A/N: Well, the Schmidt family is about to learn the full and terrible truth about Glitchtrap from Jeremy. All of them will soon be made aware of the horrible danger that lurks within the VR game that Fazbear Entertainment created. The real question is…what are they gonna do about it?
ThomasTheTank: My tastes in video games tend to be very odd and/or specific. I honestly don't play that many popular games at all XD. Hell, I've never even technically played Minecraft, all the information I got for that chapter was from watching Minecraft videos.
RediSus: I don't know anything about that series but I'll take your word for it.
Guest: Again, I appreciate your enthusiasm for MOTHER, it's just that I know literally NOTHING about it and I don't have time to research a new game from scratch just for the sake of a chapter. That being said, I hope you enjoy the upcoming last few chapters for this part of Help Wanted. I can assure you, Mike is a lot of things, but reckless isn't one of them.
Guest: I might, although it won't be for a bit.
Markimoo: To answer your questions: Buff Helpy is just a meme, and it doesn't make for it to actually exist either in this universe or in the canon game verse, for that matter. Honestly I could see the kids watching TV, but Mike will probably introduce them to older, better cartoons (since let's be real, new ones kinda suck). Mike has absolutely NO intention of introducing the kids to FNaF ships, and I'm going to tell you right now that I will not ship ANY of the ghost kids with each other since I'd rather not delve into the territory of adopted incest. The only possible person Mike might be shipped with is Melody, and that is a very big question mark to begin with.
JustMegaMothim: Thanks! I'll definitely be coming back to Help Wanted in the future (there's big chunks of the game still missing that I need to incorporate), but as far as the lore is concerned, it's reaching the climax.
Awesomesniper86: I hope to deliver on your hype!
SuperDescendant101: …I don't understand your question, since there's no reason for William Afton to every play this game. Or any circumstances where he'd be able to, given that he's currently rotting in Hell.
Guest: I'm definitely looking forward to Security Breach, although I'll have to wait until it comes out before I can properly incorporate it into the fic. There's also a decent chance that Vanessa the Night Guard and Vanny are the same person, and I have a feeling that some (but not all) of the Glamrocks may be hostile.
Guest: That's a good idea for a personal torture, although it would probably be pretty boring for the demons. Keep in mind that UCN is a spectator show hosted by Nightmare, and he has to entertain his infernal audience in addition to torture William.
Jack0Lanterns: Good thing Jeremy had the awareness and good sense to see the danger coming and get the hell out of dodge while he still had the chance.
RicAlbuquerque: It's fucking Fazbear Entertainment. Incompetence and corruption are fundamental parts of their existence. As for the Phantoms, that's more or less what I'm talking about when I say they are manifestations of the negative emotions and all the horror that surround the franchise. Not sure about the Shadows, since Shadow Bonnie CAN force-quit the game, implying some sort of power beyond the Phantoms.
Guest: Unfortunately I know practically nothing about MOTHER even though I know a decent bit about Undertale. With how busy my schedule is I've kinda stopped focusing on video game chapters in general since they actually take me a decent amount of time to research and set up…FNaF games notwithstanding.
TU4Q: I'm not sure he put in a kill/virus program into EVERY animatronic, especially not the ones that came after his original death and rebirth as Springtrap. Either Springtrap knew that taking Remnant-coated circuit boards from his animatronic body and scanning them into the game would create Glitchtrap, or he didn't know and that was just incredibly fortunate for him and incredibly UN-fortunate for everyone else.
Jeremy actually keeps the Tape that he collected even after quitting the level, so it'll show up in Tape 15 despite not finishing Pizza Party. And as for Pizza Party itself, the family will know about its dangers and naturally stay the hell away from it. But Glitchtrap will know that Jeremy has recognized the danger, and may have to resort to…alternate means…to get what he wants.
MegaMaster78: I'm still not sure whether I incorporate FNAF AR, but if I do it will have some significant differences compared to the canon universe (it will have to be different by necessity).
Properman: We are in complete agreement here, my friend. William Afton cannot be helped because otherwise the evil that tainted the Fazbear franchise will occur all over again. And given his utter lack of remorse and depravity, he should not be given any help regardless.
HarperDubus: Fair enough. I'm pretty sure being tortured in Hell wasn't the "eternal life" William Afton had in mind though.
AlchemyWriter: I'm almost certainly going to include the lore, as that basically focuses on Vanny's backstory. The problem with the animatronics will almost certainly not be as widespread, as Mike will be much more proactive about stopping Fazbear Entertainment's bullshit than anyone else in the canon universe. (He's only allowing FE to currently exist at all because if he jumps the gun at getting them shut down, then it'll just re-emerge somewhere else far beyond his ability to influence and do the same shit over and over again).
FireFlamerx9z: Our former Bonnie ghost child is no fool, that's for sure!
