So sometimes the muse shows up with an idea that's meant to be crack, and then the brain takes this idea and says 'yeah, but what if taken seriously'.
Then fics like this happen.
So yeah, my Discord friends watched the 1991 Addams Family movie, and my brain went 'hey what if this', and now you get a fic. Technically this has been finished for like a month already and probably would've been nice to post on Halloween, but I'm now back in classes and everything is a disaster so instead of scheduling you get this. Happy Belated Halloween, I guess? Have some insanity?
Also don't think too hard about any of the timelines at all it's all crazy.
Vanessa couldn't help but scream, throwing her flashlight away.
"God damn it!" She swore, muffling another scream in her palms. It wasn't a good idea to be too loud on nights like these, when the animatronics were all hostile, but she just couldn't help it. Because of course not only did the animatronics need to be hostile, but a kid had managed to get into the building!
Probably because of that damned rabbit bitch. Who-or-what-ever the hell that was, it drove Vanessa up the wall. Especially because whoever it was somehow sounded exactly like her, which meant that any time it managed to lure a kid in here, the kid was terrified of her!
Which was more painful than infuriating, in some ways. She loved kids. Getting to play with her cousins whenever she'd visited her family had always been her favourite pastime, and the only reason she'd applied for the night shift instead of a day one had been college work. So for a kid to be afraid of her…
It hurt. And definitely made her a lot more angry with the rabbit thing.
Also fun, not all of the animatronics were hostile! Instead, Freddy was just acting extremely strangely compared to normal, because just what she needed right now was another mystery on her hands! He wasn't even being helpful and finding the kid! Not that she'd expected it to really work, because if three of the animatronics were hunting them- four, four, Moon was off on a rampage as well- then they'd not have a good reason to trust Freddy either…
Not the point! Point was, Vanessa was pissed, and stressed, and she still had classes tomorrow.
So, naturally, the situation had to get worse with the sound of footsteps approaching rapidly, the sound of metal on leather, and a shout of "En garde!"
She squeaked, dropping to the floor to avoid the blade that quickly lanced through the space above her, and rolled. Fortunately for her her flashlight was somewhere on the other side of the room, freeing up her hands to scrabble for her bag and reach inside.
The next slash was caught on her own foil, and she used the momentary surprise to push it away and stand up, taking up her own position warily. "En garde this, you fucker-!"
"Truly, dear Vanessa, is that how you greet your favourite uncle?" The grinning man asked, putting one hand to his heart. "Say it isn't so!"
"I'm at work, and things tonight are hellish, damnit, so yes that's how I greet my favourite uncle!" Swing, backstep, swipe, prod. "Seriously, what the hell, I'm at work- couldn't you have just waited?"
"But where's the fun in that?"
She huffed again, letting the duel continue for a minute more before sidestepping the next blow and tapping his wrist. "Out. I'm at work and tonight is awful, Uncle Gomez, I don't have time for this."
Fortunately, her uncle stopped as well, his eternally-cheerful demeanour dampening slightly. "What is wrong, dearest niece of mine? What troubles you so much?"
She sighed, letting him pull her to his side. "Oh, nothing much really. Just a lot of annoyances." It's even true; it wasn't like anything going on was really life-threatening, at least not to her. "There's a kid in the place that isn't supposed to be, the animatronics are going crazy again- the murderous kind of crazy, not the fun kind of crazy- well, except for Freddy, who's apparently decided he wants to just be a wildcard- and, most fun, there's some lunatic thing-or-person that sounds exactly like me running around in a bunny costume!"
Uncle Gomez gasped, clutching her closer with the arm around her shoulders while pressing the other to his chest. "Oh, be still my beating heart!" He beamed. "Your first doppelganger! Oh if only your darling parents could see you now… Ariadne would be so proud…"
Vanessa grinned, a little. "Yeah, I guess she would… Maybe next Seance we could take a bit to tell her about everything?"
"A wonderful idea."
Heavy footsteps and whirring machinery made both of them pause, drawing into a nearby shadow for a moment. They watched as Chica slumped past, Vanessa grimacing at the state of her friend while Uncle Gomez frowned.
"They are not supposed to be this way, then?" He murmured to her- murmured for him, anyway, which was loud enough that Vanessa winced and glanced around to make sure no-one had heard them.
"No, they're not." She sighed. "I don't know why they're doing this. It's only been going on for about two months, now, and it doesn't happen every night, but they never remember what happened during the nights they were hostile. I can't do too much damage to them because of the company, either, so I'm basically stuck avoiding them. Which is fine, except when a kid gets lured in here and hunted down!"
Uncle Gomez stiffened.
"They are hunting children?"
"It's not their fault!" She rushed to correct. "They don't remember doing it, and I know they'd never want to hurt someone normally. They love kids, they'll all be broken to realise what they've been doing. It's all that rabbit-thing's fault, I'm sure of it."
"You think your doppelganger is influencing them?"
"I can't think of any other reason someone might impersonate me and scare the kids away from me." Vanessa said. "Whatever it is, it's making sure the kids trapped in here don't feel safe coming to me when I'm the night guard. If it's just taking advantage of the animatronics going rogue, how can they know when they can act so effectively?"
"An excellent observation." Uncle Gomez nodded. "Yes, dear, I believe I see your point." Peering out from around the corner, he checked around the corridor and found it clear, then stepped out, tapping the end of his foil in the sheath. "Well, there's clearly no time to lose! Come, dearest niece, let us find this doppelganger of yours and remove them from the building!"
