Chica lurched back, slamming against the wall. "Who said that?" She said, her eye darting around the room.
The fox whose body you stole. Give it back.
"I can't. I'm wired to have control."
You could always reroute control to me.
"Where are you?"
The head on your shoulder. Your old head.
Chica looked at her right shoulder to see that her head was in fact staring at her impatiently. "Hmm, I suppose I could let you take your body back," she said, putting a hand to her chin in mock thought, "but why would I do that when you just murdered a man?"
Fine, Toy Foxy huffed, I didn't want that girly pink body anyway.
"Ooh, goody!" Chica said, beginning to make the most feminine poses she could think of, "I can't wait to throw a tea party and pick flowers!"
GET OUT OF MY BODY!
"I, Toy Foxy, just love pink and all things girly!"
You aren't Toy Foxy, I am!
"Afraid not. This body, the Toy Foxy animatronic, is now mine to control. That means I'm Toy Foxy."
Foxy has never once been a girl!
"Okay, fine, what's my name then?"
The technicians were always calling me the Mangle when they were putting me back together. You can have that one, since you gave me an extra head and leg, among other things.
"Okay, fine. Mangle it is."
"Okay, I'm back," Bill said, stepping back into Kid's Cove carrying a sponge and a bucket of water, "Let's get you all cleaned up before your first day."
YOU!
Toy Foxy's consciousness slammed against the wall between him and the controls for his body. The impact caused Mangle to lose her balance and nearly fall over.
"I see you're still having trouble with all your legs," Bill remarked, dipping the sponge into the bucket.
"Yeah," Mangle replied, unsure whether or not to tell the tech about the other voice in her head.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it," Bill reassured her, scrubbing at her face with the sponge. It felt warm against her plastic skin, the first taste of warmth she ever had. She attempted to remain in contact with the sponge as Bill drew back to dip it into the bucket again. "You can feel heat, can't you?" he said, grinning as he began wiping at her teeth.
"Yeah." Mangle obediently opened her mouth so Bill could clean the backs of her teeth. She fought to ignore Toy Foxy's whispers to chomp down while his hand was still inside.
"The questions I have for whoever designed you guys," the technician muttered with a smile as he dropped the sponge back into the soapy water, "Alright, Chica, I think you're ready to go."
"Oh, actually, my name's Mangle now."
"You didn't need to get that in touch with your appearance. Toy Foxy's just fine." Bill checked his watch. "It's almost time to open. I need to get Jack's body out of here before the place opens. His family needs to get the body, and corporate will just try to cover up his death."
"Yeah, they deserve to know."
"Would you like to say anything?"
"Sure." Mangle knelt down next to the young man, or at least she did the best she could with three legs. "Jack, I didn't know you, but you didn't deserve to die this way. Thank you for giving me a new life at the expense of yours."
Say something, she hissed to her mental roommate.
Why should I say something?
You're the one who killed him. The least you could say is sorry.
Fine. I'm sorry, Jack. Maybe you didn't know what monster you were helping, and for that, I apologize for my actions.
I don't think you know what you're talking about.
"That was nice of you to do that," Bill said as Mangle stood up, "I'm sure Jack would have been grateful to hear your appreciation." He grabbed Jack's body and began to drag it towards the back door, before stopping. "Goodnight, Mangle."
"Goodnight, Bill," Mangle called after him, then finally closed her eyes. She needed to get some rest for her big day tomorrow.
Charlie looked up from her efforts to coax Mangle out of the storage closet as Marcus stepped into Kid's Cove. She squinted at his belt; was that hatchet always there? His arms were positioned like he was hiding something behind his back.
"Hey, Foxy's come to apologize for his outburst," he said.
"Where is he?" Chica, who had come to help, asked.
"Right here." Marcus threw Foxy's severed robot head onto the floor with a clang. Mangle gasped as Marcus took out the hatchet and brought it down into her forehead, causing her to collapse into a sparking heap. Chica threw herself in front of Toy Chica, going down to save her little sister. Her sacrifice was ultimately in vain, as the night guard proceeded to cut down the Toys before they could flee.
