The endoskeleton storage bay of Parts and Service was chosen as the safest place to get Bonnie back up to speed on what had happened since he'd been put out of action. Hearing that there had been disappearances, even murders, taking place in the Pizzaplex had left the rabbit bewildered and upset, as had the news that his friends had been forced to be complicit in them.

What was even more upsetting for the other robots was Bonnie's story of what had happened to him. One early morning he had been wandering around the building searching for musical inspiration; his path had taken him into the minigolf course, where he'd talked with Monty for a short while before the gator had promised to bring him something that would "give him some ideas". Instead he had brought a Faz Cam, using its flash to stun Bonnie long enough to drag him into one of the back rooms, where the gator had proceeded to brutally attack him, forcibly detaching his legs in the process. Enough damage had been done that the technicians, once they'd found him, immediately declared him "unsalvageable" and shut him down.

"Next thing I remember... here I am," he finished. "So you're telling me that they replaced me with Monty in everything? He's in the band now?" He immediately raised a hand. "Yeah, disregard that, not the most important thing right now." His eyes shifted towards Gregory. "You're kind of a rebel, aren't you, boyo? I like that." He chuckled. "I'm not comfortable having you in harm's way, but considering you're the reason I'm even up and about, I don't think I get to complain too much about it."

"The last thing you wanna do is underestimate this kid," Roxy chuckled. "He had me, Chica and Monty all hunting for him right alongside that maniac in the bunny suit, and the one time Officer Vanessa managed to catch him, he got away again in a minute."

"Vanessa? I remember her. She's on the security team? Huh. Thought she'd be with the coding staff..." Bonnie shrugged. "But Gregory, I need you to understand one thing. We do absolutely need your help, and it's obvious that you can handle yourself pretty well... but if it comes down to a choice between you getting hurt or us getting destroyed, let us take the hit."

Gregory looked up into the robot's glowing plastic eyes. "I... I don't want to do that," he said quietly.

He felt Chica's hand on his shoulder. "Gregory, please," she said. "We're robots. They can replace us. There's probably a half dozen Glamrock Chicas running around out there somewhere. But we can't get another Gregory."

"I don't care if you're robots! I don't care how many other copies there are!" He pointed a finger at Chica. "You're the one who kept me from getting my head cut off!" Next, he pointed at Roxy. "And you're the one who kept me from getting my face bitten off!" Then Freddy. "And you're the one who kept me safe while we figured out what was going on!" He crossed his arms. "I know you guys are made of metal and wires and computer chips. But I saw how happy you were to get Bonnie back!" He paused for a moment, letting his arms drop and looking off to the side. "And... now I feel really bad..."

Bonnie tilted his head. "What for?"

"I, uh... I was gonna try to destroy Roxy, Chica and Monty for their parts in order to upgrade Freddy."

Freddy's head whipped around to stare at him. "Gregory!"

Chica raised her hand. "Freddy," she said calmly, "remember... we were literally going to murder him. I can't be mad at him for wanting to protect himself from us, the way we were."

"Heck, this one-boy demolition team probably could've wrecked all three of us, the way he was running circles around us," Roxy added. "And you know what? He would've been justified. I'll cartwheel into the trash compactor before I let somebody turn me into a killer again. Smash me into a cube if that's what it takes to keep me from hurting someone."

Something seemed to occur to Freddy, and he slowly dropped into a sitting position. "Bud, what's wrong?" Bonnie asked, reaching down to hold his shoulder.

"Chica, Roxy, I need you to be honest with me. Did I... did I hurt anyone? Before?"

The two females shared a glance and, with downcast eyes, nodded slowly. Freddy let out a choked sob and covered his face with his hands; Gregory immediately ran over to hug him. "Freddy, it wasn't your fault," he said. "I bet it was that rabbit lady who made all of you do this. She's the one to blame."

"Boy's right, buddy bear," Bonnie put in. "I get how you're feeling, but the best thing we can do right now is stop that lady, and make sure she can't hurt anyone else."

"I'm up for that," Roxy said. "Question is, how?"

