[Flashback]:
"It's working!" Chica cheered with every lowered decibel of the entity taunting her. Though she cannot move much to avoid the disconnection, she doesn't restrain herself to give small and quick claps. "I can't see anything!"
"Your eyes look the same." Gregory peered over her from the dome. "It's possible your system is utilizing every code to welcome the antidote, ruling your sight as a minor task."
"I'm not going to go blind, am I?"
"Nope, it's fine. Besides, if it does come to that point, we can just install new optics."
"As long as they are purple. Say, where did you get this reversal from?"
"From Carleen."
"Who?"
"Carleen. Carleen Denver." He eyed her with confusion. "You don't know Carleen?"
"Doesn't ring a bell. Then again, I can't access my registry."
"She's not a guest, she's the woman responsible for creating your programming. She's your creator."
She gasped. "Like how God is with humans?"
"Uh-huh."
"Wow, my actual creator. I would have liked to meet her."
"Same, but she can't leave the hospital. They hadn't cleared her to go home."
"That's too bad, I hope she gets well soon." She readjusted herself to a slightly different position. Sounds of an animatronic walking tip a rolling toolbox, sending thousands of objects to clutter the floors.
"Whoopsie! Clumsy me," Tessa pushes the objects with her foot to the side. "Hey little Gregory, what are you up too?"
"Chica's antidote, it's already doing her wonders and it's been ten minutes." He briefly explained the process. "She'll be back to herself in the next hour."
"As she should be, mind if I have a closer look?"
"Sure," The child moves aside for Tessa to view the device in progress. Such a neat object indeed. What a shame for it to fail as it imports viral codes... She inserts a finger into the drive, receiving a handful of shocks.
"Ahh!"
"Tessa!" He'd rushed to help the animatronic, only to receive a subtle shock. Not wanting to get electrocuted, he'd rushed to the power outlet and shut it off, waiting for the tiger to disconnect and fall to the ground. After reconnecting the power for Chica's viral reversal to resume, he steadily approaches Tessa.
"Tessa? Are you okay?"
"Gregory! What's going on?" Chica calls.
"It's Tessa, she got electrocuted and – AH!" He lets out a scream when the tiger leaps into his view, daggering her long claws into the side.
"You rotten pest!" She growled. He tried to evade her, one scoot he took, she took 2 until she'd pinned him underneath. "You did that on purpose!"
"Tessa –"
"I will not let you ruin my chance at stardom. I'm the star, not her. Remove that device or I'll remove your spine!" He's trying to escape her grasp with futile effort as blood streams out his side. In anger, she scratches him, imprinting two bloody cuts on his cheek. "I will not ask you again!"
"Okay, okay! At least let me up." He tearfully pleads and with a smirk, she hoists him by an arm, keeping a grip as she drags him to the mainframe. Chica's calling for him, her voice echoing through the room. Tessa orders him to mute Chica's voice and he obliges, his tears stinging the freshly made cuts and pain announces from his side.
"Hurry it up! I don't have all day and neither will you. Stop prolonging!" He hits a button, seemingly giving the command to cease the viral reversal. Instead, a batch of repair bots swarm into the room, picking at the animatronic and infuriating her to attack. A panicked Gregory rushes to the main control panel, frantically pressing for an urgent call.
"We're on our way downstairs–"
"Vanessa!" He cuts her off, feeling the pain intensifying in his side.
"Gregory? What's wrong? What's happening?"
Metal scrapping metal as Tessa pulls, bites and fights the bots, her shrieks of anger terrorizes him. She glares at him, throwing a damaged bot, intended to hit him, but it strikes a section on the control panel, creating infrequencies. He couldn't hear Vanessa, and she wouldn't be able to hear him. Another bot thrown, it hits the dome, breaking the tempered glass and sending a piece into Chica's leg. She'd winced at the indication of a damaged part, her systems disabling her vision to prioritize the embedment of the antidote. From where he'd been standing, Gregory could see the progress rapidly at 86% - Chica was almost done! If he could hold out for a few more minutes.
Tessa obliterating the last bot and bolting towards him as Vanessa calls for him utilized a different outcome. "Help!" He calls out, Tessa towers over him, breaking the communicator and cornering him. Her once green eyes hollowed with the remaining fury of a thousand deadly hurricanes.
"You are going to regret that." She sneered in a whisper, extending her claws to a longer length and grabbing him, hoisting the child by his ankle.
"Leave him alone!" Chica cries from inside the dome. Tessa scoffs, watching the chicken robot struggle as her head was leaning forward. The viral reversal had done most of its job and ensured a mandatory shutdown to complete its process. Tessa smirks at the situation
I like to see you try and stop me Chica. By the time you get to being yourself, you may just have blood on your hands. She forcefully detracts the viral reversal, sending out errors as she departs from Parts and Services disregarding Gregory's cries of protest. She doesn't consider, as she further travels into the utility's tunnels, a looming presence.
