A/N: Man, my Emergency Medicine shelf and my rotation are FINALLY over! And I can finally get back to fanfic writing after what feels like forever. I'll say this right now: Stick around until after the chapter is over, because I have a LOT to talk about when everything in this chapter is said and done.
Guest: Apart from what I wrote in Arvid's response, the reason why it took so long will be obvious once you see the word count of the chapter. And as for the nature of the afterlife, that might be something I address in a future chapter, but I don't have the time to address it for now only because you posted the review today and I have to upload this chapter very soon to stay on my schedule.
Raptor: I mean, it could technically be possible, but I don't have any plans for Lolbit at the current moment. Assume that all the SL animatronics were destroyed until I can find a way to incorporate them into the story, and that is by no means a guarantee.
Six: You're about to find out.
Arvid: Patience, please. Technically, it's only been about two weeks since the last chapter, so I'm still within my "one chapter per week or two weeks" schedule. Also, I had a lot of real life stuff I needed to deal with last week, including a shelf exam, so there was no way in hell I was gonna get a chapter done last week.
Guest: The climax is about to begin.
Guest: It's possible…but probably not a parent. The birth parents of the children are likely either dead or very, very old at this point.
Jack0Lanterns: We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?
FrostTheFrozenFox: I had briefly toyed with the idea of Fritz x Liz, but quickly abandoned it since that would mean adopted incest and…yeah, no, not going there.
Guest: Thanks, this chapter has been a long time coming.
Guest: …if you couldn't already tell, I'm trying to avoid going into details for a reason.
Guest: No problem!
TU4QU0I53T4IAN6L3: Nightmare wouldn't take a significant portion of Mike's darkness, just a small part of it for…purposes that will not be revealed until later on in the fic. And as for Nightmare himself, his role is yet to be revealed. Give it time 😊
HealthInspector: I don't go on Wattpad, so I wouldn't know anything about that tbh.
Properman: There's a lot I haven't revealed yet, but I'll say right now you're right about one thing. The ghost children's quest for redemption has only just begun.
Clown2107: Mike's dark side won't prove to be flawless solution it's been presented as for very long.
AlchemyWriter: …it's really hard to go into more detail without giving away more spoilers. But you know what they say about things being too convenient…
RicAlbuquerque: I disagree with you on how Glitchtrap would affect the ghost kids. What you say about Glitchtrap not fully possessing someone and only being a voice in their head would be true…for a living human with a physical body. In the case of Vanny, Glitchtrap basically "took up residence" in Vanny's body along with Vanny's original soul, from which he could get to work corrupting her and driving her mad. But the ghost kids are already ghosts, so they can't be possessed by another "ghost." If the kids hypothetically sacrificed Lefty, we'd have a case where there would be two beings inhabiting the same body (this body being a metal animatronic instead of flesh), and while the ghost kids might or might not just be able to simply flee Lefty's body, Glitchtrap probably can't since if he could manifest in the real world he would have already done so. There is no case in the canon FNaF universe where two ghosts or souls outright fused with each other; pretty much every case where there's more than one soul in one body, such as Molten Freddy or the Stitchwraith in Fazbear Frights, has multiple but separate spirits coexisting in one body at the same time.
As for Glitchtrap's multiplicative capabilities as a virus…did I forget? Or didn't I? Heh heh heh…you're about to find out.
Guest: Perhaps…
Thanatos D.E.M.: You're about to find out.
FireFlamerx9z: Yes, although that's far off yet and certainly won't be implemented until we actually get the game itself.
ThomasTheTank: My pop culture familiarity is…really fucking weird, to put it mildly.
RedisSus: Don't know what that is.
Chapter 126 – Hatred Given Flesh
In the shadows a virtually created world, Glitchtrap had watched.
He couldn't remember exactly when he had first come into being, the last memory he had before his rebirth being the flames of the trap pizzeria as Henry had bid his final farewell. By all accounts, he should have been burning in the depths of Hell for his sins, but no matter. He wasn't going to complain about the unexpected turn of fortune that had been gifted to him.
The digital incarnation of William Afton knew that he had been given a unique opportunity, one that could allow him to be reborn if he played his cards right. He had investigated his surroundings and every corner of this bizarre new world, and soon realized that he was in a game designed to recreate the events of the Fazbear tragedy. Glitchtrap couldn't help but sneer; of course, Fazbear Entertainment would take any opportunity to turn a profit even if it meant the desecration of the past, although in this case he was grateful for their foolishness.
When the first beta testers had started playing the game, Glitchtrap had remained in the shadows, only risking the occasional appearance to get a closer look at those testers. To his amusement, while they did notice something "off" about his appearance and presence, they suspected nothing about his true intentions or nature. It had been all too easy for isolate one fool and mark him as a target through which he could escape into the real world and start his plans anew.
But he had underestimated his target. Though "Jeremy" had been caught completely off-guard by his attempt to possess him, the man had put up more of a fight against influence than he had expected. It had especially been a close call when Jeremy had opted to commit suicide by slicing his own face off with the paper slicer rather than submit, forcing Glitchtrap to retreat back into the game or risk being trapped with the man's useless corpse.
His actions had also had the rather irritating side effect of alerting another one of the beta testers, a female who had begun recording what she had witnessed about himself, Fazbear Entertainment, and Jeremy. The woman had tried to keep these logs a secret by keeping them in a protected area separate from the game, and Glitchtrap had seized the opportunity to bind himself to those logs and secure his position with more thorough protection against future attempts to delete himself from the game. Unfortunately, this maneuver had come with the rather significant detriment of dividing himself into pieces when the woman had split apart her logs, preventing himself from fully manifesting. But Glitchtrap wasn't worried. Sooner or later, some fool would come across the game that he was lurking in, and he would be able to finish what he had started with Jeremy.
And that time had come, much later. To his surprise, it hadn't been adult beta testers who had next entered the game world, but children. Children who looked surprisingly familiar to him, even though he couldn't quite identify them properly. It had been many different children who had played through the levels of the game, getting closer to unlocking the Pizza Party level and collecting Tapes and Coins along the way. One of them in particular had a striking resemblance to Elizabeth. Her orange hair, her green eyes. Glitchtrap had been so certain that that girl had been his daughter…and then she had opened her mouth, not only speaking with a more American accent, but also with the foulest, most profanity-filled language that he had ever heard, ranting about the Plushbabies, causing him to dismiss the possibility that she was his daughter somehow returned.
He had been so close to success when one of the little brats had finally entered the Pizza Party level and stumbled to the room he had prepared…a backup plan that could bypass the disadvantages of being split apart across the Tapes…and then the child had fled, taking the Tape in the Pizza Party room and vanishing. Somehow, the child had recognized the danger that he had posed, and avoided the trap that he had set. An unexpected occurrence that had aggravated him to no end…but he had forced himself to remain patient. Even if whatever group this child was a part of had understood the danger he had truly posed, he still had more than one plan in to place. All that needed to be done now was for the 16th Tape to be found, and to ensure that happened Glitchtrap had reached into the fabric of the game and influenced it so that the Gallery option would be revealed immediately, instead of after the Pizza Party game had been completed as originally designed.