"Well, I think step one is, we're going to have to put Monty out of commission," answered Bonnie. "I don't want to destroy him, but so long as he's active, he's a threat to all of us- a bigger one than the woman in the costume."

"I... am not happy with that idea," Freddy admitted.

"I know, buddy bear. But you know what he did to me. Imagine if he got his claws on Gregory."

"No." The bear shuddered. "I... I cannot allow that." He stood up slowly. "However... Bonnie, you should finish charging before you join us. Once our foes know that you are active again, they will target you, and you will need to be at your best."

"Yeah, big guy." Roxy put her hand on Bonnie's shoulder. "We just got you back. Don't let us lose you again."

The rabbit seemed ready to argue, but after a moment, he nodded. "Okay. Just be careful while I'm out of action, right? Come get me if you need me."

"You got it. Head up my elevator and use the charger by my room; nobody should see you there."

"Will do. But first..." He turned to Gregory. "I owe you one, boyo. You took a huge risk to bring me back. Now I can tell you're the type who's used to taking care of yourself, but let me and my friends lend a hand. You can depend on us." He reached out a hand.

Gregory shook his hand, noting how gentle the grip of those robotic fingers was. "I will. I promise."

NOTICE TO PARTS AND SERVICE: Corporate, in conjunction with R&D, has selected Montgomery Gator as a test bed for a new and advanced version of FazOS. This software update will be made available for next week's regular routine maintenance; it is expressly NOT for use with any other mechanized attraction. Goals include greater autonomy for audience interaction and self-guided repair and upgrades to reduce technician duty hours. The technology team is tasked with monitoring Montgomery's performance and personality expression during live interaction, as well as accessing diagnostic data and adjusting personality parameters as needed to ensure proper audience interaction. Maintain your standardized weekly report schedule unless special circumstances require an immediate report to R&D.

"Well, that's a whole lot of words," Gregory muttered. "Chica, what's all this mean?"

"Well, it explains why Monty's version of FazOS is newer than ours," she replied. "For the other part, the technicians check us every week during routine maintenance to make sure that we're not experiencing any critical malfunctions. They probably would've done that first thing in the morning for Freddy, after that glitch hit him right in front of an entire audience. If something about our personality is dangerously outside parameters, they do some adjusting."

A thought hit Gregory. "So they can just... change how you think? Just by pushing a few buttons?"

"It's not easy being a robot, Gregory." She glanced away. "We're really at the mercy of humans. You saw how the company was going to just throw away Bonnie."

"Yeah, well, sometimes humans throw away other humans too..."

She blinked at him in shock. "What...?"

"Never mind." He waved a hand. "Wouldn't something have shown up with all those diagnostic things if Monty was at the point where he'd attack another robot?"

"It should have, but... maybe they missed it? Or... or maybe they just didn't care, so long as none of the guests got hurt."

Gregory frowned. "Yeah, this company doesn't seem to care about anything unless it might get them sued."

"You're not kidding. They're almost as bad with their human employees as they are with us. And at least we don't have families to feed." She sighed. "It's not fair. I wish there was something I could do to make it better."

Without the malicious programming making her a killer, Chica was practically a mother figure- a mother hen, he thought, barely able to bite back a laugh at the concept. And he had to admit, it felt kind of nice to see it. But they still had a lot of work to do, and with the security pass he'd just found, he'd have access to all but the most secure backroom areas of the Pizzaplex. "Well, we can make things a little better tonight, but we've got to get back to work."

"Let's get to it!"

Gregory had noticed a catwalk above Fazer Blast that looked like it would be a great spot to find clues that wouldn't be visible from within the arena itself. He'd been too harried by Chica beforehand to try to take advantage of it, but now that the chicken animatronic was on his side, he had ample opportunity to explore. She was actually small enough to fit into the vent behind him, though crawling through left her even dirtier than before. "Ah, yuck," she grumbled. "Doesn't anyone clean these things?"

As he'd hoped, the catwalk was a good vantage spot. But it was a small doorway at the far end of it, hidden from view of the arena proper, that caught his attention. "Hey, what's that?" he asked, pointing.

