Gaz hadn't exactly been too thrilled about standing up for him when she'd first seen him getting beaten.

He'd been practically lying in a puddle of his own tears and blood, Torque and his friends kicking him again and again and laughing uproariously. Yet another great Recess, Gaz had remarked inside her head as she turned her attention back to her Game Slave 3 device, continuing to get through "Vampire Piggy Hunter: RPG". It was the latest spinoff game in the series and she had to-

Then she'd heard it. Heard his voice. For a moment, she'd done nothing, as if taking it all in. Then she'd bolted in his direction, punching Torque so hard in the back of the head he'd spun through the air and slammed into the fence at the other end of the playground. The other kids took off running as Gaz helped the sniffling Nicholas up.

"Gaz." She'd said simply, Dib blinking in surprise at this display as he and Zim looked away from each other's argument, both pointing accusingly as Nicholas wiped his nose on his arm and sniffled.

"N-N-Nicholas." He murmured. "Th-thank you for that. Y-You didn't really have to."

"Well I did."

"Yo-you're really n-nuh-nuh nice." Nicholas mumbled. "I-I be-better go get-get washed, m-my mom, my mom she won't, she won't like me all d-d-dirty."

"Come on. I'll walk you there." Gaz said with a sigh, putting a hand on his shoulder and leading him towards the school's doors, Dib understnaidng why she was doing this with a quiet nod before kicking Zim between the legs. He was satisfied with the result, taking off as Zim hobbled as best he could after, Gaz bringing Nick to the men's bathroom and standing outside it. She nodded at him as he went in. "Go on. Can't disappoint your mom."

Gaz wasn't stupid. She knew full well she was in a haunted pizzeria, and trying to deny that would have been idiotic. She'd seen a dead child and, evidently, its ghost. She'd seen things moved from where they'd been before. She saw artwork changed to glare accusingly at her.

Frankly, she had seen enough. The smart thing to do would be to get out of the damn place and-

Wait. The door! The door, it was locked on her end. She raced towards the front door, her hat flying through the air, going clear off her head as her hands grasped around the chains she'd tied to the front door handle. She gripped them and tugged, trying to untangle him, to get to the keyhole she'd covered up. Unfortunately that was when she heard the unmistakable sound of something big and heavy moving around not too far from where she was.

Gaz let go of the chains, whipping around, focusing only on the sound of the

THRAHK. THRAHK. THRAHK.

That echoed through the pizzeria as the wind seemed to pick up outside and her eyes narrowed intensely. She grabbed hold of a nearby table's chair, waving it in front of her with a growl. "You stay the hell away from me, whatever you are!" She growled out. "Or I will stuff this chair so far through your skull you'll be able to use your head as a-"

She trailed off when she saw what she was looking at. It was, unmistakably, Bloaty. Bloaty the Pizza Hog. Pinwheel hat, ugly bowtie, big, fat gloved hands and thick shoes. The Bloaty Animatronic had been designed, evidently, to act as a replacement for the original Bloaty. Yet in the darkness, something about it was…off. It's eyes were almost completely black, a single pinprick of white gazing out at her as it opened its jaws, revealing an uncomfortably unnatural double set of teeth, one for the outer shell, the other for the endoskeleton. More disturbingly, there was the unmistakable impression left on its face: a shadow mark that indicated the entire thing was covered in dust save for one crucial area: Two handprints.

A handprint over the thing's head and another over the mouth. A clear sign that somebody had recently, and desperately, tried to keep this thing the hell away from them. And from the unmistakable red substance faintly visible on its outer teeth, they had failed. Bloaty's mouth opened unnaturally wide, tilting his head slightly to the right, then to the left as it spoke in a distorted, foul, mechanical tone. "Heyyaaa kiddies! It's yer best pal Bloaty! Come on and climb on up! I'll give you a great big HUG!"

Gaz briefly stared at the thing, scarcely able to really believe her eyes. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Certainly not that. But then reality hit her and she did the smart thing, launching the chair at the animatronic and taking off, diving into the hallway nearby. She raced for the women's bathrooms, crawling under the stall at the end, hiding inside, feet kept high above the floor as she wrapped her arms around her legs and waited, taking in a deep breath. She tried to breathe through her nose as silently as possible as the unmistakable thudding noise of Bloaty came ever closer, a creak echoing through the bathroom as he opened the door.

"I'll keep ya safe, kiddos! I'm your special playmate!"