When the next person had arrived, Glitchtrap had been surprised to discover that it had been an adult rather than a child. Unlike the others, Glitchtrap almost certainly had never seen him before, not that it had mattered. The man had played the part of the fool perfectly, going into the Gallery to pick up the 16th Tape. He still needed to wait until the Tape had been actually played before the final binding on him could be broken, and fortunately the man had gone immediately into the Tape Room to listen to what he had just discovered. Glitchtrap could barely contain his excitement; after months of waiting, his chance to finally escape into the real world had come at last. The ideal situation would have been if he could trap the pathetic soul who had wandered into the game world unwittingly and take over their body fully, like he could have done with Pizza Party. But no matter…it would be a simple matter for him to slowly corrode the will of his victim as he had done with Jeremy.
Except that when the man had reappeared in the main world and he had finally struck, he had proven far more resilient than he had expected. Somehow, the man knew exactly who and what he was, and was resisting with every fiber of his being. Glitchtrap gritted his teeth even as he maintained his twisted grin. He had come so close, and he wasn't going to fail now. He pushed harder, focusing all his efforts into breaking the man's resistance and forcing him to submit…
…only for something to happen that should not have been possible. The man's eyes began to glow an unholy red, and his entire body suddenly became consumed by shadows. Roaring crimson flames that matched his eyes began to cover his entire body. The man's lips clenched into a snarl, revealing two rows of razor sharp fangs.
And for the first time since he had been reborn in this virtual world, doubt and fear began to creep into Glitchtrap's heart.
/
Moving as quickly as a striking viper, Mike reached out and grabbed Glitchtrap by the throat. The rabbit incarnation's eyes widened in shock and disbelief as Mike's fingers closed around his neck and began to squeeze. In the back of their minds, both Mike and Glitchtrap realized that this shouldn't have been possible. Mike was a mortal man, and Glitchtrap was a digital spirit fragment that existed in a different world from the living. But Mike was too enraged to care about the origin of his sudden capabilities, and Glitchtrap was too busy panicking and clawing at his throat with his hands to question how it was even possible.
Mike had to admit, he was surprised at how Glitchtrap's neck felt underneath his clenched fist. He had expected the rabbit to be ethereal and smoky, just like the ghostly children he had come to know and love. But instead, Glitchtrap's neck felt alive in an unnatural way. As though the Spring Bonnie suit he had been wearing had become something made of flesh, a twisted form of life.
A life that he was more than willing to crush underneath his ruthless grasp. Mike glared into Glitchtrap's eyes with a gaze that knew and cared nothing for mercy. "We meet again, William Afton," Mike greeted him with false courtesy. "How long has it been since the last time we've crossed paths?"
The glitch rabbit's eyes gazed at him, confusion now mixed with panic. "Oh…that's right!" Mike realized, his lips twisting into a cruel smirk. "You've technically never met me before. You have no idea who I am, do you?" Mike's smirk vanished. "But I know you, William Afton. I know ALL ABOUT you." The flames surrounding Mike's body blazed with his rage before returning to their more simmering, calmer state.
Mike tilted his head even as he tightened his grip on William Afton's throat. "It's funny, really. For the longest time, I thought I hated my old father. Hated him for what he did to me as a child," He shook his head. "But I was a fool. I never fully understood just how much my mother's death broke him. He might have been an abusive asshole in his own right, but at least he had valid reasons for falling how he did. To really and truly hate someone, you have to know them. Understand them. And with the full picture in mind, realize just how much you CURSE THEIR EXISTENCE with every fiber of your being."
Mike trained his gaze back on Glitchtrap and hissed with as much vitriol as he could muster, "Let me show you how much I DESPISE you, William Afton…"
/
The ghost children watched Mike put on the VR headset and waited with bated breath for the inevitable confrontation between him and Glitchtrap to occur. They were already on edge the moment Mike had entered the video game world, knowing that he was about to confront a digital incarnation of their murderer. They only had faith and hope in Mike that he would be able to overcome Glitchtrap as easily as he had overcome Nightmare Springtrap, though none of them except Charlie understood how he had beaten the latter in the first place.
It took every ounce of willpower for them to not jump up and rip the VR headset off Mike's head when he began to grimace and struggle, a sign that Glitchtrap was almost certainly making his move against him. Fritz actually jumped up to try and do exactly that, but had to be restrained by Gabe. "We don't know what will happen if we take off the VR headset now!" he warned. "We have to trust Dad and have faith that he can beat him!"
Fritz stopped struggling, though the glower that he gave to Gabe made it abundantly clear that he wasn't happy about doing so in the slightest. They watched Mike intently, waiting to intervene if it looked like Mike was about to lose the confrontation, at which point they would rip the headset off, consequences be damned.
And then suddenly, something happened. Something that none of them had ever experienced before, something that felt completely and horribly wrong.
In the real world, nothing seemed to have changed. In fact, on the surface, it appeared like things had turned to the better. Mike seemed to have stopped struggling, and it even seemed as though he had regained control of the situation. But for the ghost children, who lived more in the supernatural world than the physical world despite their continued presence in the latter, they could feel what a living human could not.
Mike's aura flared out from his body, a black wave of malice and hatred that seared through the entire basement, hitting the ghost children like a tidal wave from the darkest depths of the abyss. Cassidy, who had always been one of the ghosts most attuned to the supernatural, staggered backward and stumbled out of the air, nearly falling to the floor before she caught herself. "Gah!" she gasped. "Wh…what?"
The other children might not have been as sensitive to it as Cassidy, but they could feel the wrongness and were affected by it almost as much. "Urrrkkkk…" Susie choked out, a sense of nausea overwhelming her. She was only barely able to resist the urge to retch, a sensation that shouldn't have even been possible for her ghostly body to experience. "Oh, God…"
"The hell is going on!" Fritz demanded, putting on a show of bravado in a weak attempt to hide just how disturbed he was.
Charlie shuddered as she watched her siblings struggle against Mike's darkened aura. Unlike the other children, she knew what this was. She had felt it once before, when her father had dueled against Nightmare Springtrap in the depths of his mind. "Nightmare's Gift," she realized numbly. "It's reacting to Glitchtrap. And causing…this…" She had tried so hard to hide this aspect of her father from the rest of them, but it appeared that her efforts would finally be rendered null and void today. And since there was no way she could ever convince them to abandon Mike, especially not now, Charlie knew there was nothing she could do about it.
