Chapter 12: Philosophy in a Teacup

"So, that's why I did it."

Argos gave the small pebble one final kick down the rocky path, sending it off into a dark corner.

Horton just watched as the lizard finished recounting his reasoning as to why their scrap had always been a little less than what it should've been over the last few years, though it somewhat began to make sense. The two had been walking for some time, most of the conversation being Argos' attempts at explaining why he hadn't told the owl sooner.

"I felt bad for 'em, and we needed the extra protection anyway," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "After what happened with the R.O.C.O.M., can you really blame me?"

Horton let out a raspy digital sigh. That was certainly not a series of events he wanted to remember.

"No, I guess not," he mumbled.

Spring Bonnie sending his underlings to do his dirty work on Horton's shop was possibly the worst thing that could've happened, second to Spring Bonnie cashing in on the power struggle all those years ago. Ever since then there was a mad rabbit at the top of the food chain, now more powerful than ever.

And to think Argos brought on board some hired help, it didn't seem too unreasonable.

'Especially Penny's occasional book finds.'

He had no doubt that his acquaintance with the hawk started thanks to Argos' agreement, that much was certain. But, Horton also liked to think that Penny's love of books also ended up contributing to the sizable collection they'd amassed over the years. She'd drop by every once in a while with some new novels found in trash piles or scraped from the surface, sometimes staying up late in the library to aid in restoring covers and spines by hand.

Aside from Argos, Marionette, and now Foxy, Horton had no idea that he'd be calling one of the most infamous fighting team members a friend.

"Horton?" Argos asked, waving a hand in front of his face. "You zoned out on me again."

"Huh? Oh. Sorry."

"So are you… mad at me? Are we good? Anything?"

Horton removed his goggles, something he never did very often.

"Mad? No. Frustrated? Absolutely."

Argos sighed, briefly looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping.

"Sorry."

"I'm glad that we got the extra protection, not to mention the connections you and I made. But for the love of all that is good, please tell me before you do something as drastic as that," he chided.

"I just didn't know how you'd react at the time-" Argos started, turning around to continue walking before he stopped in his tracks.

A small yellow sticky note fluttered in the breeze right toward Argos, landing directly in his open palm. Horton quickly moved closer to see; something like that usually meant one thing only.

It even had the current date scribbled on it, so it was unmistakable.

Usual spot. 7 sharp. Be there or be square.
- M

"...Or Marty, for that matter," the lizard finished.

Foxy had been out here all day.

He was training, in every way he could think of. Testing his new legs, perfecting his form, his reaction time, his eyesight, every possible idea that came to him, he tried out.

So long as it kept him from thinking about Scarlet, the Devils, or… Lana.

That was earlier today. They left not long after he closed the door on them, refusing to open it or let them in. Argos handled them well, though Foxy felt awful for burdening the lizard in dealing with them once Scarlet had figured out exactly why he was 'sorry.'

He could hear her from the other side of the door. Yelling, shouting, crying. He sat at the door frame the entire time, right there, so close to them yet cut off, hiding. It reminded him of being locked away at the pizzeria. It reminded him of when he first came here and Horton pulled him inside. Right after he was chased, which was after he left the Rite, which was after…

Lana.

For all the physical stress Foxy had put himself under, for all the training he did the rest of that day, for everything he did to keep his mind occupied, it never worked.

Lana was all he could think about, all that ever came to surface when his mind inevitably wandered to find something to ponder.

Remembering how he killed her was bad enough, but knowing how it unjustly hurt the Devils made it worse. Above all, the worst part was the guilt. Killing Lana wasn't what made him feel so awful about this, but the fact that it reminded him of the first time he'd taken someone innocent.

Just a little girl, nine years old. He never even knew her name, much less whose birthday she was there for. Maybe it was hers, maybe a friend's. He never learned. What he remembered best about her wasn't the color of her hair or what she sounded like, but the way her skull felt in his jaw, and how much pressure it took until the screaming stopped.

