Eggs turned away from the group, checking on Ft. Foxy. They were on the stage. Ft. Freddy, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Eggs was sure he was in the breaker room. She was long past trying to figure out why the bear gravitated towards that place, and had come to accept it.
After all, it was just one less animatronic to worry about… except for when she had to actually go into the breaker room. That wasn't quite as pleasant.
"Alright, before we go any further, let me lay down some ground rules."Eggs turned back to the group of intruders. "Firstly, I don't care what your explanation is, you better keep that… thing away from me."
Puppet tightened their fingers into fists, scowling as black smoke began to curl from their eyes. Eggs frowned harder, glaring at Puppet, and they sighed in defeat, smoke disappearing as they retreated with a low growl.
Eggs continued as if Puppet wasn't there. "Anyway, stay right here unless I tell you to move. Don't touch anything." She pointedly glanced at Scott, who brought his injured hand closer to his chest with a sheepish smile. "And whatever you do, don't make noise, don't get in my way. You guys may be from Freddy's, but down here I'm the boss."
Scott gave a mock salute, before wincing and quickly lowering his hand. Cade sighed and shook his head, reaching out to place a hand on Scott's shoulder in a rare (totally platonic what are you talking about haha) show of public affection.
Mike (who apparently had to take everything as a taunt) reached over and touched the wall with one finger, straight faced and absolutely silent as he stared into Eggs' eyes. Fritz reached over to swat Mike's hand off of the wall, before pulling back quickly as if to avoid revealing his presence.
Eggs chose to ignore him, instead turning away as she realized she hadn't checked on Baby for a while. She scanned the room for any threats, before raising her voice. "Stay."
She made it halfway to the vent, before pausing. She reached her open palm behind her, stretching it out to Scott. "Knife." She said simply.
He dropped her previously discarded pocketknife in her hand, and Mike moved to protest, but without waiting for his reply, Eggs had disappeared into the circus gallery vent.
###
"You seriously gave her the knife back!?" Mike gestured wildly with his hands, throwing them towards the vent as he stared incredulously at Scott. "Can't you tell she's fucking unstable, and she obviously doesn't like us!?"
Scott began to reply, but Mike cut him off. "Oh course! I forgot! You're unstable too! Yeah sure let us all get stabbed that sounds fun! Fuck, why did I let you talk me into this…"
He pushed his head into his hands, fists clenching into his scalp. He gave a long, violent sigh, before leaning back against the wall and putting his head back, eyes closed in a what could be described as a cruel imitation of relaxation.
Scott chose to stay silent, looking slightly cowed.
Fritz bent down and picked up the baseball bat from the floor, clutching it in both hands with a small gulp. Puppet reached a comforting hand over and placed it over Fritz's own. The redhead suppressed a shiver, and Puppet glanced away.
They slipped away into the left vent as easily as they used to slide into their hole in the wall.
Nobody noticed them go, and Puppet thought it was better that way. They needed to find out what was going on… preferably without putting the humans in danger. Puppet was sure the animatronics wouldn't attack them, given that they were a puppet, and they could move around more easily without the humans anyway.
Puppet didn't want their new friends to get hurt… they had already caused them enough pain.
###
Baby heard Eggs coming through the vent, and the animatronic took a step back. Spooking the human was a bad idea, and Baby wasn't exactly keen on getting shocked.
Once the animatronics really got going, they could fight through the shocks with only a bit of difficulty (all the more reason for Eggs to take "preventative measures" by shocking them regularly before their figurative adrenaline started pumping) but it still was deeply unpleasant.
Eggs emerged from the vent, and immediately let out a stifled shriek. She jumped past Baby, slamming her hand on the button. The animatronic jolted, systems restarting with the jolt of electricity.
Baby blinked her eyes, sensors fuzzing as she came back to herself with a grating, metallic hiss. She decided it would be best to retreat for now. One day the opportunity would come to speak to Eggs away from the button, where she couldn't be shocked, but now was not the day.
She slunk back through the side door to her stage, standing on the platform as another shock ran through her metal body.
Defeated, Baby deactivated.