Chapter 125 – VR Help Wanted Part 11
Amidst the shocked and horrified exclamations from the animatronics, Mike looked his adopted son straight in the eye, his expression deadly serious. "Jeremy…" he commanded, "…tell me everything."
Jeremy immediately unloaded everything he had witnessed in the Pizza Party level. He started with the layout of the Pizza Party itself, and how there had been many different rooms from different eras throughout the Fazbear and Circus Baby franchise, all mashed together in a giant maze with doors that could lead to anywhere. How the walls, ceiling, and floors had been marked with red paint that sometimes seemed to lead towards the right direction and other times seemed to confuse and disorient him. How he had made it all the way to the Pizza Party room, only to see the Spring Bonnie figure, in solid form without any glitchiness about it, try to lure him behind the curtain…just like William Afton had lured Jeremy to his death in the MCI.
And how his instincts had screamed at him that if he followed the Spring Bonnie figure, it would be a catastrophic mistake on par with killing innocent night guards or following William in the first place.
When Jeremy was finished, the entire family was deathly silent, still trying to process the implications of what the former Bonnie inhabitant had just discovered.
"But how is this possible?" Susie was the first to break the silence. She had flown out of her animatronic body during the story, as had the rest of the ghost kids. "We know where William Afton is. Nightmare threw him back into Hell after he tried to attack Dad. So why is there some ghost or glitch copy of him still here, in this game?"
"Believe me, I'm seriously tempted to call Nightmare's number and make sure that that's still the case," Mike muttered.
Everyone stared at him. "You have a demon lord's PHONE NUMBER on your cell?" Fritz asked in disbelief.
"I'd rather have it than not, in case of emergencies," Mike replied.
"We're getting off-topic," Charlie steered the conversation back on track. "Let's try and focus on why there's apparently a copy of William Afton in this game."
"I think we can figure out what this Glitchtrap thing is trying to do," Gabe mused. At the raised eyebrows, he explained. "It's a glitchy Springtrap, I think the name makes sense."
"Fair enough," Jeremy shrugged.
"Anyways," Gabe continued, "I think I know what's going on. You remember how the Tape Girl said that they scanned circuit boards taken from some animatronic remains into the game?" Everyone nodded, their eyes widening as they realized what Gabe was insinuating. "I think that, because of that Remnant stuff that we blew up earlier, some piece of William Afton's soul ended up in that game. And because it was from Springtrap, that piece of soul took on the form of Spring Bonnie."
"Are you calling Glitchtrap a Horcrux? Like from Harry Potter?" Cassidy asked.
Gabe nodded. "That's actually a great comparison," he replied. "Specifically the Diary Horcrux. Although I don't think this Glitchtrap thing is all that connected to the main William Afton that's burning in Hell right now. But either way, I don't think it matters for how dangerous that thing is."
Understanding started to dawn in their eyes. "So you think…" Liz began.
"I think we're all starting to think the same thing," Gabe finished. "You know how the diary slowly took over Ginny's body in Chamber of Secrets?" When everyone nodded, he continued. "I think that that's basically what Glitchtrap's plan is. Slowly drive someone mad and try to take over their body. Just like…how he did to the other Jeremy…" his voice trailed off.
The story that they had been piecing together, the story that Tape Girl had been warning them about, was starting to make a horrible sort of sense. Glitchtrap had slowly been trying to take over Jeremy's body, driving him mad, but the man had decided to kill himself before he could be fully possessed. Susie shuddered as she remembered the "Halloween mask" and the "black liquid" from one of the Tapes.
Suddenly she didn't think that it was a Halloween mask or ink anymore.
"This was back before that woman did her thing with the Tapes, right?" Liz asked. "I mean, even if it didn't work out and it gave Glitchtrap somewhere to hide, it DID break him up and stop him for a while. It's still better than doing nothing and letting him run around possessing whoever's unlucky enough to play the game."
"As much as that might be true, Liz, I don't think we can depend on that here," Jeremy countered. "The Glitchtrap I saw in that Pizza Party room wasn't the glitchy green incomplete thing with purple eyes. It was a fully formed being, looking completely solid and with the colors you'd expect from a Spring Bonnie. I have a bad feeling that even without the Tapes, Glitchtrap can still do what he wants there." He turned to look at Mike. "Dad?"
"I'm with you," Mike grimly agreed. "Judging by what you just told me, I have a theory as to what may be going on." All eyes turned to him, wordlessly begging him for an explanation. "I think that Glitchtrap might have consolidated his essence around both the Tapes and that one little corner of the Pizza Party. It'd be the perfect place to hide, the very end of a level that can't be unlocked unless all the other levels are beaten first. He can manifest if either all the Tapes are collected, or if someone makes it to that little corner. And as to what he plans to do…" he grimaced. "I have a bad feeling he'll be able to trap the soul or mind of whoever follows him and take over their body to escape."