He just wanted it to go away, for everything to completely cease and every thought to wash away. Never to think about the girl he killed, never think about Lana, and her friends that he had inadvertently hurt forever. About how close they probably were to one another, and how they'd never have that again. Lost forever to everyone that cared about them, just like Freddy, and Chica, and Bonnie-

Snap!

Foxy tensed up and froze as the training dummy Horton had made for him almost a month ago, which he had been wailing on, broke. It launched across the fenced-off area and landed in the sand near a pile of worthless scrap they couldn't utilize.

His ear twitched as a small spark briefly lit the aging appendage.

On a similar note, his shoulders carried a dull ache inside them.

The russet fox stared at the broken and uprooted base of the dummy, then to the busted and ruined body that was all the way at the fence wall, broken into pieces.

Another thing he ruined.

'Fantastic.'

Lazily, he moved over to where the body of the dummy had landed, bending over to gather its many broken parts. He probably couldn't even fix this if he tried, but he figured he should at least clean it up. He made enough messes for everyone around him as it was.

And then he heard footsteps. His ear twitched.

A thinned out voice full of static called out. Foxy recognized it immediately, it was Horton.

"...Foxy."

He didn't respond, still bent over as he tried to pick up the pieces of the training dummy.

"Foxy."

Foxy stopped.

Silence passed between them for a moment.

"Foxy, Argos and I just came back from Mama's… You should go there, someone wants to see you."

"If the Devils need more scrap, they can have it…"

"It's Marty."

In his mind he still thought this had to be a sick joke or a lie. Foxy hadn't seen Marionette in almost a month. The puppet stopped coming to see him at the pizzeria after the night he told him of this place; he hadn't seen him again since. Even when he landed here, the puppet was nowhere to be found.

But as soon as Foxy made it to Mama's, there he was. Sitting at a busted old table on the balcony, just past the bar, was his lanky figure hidden under a raggedy hooded cloak. He also wore a paper plate over his face with the dumbest smiley face drawn on it with a marker. Even under those hempen rags he was unmistakable.

Marionette was really here.

He hurried past the rest of the tables, not paying any mind to anything else. He stepped out to the balcony… and stood there.

"Foxy, it's good to see you again."

The vulpine ran his eyes over the lanky black figure a couple times, making sure he wasn't just hallucinating.

"You're really here."

"In the flesh… Well, close enough."

"What's with the…" Foxy trailed off, gesturing around his own face, "The uh, paper plate?"

Marionette lifted it, showing his face underneath. "It's a disguise, I can't really afford to be recognized around here."

"Yeah, Horton told me about that. Just…"

"What?"

"It's… not a very good disguise."

"Oh come on, it can't be that bad," Marionette frowned.

"You're wearing a paper plate for a mask, under rags. I recognized your body in an instant."

Marionette was quiet for a second.

"...Well it fooled everyone else," he muttered.

"Uh-huh..."

Foxy still felt like he was dreaming, slowly pulling out one of the chairs and taking a seat across the table from him.

"So-"

"How has it been down here?" Marionette asked, cutting him off.

"...It's been hell."

"Sounds about right, I suppose. I'm sorry about your… sloppy introduction. Horton told me you were mistakenly brought into the Rite as a runaway."

Foxy winced, trying not to think about Lana. He was unsuccessful though, as he had been all day.

"...I survived, that's all that matters."

"I'm glad. I don't know if I could bear the thought of having sent you right to your death."

Foxy was silent for a moment longer, still wrapping his head around this.

"Are you… sure you're alright," Marionette asked, leaning forward in the seat.

"Sorry I just, I can't believe you're actually here."

"Is that really so hard to believe?"

"Well… yeah."

Marionette's cheerful expression softened.

"You vanished after that night at the pizzeria, it's been weeks. After Horton told me about how you're a sort of fugitive down here I… I figured I'd never see you again."

Marionette's expression was unreadable now.

"Where have you been all this time? Before? If you weren't down here…"

"I was scouting."

The fox paused, raising an eyebrow. "Scouting?"

