Mangle opened her eyes in a daze and she slowly lifted her head up, looking around the musky tunnel for a second, several pipes ran along the walls, a railing preventing anyone from accidentally bumping into them. Dim lights ran down the corridor, allowing a minimal amount of light to shine.

She drug her arm towards her forehead, grasping it with a grimace as she let out a whimper, her temple pounding as she struggled to stand up, only to be met with the floor once again. Pain was all that she could feel, though, it eventually subsided and gave her a minute to gather herself and stand up, feeling at her hip where the handgun she had been given sat.

"What… happened…"

Mangle took a moment to look up, seeing a trapdoor leading up from a ladder before turning around towards the empty tunnel again, listening closely for any movement before deciding to walk down it.

'Where did Foxy go…'

An eerie, uneasy feeling crept down her spine as she continued to rest her hand on the grip of the Walther PPK, nervous at the prospect of being alone in such a terrifying place. A loud clang drew her attention from further down the hall, causing her to draw the pistol and raise it. She slowly walked down the corridor, each footstep closing the gap between her and the possible opponent.

She quickly rushed the corner, turning right to see that a smaller pipe had broken loose, one end reaching the concrete floor with some water leaking out of it. The water had gained an orange/brown color from stagnating in the pipe, Mangle sighing in relief as she lowered the gun.

'Figures, they cut the water.'

Now, she just had to figure out where she was, something easier said than done.

Mangle walked further down the tight tunnel, traveling for a good few minutes as she looked at the various pipes, valves, gauges, and even electrical work that hung from small hooks along the wall. All of this must've supplied the island, she assumed, the cords were leading somewhere, however. The pipes all branched off down different tiny tunnels towards what she guessed were buildings as they had them every ten or so feet, however the cords seemed much to tiny to power specific buildings, instead the several wires were leading somewhere.

She hummed to herself as she sped up, following the lines through the tunnels, soon reaching a point where they simply go through the wall, just above a door. She grabbed the handle and pushed down, the door clicking open for her to push it before looking around, seeing several camera systems alongside a chair, and several servers in the far-side of the room.

Mangle looked closer at the cameras, finding that most of them had been destroyed, but the few still active were pointed around the few buildings that lay above her, the majority sporting damage from fighting. They all shown people walking around, some armed, some injured, some simply filthy from the environment, each of them an inhabitant of the island stuck here in whatever the hell she was supposed to call it.

It was a swift realization, but it hit her hard, they were spied on, even more than the papers she read had implied. What was this place? What were they doing here? Why did it exist? She had answers for two of those questions, and funnily it was only one answer; like the papers stated, this was an experiment. It wasn't something that just happened, it was forcibly created.

That lead to her questioning how Andy had bought weapons, how Marionette had built such a nice house, why they allowed some of the gangs to roam rampant, why didn't they simply take her while they were preoccupied if she was so important? Was it because of Foxy?

Her head began to hurt again as she stepped away from the monitors, soon turning around towards the servers, a thought running through her head.

'Destroy them.'

She contemplated it for a few seconds, only to walk up, grab the wires which connected the modems and such, and ripped them apart, doing it all over the machines until it was a mess of parts and scrap.

Mangle stared at the heap of metal, a small bit of herself still unsure on why she felt the need to do so, but the effect was that it shut the cameras off, and hopefully denied anyone else access to footage on this side of the island. She turned towards another door in the room, seemingly leading to another tunnel, before looking at a map which allowed her to see the entirety of the complex, unsurprisingly, finally giving her some form of knowledge on her location.

"So, this leads north," She mumbled as she followed it up the map, the district layout differing in color as she reached a certain spot. "I doubt that there would be anyone hunting me there…"

"So, what do we have here?" A man asked as Foxy laid limp on the ground, unable to see anything, and barely able to move as his head seemingly strangled him internally.

"I think we found the Captain, sergeant."

"Is he alive?"

"He's simply unconscious, we caught him trying to escape through a service tunnel."

"Did you find the mark?"

"We didn't see the mark at the location, but she was reported around the area alongside him."

"I'll report this to the Lieutenant, in the meantime gather the rest of the team and begin to scour the service tunnels, if she was there she's probably ended up down there."

Mangle sighed to herself in exertion as she reached the end of the hallway, now apparently in the center of the tunnel complex, landing her directly in the center of the park. However, the park had been torn up the most by fighting, looking more like a hellscape than a location for relaxation.

