Author's Note:
Trigger Warnings: Death , Possession
I told y'all the next update wouldn't take 5 years! However, before I let you guys read this, I want to apologize. For everything. For the delays, for the inconsistency, for being mean and being rude when I was younger, and for not finishing the story in a timely manner. I hope my explanations didn't come across as excuses, that truly isn't my intention. Even while I was going through things it wasn't an excuse to act out towards anybody for any reason. I can understand if you all can't forgive me, and I won't be upset. My main and only goal now is for everyone to enjoy the rest of the story, even if it's a bit cringy.
So, here we go!
With the final word to his explanation, the old rabbit let out a sigh. Looking away from the scrutiny of the rest of the animatronics, he dipped his head a bit.
"I should have said something earlier, I suppose. I-"
"No." Freddy said, interrupting Springtrap before he could finished speaking. "You shouldn't...apologize for that. You weren't the one who did all of those things. It was that human. You just happened to be a part of the aftermath of the whole situation." Gaze wandering to Golden, his eyes narrowed, a frown forming.
"Golden," The brown bear began hesitantly, looking just as surprised as the others in the room behind his expression of suspicion. Everybody in the room had all stopped, unsure of what to say or how to react to so much information. "Why did you lie about this? About all of this? You said that you were there when the human got hurt and that you tried to pull him out. I don't understand. I don't understand any of this. What's going on?"
Mangle, Tangle, B.B. and the puppet had all gathered as well to figure out what was going on. The silence from all of them was unsettling, all of them waiting for something to happen, almost.
"Wait, if Springtrap never left our old location, and he was there the entire time that we were there..." Bonnie began before Golden could respond, eyes wide. "Then that means...we're...home?"
Something crackled. It caught everybody's attention; it had come from Golden Freddy's direction. With a lurch, Golden fell to his knees, and something...otherworldly seemed to spawn directly out of him. He made a pained noise of protest as it happened, strained and agonized. After it happened, however, something left Golden, and became something else entirely.
Shaf had been the entity to come out of Golden. The sight was otherworldly as he materialized, standing aside and looking unfazed by the situation. Golden looked up shakily, red eyes refocusing from what seemed like weeks, if not months, if not years of being used from him. Nobody could truly say how long it had been, if it had been on and off, or if it had been consistent. Even Golden wasn't entirely sure.
"That thing ain't normal!" Golden strained, his energy depleted from...whatever Shaf was. The lights flickered in his presence. He was very 'not normal'.
"Golden!" Bonnie and Freddy exclaimed, the two instinctually going for him first. They was stopped, however, when the shadow creature landed over Freddy. Freddy was stopped in his tracks by what felt like an agonizing surge of electricity as Shaf possessed him, nearly making him shut down. He struggled to retain his control of his body, fighting Shaf tooth and nail for it.
"No! Get out!" He shouted, probably to what seemed like nothing to everybody else in the room. Static covered his vision as his control began slipping, signaling his impending forced shut down. "No!"
"What's the matter, Freddy?" Taunted the white-eyed creature, all while it felt like he was staring him down. "Are you afraid of the dark?"
The single words uttered by the creature made Freddy stop. Years of repressed memories and emotions came flooding back to him. The static became louder, but few moments, everything began clicking into place and making sense.
And it made him snap.
Using all of the energy that he could, he regained control of himself, expelling Shaf in the process. This was so stupid. Why was Shaf doing this, and most importantly, how?
Freddy stumbled, but was supported by Bonnie and Chica. Trying his hardest to refocus, he struggled. "You," He began weakly, looking up slowly as he finally began putting two and two together. "You're...the one who made me hurt Foxy, aren't you? All that time ago. All of those episodes where I just...blacked out and was so angry, that wasn't me. And...the thing with the puppet! And when Foxy malfunctioned and bit that kid! Everything! Any time anyone started acting odd! Everything weird that ever happened! This whole time! It was you!"
"You figured it out, you sack of nuts and bolts. Congratulations." Shaf said sarcastically, lightly clapping his paws together in a round of mocking applause. Bonnie narrowed his eyes at the creature, holding onto Freddy tightly.
"Why did you do all of this? You ruined our lives! We don't even know you!"
"Why? Because it's fun! I shouldn't have to explain why I've spent my time doing this with all of you, or who I am." Golden and Freddy managed to share a look of nervousness as Shaf continued to talk. "I've been here for a long time. And watching you all writhe and struggle has been some party. All of you got more than enough second chances! You've been retrofitted! Remodeled! Reused! Animatronics like me never got that second chance! We were demolished after Springfreak here lost control and cut off that guy's hand! Most of our sister locations were shut down because of this, mine included!"