Vanessa blinked, sighed, and followed him as he started off down Rockstar Row in the direction of Chica. "Shouldn't we, maybe, call the police?"
"Bah! The police might hurt your construct friends, if they continue to be hostile, so clearly the best course of action is to remove Doppelganger from the building first and instruct them on the error of their ways!"
"Because they impersonated me?"
"Fah!" Uncle Gomez waved a hand, waiting at the large door for her to catch up and use her security badge to open it. "Impersonation is cheap, a dime a dozen, flattery! No, the error that this Doppelganger impersonated you to cause harm, my dear! They are hunting children, hurting your friend, they make the children fear you so that they have easy prey!"
Uncle Gomez met her eyes, and she knew the look of enthusiastic vengeance was mirrored in her own.
"We shall find them, and teach them why one does not mess with an Addams!"
"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc." Vanessa agreed, grin wide and slightly fanged.
"And then we shall find this lost child, ensure they are taken cared of, and help your friends." He added, ducking under the doorway. "Now, to arms!"
Unfortunately, 'to arms' meant another half an hour of running around, ending up getting split up from Uncle Gomez because the two of them encountered Roxy in the lower levels of the Pizzaplex- for some reason, she was sulking around the warehouse grumbling to herself- and having to go it alone for a while.
They likely didn't have to split up, really, but Uncle Gomez had gotten so excited with the idea of a chase that he'd run off before she had much time to react, drawing Roxy's attention away from her and starting a loud argument of taunts and aggressive calls. So Vanessa had continued to explore alone, hoping that Uncle Gomez was alright- and also hoping that Roxy was alright. She didn't think that Uncle Gomez would damage any of the animatronics, knowing that they were her friends and weren't in their right minds, but also Uncle Gomez had a very different opinion on what damage was.
Hopefully it wouldn't be anything that would get her in trouble with the repair crews. She'd learned her lesson the first time that she'd managed to cut some of the wires in Freddy with her foil. They'd been pissed. And also had many questions about how she'd managed to do that.
Thank goodness for the messed up security cameras. She usually hated it, given that it meant there was no proof about what was going on, but that one time it'd been quite nice given that she'd avoided being fired for it.
It was in the middle of all this mess that she ran into Freddy.
Literally.
"Officer Vanessa!" Freddy gasped, reaching down to help her up. "I apologise, I did not see you there! Are you alright?"
She hesitated a bit, but took his hand, careful of the claws. Just because he'd been odd today didn't mean that he'd hurt her. "I'm alright, thanks. Where're you running off to?"
The animatronic stiffened, and she sighed internally. The band leader couldn't lie for shit, and he was definitely up to something right now. "Oh, I, hm."
"Freddy!"
The frantic scream of a child made both of them jump, spinning around- Vanessa registered the sound of metal footsteps running at the same time she spotted the boy that had been running around the Pizzaplex causing trouble all night- and for a moment her mind blanked.
"Have you been helping him the entire time?"
"Officer Vanessa-"
She didn't bother to stick around to hear the rest of the excuse, though, recognising Roxy's footsteps from the way the sound echoed. Instead she bolted forwards, grabbing the kid- he'd frozen at the sight of her beside Freddy, honestly, did he have no self-preservation instincts?- and shoving him behind her as Roxy turned the corner.
"Move, kid!" She snapped, other hand going to her foil- it wouldn't work well against Roxy right now but it would at least give her some distance, and if she could get it into a crack in her plating she might be able to keep her from giving chase.
Behind her, she could hear Freddy stomping his way over, hopefully to grab the kid and get him out of harms way, but for now her attention was on Roxy, growling. She lashed out once with her foil, tapping her on the nose, and starting to circle. The arm joints would be a good start, and easier to get at- barely, given how well covered the joints were, but if you knew what you were doing you could get to them.
Mostly, though, she just wanted to keep the animatronic wolf distracted. Give Freddy and the kid enough time to back away. She was a lot harder to hurt than most people, after all, so even if Roxy caught her, it wouldn't be too bad.
She still had several long gashes on her arm by the time Freddy's voice called for her again.
"Officer Vanessa! Run!"
She ducked another swipe, made one of her own in return that put a thin line on Roxy's chest, and turned to run towards him.
Them. The kid was there too, both of them in an elevator, peering out, and the kid-
Had a Fazerblaster, which he fired. It went over her shoulder- that kid had good aim, apparently, she was impressed- and hit Roxy, from the pained scream she made. Vanessa didn't question why he was suddenly helping her, just dove into the elevator next to them and watched the kid slam the button.
"Thanks for the save." She said, wincing as the slices on her arm pulled. Not too bad, luckily; she'd gotten worse from Uncle Gomez in the past, or playing with Cousins Wednesday and Pugsley. Still sucked, though, and she'd need to make sure to treat them soon so she didn't get blood everywhere. "You alright, kid? Freddy?"
"Why are you helping us?" The kid challenged, before Freddy can even try to reply. "You've been chasing me all night!"
"Not me, kid- what's your name?" She paused. "Calling you kid all the time's a bit rude."
"...Gregory." For some reason, that question made the kid- Gregory- relax, the laser gun he'd been subtly aiming at her dropping to his side. "You said you knew that, when you were talking to Freddy in Parts and Services."
Her head snapped up to Freddy, and she ran her gaze over him worriedly. "You've been in Parts and Services? What happened?" He looked fine, just dirty, but there's no telling what might've happened...
