This is my longest chapter yet! Everybody buckle up!
Back in the first aid room once again, Freddy lowered Mirabelle onto the padded bench and set to work patching her up.
"I may not be a medical bot, but I am equipped with knowledge of basic first aid," he was telling her. "For bruising, apply a cold pack to the affected area," he seemed to recite, before pulling one out and cracking it to activate the chemicals.
He knelt down in front of her before gently placing it along her damaged throat.
"There. Can you hold that here for a while?" he asked her.
She nodded, not attempting to fight or argue, taking the cold pack from him.
His eyes began to glow brighter as he appeared to search her all over. After that, she could feel him running his hands over her torso, probing.
"W-what are you doing?" she asked uncertainly, subconsciously recoiling away from him.
"I am checking for further damage. Victims of extreme stress or shock sometimes do not realize they are injured due to their pain being temporarily numbed," he explained, but then glanced up to see her staring at him uncomfortably.
"Oh! I apologize!" he exclaimed, instantly taking his hands off her. "I suppose I should have asked for permission first," he determined.
"It – it's okay," she assured him. "My back's a little sore, but other than that, I don't think I'm hurt anywhere else."
Her anxiety, on the other hand, was rapidly climbing as she fidgeted awkwardly under his intense stare. He was so close, and his eyes seemed to be searching her face for, something. She swallowed hard, but couldn't manage to pull her gaze away from his.
After a moment, he narrowed his optics, his brow furrowed with concern.
"You are growing very red. Are you perhaps, experiencing a fever?" he wondered, placing a large palm across her forehead.
She flinched at the touch, but didn't try to push him away.
"N-no. . ." she tried to tell him.
"Your heart rate and blood pressure are also very high. Are you sure you are not becoming sick?" he questioned.
She quickly shook her head.
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine," she tried to assure him, but it came out a bit shaky.
He didn't seem convinced, and instead of moving his hand away, he simply brought it up and over the top of her head, entwining his fingers in her hair and lightly running his claws along her scalp and down the back of her neck.
Mirabelle felt her body start to go limp at the attentions, but once again forced her mind to focus, burying the sensation and refusing to acknowledge it. This time, she grabbed at his wrist, holding his hand away from her.
"Freddy, you need to stop doing that," she requested flatly.
"But, why? It relaxes you, and you seem to enjoy it," he argued.
"That –" she began, but then hesitated. How does he know that? She couldn't help but wonder, trying to calm the butterflies currently cascading around in her stomach. There was no way for her to deny it now!
"That's not the point," she told him firmly with a sigh.
"Then what is the point?" he shot back, flashing her a skeptical look.
Mirabelle hesitated, unsure of how she was supposed to answer. Then she realized it probably wasn't something she could explain to him anyway.
"You wouldn't understand," she answered simply, adverting her gaze.
Freddy frowned, pulling his arm out of her grip and taking her chin in his hand. He moved her face up towards his so she had to look at him.
"I think I understand a little more than you give me credit for," he lectured lightly, a bit of irritation coloring his tone.
Mirabelle felt a small shiver work it's way down her spine. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. He had her completely stymied.
All of a sudden, the door to the first aid room swung open with a loud, bang! They both jumped in surprise, turning to discover a black security cap and a long, blonde pony tail.
"Freddy! What –!?" Security guard lady froze when she spotted Mirabelle, and the rather strange position she found them in. Freddy immediately dropped his hand, leaning back slightly away from the girl before awkwardly staring at the ceiling.
"Oh, thank gawd," Mirabelle softly breathed out before she could think better of it. "Wait. . ." she then trailed as soon as she did.
"What is going on here?" the blonde wondered, now sounding more baffled than anything.
"Officer Vanessa, please," Freddy rose, placing himself in front of Mirabelle protectively. "Why do you keep insisting on harassing Mirabelle? She hasn't done anything wrong," he attempted to argue.
"Because it's my job! Now is someone going to answer my question?" she demanded.
"Mirabelle is injured. I was simply attempting to administer first aid," Freddy explained.