Gabe tried to lighten the mood. "At least it's not William Afton's aura that we're feeling." he asked weakly. "That means Dad's winning, right?"
For some reason, that observation didn't make any of them feel any better.
/
Mike sneered at Glitchtrap as the rabbit struggled in his chokehold. "I have to admit," the man conceded with almost a grudging respect, "You were smarter than I expected. You actually thought things through, this time around. Your plan was actually a clever one, and you even had a backup or two in place when things went to shit. Certainly an improvement over the bumbling IMBECILE who stumbled his way into an oven knowing full well it was a trap." Glitchtrap blinked in shock, stunned at how Mike seemingly knew about that part of his history as Mike's grin returned, feral and savagely triumphant. "But it's falling apart now, isn't it? We know who you are, William Afton. We know what you've done, what you plan to do. We saw your trap for what it was, and my children were smart enough to avoid it. And as for me?" Mike chuckled darkly. "I just didn't care in the first place."
Glitchtrap let out a garbled noise, and out of some twisted amusement Mike dragged Glitchtrap closer to him, wondering if he could even hear the rabbit speak at all given the distorted mumblings that his children had heard. To his surprise, Mike could hear Glitchtrap speak, even though the voice was twisted and distorted. "What…are…you…" the murderer's soul fragment rasped. "What…in the hell…are you?"
"Oh, so you can speak after all," Mike declared with cruel delight in his voice. "This will make this so much more interesting. And as for your question…well, let's just say you've asked me this question once before," he laughed sinisterly, "And you didn't enjoy my answer very much. Something that I finally get to demonstrate now after all this time."
Mike gazed menacingly into Glitchtrap's panicked eyes. "I used to do a little hunting with my college friends, back in the day. But I've never hunted a rabbit before. You're going to be my very first, Afton." Mike bared his teeth at the man who had caused so much misery and suffering. "Let me hear you SCREAM."
His hand suddenly blazed with the same hellish red flames that were covering his body, the heat intensifying until it was unbearable. Glitchtrap screamed in horrific pain as Mike began to burn him with his flames. He still didn't understand how this was possible, how this one random person could torture him so freely and easily with such horrible power. He could feel his ethereal flesh roasting and burning, the fires pouring into and tearing at his very spirit. It was even worse than what he had suffered when he had burned in Henry's trap pizzeria. "He's a monster," was the only thing Glitchtrap could think in between his screams. "A demon. No human could do this."
"No matter where you go, no matter what you form you take, it always comes back to a fiery end, doesn't it, William?" Mike asked mockingly. "You can't save yourself from the fire. Now BURN!" he roared the last word.
Another crimson inferno blazed around Glitchtrap's body, and this time all he could do was scream.
/
Another wave of hate-filled malice surged through the room, slamming into the ghost kids and causing them to stagger and stumble in the air. "This feels wrong," Jeremy breathed. "This hatred, this darkness…" he was trying not to say the word evil to describe his father, but he was really having a hard time coming up with a different description. "…this isn't Dad."
"It is, though, no matter how much I wish it wasn't…" Charlie mumbled. All eyes turned to her, begging her for an explanation. "Dad was good at hiding it from us, but I could see it. A flash of hate and rage every time we learned more and more about William Afton's atrocities. And I saw him act on that hate when Afton attacked us as Nightmare Springtrap. He hasn't suffered the way we have suffered…but I think Dad hates William Afton just as much as we do, if not even more."
Gabe shuddered at the implications. He and most of his siblings had been driven by that berserk, savage wrath for years, to the point that they had thoughtlessly murdered innocents just for the chance to get revenge on the one who had murdered them. And now their father had the one truly responsible for the Fazbear tragedy caught in his grasp, with a hatred that was possibly even greater than what had driven their own crimes? The black, sickening aura emanating from Mike suddenly made all too much sense.
"We have to see what's going on!" Jeremy declared, interrupting his thoughts. "We have to focus our sight and try and look more clearly. It's the only way we can really understand what's going on and help Dad out!"
"NO!" Charlie shouted frantically. She couldn't let them see what she had seen that night, couldn't let them expose themselves to that kind of horror. "You can't! You really, REALLY don't want to know what's going on, trust me!"
"Maybe not," Susie countered. "But it's not about what we want."
"But…"
Gabe cut her off. "We don't get to redeem ourselves by running away from things like cowards," he pointed out, and Charlie couldn't come up with a response. She merely closed her eyes, sighed, and nodded, defeated. As one, the ghost kids looked back at Mike, who for the last few moments had had his right arm extended forward, grabbing something unseen in a tightly clad fist. They closed their eyes and focused, their normal human-like eyes shrinking back and transforming into black voids, albeit without their tears. The children shifted their sight to focus more on the supernatural…
…and finally understood why Charlie had been so afraid.
The scene they were now witnessing looked like something straight of a horror movie. The ghost children could no longer see the familiar and comforting environment of Mike's basement, but were now looking into the dark room of the main level hub, a room which they only now realized had been the Dining Area from the 1993 pizzeria the entire time.
Glitchtrap's appearance by itself would have been enough to horrify any of the ghost children almost to the degree that Nightmare's first appearance or Nightmare Springtrap himself had. The anomaly that had been created from William Afton's malevolent spirit no longer resembled an animatronic or suit, or even anything that evenly remotely belonged in the world of the living. The flames had burned away the false shell that Glitchtrap had been wearing, revealing the monster that he had always been underneath. Instead of a distorted Spring Bonnie outfit, Glitchtrap had become a roiling mass of black shadows, a digital abomination of darkness with several purple eyes scattered throughout the chaos that was his body. The creature's face no longer resembled anything human or animatronic either, consisting of only two larger glowing purple eyes and a gaping purple mouth with jaws that looked more animalistic than human. The only real hint that this monstrosity had once carried the appearance of a Spring Bonnie was the fact that even as an abomination of darkness, it still had two bunny ears poking out of his head. A fact that could have been almost amusing if the circumstances weren't so dire.
And yet, it wasn't Glitchtrap who scared the victims of William Afton's malice the most. The abomination's expression wasn't the inhuman glee or the wicked sadism that the ghosts had come to expect from Afton. Instead, the monster's face showed nothing but pure, primal terror and atrocious agony beyond anything the children had ever seen before. Indeed, Glitchtrap's inhuman nature was merely an afterthought in the ghost children's minds…but only because Mike was somehow even more terrifying.
Unlike Glitchtrap, whose chaotic and twisted form looked more akin to a digital Lovecraftian horror, Mike was a tower juggernaut of darkness wreathed in the unholy inferno of his rage. His body reminded the children of the drawing he had shown them so long, except now he had cast away any sense of restraint, mercy, or compassion. The man's glowing red eyes blazed with pure hatred that instilled a black, unspeakable dread into the hearts of his children, and Mike's mouth stretched into a twisted grin as he continued to burn Glitchtrap in a pillar of fire, completely uncaring as Glitchtrap continued to writhe and scream.