All the while, Charlie stood, frozen, desperately trying to move, to stop this massacre before anyone else was lost, but any hope of that was empty. Finally, Marcus moved in on her, sharpening the hatchet against one of Mangle's endoskeleton bones. Charlie struggled to break free of her invisible bonds, but it was no use as Marcus leaned into stare into her eyes, grinning maniacally. He carefully brought the hatchet down on the edge of her mask, attempting to pry it off, to rip it away from the rest of her body. Every tear of fabric was dagger stabbed into her face. She wanted to scream, but no sound could escape her unchanging mask.
Charlie shook her head to clear the image from her head. She didn't trust Marcus, but she had to admit that the man had, however reluctantly in the case of Balloon Boy, kept his word, and had even worked to protect the other animatronics at the expense of his own safety. Her paranoia was probably just getting the better of her. But it felt so real.
She shrugged and turned towards the sound of footsteps. Sure enough, Marcus poked his head out from around the corner.
"Any luck getting her out?" he asked.
"No," Chica sighed.
"Well, I might have a solution. Foxy's come to apologize for his outburst." Charlie tensed up at the familiar words, ready to pounce on the night guard if he made any sudden moves. Then Foxy came into view, peeking out behind Marcus. The on-edge Puppet calmed down, feeling a little silly that a hallucination had gotten to her like that.
"Where is the lass?" the pirate fox asked.
"In here," Toy Freddy said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the closet door.
"I'll see what I can do," Foxy said as he stepped inside. "Lass, can we talk?" he called out into the darkness.
"Go away."
"Where even are ye?" Foxy closed his uncovered eye and flipped up his eyepatch to let his adjusted eye get a better view. Before he could pinpoint Mangle's location, Marcus' flashlight lit up the small room, revealing a silhouette huddled in the upper far right corner. Unfortunately, it also reflected off the tiles and into the pirate fox's face. Foxy held his hookless hand over his eye and turned to glare at Marcus.
"Sorry," the night guard peeped as he returned the device to his belt. A robotic giggle prompted him to immediately hold it as high as he could over his head.
"Lass, please come down," Foxy continued, turning his attention back to the issue at hand.
"I think my time is better spent playing make-believe up here," the shadow spat back. Foxy searched for support among the others, but the only two who could have been on his side were Charlie, who simply stared at him with her blank smile, and Balloon Boy, who seemed more interested in Marcus' batteries.
"You did say that," Marcus whispered to the pirate fox.
"I guess I deserve that one," Foxy muttered, then lifted his gaze from the floor. "Lass, ye know better than most that these bodies don't have the best…coping mechanisms for pent-up emotion. Take that and add the fact that we can't exactly talk about our feelings during work hours, and ye get a situation where everything gets bottled up faster than it can be let out."
"Excuses!" Marcus snuck into a fake coughing fit.
"Right," Foxy said, "The point is, I've been unfair to you, lass. You've tried your hardest to make the best of what you've been given, and I chose to lash out at you for something ye weren't in control of. For that, I be sorry. From now on, I'll try to be a tad more considerate."
"Do you really mean that?" Mangle's lack of faith in her predecessor was apparent in her voice.
"Well, ye know what they say about honor among thieves, don't ye?"
"How's that apply here?"
"Well, yer a pirate, aren't ya? The sea's most feared criminals?"
"I am?" Marcus could make out Mangle's ears perking up at Foxy's words.
"If ye weren't, ye are now," Foxy replied with a warm smile, "Welcome aboard me crew." Mangle shot out of the shadows, tackling Foxy to the ground with a hug. "Easy now, lass," he said, "We're not there yet."
"Oh!" Mangle's eye widened and she quickly got up off of the pirate, "Sorry, captain!" She gave a quick salute, then looked down at her other head before raising a hand so that one could salute as well.
"No need to be sorry, lass," Foxy said with a chuckle.
Marcus glanced over at the clock by the stage, then cleared his throat. "Don't really wanna break this up, but…it's 5:55."
"What?" Bonnie said, "We gotta clean up before other people get here!"
"No time. Just get into your places. I'll handle this one."
Scott opened the door to Freddy's to find the usual scene in front of him. The new Toy animatronics were standing patiently on the stage, Balloon Boy was hanging around the carousel, and the Puppet was sitting in its box. There wasn't a single janitor in sight, but he expected this. He always liked to come in early, spend some time with the characters.