"Injured? Injured how?" she wondered.
Mirabelle pulled off the cold pack, revealing her damaged neck.
"Oh, shit," she lamented, appearing pained by the sight. "What happened?" she asked in a pitying tone.
Mirabelle scoffed at what she assumed was feigned sympathy, leveling the other woman with a withering glare.
"Please! Don't give me that! It's not like you care!" she snapped.
"What? Of course I care! That's why I locked you up in Lost and Found, to try and prevent something like this from happening!" guard lady shot back.
"More like so you'd have time to change back into your psycho bunny suit before murdering me!" Mirabelle rose to her feet, taking a defensive stance.
"I would never do anything like that! I took this job because I wanted to try and keep people safe!" she attempted to reason.
"Oh whatever! You've been hunting me down all night!" Mirabelle argued.
"Because I wanted to make sure nothing was going to try and hurt you!" she yelled.
"That is bullshit!" Mirabelle hollered. "What the hell is your deal? Did you end up with a job here, because you're some kinda wannabe cop who flunked out of the police academy because you're insane, or just too stupid? So, you're taking out your frustration by kidnapping and murdering innocent people?" Mirabelle ranted.
"How dare you! I worked hard to get this job, and now I might lose it because some crazy, idiotic teenager thought it would be fun to go joyriding around with Freddy after hours!" she lectured angerly.
"Joyriding?! Freddy is literally the only reason I'm even still breathing right now!"
The conversation, if you could have even called it that in the first place, had now dissolved into an all out screaming match between the two women – getting in each other's faces and gesturing wildly as they shouted over each other incoherently.
Meanwhile, Freddy was rather awkwardly watching the exchange with growing concern the louder it became. Until finally, deciding that enough was enough, he stepped forward. Sliding his hands in between the two of them and placing one on each of their chests, he gently, but firmly, forced them apart.
"Ladies, please. There is no reason to fight. There's plenty of me to go around," he told them, punctuating the statement with a smirk.
He certainly succeeded in putting a stop to the the fighting, both girls now staring up at him in dumbfounded silence. That is, until Mirabelle had a chance to fully process what he'd said. Her face broke out into a huge grin, and she snorted before erupting into a fit of laughter, holding her stomach as she doubled over. Freddy's smile widened, feeling pleased with the results.
"What the hell? Did you just make a dirty joke?" Security lady asked skeptically, fixing the robot bear with a critical scowl.
"Was it? I didn't realize," he offered with a shrug, although he didn't sound particularly sincere. She narrowed her eyes at him before turning to the giggling girl.
"What have you been teaching him?" she demanded.
"That heh-humor is the best medicine," Mirabelle chuckled out, taking Freddy's arm for support. She straightened up, swiping at her eyes. "Oh man, I was not expecting that," she confessed with a sigh.
Seeing that his current companions had calmed considerably, Freddy determined that this could be a good opportunity to try and get some answers.
"Vanessa, you claimed that you are, in fact, not trying to hurt Mirabelle, but help her? Is that true?" he asked her solemnly.
"Yes, mostly. . ." she trailed suspiciously in response.
"Heh, likely story," Mirabelle scoffed with an eye roll.
"Look, kid," the guard lady blew out a sigh. "Seems like we've kinda got off on the wrong foot. And I suppose to be fair, it's probably my fault, since I haven't exactly been, completely honest with you," she confessed. "But I swear that I'm not the one who's trying to hurt you. So, what do you say to a truce? We can try, starting over?" she proposed, but Mirabelle didn't appear to be buying it.
"All I'm suggesting is that you just – hear me out, alright? Then, if you don't like what I have to say, I'll back off and leave you alone, okay?" she offered, sounding earnest in her words, and then waited to see how she'd respond.
Mirabelle still felt really unsure about this whole thing. Even so. . . She glanced up at Freddy to find him smiling down encouragingly at her. Having Freddy here with her did make her feel a whole lot more secure about this situation. If for any reason she did try something funny, Mirabelle was confident that he'd do whatever he could to keep her safe.
"Alright, fine," she finally consented wearily.