"I merely ran out of power." He assured her. "But Gregory is correct… you have captured him before, as well as been involved in the incident in Parts and Services."
"Like I said, not me." Vanessa groaned as the elevator pinged to a stop, bringing them out in Bonnie Bowl. "Sure hope this place is safe to hang around some… Freddy, there a first aid kit nearby? I need to wrap these." The bleeding was already slowing, Addams' were hard to really hurt, but it was still annoying and she didn't really want Uncle Gomez to go off at Roxy for something so minor if he saw them.
Wait.
"If Roxy was down there…" She mused, stopping and turning back towards the elevator contemplatively. "Then where the hell is Uncle Gomez?"
Gomez cackled, ducking behind another of the plastic trees and watching his adversary struggle against the ball pit.
"You'll have to move faster than that to catch an Addams, my friend!" He called. The angry alligator snarled at him, wading through the knee-high plastic balls towards him, and he gestured once with his foil before stepping back from the edge. "Now, that's not very sporting of you, is it?"
He ducked a swipe.
"Then again, I suppose I've been unsporting myself, not even offering you a weapon!" He continued. "Certainly, those claws of yours are quite impressive, but not exactly fair against a foil!"
The animatronic- dear Vanessa had called him Monty, hadn't see?- growled.
"Shamefully, I don't have a spare foil myself, so it appears we'll have to improvise to make this fair." He grinned, uncaring of the several ton metal alligator trying to take his head off. It wasn't like it would stick, anyway. "Unless you'd like to see if dear Vanessa would lend you hers? It's not too likely, I fear, she's quite attached to it- one of the last gifts Cousin Chaos gave her, you see- but there's always a chance she might part with it for a moment to allow us a fair duel!"
Monty- and dear, that was a dreadful name, truly- growled again, then closed his claws around a nearby railing and tore a long chunk of it off. He roared, and Gomez grinned, sharp and Addams.
"Aha, a master of improvisation! Very well!" He stepped back and raised his foil. "En garde, my good man!"
"Uncle Gomez?" Freddy asked.
"He decided to come and visit me at work, apparently." Vanessa sighed. "Well, he'll turn up. Hopefully not in too much trouble."
"How'd he get in here?" Gregory challenged. "The doors were all closed!"
"I have no idea, kid. Uncle Gomez makes a habit of just appearing in places, so I'm not too surprised. The only shock is that he decided to visit me at work, rather than just break into my house again and sleep on the couch until I got back. I'd've preferred that, he at least usually makes me breakfast for when I get back and lets me sleep until midday before he tries talking to me." She shrugged, wincing when it pulled the cuts. "Alright, enough questions, first aid kit?"
"Oh, of course, Officer Vanessa!" Freddy seemed to pull himself out of whatever thoughts he was having, and hurried off to go and find a first aid kit for her. Gregory was still looking at her warily, but she couldn't really do anything about that right now.
Once Freddy had returned and her arm was bandaged up- annoying, but fortunately she could use her right hand as easily as she could her left, so having that arm limited wouldn't cause too much trouble- they sat down at one of the tables near the ice cream parlour so she could explain.
"Ok, so the quicker version of the story is this; a couple of months ago, a few nights a week, the bots would suddenly start going haywire and getting hostile at me. None of them remembered anything about the nights before, and none of them seemed to remember that I told them about it either. Took a little while but I eventually found this crazy bi-thing, running around the place in a bunny outfit and speaking in my voice."
"That's Vanny!" Gregory interrupted with a gasp.
"Vanny?"
"There's been some weird bunny lady chasing me around, and she talked like you, and she can do some weird thing that makes my head hurt." He explained. "Freddy couldn't see her at all."
"Sounds about right, though I've never really had my head hurt around the thing." Then again, she'd never really spent a lot of time around it. Them. Her? "But yeah, whatever it is it's a full-on doppelganger, which is great at making my job harder, and I'm pretty sure it's what's behind the gang going nuts. Uncle Gomez offered to help me deal with it, but…"
She gestured, demonstrably, at the lack of Uncle Gomez in the area.
"What about the times you were after me?" Gregory asked. "If it's just Vanny who's after me then what about all the times you were?"
Vanessa blinked. "When do you mean, kid?"
He traded a glance with Freddy, some of his defensiveness fading, and the bear answered. "You encountered us in the first aid station in the tunnels, some time before closing, in order to tell me that Gregory was in the Pizzaplex and causing trouble, as well as to scold me for being out of my room." He told her. "Then at one forty-five, you captured Gregory coming out of the laundry rooms and took him to Lost and Found to wait for his parents."
"You yelled at me over some monitors in the room, and then Vanny showed up and started chasing me around."
"You were also in Rockstar Row searching for him half an hour ago."
Vanessa stared, then set her face on the table with a sigh. "That last one was me, though I didn't realise you were there as well, kid. I was trying to find you, yeah, but only because my friends have gone nuts tonight and I didn't want you to get caught in the crossfire. But I didn't see you in the tunnels at all, and I've definitely not actually found you in person to catch you." She groaned again. "Great! Vanny-bunny-whatever is an actual doppelganger, not just some lunatic who's voice sounds similar or can mimic people! Lovely."
Gregory gasped. "What about if Vanny runs into your uncle?"
She laughed, sitting up to grin at him. "Oh, don't worry about that, Gregory. Uncle Gomez won't be taken in for a second by a doppelganger of me. I've been living in his house for the last seven years, there's no-one that can mimic me well enough to fool him." Probably.