Everyone shuddered, but none more so than Jeremy. Suddenly, he was very, VERY glad he had listened to his instincts.
"Is there anything that we can do to stop Glitchtrap?" Susie asked nervously.
Mike shook his head. "Not that I can tell from what we've heard from the Tapes so far. Maybe there's more information to be found?"
"I found a Tape in the Pizza Party level," Jeremy offered. "I grabbed it before I turned the game off."
"That should be Tape 15, right?" Gabe asked. When Jeremy nodded in confirmation, he continued. "So as we long as we don't take that last Tape, we should still be okay as long as we don't go into Pizza Party. Since you found the Tape, you should quickly check in the Tape Room and see what it says."
"But whatever you do," Mike warned, "do NOT, for ANY reason, start the Pizza Party level. If Nightmare were to appear in this living room right now and offer to take me on a guided tour through Hell itself, I'd trust that offer more than I trust Pizza Party right now."
"Wow…" Fritz whistled.
"Who do you trust more to not fuck you over, Nightmare or William Afton?" Mike deadpanned.
"Fair point," the former Foxy inhabitant conceded as Jeremy re-entered Rockstar Bonnie and put the VR headset on his head. When Jeremy entered the main hub, he glanced nervously to his right, but Glitchtrap was nowhere to be found. Still, that didn't give Jeremy any comfort at all, especially now that he knew what, and who, Glitchtrap truly was. He reached out to touch the Tape Recorder, which took him to the empty black void of the Tape Room. As Jeremy had claimed, there was only one empty spot remaining, one last Tape before Glitchtrap would be recreated fully outside of his isolated sanctuary in Pizza Party.
"Hello," Tape Girl's voice greeted her. "You don't know me. I'd created a series of logs for you documenting the troubled development of this VR game that you're now testing in hopes that you, whoever you are, and whatever team you are with, will abandon development. Now I fear those logs are being used as a trojan horse. If you're unable to abandon development, hide all traces of these logs that I've created. I fear that finding them all and reassembling them will also reassemble the very thing I've tried so desperately to destroy."
"…wait, that's it?" Jeremy exclaimed with frustration as the recording ended. "That's all she said? Just another warning that we're recreating Glitchtrap? And why the HELL didn't she mention this earlier. You know, before we went through all the trouble of recreating them and accidentally putting Glitchtrap back together too?" He shook his head in disbelief. "I know she said that she didn't put the Tapes in order, but geez, this would have been REAL nice to know earlier! You know, like at the first Tape we collected!"
Shaking his head in disgust, Jeremy returned to the main hub. Glitchtrap was still nowhere to be found, but something else had changed. By now, the former Bonnie inhabitant was very familiar with the main hub of the game, and could easily recognize all of the buttons and the functions they had.
There was now a button panel, a small one marked "Go to Gallery." It was located innocently right next to the Prize Counter button, a small addition that seemed right at place at the workshop.
It would've been such a small, easily overlooked detail…if it weren't for the fact that that button panel hadn't been there minutes before.
Jeremy scowled at it. "I don't trust that," he muttered to himself as he turned off the game and went back to the main menu screen. Glitchtrap had returned, and the soul fragment or copy of William Afton was now large enough to the point that he was almost the size of a full adult, and almost as solid as he had been when he had tried to lure Jeremy into his trap in Pizza Party. The grin was still plastered on his face, but Jeremy could have sworn that he had seen a flash of anger and frustration in the rabbit's face, as though he were furious that he had been denied his prize. Jeremy only barely managed to resist the urge to stick a middle finger up to Glitchtrap's face or taunt him about his failure. Instead, he immediately took his headset off, not relaxing until he was surrounded by the familiar faces of his family.
"What did you learn?" Cassidy prompted.
"Nothing," Jeremy grumbled as he flew back out of Rockstar Bonnie's body. "For some reason, the Tape Girl decided to say hello again and then put a warning about putting Glitchtrap back together by collecting the Tapes. Which would have been nice and all, except for the fact that she should have given that warning to us with the FIRST Tape we collected."
"Wait, what?" Charlie interrupted. "She introduced herself again?"
"For some reason," Jeremy rolled his eyes.
"Hold on," Mike interrupted. When everyone looked over at him, his face looked thoughtful rather than annoyed. "Was this the second time that Tape Girl introduced herself?"
"Yeah," Jeremy answered.
Mike's eyes narrowed. "Something doesn't seem right here. I think I need to hear that Tape myself. Hell, I think I need to listen to ALL of them again, just in case."
"Hold on, Dad…" Liz interrupted. "We need a plan! How are we going to deal with Glitchtrap?"
