The rest of the day was more than a little weird. For starters, there was a very good reason for Mike needing Vincent at the pizzeria for the day. The toy animatronics, despite having only been activated two days ago, were going to be performing. There was a secondary party area that branched off of the arcade for this exact purpose. Theodore, Tia, and Ben would be using the stage of this second party area, while Vix and BB joined the Puppet in the Prize Corner.
It was going to be Vincent's job to make sure that they remained in their pristine condition, at least for a few days, to make sure that they remained in their pristine condition until they had fully adjusted to their upgrades. In addition, he was wearing the Spring suit, not only to ease the slight headache from his little scouting mission, but to act as a performer. The pizzeria had twelve fully interactive characters, and they needed to maintain this aspect.
In the morning, the biggest problem was when the toys would forget their lines. They had practiced, sure, but they were mentally teenagers. Their memories weren't perfect.
Fortunately, Ben seemed to be an adept improviser. More than once, when Tia or Theodore slipped on their line, he would interject with a joke or a comment that would make the kids laugh.
While all of the animatronics were good with children, and they were all good performers, the toy stage was better for small children. The toy animatronics were less intimidating than the towering main group, and softer too.
Vincent was keeping a watchful eye on the children in the secondary party area when he spotted something interesting. BB was leading a young child through the room towards the stage. "See Timmy! They're real nice!"
"O-okay Billy…" Timmy stuttered. It seemed like a classic case of the kid being afraid of the animatronics. Vincent could hardly blame him, they could be incredibly terrifying if they wanted to be.
It was kind of odd then, that this little boy was interacting with BB. But, at the same time, it wasn't. BB was certainly the least intimidating of all the animatronics – when he wasn't walking around eyeless – and he looked like a human. In fact, the only thing that made him outwardly inhuman was that he didn't breathe, and frankly, nobody really noticed that.
The toys onstage finished their little performance and stepped off of the raised stage, so as to roam around. Tia, seeing BB, made a beeline for him. "Hello BB! What are you up to today?"
"Hi Tia!" BB said happily. "I'm showing Timmy around!"
Tia then saw the young boy. She knelt down so as to be on the same level as the child. "Why hello there! My name is Tia, what's yours?"
In response, the boy hid behind BB. The balloon vendor shrugged. "He's a little shy, but it should get better! I'm going to take him to see Mari!"
Across the room, Vincent snorted in amusement. Again with the nicknames. Anyone would think the Puppet was a girl with all the things people called it.
As he watched BB escort Timmy to the Prize Corner, his musing was interrupted by someone tugging his hand and shouting "Spring! Spring!"
Vincent looked down to see none other than little Angela. "Why hello there Angela! How are you today?" He knelt down so as to be on a similar level to her.
"I'm doing great!" Angela said cheerfully.
"And how's your big brother doing?" Vincent said, then froze. The little girl had never said anything about a brother, had she? Maybe her mother… but she hadn't either. So where had that come from?
"He's in college, so I haven't seen him in a while." The girl answered happily.
Vincent wasn't paying much attention, he was rummaging through his mind to find out why had said that.
It was 1994, and Vincent was downright furious.
Everything he'd built up to this point was collapsing.
After fourteen years working for a group of murderers, he had finally amassed enough money to buy a house for himself and Marcus, so that they wouldn't have to live on the streets anymore. He had a steady income, more than enough to feed himself and his brother. Things were finally looking up.
Then disaster struck.
It started with Franklin betraying him.
It was a relatively normal job. He and Franklin were to break into the museum, kill the curator, grab the large, rune-scribed pearl that was the main exhibit, and get out. It should have been easy, Franklin had only gotten better at his hacking, and Vincent was able to move like a shadow when he wanted to. It would have been Vincent's thirty-first and final kill. Tony had said that he would let him go after this job was complete, and the pay was enough for Vincent and his brother to live for kings for nearly thirty years.
