Ah the custom night. Level 20 all around! Of course, the difficulty setting can go two ways.

"Well, Mr. Bear, you're looking nice today. Getting ready to walk around tonight? Well, I hope there're no hard feelings between us if I don't take any chances." Fritz began unscrewing Toy Freddy's back panel. "No hard feelings, Mr. Bear," he repeated as a wire snapped. "You're going to be scrapped anyway."

The new night guard checked the clock. 11:50. Plenty of time. He clipped a few more wires on the motionless bear and then moved on to his next robotic victim. When he was satisfied with his tampering, he went into the office and sat down, completely safe.

"The new Freddy and his friends were walking around at night? Why didn't I get to see that before Mr. Fritz broke them?" Katie whined. Timothy was watching Toy Bonnie uneasily, creeped out that the robots who had been so friendly during the day could have tried to murder somebody at night. Nathaniel was once again cursing himself for not being there, both for the kids and for the night watchman who had so very nearly lost his life. Nate was sure that he could have done something, but once again he had left everyone to fend for themselves. What was wrong with him? Well, it was high time he learned from his mistakes. From now on, he vowed, he would always be there for the ones who needed him.

"So, the place is closing," Timothy started. "The new animatronics are getting scrapped, the building is going to be knocked down and replaced with a fast food joint or something, and the original robots are being put into storage because nobody wants to buy them. There isn't anything left for us here. Shouldn't we be at the stars by now?"

Nathaniel found himself avoiding his friend's gaze. How was he going to tell him that he didn't know when they were going to get to move on? He was really regretting saying that about the stars. It had started off as something to give Timmy hope that things would get better, to pretend to know that they were going to have a happy ending in the face of an unknown fate, but then Timmy had believed it and then the kids had believed it and even Nate had found himself believing it. It was just something to hope for, but then it had become the only thing that they were hoping for. The lie had gone far enough.

"I don't know," he whispered.

Anything that resembled a smile on Timothy's face faded. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean I don't know what's going to happen to us." Nate's voice started to choke up with tears, but he went on. "I don't know where we're going to go or when we're going to go or if we're even going to get to go at all."

"But you said -"

"I lied, ok?! I lied about the stars! I made it all up so we wouldn't have to face it that none of us has any idea what the heck is going to happen!"

The effect was instantaneous. Every child stared up at him, speechless. Slowly Timothy turned away. "I can't believe it," he murmured in disbelief. "I actually trusted you. I actually thought that you were the first person who was nice to me. I… I thought that you cared about how I was feeling and that you wanted to protect me and keep me safe. But it was all just a big lie." Timothy spun around and stamped his foot as hard as he could. The fact that it just phased through the floor soundlessly did little to lessen the effect. "You LIED to all of us!" he shouted.

"Timmy, I-"

"You what? You're sorry you lied? You're sorry you -" Timothy's glare turned to pure hatred as he realized something. "You know perfectly well why we're still here, don't you? How could I have missed the obvious? Binding us all to the robots, you… you trapped us here! You just don't know how to move on so you won't let us have peace, either! That's it, isn't it?! You're the only thing standing between us and whatever peace we're supposed to be in! Well, you aren't sorry enough to let us go, are you?!"

"Actually I am!" exploded Nathaniel. "I am and I have tried to reverse what I did to you! To all of you! Well guess what, Timmy: nothing happened! Whatever's keeping you all here isn't me anymore! And I get it, I shouldn't have made up the thing about the stars, ok? You were just so upset and I was getting depressed and if felt like the right thing to do at the time. But then it turned into something we all actually believed and it seemed better than confronting that I didn't know how to get us out of here so I kept telling myself that it was right to keep telling you that that was going to happen and… … If I could go back in time and save everyone, I would. I can't, though. I can't go back, I can't move on, I can't do anything. I just get depressed and leave instead of being there and trying to help."

Timothy looked like he was about to respond, but instead he took a deep breath. He opened his mouth again but still said nothing. Closing his eyes, he very calmly announced, "I don't care that you're dead, Nate, because I am going to kill you." Then all fury was unleashed as he threw himself on top of the older boy and started smacking him repeatedly while screaming.

"Enough!" Katie shot into the air and with surprising strength, yanked the two combatants off each other. "You're acting like big babies!" she scolded, hovering and glaring down at them like some authority. "I've been around for less than half the time you two have and you're showing less maturity than a couple of fussy, squabbling toddlers!" Both boys cringed and looked down in shame. "We obviously have a problem, but fighting isn't going to solve it," she continued. "Nate shouldn't have lied to us. At least he told us the truth, though! Can we be reasonable, agree that he shouldn't have lied and better not do it again, and use what we just learned to try to find a way out of our situation instead of fighting? We only have our little group to work with and we all have the same problem, so can we work together instead of tearing each other apart?" She looked to each ghost. Every one of them nodded meekly.

"Good," she sighed, touching down on the ground. "Now that we're all settled, let's actually try to work something out. We know that just waiting isn't going to get us to move on to… wherever we're supposed to go. And Nate and these robots aren't keeping us here, so we need to figure out what is. Then we can all finally move on. Wait," she paused, "you all want to move on, right? Nobody wants to stay here?"

"I'm afraid," whimpered Joey. "If we're not going to the stars where everything's peaceful, then where are we moving on to?"

"We don't know," Katie shuffled her feet nervously, "but we can be sure that staying in this pizzeria isn't going to get us anywhere. Wherever we're going, I think we're supposed to go there. It's not like we're seeing any other ghosts, so dead people are supposed to move on. It's high time we figured out how to do the same."

"I don't want to move on alone," Brian said quietly. "I just don't know where we're going, and that's scary. I don't think I can go alone."

"We'll all move on together," Katie decided. "That way, none of us will have to face doing it alone. I know I won't leave until I know my brother can, too."

"I think I know why I'm here," Timothy offered. "At first, I didn't want to leave if Nate couldn't, and then I wanted to stay because of you, Katie. But ever since that man murdered everyone, I knew I couldn't leave until I was certain he couldn't hurt anyone else like he did with all of you."

"I think I'm here for the same reason," Nate put in. "I won't leave knowing that other kids might end up in our situation."

"So our plan is to send the murderer to jail where he can't hurt anyone ever again," Katie said. Everybody nodded, although the two eldest of the group wouldn't mind putting the murderer out of commission in a more permanent way. Of course, they weren't going to voice that opinion in front of a bunch of six-year-olds.

"The killer seems to be attracted to the Freddy's franchise," Nate started. "He got me outside the old diner, you kids at this place before it changed ownership, and he tried to strike again here. There's a fair chance that, if somebody else buys the old robots and sets up a new Freddy's, he'll come back. We'll be waiting for him."

"We can control the old Freddy and Co and use them to stop him!" nodded Timmy. "And when they're moved to storage, we can be controlling them so we can get moved, too! We'll find some way to sneak your Marionette with us, too."

"Then that's the plan." Katie gave a hopeful smile. "We know what to do. All that's left is to wait."

And there ends everything pertaining to the second game. I know that this chapter was short, but it had a transition that needed to be there and a few loose ends that had to be wrapped up before the next part comes. Anyway, hopefully it was good and the next chapter should be longer. And a happy early Easter to all. If you don't celebrate it, have a nice day anyway.