"Great!" the lady said with a smile before reaching out a hand. "I'm Vanessa Anderson," she told her brightly.
"Mirabelle Hawkins," she replied, tentatively taking the hand in a firm shake.
"Well, now that introductions are out of the way, how about we take a seat? I've got a feeling this might take some time," she offered.
"Yeah, okay," Mirabelle agreed, and they both plopped down on the medical bench. Freddy moving over as well to position himself in front of them both.
"So, where do I even start?" Vanessa sighed out.
"How about with an apology?" the other girl muttered. The security guard seemed to consider the idea for a moment before accepting it with a nod.
"I suppose that's fair. Sorry for abandoning you back in Parts and Service before," Vanessa directed towards the robot bear. "That show was mainly for the cameras. I didn't want my supervisors thinking I wasn't doing my job," she told him. Freddy responded with a nonchalant wave.
"That's alright. I understand."
Meanwhile, Mirabelle was glowering at the both of them.
"Not exactly what I was referring to, but I guess it's better than nothing," she muttered. Vanessa flashed her a cheesy grin.
"Hey, come on, kid. I thought you could take a joke?" she teased, but then her expression shifted to a more serious look. "I really am sorry that you had to end up getting mixed into all this, but at the time, I didn't think I had a choice. Not if I'm ever going to get to the bottom of this mess. . ." she trailed cryptically.
Mirabelle just stared at the older woman with a muddled look. She glanced at Freddy, who's only answer was a similarly confused shrug.
"What?" she finally barked out incredulously.
"Alright, here's the deal. Things at the Pizzaplex have started to get, weird, lately," she offered.
"Weird, how?" Mirabelle wondered.
"It's, kind of hard to explain, because, for one, not all of it seems to be directly related. However, there's been too much for it all to just be, coincidence. I mean, you've noticed, haven't you Freddy?" Vanessa inquired of the bear.
"You mean, like how my friends have been changing, lately?" he suggested.
"Yes, exactly! The other animatronics have been developing all sorts of strange behavior. Doing things they are not supposed to, but it's not just that," Vanessa stated, turning fully towards Mirabelle.
"I'm usually the only one here at night, so I think I'm noticing things that the other staff members never see. We've been having equipment disappearing, and even whole animatronics are going missing. I mean, we completely lost Bonnie months ago, but it's especially the S.T.A.F.F. bots. The endos are continually making more, but there never seem to be enough of them around."
"Artifacts are vanishing from the display cases in Rockstar Row. We keep getting complaints about weird noises and strange smells coming from the vents. There are constant brown outs happening over at the Raceway, like something is pulling power, but nobody can figure out where it's going. . ." Vanessa trailed off in exasperation. She paused for a moment before continuing.
"I think there's something larger at work here, but no one seems to care enough to listen to me. But after everything that's happened tonight, it feels like it's all coming to a head, and it started with Freddy's system crash," she informed them.
"I mean, you've seen it! This place is seriously gridlocked, like someone has overridden all of the security! The animatronics have all gone from quirky to extremely aggressive, I can't get back into the network, and to top it all off – the phone lines have all been disconnected! So, I can't call anyone! That's mostly why I was hoping you might have a phone, since we aren't allowed to have our personal cells on us while were on the clock. But mine's gone missing, and it seems like whoever grabbed you had already planned for that too. They even went so far as to erase your profile from the system," she ranted in a lamenting tone, before fixing Mirabelle with a skeptical look.
"And I'm still trying to figure out how you fit in to all this," she finished, running a hand over her face, looking just as tired as Mirabelle felt.
"So, it really wasn't you in the rabbit costume?" Mirabelle asked, now that she was able to get a word in.
"Tell me, this rabbit costume you keep mentioning. What does it look like?" Vanessa wondered instead of answering.
"I don't know. Kind of, yellowish with a purple bow tie and vest," Mirabelle shrugged. "Why?" she asked. Vanessa gave her a grave look.
"Because that's exactly who, or what, I found dragging you off backstage after I assumed they knocked you out," she suddenly confessed.
