Whatever "rumors" of a kidnapping and almost a murder were being spread about what had happened that day grew into an angry case against the pizzeria staying open to the public. An investigation started the next day. If the rumors that were rapidly being confirmed to be true didn't turn away customers, the policemen looking around the place certainly did. Despite the company's best efforts to assure everyone that nothing was wrong, less people came every day. Most unnerving was the strange report that each of the kidnapped children insisted was true: that one of the animatronics had temporarily achieved a creepy amount of sentience, followed them into the room they had been taken to, and started yelling at them and the kidnapper. Nothing seemed altered or malfunctioning in said robot, however, so it was unexplainable how it could have even walked out of the room by itself. Whatever had caused the strange behavior, it frightened people. There was even an accusation that the kidnapper had reprogrammed it to help him lure the children into the back. That of course led to the assumption that the rest of the animatronics were wired as well.

The manager tried in vain to keep the public thinking that his place was safe. He opened up a new position of secondary day guard to put an extra pair of eyes on the children. Jeremy seemed like a good candidate to fill that position, if only to stop his insistent complaining to get out of the night shift. He was going to be offered the job soon, that is, as long as the place didn't close down first. And that appeared to be what was going to happen. Customers weren't coming and the demands to make sure that the robots wouldn't do something unpredictable or even dangerous had no way of being fulfilled. Management had even gotten desperate enough to try calling up the original owner to see if he knew anything that could help, even though he had never even seen this new batch of animatronics. Timmy and Katie perked up upon hearing their father's voice, but the man made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with anything with the word "Fazbear" in it. He hung up and answered no more calls. Shutting down seemed inevitable.

Jeremy was finishing up his sixth night. Nate had managed to avoid the guard once again and was out showing Timmy and Katie how neon signs work while the rest of the kids ran through their nightly shenanigans. The clock read 5:56AM. Being so close to the end of the night and, more importantly, to the end of his dreaded job, Jeremy was looking a lot less upset than he usually did. He was filled with hope as he thought about how close he was to the end of the nightmares. That hope blinded him to just one problem: the shift was not actually over yet.

He checked the cameras again. Finally I'm getting out of this! he thought happily. He was soooo looking forward to this shift being over so he could finally get some sleep. The neighbor's dogs had been acting up all afternoon and he was pretty sure he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep during the day. And thinking about the day shift he'd have to start in only an hour after this one was finished was exhausting to just think about. He'd have to go home and try to get some sleep before that. Oh how ready he was to go home and sleep. He yawned, closing his eyes just for one second…

He isn't wearing his mask, was the first thing Suzy realized upon entering the guard room. The second thing she realized was that Toy Chica was walking up behind her. Suzy shuddered. She liked the new chicken well enough during the day, but she definitely creeped her out when the robot's beak and friendly eyes came off. Speaking of eyes, if the little girl could have, her own eyes would have widened at the sight of Toy Chica about to spring upon her unsuspecting prey.

Suzy was used to breaking down and crying in bad situations. It was a miracle that she found the strength to push all that fear away for even just a few moments to sprint forward and push past the nightmarish chicken to get to the guard first. Jeremy was jolted awake and found himself being roughly seized by the faceless rabbit. Suzy kept running despite his struggling. She could think of just one plan: hide Jeremy before Toy Chica caught up to them. And the newer robot was bound to catch up to them soon, so they had to find a hiding place sooner. The nearest door led to the room where spare animatronic parts were kept. Perfect! If wearing a mask fools the new robots, a whole costume should be even better! Suzy reasoned.

"Let me go! Help!" Suzy grabbed the nearest Freddy costume and proceeded to try to force Jeremy inside of it. He responded to her intentions by kicking her as hard as he could. Unfortunately for him, Brian/Freddy came in at that moment. Don't you dare hurt my friend! he wanted to shout, but a static-filled scream came out of his broken voice box instead. Jeremy looked up and paled when he saw the second animatronic. Now even more desperate to escape the room, he did the worst thing he could do in his situation: try to kick Suzy away again. Brian rushed to defend his friend. Smacked away by the bear, the poor guard hit the ground hard. He looked up at his two attackers with wide eyes as he realized that this was going to be the end of him. From the doorway, Toy Chica silently watched the scene, perhaps wondering why the two animatronics weren't stuffing their catch into a costume, perhaps picturing the day and party ahead of her, or perhaps not thinking at all. Whatever the case, she suddenly began to shudder and abruptly turned around and walked out of the room.

An astonished Jeremy put it together quickly. "It's six o'clock," he said, hardly believing his luck. "You're not allowed to hurt me anymore!" He shakily got to his feet. "I did it! I survived six nights in hell!" He smiled triumphantly. "Hear that, you dumb robots? I made it! How do you like that? Ha!" Brian shot out a paw and grabbed the guard by the collar of his shirt. The celebrating instantly stopped. Having asserted his dominance, Brian let him go. Jeremy took a few fearful steps backward and then turned and sprinted out the door as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Are you ok?" asked Brian, depossessing.