"Drop him!" It sounded like Chica, but turning around to face her advisory, the tiger noted the dangerous and glowing red eyes on the latter and emitting a different and intimidating tone.
"What's with the creepy tone? Oh, don't tell me you called on your imagination fairy?"
"I said, drop him! This is between you and me, leave him out of this."
"You really think you can intimidate me?" Tessa releases Gregory's leg, the child falls to the ground with a grunted sound. "Come on then, 'new and improved', bring it!"
Chica responded with lunging at the tiger, hurdling into the former and striking an uppercut. Punch after punch, kick after kick, bite after bite as each had her own method to try and topple the other. Chica gets the upper-hand, pouncing on top, immediately picking and breaking apart at the casing and exoskeleton whilst keeping an unbreakable hold at Tessa's throat. She eyed the wounded child with his eyes half-closed, pulling at Tessa for one last time, seemingly disabling the animatronic and rushed over to Gregory.
"Gregory?" She shakes him. "Gregory!"
"Hmm?" He focused on the animatronic scanning him over with a different set of eyes. Red, scary optics. Like the night she first went mindless. He pushed away from her, screaming in fear and shaded his vision from her view.
"It's okay, it's me. It's me." She reassured, embracing him into her arms as she scooped him up. "Let's get you out of here."
Destroy him... Chica shakes her head, wanting to remove such intrusive commands. She could feel it trying to control her and it showed.
"Chica, why did you do that? The virus –"
"Is no more of a threat than knowing Tessa could have killed you." She interrupted, eyeing the disrupted virus reversal and allowed for Gregory to reclaimed it. "Besides, it doesn't look too damaged. We can fix me later, let's take you back to Vanessa." She could see that he was still terrified of how she looked. Red eyes and different vocals, how could a robot explain to a child what she didn't understand? Her voice was different but none like the virus entity that's trying to control her. That voice is manipulative and dangerous. This voice is still her but more abrasive yet determined. It startled her to not know why she's like this, but at the same time, her not hurting Gregory is the reassurance she needed. Wouldn't that be funny if I had another Chica that I morphed into? Ha, that's funny. Robots don't transform from different personas.
She continued her way upstairs. Or at least her attempts to find her way upstairs. Everything in her system was disrupted, including the knowledge of the ungroups. Gregory wouldn't be much of an aide considering he hadn't been down here. And the gash in his side crippled him, small heaps of blood pouring onto her hand. "Gregory, your wound is getting worse. Where can we find a first aid station?"
Gregory doesn't respond. At first she'd feared that he had fallen asleep, as from her understanding, humans shouldn't sleep when they're critically injured. Then he lets out a scared noise, prompting her to turn around and get knocked in the head by Tessa. The impact hurls her to the other end of the hall, gripping onto Gregory to let her body take the blow of the forceful grounds.
She released him. "Run!" She ordered, standing as a barrier as the tiger gallops and topples her, pressing her head into the gavel. The pressure releases before Gregory screams, ending in silence.
No! She chases Tessa until the end of a hall, horrified at the latter holding a bloody Gregory up with a victorious smirk. "What did you do to him!"
"Survival of the fittest." Tessa laughs and chucks the child to the side, crushing the device in half. "Face it lamebrain, I won!"
"You're DEAD!"
Enough of this meaningless charade, I'm taking over...
That's all I remembered in full transparency. C3 shutters. We – him and I – resumed fighting for control of myself while fighting you. Chica takes a couple of steps back, horrified and shaking to the point of tears.
Gregory. She sniffles. But you weren't the one to hurt him, you saved him!
Tiger has been out to get us since she got here, we should have disassembled her then. C2 spoke, mending the endless void. Stupid thing! Why won't this close!
Doesn't erase all the other horrible things that I'd done. C3 corrects dejected. I can't say if he did anymore damage to the child when he resumed control. He grows stronger each time, stronger than this tough chick was able to handle. I didn't think I'd ever be freed from his control.
Luckily, the reversal worked. Strange that it wasn't fully uploaded, but it still worked!
'Enough of this meaningless charade, I'm taking over...' She recalled those words. Something isn't adding up here. All this time, I thought that I was fighting against you, that I'd thought it had been you that was the threat the entire time. But that voice, that doesn't sound like any of us. You mean to tell me that there's another one involved?
Ahh! EW, EW, EW, EW, EWW! Something touched me! Gross!
They rush to C2's aid, a silhouette roaming from the void.
What is that thing?
Who cares! Help me close it before it escapes! They'd struggle with pinning the ever-growing void until it had been too late. For the shadow bursts through the void, knocking the three of them backside and formulates in front of them.
A ghostly and translucent anthropomorphic cloud with gloved-like hands, a large and creepy grinning expression and big, dark redden eyes. It spoke to them with a demonic presence.
Hello ladies, I'm back.