There was a long silence, as nobody could come up with an answer right away. Obviously, going to confront him in Pizza Party was out of the question. That was almost certainly walking into an environment that Glitchtrap had significant control over, and a death trap for sure.
"Guys, before we do anything, I need to tell you something," Jeremy warned. "After I checked out the Tape, I saw another button. It said it was going to take me to some kind of gallery. I can tell you right now that it wasn't there earlier."
"Isn't there usually a gallery or something like that showing the art for a lot of video games?" Susie questioned.
"Maybe," Charlie answered. "But usually those need you to beat a level or the game to unlock them," She gave Jeremy a pointed look. "Something that he never technically did."
A heavy silence fell. It could just be a feature of the game, but considering that this was a game that was practically confirmed to have a fragment of William Afton's tainted and malevolent soul in it, blindly hoping for the best without anticipating the increasingly probable worst would be stupidity of the highest order.
"So what do we do now?" Susie asked. "Let's say everything we're afraid of is true. How do we take care of this problem?"
"…I'm not sure we can," Liz mumbled. "I feel like if we try to do it with Pizza Party, somebody's gonna have to sacrifice themselves and let themselves be trapped in the game, while Glitchtrap possesses whatever animatronic we offer up as bait."
"We could use Lefty for that," Jeremy suggested. "Dad could make remake Lefty so that he's incredibly weak, vulnerable, and unable to do so much as move. Then we could take Glitchtrap in Lefty to the incinerator and destroy it."
"Okay, back the fuck up for a sec," Mike interrupted, an edge in his tone that allowed for no argument. "Let me say this right now: there is NO way I'm going to let ANY of you sacrifice yourselves so you can go through the Missing Children Incident Take 2. Fuck that noise. If I let that happen, I'd be a worse parent than my old dad back when he was still a drunken asshole."
"But…" Gabe started.
"NO BUTS," Mike shut him down. "Pizza Party is NOT happening. End of the fucking story."
"Calm down, Dad…" Fritz raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I know this is weird coming from me, but we're not gonna do something that stupid."
"So Pizza Party's out of the question," Charlie muttered. "Our only other option is collecting the last Tape. The only one that's left."
"Where it could be, though?" Susie wondered. "We've played all the levels. And Jeremy only found one Tape at the very end of Pizza Party."
"I think it might be in that Gallery place," Jeremy answered grimly. "Glitchtrap might have unlocked that place on purpose, just so we could find that last Tape."
"Do you think he might just try and take over any of us in the Gallery?" Liz asked.
The former Bonnie inhabitant shook his head. "Unless he shows up the way I saw him in Pizza Party, I don't think so," he responded. "He didn't appear solid like that anywhere else."
"I think it's clear what needs to be done," Mike declared, getting up from his couch. "I need to be the one to find that last Tape. And I'm going to be the one to draw him out."
"WHAT?" every single one of the ghost kids exclaimed.
"Oh hell no!" Fritz argued immediately. "We can't let you put yourself at risk like that, Dad!"
"What if he traps you in the game just like he was going to trap me?" Jeremy questioned. "We can't let that happen!"
"No way!" Susie crossed her arms and glared at her father. "No way we'll let what happened to you happen to us!"
As the ghost kids all attempted to talk Mike out of putting himself at risk, he and Charlie noticed that Gabe hadn't said a word. The former Freddy inhabitant was floating motionlessly in the air, his face scrunched up in deep thought. "Gabe?" Charlie prompted.
He waited until everyone had quieted down before finally speaking. "Guys…" the ghost boy finally began, "as much as I hate it…Dad being the one to take on Glitchtrap might be the best option we have."
"WHAT?" most of his siblings exclaimed. "Are you serious?" Susie demanded. "You're actually thinking about letting Glitchtrap get his hands on Dad?"
"We're the ones who're supposed to be redeeming ourselves!" Cassidy added. "What good is it if we just run away like cowards and leave Dad alone to deal with the danger?"
"You better have a good explanation for this," Jeremy growled, a threatening tone in his voice.
"Listen to me guys," Gabe insisted. "Forget about how we feel about the game and what we should be doing about it for a second. Think about what we have to deal with rationally and logically." He glanced down at the VR game with a glare of his own. "First things first, we can't just give it back to Fazbear Entertainment now. Not when we've already found 15 of the 16 Tapes and there's only one left. It would be way too easy for some random, clueless person to pick it up, find the last Tape or go into Pizza Party, and get possessed by Glitchtrap."
"I don't think anybody here was considering that possibility," Mike muttered. "But continue, Gabe."
"Let's assume that the worst-case situation and everything we're afraid of is true," Gabe continued, "and that there's some copy or piece of William Afton trying to take over a body and escape. I've been thinking about what we've heard from the Tapes, and it honestly sounds like there might be two different ways that Glitchtrap is doing his plan."
