work. He grabbed two of them and hopped up onstage where the daytime trio remained presently immobilized. Mike had made sure to come to the pizzeria earlier than usual tonight; he couldn't risk having the robots come back to life on him while he was still setting things up.

Sliding back around so that he was standing behind and between Freddy and Chica, Mike turned the cups upside-down and dumped the snow into the cracks between their heads and bodies. It was pretty thick but also quite wet, and so came out in solid chunks that broke minimally against the fabric of the animatronics' costumes. No matter, the guard merely had to crumble it up some to allow it to slip inside.

It would melt into a nice slush soon enough, but Mike wasn't finished. He hopped off the stage, grabbed a particularly full cup, and hopped back up to continue. The guard turned his attention next to Bonnie, and with the worst kind of grin stretching wide across his face, he overturned the cup into the lavender rabbit's neckhole. He struck the bottom of the cup repeatedly to ensure as much of the frozen water slid out as possible, spreading it into Bonnie's interior as widely as possible.

Jumping down one last time and grabbing the final cup, the guard ducked between the curtains to Pirate's Cove where Foxy remained as always. Scooping a decent-sized handful of snow from the cup, Mike slapped it into Foxy's framework – a much easier task here than for the others, given Foxy's deteriorated condition. Satisfied with his handiwork, Mike strode out of the Cove, slid into a chair, and waited for his friends to wake up for the night. Maybe he should have felt bad about what he'd done, but the animatronics were plenty tough. They could handle a prank like this.

Besides, he was their designated educator. It didn't hurt to be hands-on every now and then.

The wait paid off as the clock on Mike's phone hovered between midnight and a minute past. A sudden, surprised yowl echoed from the darkness of the Cove, and Foxy bounded out with flapping jaw, shrieking of witches and 'winter's merciless bite.'

Chica and Bonnie reacted next, yelling and gripping at their neck in a useless effort. Bonnie cursed and clawed at himself with such fervor that his head began to come loose, while Chica bent over almost horizontally.

Freddy didn't lose control of himself like the others, but the bear couldn't stop himself from groaning and gripping desperately at his neck in hopes of subsiding the pain.

Mike watched everything play out, but when Freddy awoke he fell off the chair with a whoop of laughter. He couldn't imagine everything playing out more beautifully.

"MIKE!"

The guard's giddiness faded only a little bit at Chica's enraged shout. Sitting up from his place on the floor, Mike saw Freddy and the bird glaring at him, accusation evident upon their faces. Bonnie continued to frantically rub the cold away, while Foxy still ran around the room, screaming "Hell's bells!" and other such curses at occasional intervals.

"What did you put in our suits?! It's cold!" Chica shouted.

Mike laughed again. "Guys, relax! It's just snow! You know, frozen water?"

Bonnie stopped clawing at himself and joined the other two robots in staring at the guard, head still hanging askew. "Water? This is just water?"

"Well, yeah," Mike said, coming down from his high but still smiling. "You said you wanted to see snow but you couldn't go outside, so I decided to bring it to you."

"By putting it in our suits and letting it melt?" Chica asked. "Why would you do that?"

"Because it's funny!" Mike spread his arms wide. "It's a practical joke! A be-careful-what-you-wish-for kind of thing. Come on, look at Foxy!" He pointed to the fox in question, who was still thrashing about wildly.

Freddy walked downstage and cupped a hand next to his maw. "Foxy, keep yer tail on!" The bear boomed. "S' jus' water! Stop that screamin', hurts th' ears."

Foxy ceased his blind struggle almost immediately and looked back at Freddy, slack-jawed. "Water? But it be so cold!" He protested.

"That's snow for you, buddy. No way I was about to let you guys go without getting to experience it," Mike said. He turned back to face the three onstage animatronics. "Come on, guys. Don't tell that doesn't make you laugh a little bit!" He beckoned to Foxy.

Not one of the animatronics seemed impressed. Freddy opened his mouth to speak, but Bonnie interrupted him with a tap on the shoulder and whispered something into the bear's ear. The two of them turned away, and Chica followed suit, causing them to form a huddle. Mike could hear the robots whispering further, but he couldn't make out any shreds of their conversation. "What are they doing?" Mike said, turning to Foxy.

"Beats me, it does," Foxy replied. He glanced warily at the human. "Why ye be pulling a stunt like this, Mikey? I appreciate a crafty mind much as th' next cap'n, but I made ye me first mate fer a reason. Ye gotta set an example fer th' crew!" His eyepatch was up, and his eyes dimmed with disappointment.

"Foxy, have a sense of humor," Mike admonished. "Have I ever pulled a prank on you guys before tonight? I'm entitled to joke around every now and then. Besides, you guys were never in any danger."

Foxy didn't reply, but he appeared thoughtful.