Gaz bit her lip. What time was it anyhow? Five? Only five?! She had a whole other hour to go before the manager showed up at the front door to open up the place and let her out. How was she going to avoid this-this thing until then?

Bloaty moved slowly but surely across the floor of the bathroom, feet almost stomping on the tiles as he made his way to the stalls, pushing the first one open, then the second, then the third.

Luckily, he took a few seconds to look the stall up and down before moving on to the next one, and it took him another five seconds to reach it. Gaz carefully lowered herself down to the floor of the toilet stall she was in, waiting for him to reach the fifth stall. Yes. He banged it open and was soon looking it over, she could hear the ever-so-faint WHIRRR of his animatronic head as he glanced up and down.

"Let's go eat some Pizza with your special playmate! I've got something cool to show you in the kitchen!"

The kit-wait, what? The kitchen-

No time to think about it now. He was now turning, and Gaz scrunched down to the floor, squirming underneath the stall wall to get in through the low opening. Damn it all, why did big heads have to run in the family? Push through, she screamed inwardly. PUSH! PUUUUUSH!

She popped into the next stall just as Bloaty opened up the last one, and she hopped up onto the toilet, the door to this stall closed again as she kept holding her breath, not making a sound. She clung to the toilet like it was the side of a cliff and letting go meant certain death. Sure enough, Bloaty began to walk away, heading out the bathroom, Gaz hearing his footsteps fading into the distance.

"Phew." She murmured. For a brief moment she considered getting Dib up, but she frowned, shaking her head. No. No, she was going to handle this herself. She just had to get some tools that she usually used for things like this back at home, come back the next day, and she would be fine.

They were tools, of course, she'd gotten from her mother. Peg Membrane had not quite grown out of the "Mysticism" phase of her life from High School. She had put a lot of stock in magic, and after seeing some of her charms used, Gaz had understood why. Sure, being able to make a small little dancing fire in the palm of your hand that wasn't even bigger than a lighter's wouldn't do too much, but to a 4 year old girl, this sort of thing was positively amazing.

The problem was that memories like that were rare. She had snippets and pieces in her mind. Moments when Peg would sit Gaz and Dib together at the table and talk, or they'd be watching movies, or Peg would have Gaz up in her room, juggling a tiny little flame in both hands. But luckily, that was what the many, many videos her father had taken of he, his family and Peg, were for.

Gaz would just have to get her little ingredients out of her bedroom. And that meant just surviving for less than an hour more. After about ten or fifteen minutes had passed and she was sure Bloaty wasn't coming back in, Gaz carefully inched out of the bathroom, glancing quickly down the halls. Though the morning sun was beginning to poke its head up over the horizon and cast soft and hopeful rays through the windows to filter in through the shades, something was off. Instead of casting everything in a comforting glow, the entire place felt as though it was on fire, and the pizzeria had suddenly become much hotter. Gazlene Membrane tugged at her collar, gritting her teeth slightly, uncomfortable with the rise in heat as she turned and carefully made for the main office-

She stopped when she saw the open "Parts and Services" room close by, ducking against the side of the wall as she nonchalantly heard cheerful humming. What the? Was the Bloaty animatronic trying to sing?

It was. It was humming, occasionally murmuring a part of the lyrics…to the song "Five Little Indians", that creepy, old-time song about five Native American children who all ended up dying horribly. She cringed as the animatronic's singing got a bit louder, the temperature making her sweat as she wiped her brow and-

Wait. Her eyes widened. She heard a faint muffled whimper. A whimper. And it sounded young. Her curiosity got the better of her and she peeked her eyes into the crack in the "Parts and Services" door.

She almost wished she hadn't. Inside were other robotic figures, all standing around a small, robotic figure that was squirming about beneath Bloaty's grip. A Vampire Piggy animatronic, a Hunter animatronic, an overly cheery little boy animatronic, all of them stood by Bloaty. The Hunter had his wide-brimmed hat, but the hat unmistakably had a face on it, leering, dark and red with a split open, fanged grin to match the horrific face below it. The hunter had sharp gauntlets it wore with a chained cloak, and pointed, sharp boots almost as pointy as the all-too-real sword that it had in its grip. The Vampire Piggy would have been cute if not for the fact that it was clearly just a costume put onto something else and the suit was sagging off as if half-melted in an oven. It had clear burnt marks on it, and singular, black pupils in the sockets, with stubby arms and it seemed to be staring off into the distance in a haunting fashion.

