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In 1987, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza underwent a huge change. William was now the sole owner of the company, Henry having more or less vanished shortly after the death of his daughter, Charlotte. The restaurant was moved to a bigger location and was now populated with newer characters that were developed at Afton Robotics. The old four were, under William's instructions, stored in the back area of the new location with the intention of being retrofitted with the new facial recognition technology for the new restaurant. The fact was, however, that those weren't the only upgrades being done. William himself spent many days in the back room replacing their torsos with newer ones that were based on the old spring lock suits. These torsos, when wound up with a hand crank, would pull the internal parts into the sides creating a cavity large enough to fit a small child. William initially thought that he was done with this sort of thing, but in reality, how could he resist such a promise?
On first inspection, the old animatronics were the same as before and didn't warrant a second glance. They looked just as William intended for them to look; like old scrap that was being used for spare parts. What better way to further tarnish Henry's legacy by bastardising his machines? Those machines were old and dangerous. William's were brand new and state of the art.
The old yellow Bonnie suit, now referred to as 'Springtrap' by the engineers, was stored in there as well, so as not to appear out of place on the cameras. Nobody really went in there, except for perhaps the day guard doing his rounds and the supposed 'technician' who sometimes came and went. All of this went unnoticed by the popularity of the place, and the sheer number of patrons that came and went. The new characters were a technical marvel of the time and the lingering rumours of the franchise were forgotten.
William entered the restaurant regularly during the evenings of its first week and would wander the place looking for his next target. He would wear a security guard uniform to not look out of place and, knowing the algorithms of his new creations, to place suspicion on the guards simply from the correlation of a guard taking special notice of the child that would then later go missing. His face, of course, would not be recognised by their technology and the picture would be scrambled. He walked with confidence and purpose, impressed by his own work as he watched the shiny new animatronics interact with the patrons. They far exceeded anything Henry could have made. He only entered Kid's Cove once, where there were toddlers pulling apart a Funtime Foxy as a group of little girls ran by laughing, their small ponytailed heads bobbing along as they went. In the far corner of the room was a large gift box. Its lid was lifted partially open and peering out from it like glowing pinpricks was a pair of eyes. It was a character that he hadn't seen in a long time and didn't quite remember the origins of, but it might have been one of Henry's side projects. Its stare from across the room made his stomach drop as an image of Charlotte in the alleyway flashed before his eyes, and he knew immediately that these children were not to be touched.
He soon, however, found his next targets in one of the party rooms. William remembered the day well. It was June 26th, 1987. A Friday evening. A pair of boys named Gabriel and Jeremy aged about five and six were sitting in a corner of the room, away from the other children. William then went into the back room and climbed into his old Bonnie suit and returned to them with promises and a small plate of cake. Confident through practice, he gestured for them to follow him, luring them into the back room while the day guard, a new hire named Fritz Smith, was doing his rounds and was away from the camera monitor. William used a small radio device to temporarily interfere with the nearby electronics, scrambling the picture from the camera. All of the technology in the building was from Afton Robotics and his device could interfere with all of it. Just like last time, he rendered the boys unconscious and placed them gently into the newly fitted torsos. He placed Gabriel inside the old Freddy mascot and Jeremy inside Bonnie. He closed off the torsos and sealed the backs with a fitted plate that was not designed to come back off. Then, he sat down next to them and posed as a deactivated animatronic, turning the device off. Nothing that the camera might show would look unusual.
There he sat, just like last time, in a patient contest with the boys. A race to see whose spring locks would snap first. His heart pounding with excitement, William strained his ears as he listened for any sound from the old characters. Eventually, he heard the boys calling out to each other groggily, somehow knowing that the other was near. This was followed by the violent wet snaps of the locks as they gave way against their struggles against the metal parts, crushing the boys instantly until their bodies filled the empty spaces of the suits. It was done. Before moving, William used his device to create static on the camera again while he climbed out of his suit and placed it back where it was. He left the building, noticing the worried parents who were now looking up and down the corridor between the party rooms for their missing children.
-xxx-
William moved quickly, while there was still uncertainty and confusion, and the next morning he spied a young blonde girl playing alone on one of the arcade games. Her name was Susie. By loitering and listening, William learned through her parents that Susie's dog had recently been hit and killed by a car, and that it had left her distraught. They buried the dog and had a little funeral and had now taken her to the new restaurant to help take her mind off of it. Though she seemed to be enjoying herself with the game, William could tell that it was still on her mind.
The animatronics were moving through the crowd of people, serving them with trays of food and interacting with them in a way that was almost humanlike. One of them, the 'toy' Chica had stared momentarily at William before looking away and moving on. Looking around, William saw the 'toy' Bonnie and Freddy looking at him from across the sea of heads, but he felt no danger from them. They would all ignore him. They would not remember his face. But they would remember the guard uniform. William left for the back room and climbed into his old, trusty suit.