Actually no, definitely, if he had any sense he'd challenge her to another foil match and that'd prove Doppelganger-Vanny's identity instantly. And it was Uncle Gomez, the chance of avoiding another duel was low.
"What should we do now, Officer Vanessa?" Freddy asked. "With you injured…"
"Ah, don't worry about me, Freddy." She patted her friend on the arm. "I've gotten worse from my cousins when we've been playing together, believe me. And remember that time Monty fractured my arm playing golf?"
He laughed, somewhat reluctantly. "Your language was most inappropriate."
"But I was basically fine the rest of the night with just a quick splint, and healed in a couple of weeks." She reminded him. "Addams' are tough. I'll be right as rain in no time at all. And for what we should do? Go see if we can hunt down either Uncle Gomez or this Vanny character. I'd like to show her a thing or two about why you don't mess with me."
As luck would have it, they ran into Vanny first.
The three of them were heading towards the kitchens through the tunnels, Gregory having mentioned that he'd gotten some Monty Mystery Mix with the intention of using it to lure Chica somewhere. Not having any better ideas for how to potentially trap her friend until the night was over, Vanessa had started following the kid with Freddy alongside her, getting the whole story of the night from the bear while Gregory dashed about ahead.
Unfortunately, that meant Gregory was the one in front when Vanny appeared out of nowhere with a scream.
"You!" Vanessa's voice came eerily from the rabbit, making her grimace even as she froze, staring at the hand around Gregory's arm and the knife pointed at him. "You ruined everything, you idiot boy!"
"Let him go!" Vanessa snapped. Freddy, who'd stopped when she had even though he was apparently blind to the threat, shifted his feet, ready to run.
"And you." It was strange to hear her own voice, clearly scowling at her behind the mask, but Vanessa held her ground and glared right back. "You weren't supposed to do this! You weren't supposed to find them!"
"Shame, that." She narrowed her eyes, shifting her own feet as well. It would be difficult, but she might be able to grab Gregory from the thing's grasp and throw him to Freddy again. Then they could get out of here and leave her to-
Vanny twisted, moving faster than Vanessa had ever seen on a normal human, putting her arm across Gregory's neck and holding him up like a shield, the knife near his throat.
"We'd best be going, though, little Gregory!" Vanny smirked. "After all, we've got an appointment to make, and we wouldn't want to be late…"
"Gregory!" Freddy called.
She wondered how odd it was to see the boy appear to be floating. Or perhaps whatever made Vanny invisible to the animatronics was stretching to cover Gregory as well?
Not important. Vanessa growled a little, a rumbling sound that made the rabbit flinch, and put her hand into her bag, gripping the hilt of her foil.
"I wouldn't recommend doing that, Doppelganger." She warned. "I'm an Addams, you see, and well… you shouldn't hurt people of ours."
Her gaze skipped across Gregory's to land directly on Vanny's strangely glowing eyes. She bared her teeth.
"We tend to bite."
Gregory got the idea well before Vanny did, fortunately; the slight head tilt back that Vanessa knew she did when her eyes went wide proved the doppelganger didn't realise what was happening fast enough, as Gregory turned his head slightly and bit down on the closest bit of arm that he could reach.
Vanessa was moving shortly after that, slashing her foil through the air to tear the suit some more along the arm before ducking to grab a hold of Gregory. The kid moved with her, letting her draw him close and toss him out of the way- Freddy would catch him, and even if he didn't she knew she'd thrown him so he'd land on his feet- and her next slash went for the hand holding the knife.
Behind her, she could hear Freddy start to run, and she relaxed a little to know that the two of them would be safely out of the way. They might even run into Uncle Gomez, which would give them a little more protection.
Vanny tried, but her knife had much less reach than Vanessa's foil, and Vanessa had been trained with these things since she was nine. The doppelganger could do a good impression, sure, and apparently looked just like her, but it couldn't copy her skills.
The blood on the ground was unfortunate, but at least down here it was only concrete and tiles. The STAFF bots could clean that up easily, and there were a few in the kitchen that could handle it.
Wiping her foil on the cloth of the costume, she pulled the head of it off and looked at her own face for a moment.
"Ew." She grimaced, dropping the mask back over it to hide the twisted expression. Looking at her own face in death was pretty weird, honestly.
"Hey, Freddy, you around?" She called, stepping back.
Silence answered her.
"Guess not." Vanessa frowned a little. Freddy had been behind her, but there was no way of knowing where he'd actually run off to. For all she knew he and Gregory had just taken to the tunnels, and those were enough of a maze that she wouldn't be able to find him without a lot of luck…
Sighing a little, she headed for the kitchen to grab one of the STAFF bots. Fortunately for her they wouldn't report the massive amounts of blood or the dead doppelganger on the floor- it paid to be nice to the service bots, even though their programming was pretty limited towards cleaning or cooking and playing watch bot.
Pushing open the door a little after storing her foil, she called out. "Any of you guys free for a minute?"
A loud chorus of fearful beeps met her, making her startle slightly. "Woah! Guys, what's wrong?"
Of all the days to not have her tablet with her, but it'd been missing when she'd went to pick it up that night, and there weren't any spares. Being able to check the cameras and read the alerts the STAFF bots had been sending out would've been a lot of help.