He lifted his pointer finger up. "One is Pizza Party. The only way we'll be able to draw Glitchtrap out of that room, since it's apparently the only place in the game world that he can manifest even without the Tapes, is if we sacrifice one of ourselves to be trapped in his place. If he possesses any of the animatronics, he could try and attack Dad or break out of the house and escape."
"That's why I suggested using Lefty and making him weak first," Jeremy countered.
"I don't trust that," Gabe retorted. "William Afton was trapped in a weak suit once. Not just a weak suit, but one that was rotten and decayed. Look at how well THAT stopped him. And no matter how weak we make Lefty, he'll still be newer and more well-made than what Springtrap was."
The ghosts all scowled in realization. Though all of them absolutely despised William Afton and hated to compliment anything about him, they couldn't deny his determination.
There was a reason why "I always come back" was Springtrap's catchphrase in FNaF 3, even if Scott didn't know or understand just how true that statement really was.
"Anyways, Dad already said that he wouldn't let us do the Pizza Party sacrifice anyway, so that's out," Gabe continued. "Which leaves our only option being the 16 Tapes."
"How is that any better than Pizza Party?" Susie demanded. "If anything, it sounds even worse since Glitchtrap will probably be able to attack us in the main hub now."
"At first, yeah," Gabe answered immediately. "But here's the thing. From what we've heard from the Tapes, it sounds like Glitchtrap's plan before Tape Girl made the Tapes was to directly possess and merge with whoever was playing the game. This Jeremy guy, who could fight him off long enough to kill himself and stop the possession."
"I see what you're saying," Charlie mused. "Glitchtrap only tried to lure our Jeremy behind the curtain in Pizza Party because it was the only place he could manifest. But fully reformed, he wouldn't bother wasting time on that and just go for the direct possession instead."
"I think you're right, Charlie," Gabe agreed. "Now, if any of us let Glitchtrap possess us, it'll be kinda the same thing as if we sacrificed ourselves to Pizza Party. We'd still let the stupid rabbit thing possess an animatronic, only we'd both be possessing the same thing." He grimaced. "I don't know about you guys, but I do NOT want to share a body with the goddamn serial killer who killed me more than 40 years ago."
Everyone shuddered at the prospect. "I don't know what'll happen if we end up sharing an animatronic body with Glichtrap," Liz murmured. "Maybe we could just fly out and escape, leaving Glitchtrap trapped in Lefty or whoever we use as the bait. But that's the best-case scenario. And there's a LOT of ways for this to go wrong."
Nobody was going to argue with Liz. By now, it was a practically an unspoken creed held by the Schmidt family that as far as Fazbear Entertainment was concerned, when something could go wrong, it will go wrong. The existence of Glitchtrap already confirmed that statement yet again, and they didn't see anything suggesting that trend would reverse itself anytime soon.
"But if Dad were the one to draw out Glitchtrap instead…" Gabe suddenly smiled grimly. "William Afton's already tried something like this, don't you remember?"
"What are you…" the ghost children's eyes suddenly widened as they realized what Gabe was saying. Suddenly, the former Freddy inhabitant's plan was starting to make perfect sense. Many of the kids' faces brightened…except for one.
Charlie was not so confident in Gabe's plan. It wasn't because of any particularly glaring flaw in the plan itself; letting Glitchtrap try and possess Mike just like Nightmare Springtrap had wasn't any worse of an idea than the others that they had suggested, and unlike their other ideas there was some precedent to suggest that it could succeed.
But there were still possible failure points. Glitchtrap might take Mike by surprise and leave him unable to react properly (unlike against Nightmare Springtrap, where Mike had been fully prepared for his mental invasion), or Glitchtrap's nature might be different enough to succeed where Nightmare Springtrap had failed.
That wasn't the only thing Charlie feared, however. If he reacted similarly to how he had back when Nightmare Springtrap had invaded his mind, and if the rest of her brothers and sisters somehow got a glimpse into that terrible aspect of their father's soul that he kept so carefully hidden…
"Charlie?" Liz's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "What do you think?"
Charlie hesitated, then sighed. As much as she wanted to protest against Gabe's suggestion, she had no practical grounds to do so. Doing nothing simply wasn't an option. And even the most horrible and costly of victories in their quest to defeat Glitchtrap was far, far more preferable to the alternative.
"We have to go for it," she answered reluctantly. "It's our best shot."
"I don't like putting Dad in danger like that," Gabe seemed to think that he was sharing Charlie's reservations, and the former Marionette wasn't going to correct that. "If I was sure trapping one of us in the game would be enough to beat Glitchtrap, I'd be the first to make that sacrifice. But I feel like if we did that, the only thing we'd be doing is creating another Springtrap out of Lefty. Cause the fucker won't just give up."