She continued heading north, listening to her surroundings closely as she continued onward, soon reaching another door-

A slam drew her attention as she turned around, hearing multiple footsteps from down the tunnel in the opposite direction of where she planned on heading, causing her to hold her breath as she looked, watching them enter the center as well, oblivious to her down the hall.

She didn't want to test her aim in close quarters, especially not with the handgun, causing her to try and silently open the door before stepping behind it, watching even more intently as they looked around, one of them unfortunately looking at the closing door and pointing it out as she quickly began to sprint down the hall.

Shouting called out after her as she regretfully pulled out the handgun, firing a few ear blasting rounds towards them. The gunshots, amplified by the concrete prison they all were in, deafened her as she sprinted harder down the hall, soon reaching a room similar to the one from before, only this time the door was already partially open, and the equipment inside had been destroyed already.

Mangle dove out of the doorway and slammed the door behind her, grabbing some lighter stuff to barricade the door for a few seconds as she looked around to plan for defense, only, it didn't last long.

The first man managed to kick the door open, and she instinctively raised the PPK up and fired off four rounds, causing the android to go limp in mid-air, the other two backing up before a fourth pushed past, Mangle managing to fire off her last two rounds, one into his chest, the other presumably striking one of the men in the doorway.

Although she managed to shoot him, his weight proved to have more energy, colliding with her violently as her practice with Ava kicked in, kneeing him in the gut before raising her arms up parallel to each other with his neck in between, twisting her body to the side and letting out a loud cracking noise as he collapsed as well, Mangle falling from the added weight.

The second man charged at her, as she laid collapsed on the floor, causing her to struggle against the now dead weight on her legs before he attempted to kick her, Mangle raising her hand up autonomously before throwing it away, managing to leverage her leg from underneath the body and shimmying out.

Before she could react, the man got a hit in on the side of her head, throwing her to the floor as she felt that pain from earlier, only this time more intensely. The third man followed up, except he only tried to grab her arms, but she struggled against their attempts at capturing her.

It continued for what felt like hours, she wouldn't give up, but her head kept pounding, she could tell a red haze was growing in her vision, she subconsciously focused on looking through her left eye-

Something snapped, nothing like she had ever felt before. Time was slowed dramatically, she could feel every breath took much longer, the sounds she heard seemed warped and distorted, her perception had changed…

In a split-second, she had kicked the man back who was struggling to grab her ankles, all the while breaking her wrists away from the second man, rolling away and shifting before landing on her feet in a crouched position a few feet away.

She couldn't explain it, but she knew what to do…

She could sense things differently, watching them attempt to run at her much slower than before, almost stopped in time. But her hands focused on something else, grabbing her handgun and loading a new magazine, seven shots, three per, one spare.

It changed again, Mangle watched as she effortlessly loaded the new mag, racked the slide, and shot them three times each as they ran at her, both falling down feet away from her.

Whatever had just happened saved her, but it also terrified her…

'Is this what Foxy is going through?'

Rather than dwell on it, she suppressed the mental note and placed the handgun back at her hip, watching in horror at the scene that had played out. Running quickly out of the room towards the exit in the northern district even faster…

Through her running, she ran for about 35 minutes, reaching the exit in what she considered record time as the mental images of the men continued to run through her head. Only once she opened up the door to the exit did she forget the images, and instead realized the hell Foxy went through in the northern district.

The tunnel was majorly destroyed, the door jammed up slightly by debris she managed to push out of the way before looking around, seeing sunlight near the end. All of the walls were covered in black soot and ash, coated in the dusty material and coating her fur and clothes in seconds.

Mangle walked out into the tunnel, continuing further until the sunlight shined down on her, the road above had been split by a trench, covered in thick layers of ash. Pieces of rock, ruble, debris, and everything else imaginable surrounded her. She could see just above her on the road was a destroyed transport truck similar to the ones from the location the guns were firing from.

On top of that, and much to her dismay, hundreds of burnt bodies littered the ground, leaving her nauseous as she crawled up out of the fuel-exploding-made trench. Even the thought of knowing they were there crippled her as she landed on her stomach and chest, losing her strength mid-pull-up. Soon managing to climb enough to hurl on the ground beside her, rubbing her mouth off with the sleeve of her jacket in an attempt at cleaning herself.

The number hundreds wasn't even accurate to describe the bodies, in her opinion, buildings around her were all destroyed, the remaining frames covered in the ash similar to snow in the winter. The dead silence struck a cord within her, the eerie feeling causing her to sit down and bury her head in her legs for a second as she digested everything from the last few chapters.