She glanced back at Vanny on the ground in realisation. "Damn thing…" She grumbled. It'd probably stolen her tablet to pretend to be her more easily… which meant she'd either have to search the body to get it back, or claim it had broken and get management to buy a new one while dealing with the reprimand. Or hope it'd been hidden somewhere and find it again.
One of the bots- she had to squint a little to see the name tag, they were all way too similar- waved her over, beeping frantically. "Hey, hey, calm down, it's alright, I'm here, what's up?" Robert, apparently, gestured to the ring of STAFF bots over near the oven, just out of sight of the doors. "I wish you guys could say more than just the pre-programmed lines… right, thanks Robert, let me see…"
He voice trailed off, spotting Chica collapsed in the middle of the ring of fretting STAFF bots.
"Crap." She muttered. "Alright, back up a bit, let me see!" The group moved away a little, letting her through, and she ducked down next to Chica. She didn't really have any experience with the animatronics' systems, but from what she could see there wasn't anything physically wrong; the chicken was just dirty from running around all night, and there was a minor dent on her head from when she'd landed. "Right, I think we'll just need to wait for her to boot back up? Sorry, I'm not sure what we can do, and it'd be pretty hard to get her down to Parts and Services, even with all you guys helping." Vanessa glanced around. "Hey, guys?"
As one, the entire group of STAFF bots turned to her.
"Ok, you know how sometimes the gang have been acting weird at night?" Nods. "Well, we figured out the issue, there was someone pretending to be me messing with them. I dealt with them, they're out there in the corridor… um, not particularly alive." She grimaced a little. "Aunt Tish'll probably tell me off for being too reactive and abrupt about that, honestly… Anyway, would any of you guys be able to go and deal with that? Just… drop it in the trash shoot or something, doppelgangers are weird but that should work just fine for everything, assuming it's not already vanished."
Bob and Charlie both nodded, and Luke grabbed one of the nearby cleaning buckets and waved the mop at her.
"Thanks, you three. It might have my tablet as well, so if you find that, can I have it back?" They nodded again, drifting out of the room on quiet wheels, and she looked to the rest of the panicked kitchen group. "Nothing else really to do, though, until Chica wakes up again."
As if on cue, there was a groan.
Automatically, Vanessa stood and stepped back a bit- normal people didn't like being crowded when they woke up, and also if there was still a chance of Chica acting abnormally she wanted to have enough of a head start to get out her foil again.
"You good there, Chica?" She asked, pitching her voice to travel. In reply, Chica groaned again, then slowly started to move until she was sitting up, holding her head in her hands.
"What happened?" She moaned. "I feel like I've been hit over the head with a golf club again…"
"Chica?"
"Ness?" With what looked like quite some effort, Chica lifted her head to look at Vanessa. Her eyes seemed to take a moment to focus, the iris' and pupils out of alignment with each other and not straight in the eyes themselves. She blinked a few times, and the effect was gone again. "What happened?"
"That's a great question." She sighed. "You feel ok? No weird feelings, no wobbliness or anything?"
"I- no? I think- I mean, my head hurts like heck, and I don't-" Chica trailed off. "Why am I in the kitchen? I don't- I was going to my room, wasn't I? Freddy collapsed on the stage, and I… I was… going to take a few minutes to wait for the technicians to leave…?"
The STAFF bots still around them chirped worriedly to each other, and the doorway on the other end of the room opened again. Vanessa glanced over, not worried about Chica doing the same since she was still staring blankly at the wall in thought, to watch Bob and Charlie carry the body of the doppelganger over to the trash compactor and throw it in.
Charlie picked up another mop and bucket, heading back out into the corridor- she didn't think there'd been that much blood, but maybe they were just trying to make sure there wasn't any chance it'd be discovered- while Bob wheeled his way over to her and, with an elaborate gesture that she hadn't known he had in him, presented her with her tablet.
It was a little scratched and one of the corners had a small crack in it, but otherwise it was well taken care of, so she turned it on with a smile and loaded up the application that let her access the STAFF bots internal communication reports. "Thanks, Bob."
Unit-80962- You're welcome!
"Vanessa, what happened?" Chica asked again, sounding genuinely frightened in a way Vanessa hadn't heard… ever, she thought. And the animatronics- excluding Freddy and the Daycare Attendant, because Freddy was overly formal with everyone and the Attendant was programmed that way to set a good example to the kids- hadn't called her Vanessa in months. It was always Ness, or Nessy, or some sort of nickname.
Putting the tablet in her bag, she reached out a hand to Chica to offer her up. Hayden moved closer to offer his own support as she stood, balancing the animatronic much more effectively than Vanessa's small frame ever could, and Chica gave a gap-beaked smile to him before focusing on Vanessa again.
"Let's get everyone down to the Atrium, if that's ok." She requested. "It'd be easier to explain it all at once."
"Every- has this happened to all of us, Vanessa?" Chica was a lot smarter than most people gave her credit for. Vanessa nodded, reluctantly.
"It's a pretty long story, and honestly the only reason it didn't end before tonight was sheer bad luck." She sighed, letting go of Chica's hand. "Think you can make it upstairs?"
The chicken didn't even get a chance to respond, Hayden and Jay taking up positions on either side of her and holding out their arms. She just laughed instead, taking a hold of both of them, and gave Vanessa a wry look. "I will now, for sure."
The tablet pinged a few times as they left, likely the STAFF bots in the room wishing them luck, and she waved behind her before letting the doors close and leading the way back to the main lobby.