The ghosts were too stunned to do anything but watch. They had seen the results of Mike's rage when he had punished Nightmare Springtrap for his latest crime against his family, a memory burned into their minds even despite how much time had passed since that accursed night. Even after seeing Afton's broken, mangled corpse-soul, part of them had refused to believe that their kind and loving father could be capable of such brutality. A small part of them hoped that the Nightmares had actually been the ones behind the murderer's mutilation, and that Mike hadn't committed such horrific atrocities, as well-deserved as they might have been. That illusion was now completely shattered, the evidence of Mike's darkness now undeniable. In that moment, Mike appeared not as the mild-mannered and loving father they had grown to love, nor the heroic warrior of darkness he had portrayed himself as.
Now, it was as though they were looking at a humanoid version of Nightmare. In appearance and in actions.
"What in Hell's name…" Mike growled, his face first displaying shock before contorting with disgust as he beheld Glitchtrap's true form. Even though it looked much more chaotic and even less corporal than his form when he had been split through the Tapes, Mike still had an ironclad grip on where his neck had been, preventing any chance of an escape. "What kind of abomination have you become?" he questioned, scowling as Glitchtrap continued to struggle. "Being reborn in a digital world surely hasn't done you any favors, has it, Afton?" Mike asked in a tone that was almost as conversational as it was mocking.
Out in the real world, Fritz spoke up. "That's actually a great question. What the hell IS Glitchtrap anyway?"
"We know it's a part of William Afton's soul," Jeremy answered. His brother's question had provided an excellent distraction to the horror show playing out in front of him, and he seized the opportunity. "But I don't think it has all of his memories. Heck, I don't think it's even directly connected to the main William Afton at all!"
"What do you mean?" Susie asked.
"I think I get what Jeremy is saying. Glitchtrap doesn't seem to know anything recent about us," Gabe explained. "He didn't seem to recognize any of us at first back when we were going through the levels in the VR game. Or if he did, he didn't act like it."
"He might have recognized me," Charlie admitted. "Glitchtrap didn't show up for me at all back when I was playing through the FNaF 2 levels. Knowing what we do now about him, I think he realized that I could have identified him and hid to avoid me recognizing him and exposing him to the rest of you guys. Not that it mattered in the end," she couldn't help but add.
"Yeah, but think about the last time we saw Afton," Jeremy added, determined to get his point across. "If Glitchtrap was the same William or was connected to him, he would have easily recognized us since we fought against him to keep him from attacking Dad. Heck, Liz flat-out disowned him, and there was a freaking 3-on-1 battle between Afton and the Afton kids." He grinned at Liz. "That was epic as hell, by the way."
The orange-haired girl shrugged modestly, though a small smile was on her face. "I just did what I had to do," she replied.
Jeremy nodded, before continuing. "Anyways, if this Glitchtrap thing really is the same Afton that we all know and hate, wouldn't he have recognized us right from the start? And more to the point, wouldn't he have seen Liz as an enemy? The two of them definitely hated each other by the end of that night, but Liz didn't mention Glitchtrap having that kind of reaction."
Liz shook her head. "I'm honestly not sure if he recognized me period," she remarked.
"Jeremy brings up a good point," Gabe commented. He studied the amorphous blob of darkness Glitchtrap had become more closely. "The best way I can come up with to describe Glitchtrap is a combination of soul fragment and tech virus. Not quite a Horcrux, since he didn't keep Afton from roasting in Hell, but something like it. And it looks like he's part of the digital world too, since he was able to mess around with Pizza Party and was also affected by the Tape Girl splitting her Tapes up."
Susie shook her head. "This is all so complicated," she complained. "Why couldn't it have been as simple as William Afton burning in Hell where he belongs?"
"Because when was it ever that easy?" Jeremy deadpanned.
"You don't seem to have much in common with humanity anymore," Mike commented dryly at the murderer's dark remnant, drawing the children's attention back to him and Glitchtrap, "But then again, were you ever human to begin with? You tainted your soul the moment you murdered your first victim. Perhaps this thing that you've become is simply what you've been all along. And all I've done is burn away the lies."
Glitchtrap's struggles were growing weaker and weaker. The unholy power that was coursing within Mike was somehow completely crippling him just with its very presence. Still, if there were characteristics that William Afton possessed in any of his incarnations, they were stubbornness and pride. "You…cannot…destroy…me…" he challenged, struggling to speak through the chokehold Mike had on his neck. "I…am…immortal!"
"Ah yes," Mike drawled, and from the contemptuous tone in his voice the ghost kids could tell that he was rolling his eyes despite the lack of pupils. "Your little experiment with Remnant," Glitchtrap's eyes widened in surprise that Mike somehow knew of the name. "A funny thing, Remnant. Henry discovered something quite interesting about that strange material that started this whole shitshow. Namely the fact that it tends to fall apart with a little FIRE."
Mike briefly intensified the flames around Glitchtrap's misshapen mass, causing the glitch to scream in agony yet again, before diminishing them again. To everyone's surprise, he began to chuckle, and unlike the malicious laughter from earlier there was genuine amusement and humor in his laugh. "It's ironic, really. The soul is immortal by its very nature. Your entire quest for immortality was pointless just by virtue of the fact that the afterlife exists. Granted, that afterlife could very well be the torment of Hell," he conceded, before pressing forward with his next question, "But was the cursed life forced upon you by Remnant all that much better? Thirty years trapped in the dark, your own rotting corpse trapped in the suit that killed you? You sacrificed everything: your humanity, your sanity, your morality, your family, just so you could exist for a few extra years as little more than a fucking zombie."
"Whoever thinks that living forever is cool has no clue what the hell they're talking about," Cassidy mumbled.
"Now I'm curious…" Jeremy thought aloud. When the other kids' eyes focused on him he continued. "Did William Afton murder us just cause he was a sick fuck who liked to kill kids? Or was he actually trying to experiment with Remnant and immortality this entire time using our deaths?"
Fritz scowled. "Okay, first off, it doesn't matter what his reasons were, he's still a sick fuck either way."
Jeremy raised his hands in defense. "Hey, I didn't say he wasn't!"
"Glad we got that sorted out," the former Foxy inhabitant retorted sarcastically. "Second, who cares why he did whatever? It doesn't change the fact that he fucking killed us and nearly turned Liz into a monster."
"I still can't believe the last fire he burned in didn't finish the job," Susie sighed. She was about to say something else, when Mike blasted Glitchtrap with another blast of hellish flame. She looked back over at the scene…and noticed something odd. "Hey, guys?" the former Chica inhabitant pointed at Glitchtrap. "Is it just me…or is Glitchtrap getting smaller?"
