Oh no! With Felix's hammer gone and the group already separating, will their chance of surviving this night go down the drain? Keep a flashlight handy, because this creepy tale continues! Please leave your lovely reviews as well, as Dixie and I will greatly appreciate it! :)
As Calhoun left, her footsteps fading, Felix's heart sunk. He looked at the clock... 2:45 am. Felix decided to flip open the monitor, switching to the main stage. He gulped a bit, looking up to the others.
"What is it?" Ralph asked.
"The bear is gone." He flipped through a few cameras, jumping when he looked right up at the screen from the restrooms, the glow in his eyes like pin pricks. "I hate when they do that..."
Vanellope mustered up some bravery then, going over to Felix. "Here... let me watch those, you should keep watch with Ralph."
"No... Vanellope, you need to stay over there and keep safe. I'll be okay." Felix managed a small smile. While he had paused though, Vanellope saw something in one of the hallway cameras, tilting her head.
"What was-..." She stopped when Felix placed the laptop aside. "Felix, that poster in the hallway looked different than before…"
"We should try to conserve energy. We can look again in a bit, okay?" Felix went over to Ralph, who was keeping guard by the west door. "Anything, brother?"
"No..." He sighed. "I'm starting to think we should have all gone together. It's-" The sound of Vanellope screaming cut him off, Ralph snapping to attention. She was staring at the chair, backing up quite a bit as she shrieked. "Kid, what's the matter?"
"He's staring right at me, I dunno how he got in! Don't let him get me Ralph!" Vanellope cried as a series of words and the animatronic's faces flashed before her eyes, Freddy's veiny, realistic eyes staring into her code.
Ralph furrowed a brow, seeing nothing but an empty office chair facing them. "Vanellope, I don't see any-" Vanellope began to scream again, hitting the air as if something was trying to attack her. She passed out, glitching quite a bit as she did so. "Vanellope?" Ralph shook her. "Vanellope!"
Felix went over to her, feeling her forehead. "Ralph, she doesn't feel well... her codes are spiraling out of control!"
"We have to get her out of here! If we don't, her codes will go into shock!" Ralph stopped when they heard gunfire in the distance followed by metallic screaming. After a few moments, there was silence. Felix dashed over to the cameras, and he gasped, his eyes widening in horror when he saw Foxy dragging someone behind the curtain.
"Tammy!" Felix cried. He then jumped when Freddy's face appeared right in front of the camera, playing his Toreador tune.
"What is it?!" Ralph demanded as he kept a hold of Vanellope in one fist, his other hand up ready to wreck anything that came inside the room. "What happened?"
"The b- bear is right down the hallway, they did something to Tammy!" Felix gasped, his hand to his heart. "Ralph, I have to get her! The fox has her!"
"Are you nuts? If you manage to get past the bear, then something else will get you!"
"She's my wife, Ralph!" Felix shouted, his fists clenched by him and his eyes tearing up. "What if it were Vanellope out there, huh?"
Ralph started to argue, but the look on Felix's face stopped. He was shaking like a leaf, obviously as frightened as the rest of them, but he was wearing that determined, stubborn look that almost mimicked his wife's. Ralph growled under his breath, not liking the thought of them getting more separated.
"Felix, if you die out there or get hurt, you won't-"
"I know that!" Felix wiped his brow with one hand, trying to pull himself together. "Look, I'm quick on my feet, remember? I can dash and hop out of the way, find my hammer, find Tammy, then be back here for you and Vanellope."
Ralph sighed deeply, giving him a nod. "Be careful. I'm going to watch over Vanellope."
Felix gave him a hint of a smile. "You know it, partner." Felix said, and in an instant he was gone, the sound of his bouncing fading. Silence filled the room with the exception of Vanellope's breathing for a good ten minutes until she groaned lightly, sitting up.
"Kid! Are you okay? What happened to you?" Ralph exclaimed.
Vanellope rubbed her eyes, slowly glancing over to the office chair before looking up at Ralph. "I saw something... it was one of them, but different."
"Huh? One of what? Look, Calhoun's been hurt, and Felix-"
"We have to go after them, Ralph." Vanellope cut him off.
"No. I promised I would protect you and I'm going to stay put in this room with you." Ralph insisted.