Roxy was already waiting in the Atrium, strolling around with a scowl on her face, and the moment she caught sight of the group- Chica still being held up by Hayden and Jay, who Vanessa was sure were ignoring their programming in favour of helping- she bolted over.
Despite herself, Vanessa flinched, then held very still when Roxy stopped dead, nearly tripping over her own feet. Just because it wasn't their fault, and she was an Addams who'd take more of a beating than they'd ever offered to her, didn't mean she was immune to automatic responses, she supposed with an internal scowl.
"Hi, Roxy." She greeted, knowing there was no way she was avoiding that particular confrontation and not looking forward to it. "Still waiting for Freddy and Monty, then I'll explain, I promise. Have you seen them?"
"I- wha- no." Roxy shook her head a few times, obviously confused by the sudden change in track, and Vanessa took advantage of that to start herding them back towards the main Atrium and the stage that was reinforced enough for the band to sit on.
"Ok, great, that's mildly concerning, since I've got no way of finding Freddy…" She grumbled. "Unless one of the bots found them?"
"Them?"
"Why can't you find Fazbear?"
Vanessa waved them off, pushing both to sit down on the stage, and smiled at Hayden and Jay as she pulled out her tablet again. "Thanks, you two."
Unit-62534- No problem, Officer Ness!
Scanning quickly through the hordes of STAFF bot messages that had been sent- people really underestimated how smart these guys were, and how much they talked- as the two of them waved and rolled away, she found the last mention of Freddy, down in the laundry room not a minute ago.
"Ok, useful, Freddy'll hopefully be over here soon, but I'm pretty sure only Great-Aunt Voodan know where the fuck Monty is." She grumbled, flipping over to the cameras instead. Sure enough, Freddy was making his way up the corridor from the laundry room, so he'd be reappearing somewhere on the other side of the Atrium, but Monty was nowhere to be found in his golf course.
Just as she swapped over to the Atrium cameras to see if perhaps he'd been elsewhere, or if he was coming over towards the stage on his own, or something, she heard a shout from upstairs.
Vanessa looked up just in time to see Uncle Gomez come hurtling over the railing of the second story balcony, his right hand clamped over his left shoulder, with a cry of, "Dear niece Vanessa!"
"Uncle Gomez!" She called back, putting her tablet down with a click and hurrying over. He did a flip, neatly landing on his feet, and beamed at her.
"I see all went well with you, my dear girl!" He cheered. "Was your doppelganger the one behind it after all?"
"Yes, it was, and yes, I dealt with it." Vanessa rolled her eyes a little at him, leaning in to look at his shoulder. It was liberally leaking blood under his hand, and now that she was closer she could see the long slice through jacket, shirt, and flesh. "And honestly Uncle Gomez, was it so important to get here that you didn't even bother trying to wrap this up?"
"Ah, merely a flesh wound!" He waved away, hand also stained with blood.
"Flesh wound or not, it's unseemly!" She huffed, taking his wrist- careful not to get blood on her own clothes or hand- and pulling him over to the stage. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Monty making his way down the escalator with the sort of carefulness that came from being unsteady on his feet, as well as Freddy appearing not far away from the escalators near the door to the laundry rooms. Gregory was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, given how well he'd been able to hide for most of the night. "Don't suppose one of you can grab a first aid kit or something- oh, thanks Kiel."
The STAFF bot chirped and rolled away again, coming back once more with a chair from the party tables which he set down in front of the stage. Vanessa pushed Uncle Gomez into it and started digging through the first aid kit, ignoring his protesting.
"It can be minor all you want it to be, Uncle Gomez, you're still bleeding all over the damn place from it and if that gets on the floor it's going to be creating a lot more work for the STAFF bots because they're the ones that need to clean it up well enough to avoid management noticing that there's been blood stains on the floor, so shut up and let me wrap it." She finally snapped, using his momentary surprise to pull the jacket off his arm. She at least needed to cover the wound, and honestly it didn't matter if his shirt was in the way for that part, but the jacket would've been more of a problem to wrap around.
He laughed suddenly, jarring her attempt at bandaging and making her growl. "Ah, now there's your mother's fire!" He grinned. "I was starting to think you'd left it somewhere!"
"Well, you know me. I've got my mother's looks and my father's heart." She smirked back, glancing up and nodding as Monty and Freddy approach.
Freddy had his hands resting on his stomach, which was unusual, and Monty was acting oddly timid. He kept glancing at his claws, too, which… at least explained where the slice came from.
"Yes, it's fortunate it was in such good condition."
She hummed idly, tightening the bandages a little more, then tied everything off and looked at him. "Now how did this happen, Uncle Gomez, and am I going to need to go ask some of the STAFF bots real nicely to clean up some blood?"
"Only a little!" He protested, before grinning. "And how it happened, ah, what a wonderful story! I encountered your dear Montgomery in his golf course after I evaded Roxy there, and we got into an outstanding duel! I need to get him a foil of some kind, truly, he is a master of improvised weaponry- to think, using a railing pipe to counter a blade! How inspired!- but one cannot have a true and proper duel without a foil of their own!"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Vanessa snapped, seeing Monty deflate further out of the corner of her eye. Freddy looked to be absurdly distressed by the idea, which, honestly. "You can't give Monty a foil!"
Stepping around her uncle's chair, she stood next to Monty and prodded him until he got the picture and stood up straight. "Look at him, he's huge! Call Cousin Frank, or see if Lurch is willing to travel, and ask them if they'd be willing to teach him to use a greatsword or something!" She threw up her hands and shook her head, feeling everyone's eyes land on her. "Honestly, Uncle, a foil. It's entirely the wrong size and they're nowhere near strong enough to properly stand up to Monty."