The ghost kids looked over at Glitchtrap's amorphous form and realized that Susie was right. Mike's flames weren't just burning the abomination, they were burning pieces off of him. It was happening incredibly slowly, piece by piece and only from the edges of Glitchtrap's form, but it was happening nonetheless.
And from the surprised look on Mike's face and the sudden expression of sheer panic on Glitchtrap's, the two of them had realized it too.
"Am I…destroying you?" Mike asked incredulously. For all the malicious vitriol and behavior that he was hurling upon Glitchtrap, he genuinely hadn't expected that particular outcome. His voice still had its unearthly echo, but for a brief moment it sounded more like his normal self and less demonic than it would have been otherwise. "Nightmare told me that the nature of the soul is immortal. So how am I…"
The realization hit him, and a chilling smile stretched across his face even as Glitchtrap struggled even harder than before, his newfound desperation giving him a surge of vitality. "You're not immortal anymore, are you?" he asked, his tone cold enough to freeze water. "You're not the true William Afton, and you never have been. Just a fragment of his soul who got lucky that some brainless idiots decided to repeat history. And since you're not connected to his soul anymore, if you die…YOU'LL DIE FOR GOOD, WON'T YOU?" he suddenly snarled.
Glitchtrap frantically shook his head, apparently having enough wits left to attempt to deceive his tormentor. But the panic and horror in his eyes showed the truth, and Mike would never have believed the words of William Afton regardless. "I once tore you apart piece by piece, Afton," Mike hissed, glaring straight into Glitchtrap's horrified eyes, "and now it looks like I'll get another chance to do it again!"
"You can't destroy me!" Glitchtrap repeated the same words he had spoken earlier, only this time they were spoken with pure terror instead of as a boast. "There is so much that I can teach you, so many secrets that I have to offer! Spare me," he pleaded desperately, "and I will share with you everything that I know!"
Mike didn't reply immediately, and for a brief moment Glitchtrap thought that he might have convinced him. Then, Mike's expression contorted into a hateful visage of fury, revealing that his "hesitation" had been nothing more than a lie, and he spat on the abomination's face. "You have nothing to offer me," he snarled venomously, "except the pleasure from seeing you die a slow and agonizing death. Do you really think that the prospect of condemning you to oblivion will convince me to spare you?" Mike laughed again, and this time everyone could have sworn that they hear another voice, much deeper and utterly inhuman, echoing that cruel, hateful laugh. "Wiping you off the face of existence won't just be a duty to all that is good and decent in this world. It will be MY PERSONAL PLEASURE!"
The dark aspect of the ghost children's father adopted his unholy, menacing grin yet again. He threw Glitchtrap to the ground of the virtual pizzeria, letting go of his throat for the first time. The shadowy glob tried to seize the opportunity to flee, but he had been too gravely wounded to do anything more than crawl away. Mike raised his foot and smashed it down onto Glitchtrap, pinning him to the floor.
Outside in the real world, the ghost children stared at the scene unfolding, horrified and mesmerized in equal measure.
"What's Dad going to do?" Susie asked, fear creeping into her voice.
"Is he actually going to permanently destroy Glitchtrap?" Fritz exclaimed in disbelief. "Is that even possible?"
"If Glitchtrap works like a Harry Potter Horcrux in that way, then he can!" Gabe answered.
"I don't like this…" Cassidy whimpered, displaying her fear even more clearly than Susie, who wrapped her arms around her sister in an attempt to comfort her with a hug. "I don't like seeing Dad be like this."
"…He really does remind you of Nightmare, doesn't he? Like a human version of Nightmare, almost," Jeremy muttered quietly. None of them could give a rebuttal. Suddenly, the parallels between their father consumed by rage and the ruthless demon lord were all too apparent. And the destruction of Glitchtrap didn't seem so satisfying anymore.
All this time, Charlie had been watching the scene unfold, her fear slowly transforming into a dread that settled in the pit of her stomach. Unlike the others, she understood perfectly well the depths to which Mike was willing to sink to unleash his hatred upon the murderer who had plagued their family even after death and damnation. As vicious as Mike's burning of William Afton might have appeared, his manifestation of his dark aspect (something that she was almost certain was the result of Nightmare's "dark blessing" upon her father) was extremely limited thanks to the laws of the real world. As vicious as Mike's burning of Glitchtrap might have appeared to the others, it was only the tip of the iceberg of her father's potential for cruelty in pursuing his revenge. One memory in particular was forcing itself to the forefront of her mind…of a demonic aspect of her father, torturing the broken remains of Nightmare Springtrap with countless different torments, each as horrible as the last.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a weak wheeze emanating from Glitchtrap's mouth. It took everyone a few minutes to realize that the broken glitchy abomination was laughing. Mike's eyes narrowed. "What's so funny?" he snarled.
"Do you really think this is the end?" Glitchtrap coughed out, the amusement from his sudden revelation burning in his unholy purple eyes. "You fool. I am not the only Glitchtrap to exist. There is a copy of me that exists in every single version of this game to have ever been created! You may have stopped me, yes. You may even destroy me. But tell me…how do you plan on destroying the thousands of me scattered throughout the different game worlds, when those fools in Fazbear Entertainment will do nothing but watch and wallow in their own greed?"
Mike froze, the horrible truth dawning upon him. The ghost children were similarly horrified, as they realized just how widespread and calamitous the problem of Glitchtrap actually was. "There's…thousands…of him?" Cassidy spluttered weakly. "Please tell me he's lying!"
"I don't think he is…" Liz shook her head in disbelief. "Didn't Dad mention that this game was already at the end stages of development? He only managed to delay its release by a month or two cause he forced the manager into that deal!"
"We can't stop them all…" Gabe murmured. "We'd have to find every single copy of the game that exists, play through the whole thing perfectly, and have Dad beat Glitchtrap over and over and over again. It's just not possible for us to do all that in one or two months."
"What are we going to do?" Susie asked desperately. "How are we going to stop this?"
Nobody had an answer to her question. None of them wanted to admit defeat, and yet they couldn't come up with a solution to the tremendous problem that existed with Glitchtrap's far more widespread presence. Even one person possessed and taken over by William Afton could reignite another horrific tragedy, and there were now possibly thousands out there, just waiting for the chance to strike.
"Maybe you're right," Mike's voice interrupted their thoughts. Unlike before, he was now speaking with a deadly calm that somehow chilled them to the core even more than his roaring fury. "Maybe there are thousands of Glitchtraps waiting out there, ready to wreak havoc on the world. But you won't be one of them. You won't get to enjoy whatever victory they accomplish. For you, death will be the only thing in your future. I'll admit that destroying you won't be nearly as satisfying as I had hoped, but it will have to do…for now."