"You don't understand, Ralph. He spoke to me. He said his name is Golden Freddy. He said he's always in pain so it's hard for him to move too much. He said that the others won't hurt me because I'm little, like them. He said... that they want me to watch my friends suffer... he said... he wants me to help everyone suffer... he said... he said... he wants me to help him leave."
Ralph's eyes slowly widened as he listened to Vanellope speak. "Kid... you're scaring me. Stop talking like that. No one is going to die here."
Vanellope looked up at Ralph. "But they already did. They're all dead."
Ralph grit his teeth. "Hey! Felix and Calhoun are NOT dead! They are going to be fine!"
"No Ralph, all of THEM! The monsters! He told me they all died here!" She screamed, holding her head as she whined lightly. She looked up at him, tilting her head a bit as she plopped down in his hand, her arms flopping listlessly on her sides. She smiled lightly up at him. Before Ralph could say anything, he felt something attack him from behind, dropping Vanellope for a moment to fight back. As he faced Bonnie yet again, he heard glass shattering behind him as Chika broke the east window, reaching in to slap the door switch so she could run in. He shoved Bonnie away from him, but it was too late... Chika snatched up Vanellope from off the floor, emitting a high pitched giggle as she ran down the east hallway. The child had not even attempted to run as she was snatched up, as she had been sitting listlessly on the floor. As Ralph cried out to her, for a moment, he remembered that he thought he saw her pupils dilate just before Bonnie attacked him.
No, he must have been mistaken.
Felix had just arrived at Pirate's Cove, tiptoeing around the perimeter of it while keeping his eyes peeled for any movements. He felt so vulnerable without his hammer, his hand habitually reaching for the empty holster that was on his belt.
"Tammy!" he whispered, his hair standing on end under his cap. He gulped and tugged at his shirt collar when he didn't get an answer. "Tammy, please answer me..."
A soft groan nearly made him crawl out of his skin, jumping a good six feet in the air. "Oh my lands!" he gasped as he landed, both hands pressed to his chest. "Tammy, is that you? Please don't be the fox... or that duck-chicken thing..."
Felix quietly entered the tent, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He heard the groan again and this time he recognized it as Calhoun's. He ran over to where he saw her resting against the back corner, shrouded by darkness. Her head was bleeding on one side, which made Felix feel useless since he didn't have his hammer.
"Tammy, it's me, I'm here to get you out of here!" He hugged her to him, careful not to upset her head wound. "Come on, can you stand?"
"Fo-... fox..."
"I know, it must have gotten you by surprise."
It was then that he heard the unmistakable sound of a child screaming. "Vanellope! Oh no, something must've ambushed Ralph!"
Calhoun grunted, holding her head as she sat up. She took in a deep breath. "Felix... I know where they have it."
"H- Have what, Tammy?"
"Your... hammer." She sighed a bit. "I ran down here and saw the fox... when I saw he had the hammer, I shot at him. I caught him off guard and I thought I had it. But the bear... he grabbed it before I could. Then the fox got me from behind... during the struggle I saw the bear take the hammer and..."
As she remembered the incident, she saw Freddy drop the hammer into his mouth, slowly turning his head to stare at her eerily.
"They would have killed me... but something seemed to distract them." She took her handgun, handing it to Felix. "You have to get it back. I'll stay here and wait it out. Ralph and Vanellope may need your help."
"But I can't just leave y-"
His sentence was interrupted by her lips pressing against his in an urgent manner, as if it was the last one she'd ever give him. Felix barely had time to register the kiss before Calhoun shoved him away from her, her usual fierce look having returned.
"Go, I'll be fine," she insisted as she held her head and slid down to the floor in a resting position. "I handle vicious, man-eating monsters all day, remember?"
Felix wanted to say that at least she was in her own game where she could regenerate when she was around cybugs- not to mention, she'd have plenty of ammo there- but he had a feeling that Calhoun wouldn't have wanted to hear that, much less argue more with him. He felt a lump in his throat as he nodded, sticking the gun in his belt where his hammer normally resided.
"I'll be back," he promised before taking off down the hallway where he'd thought he'd heard the screams.
Meanwhile, while Felix hopped off in pursuit of Freddy, Ralph was looking around frantically for Vanellope. He screamed angrily as he heard Chika's high pitched laughter echo from down the hallway. He snapped to attention suddenly when he heard a familiar sound, sighing with relief; the sound of 8-bit hopping. "Felix!" He cried out, eventually finding him.