It was a couple of minutes later when Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica spun back into action. They broke from their huddle in unison, and then hopped down from the stage together. "Alright, funny joke, Schmidtty," Bonnie drawled, swaggering forward. "But you're not the only one here tonight who can play a good prank."

"Yep, it's our turn now," Chica declared, rolling her shoulder in a slow, deliberate manner. "You got us in the mood for a revenge play."

Mike chuckled with disbelief, but he was rapidly growing nervous and the animatronics could tell. "W-what are you guys talking about? What's a revenge play? You shouldn't be going for revenge, it's not healthy."

"Don' go n' silver-tongue yer way out o' this jam, boyo. Ain' gon' work," Freddy said. "Ye got us riled like a nest o' voles. We gotta do somethin', ya understand."

"Like what?"

Bonnie strode forward in long, loping steps toward Mike. "We were thinking something along these lines." Without warning, the rabbit's arms lashed out and snared the guard under his left shoulder. Mike yelped in shock and struggled against Bonnie's grasp, but Bonnie was determined, and his grip vice-like. Chica joined him on the opposite side, grabbing Mike's right arm in a similar manner.

Mike fought for freedom, but the rabbit and chicken didn't give any ground. "Okay, seriously. You guys have to tell me what you're doing to me!" Mike begged. "You're stronger than me – you can do a lot more damage!"

"We're not interested in breaking any part of you, don't worry," Bonnie said, although his stern tone undercut his message quite roughly. "But it's only fair that we get to give you a surprise of our own this time. That means no details and no means of escape."

"It won't take long, Mike," Chica added. "A few seconds, tops. Just to give back a little bit of what you gave us."

"Give back? What- Foxy! Help me out here!" Mike called as his eyes met the captain's. "Please?"

Before Foxy could move, Freddy stepped between them. "That ain' happenin'. He may be th' cap'n, but I'm the admiral, n' I'm callin' th' shots here." The bear, in a bizarrely authoritative manner, pointed down the hall toward the front door. "Send 'im away!"

"On it!"

"Yes!" Bonnie and Chica spoke together, and then marched down the hall, dragging Mike along. The guard kept trying to make his escape, but the two animals held him with the firmness of police officers escorting away a killer. He may as well have been struggling against trees. Foxy and Freddy watched on with respective distress and austerity.

When they reached the front door, Chica pushed it open, barraging all three of them with a blast of cold air. Mike shivered against the harsh winter night, but the bird and rabbit stood in the doorway with an unaffected solemnity. It didn't take being a genius for Mike to figure out what they were planning to do with him.

"Guys, this isn't necessary!" He tried one last time to talk to them. "Can't we work this out inside?"

Bonnie shook his head gravely. "No, Mike. It's only appropriate that you go through what you made us go through."

"We're giving it back," Chica repeated. She turned to Bonnie. "Now?"

"Now."

A trio of shouts echoed out of the pizzeria – one of fear, and two of exertion – as Chica and Bonnie, moving as one, flung Mike out the door and into the snowy outdoors. The guard and victim struck the ground and rolled, snow clinging to whatever of his coat, skin, and hair that it could reach. He came to a stop lying on his front, and didn't move.

Mike wasn't really hurt – the blanket of snow and fluffiness of his coat saw to that – but the cold was bracing and he didn't feel like moving right away. Rather, he laid there, thinking back on what had led to that moment. He was almost proud of the animatronics for pulling such a stunt, much in the way a trouble-making older brother felt pride for a younger sibling who was turning out the same way as them. He would have been happier if he wasn't so cold, but he didn't have the right to make a choice like that.

After a while of lying there, Mike heard a familiar voice cut through the blowing winter winds. It was a warm and comforting voice, carrying a similar message that filled Mike's heart with joy and nostalgia.

"Get off the ground, you moron! We're still freezing our ears off over here!"

Ah, Bonnie, the thought crossed Mike's mind. Don't ever change.

"I'm perfectly happy out here!" Mike shouted back, determined to screw with his friends as much as he still could. "You can always come out and get me yourself."

"Schmidt, I am not carrying you back inside like a little kid! Even if I wanted to, we can't leave the pizzeria! Now stand up and walk inside already!"

"Have you ever tried to leave the pizzeria before?" Mike yelled. "Sounds to me like you're making an assumption there!"

Even from where he was lying, the human could hear Bonnie growl. "That's it, I'll drag you by your ankles!" The rabbit snapped, and stepped outside to follow through.

When his padded feet touched down upon the snow, Bonnie let out a yell. "Oh, God! This is worse than I thought!" He shouted, hopping from one foot to another and yowling in constant pain.

Chica stared at him in wide-eyed silence. "Bonnie?" She asked.