Mike leaned down, picking up Glitchtrap by the "throat" once again. Even though he was comforted by the fact that other forms of him would succeed where he had failed, Glitchtrap's eyes still betrayed his fear. Yet another demonstration of his cowardice and selfish nature. "Are you ready to die, William Afton? This is all just a bad dream…"
And when he spoke the next few words, the children could have sworn they heard two voices speaking at once. Mike's own human voice, and something deeper, more menacing, and utterly demonic, ".̴̨̰͕̮͔͖͇̹̰̭̖̮̮̞̊͂͐͋̌̃̍͑́̄̈̈́̕ͅ.̴̨̥̙̠͇̤̗͌̏̏̏͠.̶̧͖̟̬̼̻̪̬̦̙͖̯̦̀́̂̚͜Ȧ̶̢̛͎͓͚̟̥̖̤̿̂̀̚͝N̶̢̖̺̖͓͉̞͈͗͆́̈͋͑͗͊̈́̃͑͜͠͝͠͝D̷̼̠̙̥̈̒͑̒̒ ̵̢̜͙͎̹̮̥̪̼͆́͐̾̋Y̶̦͇͍̅̊͛́̑̓͗̇̉̄̀Ŏ̸̘̜̻̻̩̻̭̳̩̀̾U̷̡̮͓͖̳͌̾́̒̇̈́̎̎̈́̊́̋͜͠͝ ̷̲͖͈̜͔̺̘̂̆̌́̿̊̓̕W̵̜̜̫̙̻͓̯̃̎͗͐̕̕͘I̸͈͌̄̔̈́̕L̴̨̧̬̼̥̼̹̜͙̠̾̈́̈́͐̐̔͒͗̎̍͂̊̇L̴̃̉̓̍͂̌̓̐̂̋̾͘͘͝ͅ ̸̛̙̮̥͇̟͙͆̏̉́̈́̈́̊N̵̨̡̜̩̮̱̼̮͍͎̮̒̔͐͂̂͋̒͂̅̏̀̾E̶̯͙̊̀̒̿̔̈́͘͜͝V̸̩̳̤͇̖̱̱̗̮̠̘͚̈́̉̽̈́͛̈͛͐̿͘͝Ĕ̷̤̪̩̻͚̲̮̩̙̘̞̖͙̒͆̐̀̓̅̅̏́͋̚͘͜Ř̸̨̛̯͎͚̄̓̾͒̒̆̉̅͝ ̴̧̣̯͎͕̞̱̮̦̱̜̘̯̹̉͛͐͐͑͐Ẁ̷̢̢̨̰̙̮̱͉̜̘̳̪͗̏̄̑̑̏̉̀̄̊͜͝A̶̛̹̜̘̗͓͓͎̺̱̽̐̀̔̽̍̅͠K̵̼̫͖̙̩̙̅̑̑̿̌̍͘̚Ę̸̆͆̃͗́́̓͊͠͝ ̵̛͇͕͕̩͓̖̅̈́́̈̔̂̀̿͊̂͂̚U̸̧̱̖͋̌̑͘P̵̡̨̤̘̣͈͚̬̣͈̖̗̅́̄͗̃̈̕ͅ!̷͉̼̟̱͋̑́̉̇͒͒̉̚͝"
(…AND YOU WILL NEVER WAKE UP!)
Mike threw Glitchtrap to the ground and raised his fist into the air. There had always been an aura of red flame surrounding him ever since Nightmare's infernal blessing had activated against Glitchtrap's presence, but now the flames were roaring and blazing around Mike's hand, as though he was attacking with the hands of the Devil himself. Letting out a roar of pure, unadulterated rage and hatred, Mike smashed his fiery fist straight onto Glitchtrap's misshapen face.
The blow hit the rabbit abomination like a sledgehammer. Glitchtrap howled in agony, an inhuman roar that sounded like a combination of William Afton's malevolent voice and a machine that was on the verge of a violent and total collapse. The area that Mike had punched partially collapsed in on itself, even as pieces of Glitchtrap's shadowy essence scattered from the impact and vaporized into nothing. Snarling animalistically, Mike hammered his flame-infused fist onto Glitchtrap over and over again, attacking not just his face, but any part of the miscreation's body that he could find. With each attack, more of Glitchtrap broke away and dissolved into nothing, more dramatically and more violently than when Mike had "simply" been burning Glitchtrap and letting the flames of his darkness do most of the work.
The ghost children watched in transfixed horror and awe as they watched Mike pummel and tear apart Glitchtrap, piece by piece. The one-sided slaughter they were witnessing forced painful and dark memories to the forefront of their minds. Memories of William Afton's broken and burned carcass of a soul after his failure to attack Mike's mind, and of the many violent deaths the murderer had suffered at the hands of the animatronics in Nightmare's special Fazbear-themed torture chamber. Mike was acting so very similarly to the Ultimate Custom Night animatronics, only even more brutal. His attacks were fueled by a hatred that those recreations lacked, wielding powers far beyond their capabilities.
It wasn't just those recollections, either. Mike's onslaught stirred up even older and darker memories as well, ones that the ghost kids hoped that they'd finally put behind them. Memories of night guards screaming, begging for mercy, and flailing about as they were forced into metal suits that would forever silence them. Some of whom they'd beaten with their own metal animatronic fists when they had struggled especially hard, or if they had been a particularly frustrating target to catch. The ghost children looked upon the dark manifestation of their father and saw their own worst aspects gazing back upon them.
And somehow, the knowledge that Mike was unleashing his violence upon the guilty instead of the innocent wasn't nearly as comforting as they'd hoped.
"I had no idea…" Cassidy murmured. "I had no idea Dad was capable of this."
"We saw Afton's broken soul after he attacked Dad as Nightmare Springtrap," Susie shook her head in disbelief, "but seeing it ourselves…"
"And this is still the real world," Gabe pointed out as Mike smashed his fist into the abomination's stomach, ripping out another piece. "We saw what Dad could do in the world of his mind. If you think this is bad…imagine what he could do to someone he really, really hated in a world where he literally has complete control over reality itself."
The ghosts fell silent at his words, shuddering at the implications.
"You know what really scares me?" Jeremy broke the silence, shuffling uncomfortably in the air. "I…I kinda see myself in Dad's dark side. Hate, anger, violence…he might have better control over it, and he never attacked an innocent person. But those problems…we have the same problems. And I didn't realize it until now."
"We were just like this, weren't we?" Gabe asked in a melancholy tone.
"But…but…Dad's doing this to William Afton!" Fritz protested. "That fucker's done so much horrible shit to all of us! And what he was gonna do if he escaped…he deserves every single bit of it!"