He began walking towards the office, feeling for obstacles in the dimly-lit dining room. The sound of a crunch under his feet caused him to freeze. He lifted his foot to see what was there. Even in the darkness he was able to make out the plastic case of the first aid kit, which was more of an effort to avoid inspection than for actual safety.
He looked around at the dining room, signs of a struggle becoming more obvious the longer he scanned the area. Chairs were knocked over, a piece of bandage gauze lay abandoned away from the other objects from the kit, and droplets of an unknown liquid trailed out of Kid's Cove. Had something happened here overnight? Come to think of it, that kid Marcus' car was still sitting in the parking lot.
"Oh, no," he breathed, breaking into a sprint towards Parts and Service. He shoved open the door and crouched down next to the spare Freddy suit they had left over from the old location. He gripped the head and gave it a pull, causing it to come free from the rest of the body. Now that there was an opening, Scott leaned in to get a better look at the inside of the suit.
Nothing. There were no bloody stains coloring the mechanical innards like he was used seeing following a disappearance. Maybe he should make sure. He knelt down next to Foxy and switched him on. He could turn on by himself, but the switch served as a sort of shaking him awake.
"Yes, matey?" Foxy asked. His sudden powering up gave his voice the effect of sounding groggy, like he was really a person being dragged out of bed. All in the name of making the characters as real as possible, he once heard the original creator say. Their sentience was a part of that too, he figured.
"Foxy, did you see the newer models come in here during the night?" Scott asked.
"Can't say that I did," Foxy replied, shaking his head to emphasize his answer. Scott looked over at Freddy to see the bear had gashes in his fur that hadn't been there the last time he checked. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe they played a role in the death.
"What happened to you guys?"
"I think it would be better if you saw the endoskeleton in the office," Bonnie said, "He'll help everything make sense."
"No no no, not again," Scott whispered as he bolted out of the room. The moment he was out of sight, the two animatronics who spoke up began snickering. Freddy and Chica put them both in their place with a smack upside their heads.
"Ow!"
"Hey!"
"How is it that you're both still just as immature as the day you died?" Chica asked, glaring at the pair, "You'd think a few years trapped in an animal robot would cause you to grow up."
Scott ran over to the desk at the far end of the hallway, leaning over the monitor to find Marcus staring intently at the screen. The young man glanced up from his work and grinned at the panting man standing over him.
"Oh hey, what's up?" he asked. Scott fell over and began to rest on the desk.
"What happened last night?" the veteran guard gasped, "Freddy's damaged, the first aid kit's scattered across the floor, and I think someone was tracking blood out of Kid's Cove."
"Oh, that was me," Marcus said, holding up his bandaged left arm, "That had to do with this guy." He rolled his chair to the side to reveal the charred remains of a robotic dog. Scott recognized it immediately.
"Where did you find that?" he asked, his eyes wide.
"The closet in Kid's Cove. It booted up and tried to rip me and the animatronics apart. Take a look." Marcus hit rewind on the camera footage until it hit 12:30, then switched to Kid's Cove. Scott watched the whole event unfold, until the robot darted after the young guard into the office hallway. "Care to explain why Freddy's had a murder-bot in storage?" Marcus asked.
"Those prizes were hauled to the scrapyard years ago," Scott whispered, "Back at the first pizzeria. A family got mauled, and we found out someone tampered with 'em. How is one still intact?"
"Don't know, don't care," Marcus said, "All I know is I had to put myself in the way of a nasty shock to take it out. So I'm going to make you a deal. I could easily take this robot and the footage on these cameras to the right people and get this restaurant in hot water. Shut down, arrested, doesn't really matter. But, I like this job, so here's what I'm gonna do. I'll give you some suggestions on how to better secure this place, and you're going to get me a raise. Nothing too big, just an extra few bucks a paycheck to make my life easier. How's that sound?"
"I…I suppose that makes sense."
"Wonderful! Pleasure doing business with you!" Marcus offered his bandaged arm for a handshake. "Now, here's what I'm thinking…"
I told you this would be done soon. Although, I meant for this to be done sooner, soooo… shut up. But I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