Uncle Gomez frowned a little, looking disappointed, but nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, yes, I suppose I see what you mean."
"Thank you." Glad that she wasn't going to have to fight her Uncle for half the night on this, she turned to the rest of the group.
...And also Gregory, who'd appeared at some point during that conversation.
She pointed at him. "Where did you come from?"
"Um."
That kid had some lethal sad eyes, but unfortunately she partly grew up around Wednesday, who had literally lethal sad eyes. Vanessa was unmoved, raising an eyebrow at him.
He pointed at Freddy.
She looked at Freddy.
Freddy looked embarrassed.
"Gregory… may have been hiding with me during the night." He said.
Vanessa blinked. "With you?"
"In my stomach hatch."
"Oh." She thought for a moment, looked at the kid and then Freddy's stomach, and nodded. "Makes sense to me. Seems like it'd be a little small, but hey, if it worked."
"It did!" Gregory beamed, cheering up immediately now it seemed like no-one was going to yell at him. "I've gotten really quick at doing it now, and the other animatronics couldn't see me at all when I did it! I've gotten into Freddy right in front of Monty before and he didn't even notice!"
"You did?" The gator said, surprised. He looked down at him over his sunglasses- tilting them a little, very deliberately with the non-bloody claws- and tilted his head in a way Vanessa knew meant he was raising an eyebrow. Gregory quailed, slightly. "When was this, little- kid?"
"Um. Earlier, when I was in the Atrium. You were wandering around and saw me, so I ducked into Freddy, and it was like… like you didn't even remember I was there, I guess? You just kind of stared at Freddy and then wandered off."
Vanessa glanced at Freddy for confirmation, but Roxy had managed to stumble her way upright and dragged him aside. It seemed like she was now whisper-yelling at him for something, which was interesting but probably not important.
"Huh." Monty frowned a little. "Weird."
"It was a bit." Gregory nodded, then picked a little at his shorts. "Um. Officer Vanessa?"
"Just Vanessa's fine, kid."
"Did… um, did you get Vanny?"
"Vanny?"
"Yeah, I did." She waved to both Monty and Chica that she'd explain later, focusing on Gregory. "Wasn't really a problem for me, doppelganger's aren't a match for fifteen years worth of practise."
"Fourteen!"
"Close enough!" She rolled her eyes at Uncle Gomez. "But yeah, that Vanny thing's been dealt with, so hopefully thing's'll go back to normal around here soon."
"I didn't even realise things had been different…" Chica murmured.
"I tried to tell you, but whatever it was doing to you meant you couldn't remember it at all. No idea you were missing nights, you never remembered when I told you about it…" She shrugged. "Still, hopefully that'll all stop now."
"I da-arn well hope so!" Roxy growled, apparently done with whatever argument she and Freddy were having. "Having someone in my head sounds awful!"
"Man." Gregory sighed, leaning back against Freddy's leg when he moved closer. "I'm… really glad it's all gonna stop now… I'm glad you're ok." He peered up at them. "Freddy kept saying this wasn't right, but I kinda didn't believe him… sorry."
"It's alright, chickadee!" Chica chirped. "I don't blame you! I… don't really know what was happening, but if you had to hide inside Freddy to be safe… and I can't blame you for not knowing that we're not normally like that. Have you been here before?"
"Gregory did not have a guest profile in the system." Freddy answered, before Gregory could. "I noticed this myself when I first discovered him, and Vanessa- uh, Vanny, confirmed it herself later in the night."
"So yeah, no real way to know what we're supposed to be like." Roxy folded her arms, coming to lean against Chica. "You're forgiven, kid."
"Thanks." His smile looked… rather too watery, in Vanessa's opinion, but what did she know. Maybe normal kids were supposed to cry over the animatronics that'd been hunting him down all night forgiving him for thinking bad of them. "Oh, Officer Vanessa… do I have to give this back?"
He pulled the Fazerblaster from earlier out of his pocket.
"Where'd you get that?"
"I played the game for it? We, um… might've snuck into your room to get a pass for it, Chica, sorry. But I played the game and managed to win and then I got this one." He waved it about a little. "Freddy thought it might be able to stop you guys chasing me… either that or a Faz-Cam, but that didn't sound as cool."
Roxy howled with laughter, while Freddy looked somewhat disappointed. "Superstar, are you saying that I am not cool?"
"What- no, Freddy, you're super cool, I promise, you're really neat and cool and everything-"
Roxy was still dying with laughter, now doubled over herself, and Monty was looking entertained as well. Chica, however, looked mildly concerned, and when Vanessa shot Uncle Gomez a look, he also seemed kind of worried.
Vanessa agreed; that was an extremely quick change in tone from Gregory, especially for some light-hearted teasing. And that said concerning things.
Freddy apparently thought so too, since he gently put his hand on Gregory's head, silencing him. "I was joking, Superstar, do not worry."
"Oh." What they could see of Gregory's face, now turned towards the bear, went bright red.
Uncle Gomez, being Uncle Gomez, didn't let that stand for long, instead bouncing out of his chair and over to Gregory, kneeling down to his height. "Were you able to use that little gun at all?" He asked kindly.