Both Freddy and Mirabelle were now fixing the blonde with shocked expressions at this news. So, did that mean. . .? Mirabelle was about to ask, but Freddy actually beat her to it.
"Vanessa, are you saying that you rescued Mira? Does that mean you are the one who put her in my room?" he wondered in surprise.
"Unfortunately, I don't know if rescued is the right word. At least, I don't feel like I deserve it. I just accidentally walked in on bunny costume as it was pulling you through the hall. It dropped you and ran off as soon as it spotted me. I was glad to find you still breathing, but I couldn't get you to wake up, so I took you to Freddy's room because I knew you'd be safest with him. Of course, I still disconnected him from the network before he rebooted, just to be safe," she revealed to them.
It took Mirabelle a moment to process all this. She had to shake herself out of the stupor before she could respond.
"Okay, so, maybe you're not the one who initially knocked me out, but why take me to Freddy's room? Why wouldn't you immediately call someone to report the crime or whatever? Isn't that your job?" she dubiously reminded the security officer.
"That is true, Vanessa. If you were really wanting to keep Mira safe, as you claimed, then your actions seem rather suspicious," Freddy concurred.
"Yes, I know, it was stupid! But, you know how long I've been looking into this, trying to figure out what the hell is going on around here? I knew that if I got the authorities involved, they would have swarmed all over this place, and whoever that was would have gone to ground! They would have continued causing issues and who knows what else!" she tried to reason.
"I figured that something about you must have been a major part in whatever's been happening, and that's – why I planted the empty alcohol bottle. I realized that I might need an excuse to hold you," she reluctantly confessed.
Mirabelle's face contorted with anger, and Vanessa knew she was about to start yelling again, so she continued before she could.
"I know it was wrong, and I'm sorry, but at the time, I had no idea that all this – was gonna happen!" she wildly gestured around. "I never would have even considered keeping you here if I knew it was putting you in so much danger," she cast a sad glance at Mirabelle's neck. "Maybe I put a little too much faith in Freddy to keep you safe," she seemed to realize.
"Don't even try to blame Freddy! None of this is his fault," Mirabelle told her with a glare, wrapping a protective hand around her throat.
"So, uh, what happened?" Vanessa slowly inquired.
"Monty tried to strangle me. I'd be dead if it wasn't for Freddy," she informed her coldly, but then turned to give him a small smile, which he returned.
"Damn it!" Vanessa cursed, shaking her head. "So, it's even worse than I thought," she complained, but still managed to pick up on the look they were sharing. "At least you two seemed to have, acclimated well," she mentioned, a bit of slyness to her tone, and Mirabelle immediately tore her gaze away from his.
"Yeah, I – guess you could say that," she admitted. "But, you said you were sure I'd be safe with Freddy. How did you know he wasn't going to just turn on me like the rest of the animatronics?" Mirabelle had to wonder.
"Well, Freddy has proven to be a bit different, from the others. He always seems to act more self aware and conscious of what he is doing. Plus he hasn't had any strange behavioral changes like the rest of them have been experiencing. He's also shown to learn much faster than the others when introduced to new stimuli, which I'm sure you've noticed. I've always felt – I mean, it's almost like, he really is alive in there, ya know? So, I figured, if anyone would be able to resist whatever is going on here and be willing to protect you, it'd be him," Vanessa told her.
Mirabelle glanced up at the large, metal bear to find him knowingly smirking down at her. She felt her face instantly flush a dark crimson and adverted her gaze back to the ground. Vanessa was right, she had more or less figured that out by this point.
However, what she didn't understand was why these feelings were repeatedly springing up on her? Why was she continually getting all anxious and shy around him all of a sudden, especially from something as simple as a single look? Was it just the embarrassment of his 'I told you so' attitude that he was clearly exuding? Or was there something else happening here?
"I appreciate you noticing, Vanessa," Freddy told her, snapping Mirabelle out of her musings. "And while I can't pretend to be happy about you putting Mirabelle's safety at risk by keeping her here, I am glad that you trusted me enough to keep her in my room. Otherwise – we never would have met," he seemed to realize.