'Where is Foxy? How did we get split up?'

She mulled over it quietly as she chewed on her lip, unable to think of a reason past "shit happened, I have to move on," but that didn't settle right with her. He was somewhere, and he was likely hurt. He'd proven several times before he wouldn't abandon her. So, the only logical outcome was that he'd gotten hurt, but…

What if he got killed?

It didn't strike her right, either, she knew that he wasn't dead, but he wasn't okay. She could sense it. Like a memory she just couldn't distinctly remember. Whatever it was, however, she would have to figure out later.

She figured she would have to return to Marionettes, at least to rest. She felt weak after everything, but… She still felt uneasy…

Mangle steeled herself mentally as she crawled to her feet, beginning the trek back to the eastern district in earnest as her mind wandered even further…

Foxy had awoken, he was placed in a chair and strapped down by chains as he uncomfortably leaned his head back. He had been captured, and they had ran tests on him, though, they refused to tell him anything. Everything in his body hurt, his feet, legs, arms, hands…

A cat android opened up the door and walked in, he was about 3/4ths of Foxy's standing height, but still towered over him as he was forced in the chair. The android pulled up another, more comfortable looking chair and sat down in front of Foxy, who sat powerlessly as he had been stripped of everything but his undergarments.

"So, you are the one I've heard about. I'm Judd. Got a name?" The man offered a smile, but Foxy refused the offer. He instead ignored the cat as he leaned his head back again.

"I can't get to know you if you won't talk, now. What's you're name?" The cat asked again, this time with a more stern voice as Foxy leaned his head down slowly.

"Go fuck yourself back through that door, you insufferable cunt."

Foxy let out a small chuckle for a second before he felt his head get jolted to the side, causing him to cough as he coughed up some synthetic blood from his cheek hitting his teeth, a blackish mist leaking out of his crooked smile as he stared back at the feline.

"I see that Remnant ability is working out for you, now, what's your name before I punch you again?"

"Not getting much from me, bud," He replied as the man sighed, contemplating for a few moments before turning around, seemingly brandishing a knife from nothing as he slung it towards Foxy's thigh, the blade getting nestled down to the metal that acted as bone for him.

"Let's test the limits of that ability, then." Judd crouched down as he pressed his finger towards the end pommel of the knife, slowly and methodically moving it around as he stared at the vulpine. "You do realize you've caused a code-0 scenario, right? I'd assume you have knowledge on it considering the file that was left to you by one of our agents before you terminated him for us."

In a swift movement, he pulled the knife out of his leg, the two watching closely as the mist leaked out from the wound, however, it seemed to stop bleeding rather quickly.

"Now, we are supposed to capture you and the prototype, the issue is we have you, but not her. Mind helping us amend that mistake?"

"You're a psychopath, aren't you," Foxy replied, smirking through a clear grimace as he watched on as the man sunk the blade into his gut, causing him to lean forward in a heave as synthetic blood began to leak from his mouth.

"That should shut up your smart remarks for the next few moments. If we don't get her as well the company will send in recallers to wipe the island, apparently you killed the one planned to deal with you. We've devoted years into this experiment, decades, and you coming in here and screwing everything up is quite anti-climatic, if you ask me. So, please, help me figure out where she is so it doesn't go to waste," The man grabbed onto the handle of the knife as he yanked it out, allowing for it to finally heal up.

Foxy coughed up some more of the blackish blood for a few moments before replying,"Long winded bastard, I don't know where she is. As far as I know, she's gone. As far as she knows, I'm dead."

Judd threw a punch at him, the vulpine passing out from the whiplash effect in a few seconds…

Semi-late April Fools? Instead of dying like I usually do after uploading, I managed to prepare a few chapters I plan to upload back-to-back, this being the first of the set. I'll probably upload the next in a few days or next week, but I think this'll let me keep a backlog prepared so there aren't half years between chapters, however, I might condense it into a couple days of uploads. Depends on how I feel, lol.

Anyways, I think we're well into act II of the story, I'd say starting at the compound section and thereafter. I predict maybe ten more chapters at most until I finally reach the last act. I took a lot of inspiration from the Ukraine conflict during 2014- as I've always been closely studying that conflict, and recently it sparked and it in turn made my inspiration for the story a raging bonfire again. Funny how stuff like this works out. See you.