"I don't know. I've never seen that area before. Let's be careful- these catwalks are rated for the weight of one of us robots, but I'd rather not test it too much." She held his shoulder to help steady him as they crossed the catwalk, and together they peered through the locked door's window. What was inside shocked Gregory- whatever the room's original function had been, it had been repurposed as a makeshift bedroom, complete with mattress and blanket shoved into the far corner. And above that mattress was painted a single word on the wall in purple paint: "VANNY".

"Vanny?" Chica repeated. "Gregory, you'd better let Freddy know what we found!"

The boy raised his Fazwatch. "Freddy, that rabbit lady's in a secret room above Fazer Blast. It looks like a hideout. I think her name is 'Vanny'."

"'Vanny'. it is very similar to 'Vanessa'... and 'Bunny'. That cannot be a coincidence."

Gregory glanced up at Chica, who sighed. "Freddy kind of likes to state the obvious," she said.

"Yeah, I noticed that. But, see? I knew there was something up with the night guard!"

"I guess I can't argue. But how long has this been going on? This room looks like it's been lived in for a while."

"I don't know, but things are starting to make sense. Remember how Bonnie said he thought Vanessa would be on the coding staff? If she's been doing this a while, that would've been plenty of time for her to mess around with you guys' programming and do who knows what else! And who'd suspect a member of the security team?"

"But what do we do about it?"

"I'm not sure yet. Bonnie was right about Monty being the bigger threat, but Vanny seems to just come out of nowhere sometimes. I get the feeling she knows this place inside and out."

"And I can't see her..." Chica sighed as they headed back down into the Fazer Blast arena. "That's really scary. If she's the one who corrupted our programming... what if she does it again? What if she does it and I can't even protect myself?"

He reached out to hold her hand. "I won't let her do that. I promise."

She smiled, just a little, and squeezed his hand gently. It was a quiet trip they had to Bonnie Bowl now that he had a pass to get inside, and in the back room they found a company-themed duffel bag with a clipboard peeking out from inside, probably forgotten by an employee. Most of what was written on the single page clipped to it seemed to be a printout full of technical jargon alongside a column of numbers, with Monty's name on top. A few numbers were circled in red pen with "V. HIGH" written next to them. "Can you understand this?" he asked Chica.

She knelt down to read it. "This is a printout of Monty's personality metrics," she replied. "The ones that are circled are for aggression, ambition and subterfuge." She caught his confused look. "That's kind of like sneakiness."

"Huh." An idea came to him. "The date... was this before or after Monty's upgrade?"

"After." She seemed to come to the same conclusion that he had. "Did the upgrade do this to him?"

"I guess, maybe..." Was even Monty just a victim of Fazbear Entertainment's incompetence? It would have been a pretty lousy deal if that was the case, but it didn't really change what they had to do. He had to take a minute to wonder at himself, that he was so willing to attack and cause harm to robots when he knew by now that they had emotions and could feel pain, even if they were a danger to him. Would he even do the same to that Vanny woman if things came down to that?

"Gregory, are you okay?" Chica asked.

"Yeah, just thinking..." He shook his head, forcing the thoughts to the back of his mind. "I've got an idea. Maybe we can take advantage of that high aggression number..."

"Wow, look at all this junk. I wonder how much of this actually sells?"

Gregory tossed one of the Monty plushes off of the Gator Golf catwalk, hearing the quiet splash as it landed in the artificial swamp underneath the course. It was quickly followed by one of his themed shirts and a hat. "Jeez, I hope whatever unlucky kid gets this can trade it in for a Mr. Hippo magnet or something."

THUD

The entire catwalk shuddered under the weight of a heavy impact. On the far end, a green shape straightened up. "Kid, they are going to be cleaning you off the walls with a sponge," Monty snarled, his claws shedding sparks as he dragged them along the catwalk's railings, his lopsided sneer not helped by the cracks along his plastic snout and his several missing teeth.

"Speaking of cleaning up, you look really messy, big guy," Gregory shot back. "Here's a rag to clean yourself off." He threw another shirt at Monty, with it landing on his muzzle, hanging off at an angle.