The first phase of the plan went as scheduled. Franklin hacked into the security system and shut down the automated defenses, replacing the camera footage with the footage from the night before. Next, Vincent picked the lock on the door, silently swinging it open. He made his way past the security guards and located the pearl, extracting it from its casing both silently and smoothly. After placing the artifact in a pouch he had been given for that exact purpose, he crept through the building to the room where the curator was doing late night paperwork.
Or where he was supposed to do late night paperwork. As soon as Vincent pushed the door open he knew it was a trap. It triggered an alarm, one that wasn't linked to the mainframe, and the inhabitant of the room drew a gun and took aim at him. Vincent ducked back around the doorframe and spoke into the earpiece that Franklin had given him. "Abort. Part one was a success, but they knew about part two."
"Gotcha. Disabling the lights now."
Immediately the building went dark. It didn't hinder Vincent much, but the security guards couldn't see, and that was the important part. Several gunshots rang out, some of them quite close, but none of them hit Vincent, thankfully. He made his way back to the door he had entered by, only to find that there were far too many people there for him to take them on, even with the lack of light, one of them would shoot him. "Main exit is a failure. I'm coming out the window."
Vincent reversed his steps and found his way to a ladder up to the catwalk near the ceiling. He watched the security guards running under him as he crept along silently. After making his way to the window, he paused for a moment. There was no latch to open it. Vincent shrugged, then broke the glass using the butt of his knife before jumping through onto the roof outside, where Franklin was waiting.
"Alright Franklin, let's get out of here." He said to his partner.
"Got it." The hacker replied. The both of them made their way to the ladder up to the roof and climbed down into the side alley. The hacker and the assassin made their way to the end of the alley, to a wall that was their planned escape route.
"Up and over." Vincent muttered, boosting Franklin to the top of the wall. He passed the pearl up to him, then reached up to Franklin.
"Sorry Vince. Can't exactly get you out after getting paid to sell you out." The hacker shrugged. "Plus, I heard that I can sell this for much, much more than Tony pays." He raised up the bag with the pearl. "As I said, sorry Vince. It's nothing personal."
"You bastard." Vincent growled. He drew his knife and launched it at Franklin, who instinctively pulled the bag with the pearl in the way. The knife tore the bag in two, dropping the pearl into darkness.
"You moron!" Franklin shouted. The hacker looked down the alley and grinned evilly. "Doesn't matter, you're going to be executed." He dropped down on the other side of the wall and ran off.
Vincent turned around to see that there were police cars blocking his only exit. Or so they thought. Vincent drew another knife and stuck it into the mortar of the wall as deep as he could, then jumped up onto it, using the knife as a stepping stone to reach the top of the wall. He pushed himself over and searched the shadows for the pearl. After a couple seconds of searching he found it and picked it up. "Hmm…" He only had a few minutes before the police would come around this side. Vincent quickly scrabbled around on the wall of the building next to him and pulled a brick out. He pulled out a couple more so that the pearl could fit and then pushed the gemstone through. After quickly replacing the bricks, he made his way into the web of alleys that he knew he could hide in.
After a couple hours of pursuit, Vincent eventually got to the apartment building that he and his brother used as their temporary home. He went to their apartment and opened the door. "Marcus? You home?"
"Yeah." Marcus replied, he sounded angry.
Vincent went into the main room of the apartment to see Marcus wearing a furious expression. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Vincent."
"Is something wrong?" Vincent said, confused.
"Is something wrong? Everything is wrong!" He threw the papers onto the table. "Turns out my older brother is a serial killer!"
Vincent went cold. He had never told Marcus where he got the money, only that he had 'done a job' in order to get it. A quick glance at the papers on the table revealed that they were an extensive police case on him. It didn't list his name anywhere, but someone had penciled his name in. "Who gave these to you?"
"I always wondered where you were, and now it makes sense! You've been murdering people!" Marcus was fuming.
"I did it for you…" Vincent began.
"For me? For ME? You murdered other people, without my knowledge, for ME?!" Marcus shouted. "I can live my own life! You've sheltered me too much!" Marcus sighed, "Diane was right. You are twisted."