The cheery little boy that stood by Bloaty had on a beanie similar to Bloaty's, only it was red in color, just like the overalls it wore. They were ugly, clashing with the orange of its shirt that matched its eyes which were far, far too big and wide, as if unnaturally held open by invisible wires. Its mouth was also too widely open in a large, stupid grin and, more disturbingly, it had blood dribbling out the bottom of its form from its belly, a button slightly popped off, leaking out that foul red liquid as Gaz realized, with a horrific jolt, that she recognized the figure on the table.

GIR. It was GIR. The little robot's normally blue eyes were bugged out and filled with fear as it clutched at its head, mouth slightly open. It was gagging, hacking up and spluttering like GIR had often done after taking a drink from a SuckMunkey, and worse still, it wasn't hard to see what he was choking on. GIR was bleeding from every orifice imaginable and a few Gaz hadn't thought he could bleed from to begin with. His eyes were being slowly turned red from the cascading red, his form shaking madly as he clutched his skull. His screeching wails were long, drawn out and horrifying as the faint afterimage of a child appeared behind him.

A child Gaz recognized.

"Do I l-luh-look alright?" Nick had asked Gaz, nervously stepping out of the bathroom. He had straightened out his shirt as best he could and he had washed off the dirt and grime and sneaker marks off as best he could, evidently. He shamefully rubbed the back of his neck, Gaz giving him an amused smile.

"You look fine."

"Why d-did you help me?" He wanted to know.

"I need a reason?" She asked.

"…th-thanks, then." Nicholas said. "I appreciate it, G-Gazzy." He admitted.

Normally Gaz would have punched him in the teeth for that name. She didn't let ANYONE call her by that, but…Nicholas's eyes were still red from tears, his nose still running somewhat. "Just wipe your nose." She added with a tilt of her head. "Then you'll look more than fine, okay?" She added, walking off.

"Buh-buh-buh-bye!"

"Nicholas?" Gaz whispered, lips slightly parting.

"You were very bad, Nicholas. You shouldn't run away from your friends. And wait until you see the wonderful new friend we brought in! You two know each other well, so we found a special, special place for him!" Bloaty said cheerily, clapping his giant hands together as Gaz finally couldn't stand it anymore. This had to stop. She was about to bust down the door, do something, ANYTHING but then-

Ding-dong-ding-dong! Ding-dong, ding-doooong!

With that, the animatronics vanished away, the faint afterimage of Nick lingering behind as he stared at Gaz, his face sad, mournful before there was nothing where he'd been. Only an empty table surrounded by worn-out pieces and parts of animatronics that had, at one point, all belonged to the very monstrous murder machines she'd seen only moments before. Except, of course, for GIR…

And the Bloaty thing.

Gaz frowned darkly before slamming the door shut. "Fuck you too." She muttered. She wasn't going to let whatever the Hell was behind this get away with it.

It wasn't long, thank goodness, before she was on her way home. Dib saw the look on her face, his expression one of clear concern as she gave him a look and then held up her Iphone. "Put it on the second playlist." She asked.

Dib nodded, taking the Iphone and plugging it into the car's console as Gaz sat in the passenger side of the car and buckled her seatbelt. She laid her hands on her legs, sighing a bit as the playlist began, the video playing out for her as Dib handed her her phone back and she looked down, the video's contents loudly echoing through the car for both to hear.

Her mother Peg's hair flowed freely down her face as she and Professor Matthew Membrane took videos of themselves by Dib and Gaz's cribs, Peggy lifting Gaz up as Matthew held Dib, Pegy giving Gaz a playful little tickle. "Ooh! I think Li-Little G-G-Gazzy's ticklish! C-C-Coochie Coochie-C-Coo!"

"Maaa." Gaz burbled out, Peggy giving baby Gazlene a playful little kiss on the forehead.

"You t-t-trying to say your fuh-fuh-first word? Hope she d-doesn't inherit my s-s-stutter." Peg admitted to Matthew as he shook his head back and forth.

"I don't care if she does, Peg. She's ours. And that's all that matters."

"Y-Yes. You're ruh-right." Peg said with a big grin. "Who's my b-buh-baby girl? Y-YOU'RE my b-baby g-girl!"

"What made you want to, y'know? You usually only ask for this when you, like, stumble onto something of hers we didn't box up." Dib decided to ask as they turned onto Main Street, making their way back to their house as Gaz turned to look out the window, shadows of passing buildings falling over her face, casting a pallid look upon it.

"I just…got to thinking of a friend is all." She mumbled.