"That wasn't my fault!" Springtrap finally snapped at him. "You know damn well it wasn't! We talked about this multiple times!"
"What do you mean by sister locations?" Freddy demanded, still tense from the possession.
Golden spoke, beginning to find his energy again. "And if 'ya were demolished then how are you doing this right now?"
"I'm doing this because I'm stronger than any of you. I've had some help moving back and forth between our planes of existence thanks to the spirit of that man. I can take over your AI and servos through the flipside. I've had to watch you guys live it up this whole time while I've been stuck there, waiting to get back to this reality! And I have! And I've had fun."
And with that, Shaf vanished. The lights flickered and the ground rattled; it was absolutely unreal. They weren't sure how to process the information that the new location had been built atop the old location; where the children had been destroyed, let alone the information that Shaf had just relayed to them all. The animatronics didn't need to be alive to know that something was severely wrong with what was happening. Golden, frantic, looked to Springtrap, red eyes filled with anguish.
"Springtrap, ah'm so sorry." He tried, ears pinned back. Springtrap, finally relaxing his shoulders, nodded, looking down. He had to realize that this wasn't Golden's fault; nor was it his.
"I'm sorry as well, Fredbear."
When a lightbulb exploded above Chica's head, she jumped aside. Looking to the two, she finally yelled to them over the noise. "What are we going to do?! This guy's going to keep haunting us and he'll keep ruining everything until we're all sent to the scrap yards!"
Nothing could be heard but the sound of whatever had cursed them furiously attempting to break whatever it could within the confines of it being on the other side of their realm. Shaf had obviously gotten into the wiring of the place, overloading all of the electronics and destroying everything. Eventually, they'd be next.
Shaf had moved from the electronics to Mangle's servos, overloading them in a split second and causing them to overheat. The plastic exoskeleton couldn't withstand the sudden heat and pressure, and their faceplates cracked and visibly had scorch marks from what Shaf had done. In only a few moments, Mangle went from fine to collapsing lifelessly, completely out of service, onto the floor, unmoving and inactive.
The chaos continued.
"Someone get to the damn fuse box! Shut this freak show down!" Foxy shouted over the noise of the angry spirit breaking things. Bonnie nodded frantically; knowing where the fuse box was from the last time they had issues. Making a mad dash for it, in the room where they had found it before. Quickly turning off the master power, everything stopped, powering down with a loud droning noise that faded. The noises stopped, the clattering stopped, and everything was eerily calm.
Everyone was too on edge to take a breath of relief.
For the time being, Golden was out of ideas. So was Freddy. So were Bonnie, Foxy, and the others. The humans had laid a curse upon them; upon what was considered a franchise to the humans, but a whole world to them. Whatever had created Shaf, or whatever Shaf was, was another by-product of the humans.
It didn't take long for the silence to lull everybody into a false sense of security. Eventually they had all gathered to where the chaos unfolded; unsure of how to proceed. One by one everybody joined back up, silent upon seeing the scene in front of them on the floor.
"Oh, Mangle, you idiot," Tangle had muttered under his breath, looking over the body of his deceased partner. He ran a hand over Mangle's face. The burn marks were incredibly reminiscent of how Red overheated, to make matters worse. A soft, distress whine came from him, the entirety of the situation settling in. Head bowed, he remained unmoving for the most part, keeping close to them. "No, you're...you're not an idiot. You're not an idiot, Mangle. You're my best friend. I'm sorry." His voice broke. "So sorry."
Everyone else was unsure of what to say, watching Tangle become so emotional. Of course, he had every right to be. Before the events of an hour ago, Mangle had been fine, and within a matter of seconds, Shaf had killed them in cold blood from possessing them and overpowering their servos. It put everything into perspective; they were no match for whatever Shaf was. Whether he was a ghost, a glitch, or something else. And as the moments ticked by in the darkness, it became painfully clear that they were on borrowed time and they were running out of it. Quickly.
Everyone had given Tangle, B.B. and the puppet space out of respect to speak about the situation. They had known Mangle the best and were closest to them.
"What do we do?" Bonnie started one they were on the other side of the restaurant, giving the others enough space to mourn. "We don't have a lot of options, here! We're robots stuck in a restaurant! It's not like we can just tell the humans that we're being haunted by an angry robot ghost and need assistance!"