"Maybe…but I don't like seeing Dad be like this, even if it's for us," Susie mumbled softly. She gazed over at Mike's dark form and Glitchtrap, who by now had stopped struggling entirely and was now merely writhing weakly on the ground. Compared to before Mike had started his assault, the glitchy abomination was now a fraction of his former size and presence, with gaping purple wounds all over his body where Mike had torn apart his ethereal flesh. They had the impression that if Glitchtrap attempted to return to his previous form now, he would probably look like something akin to Springtrap…at best. The creature wasn't even capable of speaking at this moment, merely moaning and wheezing in agony as it lay sprawled in front of the juggernaut of darkness that Mike had become.
"You will never threaten my family again," Mike growled as he hurled yet another ruthless punch onto Glitchtrap's body, his demonic voice heavy with a declaration that was not just a hateful threat, but a promise. "And you will never win. I will find a way to wipe every trace of your evil off the face of the Earth once and for all. Starting with YOU!"
He lifted his hands, intensifying the fires that blazed around them, ready to deal the killing blow. In that moment, Charlie knew that she had to act. The scene that was playing out before her was almost completely identical to when Mike's demonic aspect had been about to finish off the original William's tortured and mutilated spirit…only this time, Mike's mother wasn't around to calm his rage. Her instincts screamed at her that if Mike went through with destroying Glitchtrap here and now, he would be making a terrible mistake.
Charlie didn't understand why, but the former Puppet didn't question it. One of the most important lessons she had learned, both from her afterlife of torment and from living with Mike, was that she should trust her instincts. And that was enough for her to act.
"No, Dad!" she shouted, rushing forward.
"Charlie, wait!" Liz protested, shocked by her sudden action.
"What are you doing?" Susie exclaimed.
"Dad, stop!" Charlie called out, ignoring her siblings' calls. "This isn't right!" She reached out towards Mike, trying to comfort him with a hug like she had done in the past so many times when she was alive, and how Serene had placated his rage. Her hands reached Mike's shoulder…and she screamed in pain, stumbling backward.
"CHARLIE?" the kids all shouted as they rushed towards her. When they got to her, they all gasped. Charlie's spectral hands had been burned, the ghostly flesh now looking blackened, red, painful, and swollen. Fortunately, the burns themselves hadn't been too severe and were even now starting to heal thanks to Charlie's innate magical ability.
"Oh my God…" Fritz stared at her hands.
"Your hands…" Jeremy mumbled. "Your poor hands."
But the former Marionette barely seemed to care. "Dad!" she pleaded, ignoring her pain and calling out to him again, although this time she was smart enough not to approach too closely. "You don't need to go this far! This isn't you! Remember what grandma said? You're better than this!"
To her amazement and relief, Mike suddenly stopped in mid-air. Charlie wasn't sure if it was because her previous scream of pain had gotten his attention, or if it was her words that were doing the job now. Either way, she wasn't going to complain.
"Please stop, Dad…" she begged. "Please…"
"Charlie?" Mike spoke her name, and Charlie smiled upon hearing that the hate and malice in his voice had lessened dramatically, even though his voice still sounded inhuman and unearthly. The flames around his body began to recede, and as they did so Glitchtrap took the one option he had left.
He had no hope of defeating this man who somehow wielded unholy power. He was too weak and too gravely wounded to even escape into depths of the game. But he could at the very least consolidate what was left of his essence, make himself harder to kill…and prevent his existence from collapsing entirely.
"Look!" Cassidy shouted, pointing at Glitchtrap. Everyone turned to watch as the wounded and broken abomination began to shrink and collect what was left of his essence together. Mike watched warily for any sign of an attack, but it was very much the opposite. The family stared as Glitchtrap transformed from a shadowy rabbit-headed mass into a pale Spring Bonnie plushie, digital green lines occasionally coursing through his body.
"What just happened?" Jeremy was the first to ask the question on everyone's minds.
"He…turned into a plushie?" Liz asked incredulously. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"That must have been his final backup plan," Gabe mused. "If somehow all the other plans failed, he could transform into a plushie just to make sure he stayed alive. I don't think he'll be able to do much of anything though."
Mike glared down at the now-harmless Spring Bonnie plushie. "Isn't that just fucking adorable?" he sneered. "You're lucky that my daughter was here to calm me down. You can enjoy existence for a little while longer…what's left of you, anyway." He savagely kicked the Glitchtrap plushie, sending it flying across the room, before he turned off the VR headset and took it off. The ghost kids hesitantly turned off their supernatural vision, wondering and fearing that Mike's hellish dark aspect would end up actually manifesting in the real world. They were far more relieved than they were expecting to see that Mike had returned to normal, whatever supernatural power running through him having apparently run its course.
That didn't mean that his personality was back to normal, however. There was a still a cloud of frustration, rage, and brooding surrounding the man. "Fritz…" the former Foxy inhabitant jolted at being called by Mike. His voice was also back to normal, but there was a deadly calm that commanded their attention and dread. "My cell phone is right next to you. Give it to me."
"Dad, what happened…?"
"I said, give me my fucking phone!" Mike snarled the command, not in the mood for any pleasantries. Even someone as airheaded as Fritz could recognize right away that messing around or doing anything that could set Mike off would be a spectacularly bad idea. With a trembling hand, Fritz picked up the phone and handed it to him. Mike reached out, grabbed the phone, and snatched it out of his hand.
"What are you doing, Dad?" Susie asked, both curious and afraid at the same time.
"I'm contacting Nightmare," Mike replied tersely. "He's the one supernatural being I can get in touch with immediately, and he needs to know what just happened."
Mike pushed the number on his phone. The ghosts expected him to move the phone up to his ear, but to their surprise he tossed the phone out in front of him to an empty area of the basement. "Get back!" he commanded. "Now!"
His children quickly scrambled back, and the reason why became apparent in just a few seconds. The cell phone began to shake and rumble violently, and the screen started to glow with an unholy orange light. A light that was the same hue as the flaming portal that Nightmare had summoned when he had dropped William Afton into Hell through their pool.
"What the hell…GAH!" Jeremy exclaimed as a burst of flame suddenly erupted the from phone, shooting out like a geyser. The ball of fire stopped in the middle of the room and began to coalesce into a fiery portal. Charlie recognized it immediately as the same kind of scrying portal that Nightmare had created when they had been looking into Mike's mental world and his battle with Nightmare Springtrap. The inside of the portal churned, and soon they could see Nightmare's head in its depths, his red eyes glowing with unholy light…just as Mike's had done moments earlier.
"SCHMIDT?" Nightmare growled. "WHAT BUSINESS DO YOU HAVE WITH…WAIT…" his voice trailed off, his eyes narrowing. "I CAN SENSE THE REMNANTS OF MY POWER EMANATING FROM YOU. POWER FULLY UNLEASHED MOMENTS AGO. BUT THAT SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE. WILLIAM AFTON IS DEEP WITHIN MY DUNGEONS, SUFFERING HIS RIGHTFULLY DESERVED FATE."