He returned to her, wearing the yellow rabbit suit and stood behind her as she played. She glimpsed him in the screen's reflection and turned around, uncertain of this unknown yellow character. He spoke to her. He is not really dead. He's over here. Follow me. Again, he gestured for her to follow him, keeping a short distance between them. Again, he led her to the back room. Again, he scrambled the camera and took control of her. None of the excitement wearing off, he placed the small girl into the torso of the old Chica suit and sat down beside her. He wanted to be close to her. Right now, he was her only friend. Right now, he believed, he was the only person in the world who cared about her. In a way, she would be seeing her dog again soon.
The music from the building and the cheering screams from the excited children thrummed against the other side of the wall. They were all oblivious to what was happening only feet away from them. None of them cared. The excitement from the waiting was making William light-headed as his heart pounded in his chest and butterflies rustled in his stomach. Just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore, he heard her cry out. She was scared, having just awoken in a dark, cramped place. She screamed, terrified. She felt the sides of the torso all jabbing into her and she had no room to move. She struggled. She felt something shift against her side, until suddenly, it snapped, the sound loud in her ear. Instant, hot pain surged through her, but only for a second. Before she even knew what had happened, the rest of the locks sprang free in quick succession, and a short series of wet snaps filled the small room. All was quiet, and the old Chica animatronic slumped slightly to the side.
William could have stopped there. He had been too hasty with this obsession of his and it was beginning to draw attention. But there was one empty animatronic left, and it would be a shame to not complete his collection. He had to act now in the midst of the public's confusion.
That same afternoon, William was once again wandering the rooms of his restaurant in his guard uniform. This time he spotted a small boy who had a persistent twitch. There was something wrong with him, and he seemed jittery and scared. His father was a large, burly man who smelled of old drink. The boy was scared of him. The man was not enjoying himself and was scowling at the boy. Called him Fritz. Asked him why he wasn't off playing with the other kids, especially after he has been begging his father to take him here. Said he was too scared to make any friends. William had found his last target.
Wearing the old Bonnie suit, William returned to the main dining area to find the man and the boy, Fritz, leaving through the front door as the man yelled at him for wasting his time. Said if he wasn't going to go and play then they should just go home, the boy's nervous tick making him twitch as they left towards their car. William noted the car's licence plate number and it didn't take him long to find the boy's address. It was walking distance from the restaurant.
That night, the boy, Fritz, filled with shame at being too scared to play with the other children, had locked himself in his bedroom. His father wouldn't like that when he got back home. Looking out the window, Fritz jumped at the sight of a figure just by the tree line of the property. A large, yellow bunny was standing there, waving at him. Beckoning him to come. The boy opened the window and climbed outside, shivering as it began to rain. The bunny told him that he was from the pizzeria and that he had seen him there. Said he felt bad that his father took him away early, and that he and all of his friends were sad that they didn't get to play with him. But it was okay. They had planned a special slumber party for him. All he had to do was follow this yellow rabbit.
The boy followed, giddy with excitement as they walked between the trees to the big, new restaurant. The place was closed, and the bunny told him that they had to get in through a secret entrance. There was a guard there, and they had to make sure that he didn't catch them, or he would be in trouble with his dad again. They approached a side door and the bunny opened it quietly, telling the boy to go in. The boy hesitated. Something was off. There was no joy from this place. He made a click with his mouth as his twitch returned. The bunny no longer looked friendly as it stared, unmoving, its eyes glinting behind the dark eye sockets. As the boy turned to leave, a wet cloth suddenly covered his face.
William carried the unconscious boy through the side door that led directly into the back room and placed him inside Foxy, the last animatronic. He would have his complete set. Just like the others, Fritz eventually woke to find himself tightly squeezed in a pitch-black space, with the immediate thought that he would never get out again. He struggled against the mechanical parts that seemed to shift against his movements, until he too, felt the hot, sharp pain of becoming one with the animatronic as the mechanical parts clamped down on him all at once. William had been with him the whole time. He knew the children better than anyone. He had been witness to all of their last moments, all of them reminding him of his youngest son who had died much the same way. Now, the score was even.
A few nights later, before his shift ended, the new night guard noticed something strange on the camera. The marionette, a tall black slender puppet animatronic with a white laughing mask as a face had left its box in Kid's Cove. It was in the back room staring down at the old broken animatronics. The guard quickly checked the other cameras for the other toy animatronics. They had all been acting strangely as the nights went on. They seemed more and more determined to reach him and every night they got a little closer. He switched back to the back room and saw that the Marionette was gone. Over the next two shifts, he saw the old animatronics begin to stand. Some had even taken a few steps throughout the night, slowly making their way towards the corridor that led to him. Linked through their collective database, the animatronics remembered a man in a guard uniform taking interest in them, then him returning to them in a mascot costume. They couldn't remember the face.
At the end of his first week, the guard requested to be moved to day shift. The night shift was filled by a young man named Jeremy Fitzgerald.