"Rabbit's right," Foxy agreed. "He'll overload us one by one until we're all gone. Humans turn those thar lights on and we be boned."
"I wouldn't exactly put it like that, but you're right, Foxy." Freddy rubbed his neck nervously. "If Shaf doesn't get us when the humans turn the power back on, he's probably gonna do something with us to hurt them."
"Maybe we can find a switch in the basement to turn off that'll keep him away," Chica offered, knowing that there was an old fuse box where they had been stored for a while. Surely they hadn't remodeled the basement. "Kind of like removing a paper clip from the receipt printer that got stuck. If we can find a way to remove it, or in this case, turn him off, then everything will run smoothly again and it'll all be fixed"
"There's nothing we can do." Springtrap interrupted, catching their attention.
"This is going to keep happening. It's going to keep following us, from generation to generation. From our models to yours, to the toys and to the sister locations, this curse will always be with us." Pausing, he looked to the others. "While we may seem...alive to some, we are nothing but animatronics. We are robots. For the sake of the children. We have to stop this, tonight, if we can. No matter what happens."
Everyone who was still bracing themselves looked at Springtrap worriedly. Freddy, however, seemed to understand.
"But what if we can't stop him?" Chica pressed, her tone growing increasingly more worried. "What if we're stuck with him and he just keeps rampaging? What can we even do to stop it?"
"We'll...figure it out." Freddy promised. Just as he did, the quiet sound of the clock clicking to 5:30 made the bear look over. It was nearly light out. They truly were out of options for the evening; management and the opening shift would be there soon to start opening for the day. They had no time.
"We can't do anything about it right now." The bear began hesitantly, the group looking to him for guidance. "What-what we'll have to do is just...wait it out. Until tonight. Tonight, first thing we'll do is make sure the power is down and we'll start figuring something out. Guys, I need your help with this. We all have to think of something to get this-...thing out of here. It's a matter of life and death for all of us, including the humans."
"What if he does something while we're active?" Chica asked, unsure of how safe it would actually be to allow any of the humans inside. "We won't be able to leave the main dining area to shut everything down. It's too dangerous."
"It's not like we have a damn choice," Foxy barked at her, stressed and unable to control his temper for the situation. "Those humans control everything!"
"Not entirely," Bonnie said, the ditzy rabbit seeming to suddenly have a lightbulb moment. "Freddy, Chica and me can wander around when we need to. So can Golden. One of us can stay by the fuse box and if something happens we can shut down the whole show. It's not like they'll be able to move any of us, we're too heavy."
Golden nodded in agreement. He looked exhausted from the events that had unfolded with Shaf, his power supply low, but he trucked on to keep up with the plan. "Bonnie's got a point," He spoke, taking off his hat to rub his head. "Actually, if we all keep lookout for anythin' unusual in the restaurants, we can alert each other through the server."
"He's not gonna be out in broad daylight," Springtrap argued mildly, looking just as exhausted as his ex-partner. "He's going to be out of everybody's line of sight, in the shadows or in rooms where people can't see. Places like the basement and storage closets. And the vents."
"The vents?" Freddy questioned, raising an eyebrow. "Is that where you learned-?"
"Unfortunately."
"I'll stay in the vents," Tangle muttered finally, earning the look of everybody. "S'not like I got nothin' left to lose. The puppet's stationary to the human's knowledge, so he'll stay in the arcade, I guess. People will think that some humans broke in and did this to Mangle and took me or somethin'."
"I can help with that, too," B.B. announced, completely out of nowhere for the first time in what seemed like weeks. "I'm good at climbing, I can keep an eye on the other end of the vent!"
"Okay, I did not need to know about the climbing thing," Bonnie said under his breath, weirded out even further by the little freak.
Chica spoke up. "I can take care of the fuse box. They're used to me walking around the most, anyways."
"Freddy, Bonnie and I can watch the main areas." Golden added.
Foxy, looking down at his hook, snorted. "Aye, I gots the back end of the place."
For the first time that night, despite B.B.'s comment, everyone seemed a little more at ease with a plan. There wasn't much left to say. So, reluctantly, everybody split up to their designated spots and waited for morning, all of which came far too soon.
Freddy and the others were on edge the moment the humans walked in. Naturally, they were confused as to what had happened to the power. So, as expected, the management turned the main power switch back on in the kitchen, and everything was back to normal. Or, so they hoped. They had held their breath and waited for something to happen.
Nothing seemed to happen during the morning, despite their fears. And for a few hours, the animatronics hoped that Shaf had gotten bored or had given up.