"What is this stuff? It's freezing!" Bonnie shouted, ignoring her. "This is water?! I'm not buying that!"

"Bonnie!"

"Chica, I'm dealing with something here! Let it wait!"

"You're outside, idiot!"

Bonnie stopped.

For the next minute, everybody was quiet but the wind. Even Mike was too surprised to make a remark.

But he was still the first to regain his wits. "See? I told you so," he said with a grin.

Bonnie around, still silent, taking in everything around him. The lights planted in the ground along the pizzeria walls, as well as the light poles from the nearby parking lot, provided relatively little illumination, but they lit up the snow-covered banks enough for the rabbit to see them regardless. He looked at them for a while, then turned upward to look at the snow raining down around him.

And then he craned his neck upward further to see the starless, pitch-black sky. Words continued to fail him.

"It's... it's... big," Bonnie whispered at last. The snow fell upon his plastic eyes and melted from their residual warmth, soaking into the rims around them. The animatronic didn't seem to notice. "It's so big," he repeated, his voice overwhelmed by awe. "Where are the walls? Doesn't it ever end?"

Mike pulled himself back up and rose to his feet. "Of course it doesn't. That's the best part," he answered, his voice electric with excitement.

"I don't like it," Chica said, wandering out to join them. She winced noisily as her feet came into contact with the fallen snow. "It's too big. How can it be this big?"

"What, this? This is barely anything," Mike replied. "Like a single speck of sand on an entire beach, but even smaller." He joined them in looking up at the falling snow, which seemed to appear from nowhere against the blackness of the night sky.

Behind them, Freddy and Foxy trudged out slowly to join them, tenuously at first but more eagerly once they had cleared the door. The bear hissed at the chill while the fox let out a yelp, although neither one put on a show like Bonnie had.

"Well, blow me down," Foxy spoke first, eyepatch flipped up and jaw fully dropped. "If this be th' land... then th' seven seas must be even more gigantic than I ever imagined!"

"Somethin' like that," Freddy added. He let out a low whistle. "Well, don' this beat all? A sight like this really puts life into perspective, don' it?"

Some scattered nods were returned to him as a response. The others, for the most part, were too busy taking in the sight – the majesty – of the outside world; the world that they'd only dreamed of seeing before but never believed they could actually reach. It betrayed their expectations entirely – none of them had expected something as massive as what they were seeing.

If this really was just a speck of sand on a beach, what else could there be? The question made their heads hurt and their stomachs swim.

"Incoming!"

Suddenly, a round orb of snow smacked clean into Bonnie's face. The rabbit's head was knocked almost all the way around his skull, and he and the other three shouted in surprise.

Mike merely laughed. "And that was a snowball! The one projectile weapon that parents don't mind their kids playing with! You're welcome."

Bonnie slid his head back into place and leered at the smirking guard. "Oh, that's how it is, little man? I can play like that." He bent down and grabbed a massive pawful of snow, then slapped it into a massive sphere; the size of it made Mike just a little bit worried. "Catch this!" Bonnie shouted, heaving the ball at his human friend.

Mike dove to the right, sliding on the snow, as the great snowball sailed over him and struck the ground past him with a loud THOCK. "Nice one!" He called back.

"I want in on this," Chica decided, scooping up snow as Bonnie had. Spinning on one foot, she heaved it suddenly at Foxy, who took it in the mouth.

The pirate fox spat out snow and growled. "Oh, this be war!" He tried to pick up some snow, but his hook hand made forming it into a ball impossible. That didn't stop Foxy at first, but eventually the robot had to concede. "Oy, Mike! Help me out here!"

"On my way!" The young man rushed over to Foxy's side, carrying two more snowballs. He passed one off to Foxy, and then the duo heaved them as hard as they could at Bonnie and Chica. The former blocked with his forearms, but the latter took it hard in the chest and staggered backward. Foxy and Mike cheered and high-fived, but their excitement was short-lived when suddenly, a huge rush of snow came crashing down upon their heads, sending them both to the ground.

Before either of them could see what had happened, Freddy's deep laughter gave him away. "Now ah ain' ever played this here game, but ah reckon tha's th' kinda thing ya gotta do ta win it, eh?" He lowed, sounding unusually confident.

Mike shook the snow out of his hair and nodded. "Yep. That's a snowball fight!"

The five continued to hurl snow at each other for a while afterward, but eventually even the hardiest of them tired – the perfect opportunity for Mike to teach them all about snow angels.

And from there, snowmen and other snow figures. Bonnie and Foxy tried to make a snow rabbit and fox, which might not have been a bad idea if they hadn't insisted on including their instruments. Freddy worked alone on a snow bear, which received due praise from everybody else once it was finished.

It was, well, a night that none of them had ever expected to share. That just made it even more special.

It made it even more worth remembering.