He looked over at Mike. "I've learned a lot of things from you, Dad. One of the things you taught us back when Afton first attacked our house was to know our limits. We've done all that we could to figure out what was wrong with the game, but we can't deal with Glitchtrap by ourselves." The former Freddy inhabitant looked down at the floor. "We couldn't even deal with him back when he was just a corpse possessing a stupid rabbit suit." Gabe looked back up at Mike. "If anyone can beat Glitchtrap, Dad, it's you. You're the best chance we have of stopping this thing before it becomes a problem."
"That's right!" Susie now understood what Gabe was saying. "We saw what you did to Afton after he invaded your mind. You beat him once, Dad. You can do it again!"
Mike smiled humorlessly, a grim determination in his eyes. "You know I'm glad you made that suggestion," he replied. "Because I was about to make that same suggestion."
"I don't like it," Cassidy muttered, before sighing. "But we don't have any better options, so good luck, Dad."
"Kick his ass, Dad!" Fritz pumped a fist in the air. "For everyone whoever had their life or afterlife fucked up because of him!"
Jeremy raised his hands to calm his siblings down. "Dad, before you go in and get that last Tape, I'd check the Tapes again," he warned. "Something about them feels…off. And I don't know what it is."
"I will, Jeremy," Mike promised. "Something doesn't sit quite right about them with me, either."
Cassidy picked up the VR headset and handed it over to Mike. "Good luck, Dad…" she murmured.
Mike smiled dryly at her. "We'll find a way to beat this bastard," he promised all of them as he put the headset on and entered the world of the VR game for the first time in his life. When he arrived at the main level hub, he immediately looked to his right to see if Glitchtrap was there. The rabbit wasn't, though Mike knew better than to assume that he wasn't lurking around somewhere. He looked down at his work station and almost pressed the "Go To Gallery" button, but instead decided to visit the Tape Room first. Once he had arrived in the black void, he began to listen to each and every Tape, one at a time, focusing carefully to try and see if he could find any details that his children might have missed.
"Rest in peace, Jeremy," he muttered under his breath as he heard Tape Girl describe the ominous scene with the "Halloween Mask" and the "ink on the floor." Mike was fairly certain that the truth of that statement was far grislier, and he saluted the man for sacrificing his own life to prevent Glitchtrap from getting an early victory. When he had finished with Tape 15, he frowned.
"Why introduce yourself again?" Mike asked aloud to the empty void of the Tape Room. "Why not just tell us all this to begin with, if you knew that Glitchtrap was so dangerous?" He took out Tape 15 and put Tape 1 back in again, and his frown deepened as he heard the Tape Girl's first introduction. Unlike in Tape 15, Tape Girl's warning about Glitchtrap was much vaguer, speaking only about "malicious code" without going into any of the crucial details. And even the way she spoke about putting away the Tapes sounded more like she wanted to hiding dirt on Fazbear Entertainment than seal away Glitchtrap. Not a bad goal in and of itself, but only a minor priority compared to Glitchtrap. "Something is wrong here," Mike muttered, agreeing with his Jeremy's last comment. "There's some piece of the puzzle that I'm missing here. I don't know what it is…I might have to listen to find that last Tape before figuring it out."
He pressed the button to return to the main room, where Glitchtrap was still nowhere to be found. Then, reluctantly, he pushed the small button marked "Go to Gallery." Mike braced himself, half expecting to see Glitchtrap pop up right in front of him, waiting to attack.
But to his surprise, the room he found himself in was anticlimactically mundane. In front of him was a small, circular wooden stage, with red curtains pulled open to each side. To his left and right were monitors that each showed the many different animatronics that had been featured in the game at some point or another, both of which had been positioned on top of simple wooden drawers. The animatronic currently featured was Freddy Fazbear, and even though Mike had already lived with the Rockstars for an extended period of time already, he couldn't help but be surprised at how large and lifelike the bear animatronic really was. The game developers had done a good job in recreating the size and scale of the animatronics, as much as Mike hated to admit it.
Mike began to aimlessly click through the different animatronics, a bit curious to see just how large they were. Most of them were about the same size as Freddy, but Circus Baby in particular TOWERED over him. When making the harmless recreation of Baby for Liz, he had made many significant changes, one of them being a decrease in size. So even though he knew how big Circus Baby had originally been from a theoretical perspective, it was still shocking to see just how gigantic she truly was, even for an original animatronic.
"Probably so that she could fit in those kids she was made to kill," Mike growled under his breath. Once he was done going through the different animatronics, he took another look around. Glitchtrap had not appeared at all during the entire time that he had been playing around with the animatronics in the Gallery, so Mike was pretty certain at this point that he couldn't impact this particular area. Still, he had a job to do.