"Yes… for others. Others like you, like Horton, like Argos, and many before them."

Foxy stayed silent, listening.

"Animatronics, left in the streets or junkyards to rot. It happens… frequently. I don't know what it is about humans and their desire to make so many of us, but it leaves more wandering lost and forgotten. Out there, on the surface, we can't live. If we're found, we're shut down, disassembled, and scrapped. So I scout, I search for lost people like us and I bring them here, to the Hellmouth."

Foxy let out a toothy grimace.

"Why would you ever want to bring them here? To this place? It's horrible here."

"It's better than dying-"

"It might as well be the same."

"At least here they have a chance, Foxy! It doesn't get any better for us out there."

"So this is it then?" Foxy spoke, sounding no different from the broken fox in the storage room he was only weeks ago, "This is the best I can expect from my life?"

Marionette's frustration washed away, like the conversation had been turned for the better.

He had been waiting for this.

"...No. It can be better."

Despite attempting to seem uninterested, Foxy's ear perked up, a dead giveaway that his curiosity had been piqued.

"Horton told me he had explained to you how the fighting works here, right?"

"Yeah, I'm stuck being a fighter after all."

"Then you know about the ring leader?"

Foxy's expression soured.

"Spring Bonnie."

"Right," Marionette said. His voice, though reserved, carried the same disdain for that name that Foxy's did. "He's the reason the place is such a mess. It was meant to be a Haven for lost people like you. Now it's a pit that swallows you whole."

"So… what about him?"

Marionette's eyes locked onto Foxy's, small fires ignited within them.

"A long time ago, I had tried to dethrone him. I… failed."

"You're kidding."

"I thought Horton told you about this?"

"A bit, yeah, I just have a hard time seeing you as a fighter."

"You and me both," the puppet said with a chuckle. "However, it did happen. I made a name for myself, I became incredibly successful, and I nearly did it."

"And then what?"

"Spring Bonnie did exactly what got him there in the first place. He played dirty. He ambushed me the night before our fight, stormed Horton's shop and… well, we came out of it alive, but worse for wear. After that, I could barely even stand at the fight. He would've killed me had I not run. That's why I'm not allowed down here anymore."

"He tried to kill you… before the fight?"

"He sent his own goons to do it. Couldn't even bother to get his own hand dirty. He even stacked the fights before I could challenge him with fighters he supplied with his own gear. But that raid... I wouldn't have made it out alive if it weren't for those two."

"Horton and Argos, they…?"

"Yes. They fought to protect me."

Foxy took a moment to process everything he just heard. It all sounded so surreal, but given everything else down here, it wasn't all that unusual. And the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

"Horton's voice… is that why he sounds so static-y?"

"So he hasn't shown you?"

"Shown me what?"

Marionette sighed.

"They both took a lot of blows– neither of them were fighters, Horton even less so. Argos got away with dozens of scars and most of his tail chopped off. Horton…"

Marionette held his breath for a moment, guilt growing in his eyes as he rested his temple on his fist.

"Horton took a blow that I didn't see coming. It would've killed me. Because of my recklessness and his self-sacrifice, the lower half of his entire face is just… gone. The damage to the few parts that remained was bad enough that even he doesn't know how to repair it. He… hasn't been the same since."

Foxy's eyes glanced down at his sheathed sword. He remembered how the two mechanics had melted down Horton's office door to make it along with his hook.

"So, that's why his office had a steel door then…"

"He's been afraid of them coming back ever since. Rarely even sets foot outside his home anymore, according to Diamond."

The vulpine's mind had been kicked into high gear now, assembling bits and pieces of throwaway statements and things he had seen around Horton's shop, here at Mama's.

"This all… this explains a lot."

Marionette glanced at him, gesturing for him to elaborate.

"Just everything about Horton and Argos, the two of them seemed so… eager when I showed up. Your picture there in the entrance to this bar, Triumph in Loss or whatever. You got so close to making everything better…"

Foxy paused, finally piecing it together.

"You want me to try taking him down, don't you?"