Strange as it may sound, Mirabelle was also finding it difficult to really stay mad at the security lady. Freddy had a point about them never getting to meet if she'd just contacted the authorities from the start. Not to mention, nothing this crazy or exciting had ever happened to her before!
She thought back to everything that'd transpired so far, and she had to admit that it had been, well, thrilling! She'd even go so far as to say, kind of fun at times. She would also be lying if she tried to claim that all this one on one time with Freddy hadn't made her feel special. Which was a nice change of pace, considering for most of her life she had been treated like a freak!
Raising her eyes, she noticed him still fixing her with an enamored expression. She simply blinked back blankly before swallowing hard.
Oh boy. . .
"I'm happy to hear that you made a real friend, Freddy," Vanessa offered, sounding sincere. "However, that still leaves us with more questions than answers," she reminded them.
Mirabelle turned to her, grateful for the subject change. She still didn't feel like she was ready to confront all these bizarre emotions.
"Well, we've made attempts at asking the others about what their deal is, but we haven't gotten much," Mirabelle confessed.
"Roxy told me 'he' ordered them to go after Mirabelle, and that he was offering them some sort of freedom? All I could determine is that my friends are infected with a personality altering virus, but she refused to tell me anymore," Freddy offered.
"A virus? That could explain all the sudden corruption, and why it seems to be system wide, but who is 'he', and why Mira?" Vanessa wondered. Freddy just shrugged.
"Like I said, Roxy wouldn't tell me," he stated.
"So, we thought maybe we could get more information out of the others. We ran into Monty first, but you can see how well that went," Mirabelle scoffed, motioning towards her neck. "Now he's out of commission, so I guess that just leaves Chica. Let's just hope she's more like the Daycare attendant, because I was able to handle him okay," she mentioned, but Vanessa just stared back at her in shock.
"You're the one who did that to the Daycare attendant? And you were attacked by Monty? I mean, I know Freddy's been helping you but, how on earth are you still in one piece?" she practically demanded.
Mirabelle sighed, rising and pulling off her hoodie once again. She tossed it onto the bench before displaying her arms, mock-waving in front of the other woman.
"Whoa! What happened to you?" she couldn't help but wonder.
"I was born without any limbs. My legs are actually prosthetics too," she explained.
"No way! That's crazy! I guess that explains why you were so heavy, and stiff," Vanessa seemed to joke. Mirabelle just rolled her eyes.
"Whatever! These parts are really advanced. They're made of a special alloy that's very lightweight compared to other metals, but still super strong. Even stronger than carbon steel, at least, that's what my doctors tell me," she added.
"So, you're like a cyborg," Vanessa mentioned.
"We prefer the term, 'bionic persons'," Mira shot back without missing a beat, causing the other lady to smirk.
"You just made that up," she realized.
"Well, maybe," Mirabelle admitted.
Vanessa glanced over at Freddy to find him smiling down at the girl with amusement.
"Huh, I can see where Freddy is getting his sense of humor," she mused. "You think maybe all that has something to do with why you're being targeted?" Vanessa guessed, gesturing towards Mirabelle's parts.
Mirabelle couldn't tell her, so just gave her an exaggerated shrug. With the conversation now running out of avenues, Vanessa took a deep breath before pushing herself to her feet.
"Welp, sounds like we've got a robot chicken to find if we ever hope to get to the bottom of this," she determined, heading for the exit.
"But, how are we even going to find Chica?" Freddy wondered, as he and Mirabelle followed after her.
"Simple, we just need to use the right bait," she replied, fixing Mirabelle with a knowing eye, while she and Freddy exchanged concerned looks.
Finally! We've gotten to the part that explains a lot of things from earlier in the story! I feel like I've been sitting on these twists for ages! But I guess, if I'd explained everything from the start, then they wouldn't be 'twists', would they? Everyone let me know what you think and if I surprised you! :P I'm so looking forward to it!
Also, rest assured that this won't be the last surprise! ;) Anyway, until the next time, Bye Bye!