He reached out towards the right desk drawer and pulled it open. Inside was a single Faz-coin, which Mike immediately collected. Then, he moved on to the left desk drawer…and saw the purple flash and the unmistakable shape of a tape lying in its depths.
Mike stared down at the tape wordlessly for the longest time. Once he picked it up, there would be no going back. One way or another, he would be forced to confront a Glitchtrap that would be able to fully manifest once more. Taking a deep breath, he reached out for the Tape and picked it up. It disappeared with a flash of purple, leaving Mike alone in the Gallery.
Mike returned to the main level hub, half-expecting an ambush from Glitchtrap to try and possess his mind at any point. None occurred, but Mike understood full well that Glitchtrap could simply be biding his time, waiting for the moment when he was most vulnerable. From now on, Mike would have to assume that EVERY transition he did from place to place in the game would have Glitchtrap waiting for him.
"Might as well hear what that Tape has to say," Mike mumbled as he returned to the Tape Room. Once he was back in the black void of the Tape Room, he reached out and placed the 16th and final Tape into the recorder.
"There is a way to kill it," Tape Girl's voice murmured. "It wants to escape. To escape through someone. Someone plugged into the game. That's you now. You have to let it begin the process of leaving you, then use the disconnect switch that I've embedded by the main stage. Let it approach you. Let it begin to merge with you. Play the music and click the button on the side. That will cause a hard reset of the game and flush the memory, effectively killing it. I hope. I don't know when it will come for you."
"Wait, so there's a way to kill it after all?" Mike exclaimed. "Maybe this won't be so bad after…"
His voice trailed off. There was something in the back of his mind warning him, his instincts warning him once again that something was off. He played the 16th Tape again, listening to it more carefully than he had last time.
"Wait a minute…" Mike thought. "Something isn't right here. All the Tapes before this one had emphasized just how hopeless destroying Glitchtrap permanently had been. How Tape Girl had attempted everything to destroy Glitchtrap, but could only seal him away at best. She had all but given up hope, until she randomly came up with a solution just now. "If she had the solution in the first place," Mike asked himself slowly, "then why didn't she just deal with the problem herself to begin with?"
Granted, it was possible that Tape Girl was simply a coward who didn't want to put her own skin on the line. But from what Mike had heard from the Tapes she didn't seem to be the kind of person to leave things half-assed and incomplete if she had the choice.
And that wasn't the only thing bothering him. He would have expected Tape Girl to be excited about the possibility of destroying Glitchtrap for good, and for that excitement to be heard in the Tape Girl's voice as she talked about solution. But apart from possibly a higher tone, she had spoken in the exact same, relatively emotionless tone of voice that she had used when describing some of the other things in her Tapes.
Finally, the information in this Tape once again seemed somewhat disjointed with the rest of the Tapes' narratives. Of course, it was possible that Tape Girl simply wasn't able to find a solution to destroy Glitchtrap near the very end, but it was still the second time that she had at least somewhat contradicted herself in two different Tapes. Mike listened to Tape 1 and Tape 15, wanting to reaffirm his suspicion. One intro that was vague and gave away nothing about the danger lurking in this game, and another that much more clearly warned against collecting all of the Tapes and urged the next developers to hide them even more thoroughly than she had done.
"Could it be possible…" the realization dawned on Mike. "Could it be possible…that one of the logs is FAKE? That the first log, the one that doesn't tell us a goddamn thing, was actually a fake one made by Glitchtrap to fool people into collecting the logs just to satisfy their own curiosity?"
It seemed far-fetched at first, but Glitchtrap had already demonstrated his ability to alter the game through Pizza Party. If he had heard Tape Girl speak for an extended period of time, such as when she had been recording her Tapes, it wouldn't be impossible for Glitchtrap to imitate her voice or manipulate the Tapes that he had attached himself to and make a fake Tape of his own. One that would displace the original introduction, Tape 15, and make it so that the warning wouldn't come until it was almost too late.
"Or more than one fake Tape…" Mike mused. If Glitchtrap could possibly fake one Tape, then it was certainly possible for him to fake more than one. He doubted that Glitchtrap had faked all or even most of them, but if he had faked the Tape that supposedly contained the solution to beating him…
"I don't trust that," the man muttered. "I'm not gonna follow some random person's instructions unless I know they're trustworthy. And Glitchtrap is the exact opposite of trustworthy." If Tape 16 was a trap, then at best the instructions were worthless. At worst, he'd be playing right into Glitchtrap's hands. A prospect that was completely unacceptable and that he rejected utterly.
"I'm ready for you, Glitchtrap!" Mike declared. "Come at me with everything you have! If you think I'm going to be an easy prey, then get ready to be disappointed!" He pressed the button to return to the main hub, once again preparing for the worst…
…and found himself face-to-face with the monstrosity that had lurked within the game all this time.