"Nightmare…" Mike greeted him, and even through the distance of an entirely different dimension, the demon lord instantly knew that he was not going to enjoy what the man was about to say next, "…we have a problem."
/
A/N: Understatement of the century, Mike. Understatement of the century.
All right, there is a lot, and I do mean A LOT, to go over.
First of all, an explanation on how Dark!Mike was able to manifest in the "real world", or at the very least the world of the VR game. For those of you who remembered Nightmare's Anathema Curse/Infernal Blessing, you are correct. The VR game explicitly mentions "digital transference" in its introduction, so the souls of Mike (and the rest of the family, for that matter) transferred or at the very least partially phased into the VR game directly. And guess what Nightmare's Anathema Curse empowered? The effect was significantly reduced in the real world since the supernatural and mortal worlds are generally kept separate from each other, but even in the real world there were some effects (although obviously Mike didn't transform into Dark!Mike in reality). As for the kids being able to see what was going on, they used supernatural "True Sight" to do so. They didn't use this earlier because they didn't realize it was possible back when they started playing the game, and also didn't have a pressing motivation to try it back when they first started.
With that out of the way, it's time for the BIG explanation. Let me begin by saying that Dark!Mike was ALWAYS going to curb-stomp Glitchtrap. Not only that, but it was the only logical way their confrontation could have turned out. From the very beginning, Mike was one of the WORST possible targets for Glitchtrap, if not the worst target period. Glitchtrap was so successful in canon because he was able to take his victims (such as Jeremy and Vanny) completely by surprise and use secrecy as his primary advantage. They had no idea who or what he was, so it was easy for Glitchtrap to exploit their naivety and escape into the real world through their bodies. And since they are completely unprepared to deal with a sociopathic serial killer virus ghost, Glitchtrap would have no problems corrupting their minds from within, especially as seen with Vanny.
Absolutely NONE of the advantages Glitchtrap might have had over most individuals applies to Mike. The ghost kids already realized something was very wrong with Glitchtrap even before Jeremy had his epiphany in Pizza Party, so they were already approaching him carefully and methodically from the beginning. They know who William Afton is and just how much of a depraved, sociopathic piece of shit he is, so they're sure as Hell not going to listen to a damn word he says. Even if Glitchtrap somehow managed to possess Mike, he already has experience being possessed by William Afton before. And not just some digital virus soul fragment knockoff, but the main William Afton himself empowered as a demon with the powers of Hell. Combined with his iron will and his complete hatred of William Afton, Mike was the worst possible target Glitchtrap could have chosen. And this was before we take Nightmare's Infernal Blessing into account. WITH the Anathema Curse taken into account? Yeah, Mike just straight up hard counters the ever-living fuck out of Glitchtrap. A one-sided shitstomp was the only logical way this could have possibly ended.
And that by itself presents its own problems for me as a writer. Because if I just simply have Mike slaughter Glitchtrap for a second time in a row, detractors would say that that's boring. That's repetitive. It diminishes William Afton as a threat yet again. That makes Mike seem too OP with no downsides. And you'd be absolutely right to say that. I'd completely agree with you that just having Dark!Mike vs. William Afton V2.0, only with much less action, would be terrible writing, and it would be unacceptable for me to ignore such an obvious failing.
Which is why I needed to take this key event, second iteration of Mike curb-stomping William Afton, and instead frame it in a completely different manner. Firstly, we have the outcome of the battle itself. The first fight between Dark!Mike and Nightmare Springtrap was a decisive and total victory for the forces of Good. This confrontation, by contrast, was anything but. Glitchtrap himself said it before Mike started beating the shit out of him: he exists in every single copy of the VR game that's ever been created, copied over and over again through the industry of Fazbear Entertainment's incompetence. He exists in all those games like a true virus or infection. Mike was able to defeat one copy of Glitchtrap. Good job, Mike, well done. Now he just has to do it, oh, I don't know…another couple of thousand times? At least? There's just no way for Mike or the ghost children, even working nonstop, to clear out Glitchtrap from every single one of those copies in just one or two months, it's just not going to happen. For now, at least, Glitchtrap has the last laugh, and because of that Mike's brutal beatdown of the one in his game copy lacks any satisfaction, and the impact of that victory is greatly diminished.
Secondly, the presence of the ghost kids this time around complicates things significantly. The last time I had Mike and William square off against each other, the ghost kids were almost completely absent during that segment, with only Charlie being around to see it at most. This time around, the ghost kids witnessed the whole thing. By itself, this allowed me to introduce segments to this chapter where the ghost kids could provide their own thoughts on the scene playing out in front of them, but that's only the beginning. They just saw the very worst aspects of their father, aspects of Mike's personality that he was desperately trying to keep hidden from them, in full display. They saw all of his rage, his hatred, his potential for cruelty and violence, flaws that they themselves once possessed and still do to a lesser degree, all of it in one brutal beatdown of a glitchy rabbit monstrosity (the scene with Mike brutally punching Glitchtrap to near-death was inspired by Kratos beating the shit out of Zeus in the finale of God of War 3, btw). And not only that, but one of the ghost kids, Charlie, was outright harmed because of Mike's rage, albeit unintentionally. You can bet your ass and your college savings that this is going to have a significant impact on future chapters. It's going to force a lot of hard introspection for everyone in the family, Mike very much included once he realizes what he's done. For those of you who wanted the ghost kids to stop actively hating William Afton and contributing to his suffering as part of their redemption, THIS is the major first step where that path begins.
Finally, for those of you who are concerned that Dark!Mike will be "too easy" of a solution for dealing with Glitchtrap, I hope what I've written above (both in the story itself and in my post-chapter thoughts) will convince you otherwise. And I can assure that for that and other reasons, Dark!Mike will continue to be a largely ineffective solution in future arcs. And not just because invoking it would be counterproductive to the ghost kids' redemption. Dark!Mike highlighted Mike's flaws much more prominently, and the negative impact those flaws can have. Mike was willing to condemn Glitchtrap to outright oblivion simply because he hated William Afton that much (even if such a course of action would be the best for the world, that wasn't on his mind when he beat the shit out of him). He also accidentally hurt one of his kids, as mentioned previously, and he also yelled at Fritz in a way that he's never yelled at any of them before. There are consequences for channeling demonic power, even if that power was given by a demon lord who had genuinely good intentions (as good as a demon lord can have, anyways).
I do have one more drawing for you before I depart. I have finished a drawing of Enraged Dark!Mike, the stage of Dark!Mike that is one step away from Demon!Mike that appeared in the fourth chapter of Mike's battle with Nightmare Springtrap. It is also the form that Mike was able to temporarily manifest against Glitchtrap thanks to Nightmare's Anathema Curse.
lordtenebros/art/The-Archcommander-of-Shadows-Enraged-Version-873041642
Hope you guys enjoyed! There's a lot more to cover in the chapters to come.