Maintenance searched the premises for Tangle upon finding the burnt ruins of Mangle on the floor almost immediately after turning the power back on. Upon seeing the damage done to the restaurant, the police were called and the restaurant was shut down temporarily to do an investigation. To the naked eye, it seemed as if someone had broken in to cause some damage for fun. However, when the surveillance tapes were run back, nothing was seen. In fact, it seemed as if the tapes had corrupted themselves and the cameras had shut down right before everything happened. It took an entire day of investigation, but at the end, nothing turned up.
The case was left open, but wasn't a priority. Everything was cleaned up, Mangle was hauled away to a place the remaining animatronics weren't quite sure of. Tangle watched from above as it happened.
The small yellow bear could hardly watch from the vent as they lifted the limp remainders of the animatronic onto a platform trolley and hauled them away. He wanted to bust out of the vent and stop them; try to fix everything somehow, but he knew it was useless. Mangle had suffered the same fate as his own brother, and he was out of time to figure out a solution.
He sighed, his voice echoing lightly in the vast emptiness of the vent. Occasionally he would hear B.B. shift or move at the other end of the restaurant, the noises being carried quite well despite their distance. At least, he hoped it was B.B., for everybody else's sake.
A loud crackle at the other end of the vents caught Tangle's attention. He tensed up, eyes flickering in the dark. Of course he wouldn't be able to see anything, not that far away. Swallowing, he shifted a bit, straining to hear anything else but the droning of the vents and the noises of the humans cleaning up below.
So, against his better judgement, he spoke out.
"B.B.?" He questioned hesitantly, waiting for a response. Nothing.
And then, before he could do anything at all, a flash of light blinded him accompanied by the most painful sensation he had ever experienced. He overloaded within a split second, his sensors exploding with a sickening crackle and loud pop nearly akin to a gunshot, leaving him limp and no longer responsive in the vent. The humans didn't notice.
The restaurant opened up late; of course it did. The humans were more worried about their salaries than the safety of others. It was around noon when the place let in its first customers of the day, and the animatronics were vigilant and wary. The safety of the children was their top priority. If something happened to them, well...they weren't sure if they could forgive themselves. That's what they were built for, anyhow. To entertain and protect children.
However, it seemed that despite their purpose, they had done quite the opposite of protecting them. Even if it wasn't their fault.
Freddy shifted uncomfortably when he heard a loud popping sound come from a vent several feet away. Looking to Golden and Bonnie, they both seemed to look at him as well, hearing the same thing. The humans didn't seem to notice, but they sure had.
"What was that?" Freddy asked, his voice uneasy. He felt like he knew, but he didn't want to know if he was right or not. The others seemed to feel the same way, going back to focusing on the restaurant. Freddy, however, sent a distress signal over their server to the others to let them know that something wasn't right and that they had to be ready for the worst. He got response signals from Foxy, Chica, and even Springtrap, but...
"I'm not getting a ping back from Tangle or B.B.," Freddy whispered urgently to Bonnie, who he was standing right next to. Bonnie looked at him worriedly, and attempted to contact them as well.
"Oh, no.."
After a few seconds, Bonnie shifted, and the two looked to Golden once more for answers. Golden, however, seemed completely out of it and absolutely drained, as if he was struggling not to fall asleep or shut down or something. Shaf had obviously drained him of something, whether it be his internal battery or a fuse (if they even had fuses anymore), but whatever it was, it wasn't good. It looked like it was up to Bonnie and Freddy to keep watch.
Freddy looked around to see if he could spot anything unusual. Nothing so far, but knowing that Tangle and B.B. were offline could only mean nothing good and that something had happened to them. In fact, it seemed as if Shaf was trying to pick them all off one by one. And it was working.
Yes, Freddy had the ability to alert the police, they all did, but this was absolutely no job for a human officer. What could they possibly do? This was something supernatural. And if it wasn't supernatural, then it was most likely some sort of virus within their own server and they would all have to be shut down while the technicians fixed it. If they even could. If Freddy were to contact any type of authority, he had a feeling that Shaf would get into one of them and hurt a human. They would all be scrapped for sure. But he wondered why Shaf hadn't gotten into their server this time to mess up their communications. Did he actually have the power to do that? Was he too weak? Did he have to possess one of them to get into it in the first place?
He wasn't sure, and he wasn't sure if he'd ever find out. It gave him a feeling of dread that he couldn't seem to shake off.
Was this going to be it?
Author's Note:
Next chapter coming soon! Sorry that it's so cringy haha. Thank you so much for reading!