"I'm fine," Suzy replied. "Bonnie's broken, but well built. I'm more worried that I might have hurt Jeremy."

"He'll be fine," muttered Brian.

One last day. One last party. Jeremy nervously stood by the stage. The three toys seemed innocent enough now, but he couldn't look at them without thinking about how they acted during the night. "They're not gonna hurt you, kid." Jeremy turned to see the man who had spoken: an adult in a standard purple security guard outfit identical to the one Jeremy was wearing at that moment. "They just moved you to the day shift, right? Jeremy, isn't it?" Jeremy nodded meekly. The man smiled. "I'm Phillip, the night guard before you. We're gonna be partners for today's day shift." He held out a hand and Jeremy shook it.

"Did they, um…"

"Move?" Phillip finished for him. "Yeah, call me insane but I'll swear till the day I die that those bots were trying to attack me."

The younger guard blinked in astonishment. "I thought I was crazy or something."

"Eh, well, maybe we're both crazy," Phillip elbowed him. "Too bad nobody's gonna believe us. Anyways, you got through your nights ok?"

Jeremy shuddered. "Actually…" He began telling the man what had happened.

"Oh my," Philip paled when the story was over. "Kid, are you ok? If they hurt you…" Oh boy. He had wanted to quit that nightmare job and never come back, but if some kid who wasn't even out of high school yet actually died because he had left a position open, well, he didn't want that, either. Better you than me was his motto, but he didn't like wishing harm upon anyone.

"I'm fine. I almost wasn't, though."

"You sure you're alright? Do you need some water or anything?" Jeremy shook his head in response. "You sure? Ok, well, I guess there's not much that can help if you were just a little roughed up," he sighed. "But seriously, they tried to stuff you inside a costume?"

"It's about as crazy as everything else we're talking about."

"Eh, well, you shouldn't have had to go through that." He pitied the poor soul who was going to take their job tonight, especially now that he knew what was in store for him or her. This person wouldn't even know the danger before it was too late. Well, life wasn't fair. What could he do, take the job again himself? Heck no! Still, maybe there was some way he could help.

"Kid, they can call me crazy," he sighed, "but I think people deserve to know a little about what this company's hiding. About how they treat their night guards and stuff."

"I thought you just said that nobody is going to believe us."

"They probably won't," he shrugged. "Still, it'll start a few rumors. I say we could use a little revenge for all that minimum wage hell we had to go through. You know, damage this place's reputation, turn off a few people looking for jobs, maybe even revive those investigations that were going on a while back."

"You go do that." He yawned. Whoever said that fifteen minute naps were refreshing did not know what they were talking about. "I think I need to sit down for a moment."

"Eh, well, just make sure the boss doesn't catch you taking a break. Kid's Cove was pretty empty last I checked. You go there and I'll cover for you," he winked. Jeremy smiled gratefully and entered the room that was usually swimming in toddlers. He leaned against the wall as far away from Mangle as he could and savored the quiet.

A group of toddlers swarmed in. Their parents followed, keeping a close watch. The manager moved with the group, trying to explain to them how safe his animatronics were.

Scanning… Scanning… Processing... Mangle raised her head when one small child began chewing on her ear. Her face scanners, damaged by days of being played with, began picking up things that weren't there.

A kid tried to climb up Jeremy's leg, successfully waking him up in the process. Realizing that his boss was in the same room as him, the young guard hastily tried to look like he hadn't just been asleep. The manager didn't notice, but Philip did. The second guard walked into the room to wake his partner before he was inevitably caught taking a break. He looked from his boss to his coworker. Jeremy folded his arms and nodded in the direction of the manager. Philip shrugged. Mangle turned her head towards Jeremy.

Looking back, most people would agree that what happened next in that room was one of the defining moments of 1987. The broken fox's malfunctioning face scanners suddenly identified the nearest adult as an escaped criminal. Unfortunately for Jeremy, that person happened to be him. With a static-filled growl, Mangle pulled herself up to hang from the ceiling. Philip's eyes widened. He pushed several children out of the way to try to reach his unsuspecting coworker. A toddler began crying when the man accidentally stepped on the toy he was playing with. The boy's mother turned her head to console her child and saw the mechanical fox poised to strike. Mangle launched herself forward, mouth full of sharp teeth open and ready to bite. Jeremy heard a faint whirring sound behind him before Philip pushed him out of the way, the older guard dropping to the safety of the floor as well. The toddler's mother screamed and pushed the parents nearest to her out of harm's way. There was only one person still in the path of danger.

"I assure you, these animatronics are perfectly safe -" The manager took one unsteady step backward and then fell over. The front part of his head was completely gone. Mangle twitched feverishly a foot away, her teeth covered in blood.

Needless to say, Freddy's was going to shut down for a little while.