Monty pulled it off and tore it in half effortlessly. "RAAAGH!" he roared, storming along the catwalk towards the boy, who quickly turned tail and ran. Gregory hoped that the alligator didn't notice that the "Hole-In-One" meter at the far end of the catwalk was already fully-lit as he made his way towards the center.

woosh-THUD

Monty landed hard in the center of the catwalk just a couple of feet away from the boy, sharp metallic claws digging through the mesh of the walkway. "Kid, you are not getting away this time-"

thok thok thok

Thick-walled plastic balls moving at a respectable velocity slammed into the gator's plastic casing, taking him off-balance and sending him stumbling across the catwalk. He raised his arms to protect his head, only to leave himself open to body shots from another source; his already-abused outer shell cracked further under the assault, and he yelped in pain. "Ow! Quit it!" he bellowed.

From behind her ball cannon, Roxy snorted. "He can dish it out, but he can't take it!" she taunted.

With another roar, Monty leaped- and Freddy was forced to abandon his cannon as the gator's claws tore through its hull, leaving it a smoking wreck. "Give up, Monty!" Freddy called out, even as he moved towards another cannon. "You cannot win this fight!"

"I can't win? Oh, listen to Freddy Failbear over here! I was finally gonna show the company what I can do, and you go and take a nap right on-stage and ruin the whole performance! Why this company hasn't thrown you in a dumpster yet, I don't even know! It oughta be my face on everything in this place, not yours!" His fist smashed into the railing of the catwalk, bending the steel tube.

"Get over yourself!" A trio of plastic balls smacked into the back of his head before he could react, and he whirled to face Chica, catching another ball to his snout for his trouble.

"Argh! I'm gonna mount your head on the golf course!" The chicken had to leave her spot as Monty wrecked her weapon, but he was still taking continuous fire from the other two robots, and in a blind fury he stormed about, his eyes once more focusing on Gregory. "C'mere, kid!" he snarled. "I'm gonna show your pals what you look like on the inside!"

But just as the gator rounded the turn leading towards the splash bucket, there was another solid thud behind him, and a flash of metal in the dim lighting as a putter smacked him in the chin. His balance ruined, he flailed about wildly, stumbling in front of the giant bucket. "Now, Gregory!" shouted Bonnie.

Gregory smacked the bucket's manual release, and with a deep groan it tilted over, almost landing on Monty's head before he could catch it. And yet somehow, impossibly, he managed to hold it in place, his servos creaking right along with the metal of the catwalk, unable to move anything but his head.

Bonnie walked towards him from where he'd jumped down from the rafters, bent putter in one hand, the other nonchalantly tossing a blue plastic ball into the air repeatedly. "Hey, boyo," he said quietly. "Long time, no see."

"Bonnie?!" Monty's eyes went wide. "What- what are you-"

"Sorry, gotta cut this reunion short. Bigger fish to fry. But before we wrap this up, there's just three things I want from you."

"What...?"

"I want my spot in the band back."

"It- it wasn't my fault, I didn't-"

"I want my legs back."

"Bonnie, you don't gotta do this-"

"And most importantly..." Bonnie lowered his head to stare directly into Monty's eyes. "I want that boy over there to be safe. So, uh... time for you to take a break."

With that, he tossed the blue plastic ball into the bucket that Monty was barely keeping from crushing him.

crack

The catwalk beneath the gator finally folded under the weight, sending him plummeting down, his body striking two crossframes before crashing onto the small stage on the edge of the golf course in a shower of multicolor plastic balls. Carefully, Gregory approached the broken section of catwalk, peering down. "Ouch," he said quietly, seeing as how one of the impacts had literally split Monty's body in half at the waist.

"I probably enjoyed that a bit more than I should've," Bonnie murmured.

"Yeah, me too." Gregory glanced up at the bunny. "He isn't, y'know...?"

Bonnie shook his head. "Nah. Serious damage like that can cause a temporary shutdown- it's sort of like a state of shock for humans- but he's still functional. Let's take him to Parts and Service and get him secured so he can't cause us any more problems."