"You motherfucker!" Mike snarled furiously, realizing that Glitchtrap had waited until this very moment, when he had found and listened to the 16th Tape, to unleash his attack as soon as possible. The digital copy of William Afton's soul grinned at him, reaching out to grab Mike's forehead, trying to force his way into him and merge with him.
Mike gritted his teeth as he felt the invasion into his mind commence. He could feel the malice, the cruelty, the utter evil of William Afton's soul attempt to invade his mind, just as he had the first time when the serial murderer invaded his soul. Mike focused his mind, calling on every ounce of his willpower to repel Glitchtrap's attack.
The rabbit-like creature paused slightly, his eyes widening slightly in surprise, before flashing purple with irritation at the unexpected resistance that Mike was presenting to his invasion. Glitchtrap pressed his hand harder into Mike's head, trying to apply more force to break Mike's resistance and force him to submit.
And Mike focused his will even harder to counteract Glitchtrap's malice. He thought about everyone he had ever cared about, past and present. His mother, Oskar, Melody, the Marshalls, his children, even his birth father. How all of them would be utterly horrified and disappointed in him if he gave in to the monster that threatened the world once again through Fazbear Entertainment's incompetence, and about the danger that those who still lived on Earth would be in if he yielded.
"I will never give up," Mike growled his oath. "Not here, not now, not ever!"
The murderer who had slaughtered so many innocent children and the father who had adopted them as his very own battled against each other, in the ultimate contest of wills deep within a game world that represented the Fazbear tragedy. And as Mike pushed back Glitchtrap with all of the mental resilience, fortitude, determination, and willpower that he had gathered within his soul through his many years of life…
…the flames of darkness blazed, and a different monster rose.
"You made this mistake before…AND YOU WON'T GET THE CHANCE TO MAKE IT AGAIN."
/
A/N: Ooh, I just love a good cliffhanger. If you've been paying attention to my fonts, you can take a guess as to what's going to be happening next…
You might be wondering…how the hell is this possible? Mike has a great amount of willpower and determination, sure, but how could he be able to do THIS?
The answer: he couldn't. Not by himself. But there is a brief, but CRUCIAL detail that I mentioned all the way back in Mike's first confrontation with William Afton as Nightmare Springtrap. More specifically, the ending of that particular arc. And suddenly, everything that will happen in the next chapter will make much more sense. And oh, is it going to be a major chapter indeed…
Mike's thoughts on the Tapes actually reflect my thoughts and the thoughts that a few people had on Reddit. More specifically, that it's possible that one or more of the Tapes were actually fakes made by Glitchtrap as part of his trap. Listen to Tapes 1 and 15 again. They're both introductions, but Tape 1 is extremely vague and incites curiosity without a proper warning, while Tape 15 much more clearly states that reassembling the Tapes will recreate something very bad (granted, it's still not very clear, but it's more than what Tape 1 did). There's also the fact that Glitchtrap says "Hello, can you hear me?" in a warped voice, which is exactly the same line as the start of Tape 1.
And as for Tape 16, it might be genuine, but it might be a fake. The ending for successfully following Tape Girl's instructions is extremely vague, to the point that even after reading a guide I failed to follow it properly the first time I went through that particular cutscene. At best, you've temporarily sealed away Glitchtrap, which is only a minor victory at best since Glitchtrap isn't concerned in the slightest about being trapped again and can simply bide his time to escape later on since the player can't reveal anything without getting sued by FE. At worst, Glitchtrap traps YOU behind the metal door, and can take possession of your body without a problem. Either way, the fact that Tape Girl suddenly came up with a solution after pretty much stating that she gave up in earlier logs was enough of a discrepancy for Mike to pick up on, and combined with what I said about Tape 1 and 15, was enough not to trust Tape Girl's instructions fully and instead deal with the problem himself.
A few of you might be dissatisfied with Gabe's solution of leaving Mike to deal with Glitchtrap from the perspective of the MCI children's redemption. It might seem like they half-assed the job by leaving the actual responsibility of dealing with Glitchtrap to Mike. But keep in mind that this was genuinely the best option than they had, and this is even more true than they realize for reasons that I'll go into in the next chapter or the one after that. And besides…this isn't the end of the MCI children's redemption quest. Not even close. Their path of atonement is far from over. Though perhaps you already figured that out, given that Security Breach is a thing…
There will definitely NOT be a chapter next week or possibly even two weeks from now, as I'm far too busy with med school stuff, and the next chapter is going to be a major one with a very significant impact on the plot. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and am looking forward to what I have planned.
Oh, and since it's been a LONG time since I've posted links to any drawings…I think now would be an appropriate time to post my drawing of Dark!Mike:
lordtenebros/art/The-Archcommander-of-Shadows-871304396
That's all for now. Hope you guys enjoyed!