"Diane? Who's Diane?" Vincent said, confused.
"My WIFE!" Marcus took a steadying breath. "We got married five years ago, and you missed it because you never listened to what I had to say. You just went off on another one of your little jobs, probably to kill another person!"
"You got married…" Vincent said, his anger beginning to grow. "I take care of you, I fund you, and you go and do this? I hate you, you traitor!"
"You're sick and twisted, you only care about yourself! I'm not going to stay here with your 'family' when there are those that need me more!" Marcus shouted. "I have a little boy! He has to live with his mother and never meet me because of you!"
"Family? I hate those bastards!"
"You act just like them! You're a mass murderer!" Marcus shoved past him, making his way out the door. "You're going to die alone Vincent." He said, and left.
"I'll kill you!" Vincent said, not thinking. "I'll kill you!"
Marcus was already gone.
Vincent turned around and kicked the table over. Everything had collapsed. His partner had betrayed him, his brother had left him, and Fazbear Entertainment was bankrupt.
But… maybe he could put the money from his jobs to a different purpose.
Fazbear Entertainment was about to be under new management.
He was snapped out of his memories by Angela talking.
"Mister Spring, do you know my brother?"
Vincent shook his head. "No, but I know your father."
Angela gasped. "You know my daddy? What's he like? Where is he?"
"I don't know where he is right now, but he's a very nice man. He loves you very much." Vincent said honestly. If Vincent's guess was correct, then Marcus was indeed this little girl's father.
Now that he looked at the girl, he realized that there was little way Angela wasn't his brother's daughter. She had the same blue eyes and black hair, as well as similar facial structure to both Marcus and Vincent himself. Angela seemed to have the same slender figure as Vincent and his mother.
"Why don't you go and play with the new guys? There's a white fox I'm told wants to meet you." He said, sending her off to the Prize Corner.
Vincent looked around the room for Angela's mother. He had to know. He had to be certain that Angela was his niece. After a few moments of scanning the room, he spotted the woman he was looking for. He made his way across the room to her. "Diane?"
The woman started. "Yes? Do I know you…?"
He realized that he was still wearing the Spring suit. "My name is Vincent, I'm the sole performer for the Spring character. I was wondering if you knew Marcus Tollini…"
Diane nodded. "He was my husband, why?"
"I'm his brother. What do you mean was?" Vincent asked.
"He disappeared a couple years after Angela was born. Marcus has told me a lot about you. You raised him, right?"
Vincent nodded. "Yes I…" He stopped, something distracting him. "I…" It wasn't his normal ADHD; that never actually drew his attention off of something. This was something else entirely. He shook his head, a buzzing sound beginning to crowd out his thoughts. Before he knew it he was holding his head in his hands and trying to ward off a headache.
"Are you alright?"
He nodded "I'm fine, just… headache." He shook his head, trying to shake off the buzzing. He looked up and scanned the room, spotting a familiar grinning figure. Franklin was holding a black box in his hands and watching the side effects of his mayhem. When Vincent looked straight at him, his grin vanished, and he pressed several buttons on his device. Vincent's headache intensified. "Pardon me ma'am. I need to go handle something."
As he made his way towards Franklin, the short man began to mess with object in his hands more, causing Vincent's headache to get worse. "That shouldn't be happening…" Franklin muttered, probably meaning to be unheard. Another benefit of wearing the Spring suit was enhanced senses, primarily hearing and smell.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to put that away." Vincent told the hacker, ignoring his headache.
Franklin's eyes widened in shock. "Vincent…?"
"Sir, please put that away." Vincent immediately knew that he was scaring Franklin. The last time the hacker had seen him, he was bleeding out.
"O-of course." Franklin muttered, putting the device in his pocket and quickly leaving the room. Immediately, Vincent's headache went away.
Vincent sighed in relief. Hopefully that discouraged Franklin from trying anything else.
The last chapter of Vincent's backstory, complete with the reason he hates Franklin so much and the reason he said had when he told Mike about his brother.