Marionette's eyes seemed as if they lit up at that, though still tinged with guilt.

"Yes, we do."

"Marty," Foxy said, "I'm barely managing to stay alive right now. I could literally die at any second. What makes you think I can become the leader of this place?"

"Exactly that," the puppet said, to Foxy's confusion. "Foxy, he calls himself a ruler, you think of it as a position of leadership."

"I'm not a leader."

"No good leader wants to lead. Only the greedy and selfish seek out positions of power like that."

"I don't even know the first thing about how to run a place like this-"

"Neither does he, but only one of you can admit that. You don't have to do it alone, we can fix this place together."

"Marty!" Foxy shouted, biting his lip as soon as he realized how loud he just was. Luckily no one immediately seemed to hear him over the bar chatter, or recognize the nickname.

"...Look, I'm not cut out for this. I just want to live. All of this is even assuming I could win against him– much less get to him in the first place. I get it, I really get what you're trying to accomplish, but I'm not some hero. I'm a piece of scrap trying to survive at best… a murderer at worst."

"Foxy, you're not a murderer."

"I've killed two entirely innocent people, I think that qualifies as murder."

"Are the Devils murderers?"

"What?"

"Scarlet, Liz, and Penny. They've been down here fighting for a long time, they probably killed dozens upon dozens of enemies before they figured out the little system they have now. So are they murderers?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then neither are you."

Foxy knew that he was right. At the very least, his argument was logically sound… but it still didn't make him feel any better.

"Foxy, you know firsthand what happens when the inept are in power. This is no different than the pizzeria, just on a much grander scale. But unlike there, here we have a chance to make things right. I owe it to everyone down here, and to all those who died here, to try and do that. I promised them a Haven, and I'm not stopping until they get one. I can't fight anymore, and no one else will try to challenge him... I need your help, Foxy."

The vulpine sat quietly, his head lowering as he mulled it all over in his head. Regardless of whether or not he decided to help Marionette, he still had to fight. He had no choice in it, and as far as he could tell there was no way out of it. The striped puppet was right on another point as well– the power disparity, the suffering, this hellhole… it was all the same kind of mess he had been in before.

Realizing that pissed him off, to know he'd escaped one hell and landed in the same exact kind all over again. At the hands of another 'golden' bastard no less; high off their own fumes while causing pain and suffering for everyone around them.

The fox knew it was life or death for him already, so he might as well get some use out of it.

"Just give it some thought, okay? It's a big ask, I realize that, but… I know you'll do what's right," Marionette said as he glanced around, watching as the figures on the other side of the window appeared to take notice of him.

Marionette adjusted his hood, "It seems I may need to leave soon."

"Right, yeah. Sorry I yelled earlier-"

"You're fine Foxy, it's not your fault. I'm in a public space, it was going to happen anyways."

"Why'd you pick here, of all the places to meet?"

Marionette chuckled to himself lightly, "I missed the mead."

"You missed… this," Foxy scoffed, lifting his half-finished mug of vague liquid.

"Better not say that in earshot of Diamond," Marionette teased, standing up from his chair slowly, "She used to fight y'know. Nearly kicked my ass."

Foxy turned his gaze to the window, looking at the cheetah behind the bar table and taking note of her particularly beefy arms.

"Now that I'd believe-"

But when he turned back to where Marionette had been, the lanky striped figure was gone. As quickly as it had been lifted, Foxy's mood plummeted back to the depths it had been at all day.

He looked at his reflection in the oddly comforting drink in his mug. He wasn't exactly sure why, but it gave him this warm fuzzy feeling– like there was nothing to worry about even though that was always far from the case.

"Well," Foxy mumbled to himself, "I never took well to authority figures anyways."

A/N: Holidays are over, which means classes are back in session… Which means less free time for me, yaaaaay… That said, writing pace isn't going to be too effected. Hopefully. Just keep that in mind in case I don't post as frequently.

Anyway, please leave a comment/review if you can, you have no idea how excited I am when I get any feedback.