"Oh! Um. Yeah. I did." Still red, Gregory turned under Freddy's hand to face Uncle Gomez, who obligingly backed up a little to give him room. "A couple of the STAFF bots, mostly, when I was trying to get out of Fazer Blast to Freddy, and Chica a few times- you were hunting me in the Fazer Blast arena. And Roxy, as well, when I was trying to get out I got caught by accident and Officer Vanessa saved me."
"Incredible! And it worked well?" Uncle Gomez beamed further. "How impressive, young Gregory! I must admit, I was concerned earlier tonight when dear Vanessa mentioned that you were trapped here alone, but I see you have done well! Why, you didn't even need assistance to arm yourself! Most resourceful!"
"Um. Thank you?"
Gregory didn't seem to know what to do with the enthusiasm, so Vanessa sighed and stepped forward to haul her Uncle out of the way. "Honestly probably for the best you found your own weapon, he was talking about making sure you were taken care of earlier which probably means he'd've given you a foil as well."
"A foil is a perfectly reasonable piece of equipment!"
"He's like nine!"
"So were you!"
"Yes, but there's a difference between 'nine, learning to use a foil' and 'nine, being given a foil in a life threatening situation', Uncle Gomez!"
"Also I'm eleven."
"That's basically nine, I'm twenty three. You're a child, giving you a foil and expecting you to use it to defend yourself when you didn't know what you were doing would be irresponsible."
"He could have learned!"
"Life threatening situations are not a teaching activity-"
"What exactly are you all talking about?"
The pair of them blinked, turning to look at Chica. She was wringing her hands together anxiously, her head tilted and carefully looking anywhere but Gregory.
"You said something happened, something's been happening, but none of us know what, and…"
"I think we'd all quite like to know why exactly we've apparently been chasing you around like a pack of feral dogs." Roxy finished for her.
Vanessa nodded, grimacing. "Yeah. Yeah, you do." She sighed. "And to answer your question, kid, no, you can keep it. You won it fair and square after all, even if it was after hours."
Chica nodded her own agreement. "Yeah, chickadee. Fazer Blast might not be mine, but I think you obviously did really well, if you won, so you should keep it!"
Gregory seemed to relax a little at that, his near death-grip on the laser blaster loosening a little. "Ok."
"Anyway, you want answers, I'll give them. Monty, let's get your claws sorted out first, before that has a chance to dry and become a real problem, Uncle Gomez, sit down and hush, please. Gregory, you should probably sit down as well, you're probably exhausted from all the running about you've been doing."
"I'm not that tired." He argued, but he sat down in the seat one of the lurking STAFF bots bought over for him- they moved too quickly for her to get their name, but she dropped a message thanking them in the Atrium section of the STAFF bot systems anyway- too quickly for that to be anything but a child's token protest.
Gale rolled up next to her with some cleaning supplies, and she set to work sorting out the blood on Monty's claws while she explained.
Vanessa was pretty sure the only reason things went by as quietly as they did is because three minutes into the conversation, Gregory had fallen asleep leaning against Freddy's side. None of them were willing to wake the kid up, especially when the kid had been running around scared of them all night, so the animatronics had thankfully kept their outbursts to a minimum.
Even still it ended up with a few broken objects, especially when Roxy realised that the bandaged scratches on Vanessa's arm had come from her.
She was probably pretty lucky that they didn't start asking for a full recount of all the injuries they'd accidentally given her. Freddy probably wouldn't be happy to know he'd fractured her hand once, and Monty would cry knowing that he'd managed to top the golf-arm-fracture incident…
Still, all said and dealt with, in the end. Vanessa didn't see the point in assigning blame for all the injuries, it wasn't like they'd lasted long anyway. They had more important things to deal with, like making sure none of the animatronics were too damaged by the night's events. Fortunately the Pizzaplex was going to be closed for a few days, but Vanessa wouldn't've felt right leaving them damaged if it would've caused them difficulty.
Not that she did much of that.
"Are you certain you don't want me to stay around, Vanessa?" Uncle Gomez asked again, while she opened the employee side door.
"Yes, Uncle Gomez, I'm sure." She sighed, twisting the lock. "It's enough that you were here tonight, the cameras might not record at night because of that Vanny thing but we don't know how long that'll last now it's stopped, and I'd rather not lose my job, thanks."
"We'd support you."
"Oh, I know, but it's nice to be a bit more normal to the others in my class." She pushed the door open and gestured. "Now, I'll see you later if you want to wait for me at home…?"
"Very well." He strolled towards the door with his usual amount of grandeur, hesitating for a moment in the doorway. "Vanessa…"
She blinked at the sudden seriousness.
"That boy, Gregory."
Ah.
She nodded, coming forward and leaning against the doorframe. "Yeah. I'm gonna try looking, but I'm not sure what I'll find. The fact that he was here, that he snuck in to avoid a profile and he wanted to stay overnight rather than leave with everyone else when Freddy went down…"
It said quite a lot, and none of it was good.
"I don't think I'll get any answers out of him, but I'm going to make sure he knows he can come by if he needs to. I'll… figure something out with management. Or just hope the cameras don't start recording again and not bother."
"Call if you need us."
"I will."
It was slightly surprising to see him leave without trying for another duel, but she supposed the injured shoulder would make that harder.
Sighing again, she closed the door and locked it. Back to the animatronics, and also to make sure Gregory was ok. He'd still been sleeping when she left, and she wanted to make sure he was fed something before he left.
At least the night guard position came with benefits like free food while on shift, so long as she marked what she took. Sure it wasn't great food, but sandwiches were better than nothing.