"Ralph! Are you alright?" Felix asked.
"No, Vanellope, they took her!"
"Oh my lands, we have to find her!"
"Did you find your hammer? Where is Calhoun?"
"No... Ralph, she said the bear, er what was his name, um-"
"Felix!" Ralph exclaimed.
"Alright alright, the bear ATE my hammer. We have to get it out of him to-"
"Oh you have got to be KIDDING me!" Ralph threw his hands in the air. "We don't have time to go digging for your hammer, we have to save our friends!" Ralph held his head, plopping to the floor as his voice began to shake. "She must be so scared..."
"Look Ralph... the power is probably about to run out. If we hurry, and look through the security cameras, maybe she will be in one of them and we can at least find her."
"Right... let's go." Ralph replied, the two hurrying back to the office without complication. The power was now down to about 10%, and Ralph watched over Felix's shoulder anxiously as he flipped through the cameras.
"Wait, go back to the... the janitor's closet!" Ralph exclaimed.
Felix gasped when he did. It was almost like a bird's eye view, and they could see Vanellope in the small closet, her head on her knees as she hugged them, crying.
"This is all my fault..." She whimpered.
Ralph gasped. "We have to go there, NOW!" Felix nodded in response, the two running off. As they did, the camera remained on the janitor's closet after they ran off, not bothering to shut the laptop as she continued to cry.
"I should have saved my friends... I should have saved them... I didn't want them to di- i- i- I should have saved them..." Vanellope began to glitch eerily, her voice deepening at some points of her speech. "I didn't want them to-" The camera suddenly became fuzzy for a quick moment before coming back into view, Vanellope's face now right in the camera as she shook it violently. "DIIII- I- I- III- IE!" Her eyes were completely black, and the footage was cut off as the temporary power source died, the entire restaurant pitch black.
Ralph and Felix both jumped when the power went out, both of them looking at each other- or rather, where they knew each other to be at since they couldn't see very well in the dark.
"Oh no!" Felix cried, his hands going to his mouth. "We left the laptop on when we left the office!"
"It doesn't really matter now, does it? We'd be fighting for our lives regardless of where we were."
"You have a point there, brother."
In the distance, they could hear Vanellope's crying which alerted them to go run in that direction. "We're coming, kid!" Ralph called out. Every nerve in his body felt like it was on fire, his survival instincts kicked into high gear. "If those things hurt her, I swear-"
"Don't even think about that!"
They finally got to the closet that they had seen Vanellope in earlier on the monitor and the little girl was thankfully still huddled there, hugging herself loosely and rocking back and forth. They could just barely see her in the dark.
"Vanellope!" Ralph wanted to cry with joy that she was still alive. "You scared the dickens out of us!"
"Ralph!" She blindly leaped towards him, awkwardly clutching his leg and crying into his pants. "I d- don't what's going on. It feels l- like someone else is i- in me..."
Ralph furrowed a brow, gently lifting the child's head to look at him. "Vanellope... what do you mean by that...?"
Vanellope sniffled for a few moments before her pupils dilated, completely filling her eyes as she grinned eerily at Ralph. "It's me..." She whispered, pointing past Ralph. In the dark, they could barely make out a poster that was glitching a bit, between Freddy and Golden Freddy. Ralph glanced back at her, scooping her up.
"Those horrible things did something to her...!" Ralph exclaimed. Just then, Felix gasped and moved closer to Ralph as glowing eyes began to surround them, the sounds of eerie laughter, murmuring, and Freddy's Toreador theme filling the air. Ralph's eyes widened when he felt Vanellope slip from his hand, and he noticed that two small, glowing pinpricks appeared within the darkness of her eyes.
"We will know the joy of creation... to create the happiness and wonder in the day that was taken from us... to create the fear and suffering that was inflicted on us... when all light, and hope... go out." Vanellope spoke monotonously.
Ralph felt Felix being torn from his side, Freddy dragging him back. Ralph tried to go after him, but he felt hands fall upon him, and despite his strength, Foxy, Chika and Bonnie were all quite strong and sizable, and when Ralph felt a sharp pain on his head, the sound of Felix screaming faded out into nothingness.