Chapter five: Pieces of the past

Douglas stood in front of the entrance to Freddy's old warehouse.

The enormous cube of a building was one of the larger ones around. It was completely silent in the area, and the grassy hills in the distance were the only notable things around aside from the many buildings. The only other thing was the road, which hadn't been used a lot in recent years.

Fog obscured the cities in the far distance, and a light rain fell from grey clouds that obscured the sky. Really, the weather only added to the creepiness.

Douglas nervously glanced around as he walked towards the entrance, slowly taking step after step, his hand gripping the keyring Griffiths had given him. He was suddenly having second thoughts about all this, but he knew that he couldn't give up on his friends' request just because he was afraid. So he continued.

He'd feel a lot safer and less alone if one of the anime-tronics was with him, but that wasn't exactly an option at the moment.

Douglas unlocked the front door and entered the warehouse. The lights inside were off, and the few windows that were present—some of which were worn or smashed—were quite small. Douglas sighed. Why did the warehouse have to look so creepy?

He reached inside his pocket and grabbed his flashlight. It wasn't much, but the beam of white light it emitted gave some comfort.

He took a deep breath. Then he began to explore the place. He soon found out that, despite the warehouse's size, it didn't hold many interesting things. There were some old decorations here and there, but most things of the past had probably been reused for the more recent versions of the restaurant. Even though this was to be expected, Douglas couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

Maybe there's more upstairs, he thought. He soon spotted a door that turned out to have stairs behind it, and he ascended to the floor above.

Things were a little more interesting here. Rather than old decorations, this floor had boxes with robotic parts, most of which were broken or covered with rust. Oddly enough, there were also torn clothes lying around—familiar red t-shirts and sweaters, black jackets, jeans, formal black attires…

These garments looked a lot like what the anime-tronics usually wore.

Douglas looked at the pieces of metal. These must've been parts for the girls' endoskeletons and whatnot. I should tell Mr. Griffiths about this—the more spare parts, the better, right?

He suddenly stepped on something soft. He looked down and frowned.

His flashlight revealed a patch of…purple.

Douglas reached down and picked it up. It didn't feel dissimilar to skin. Douglas winced. What was this doing here?

Then another question hit him. A question that made him freeze.

The skin the anime-tronics had felt almost the same as natural human skin. After having worked at Freddy's for a few weeks—and having endured hugs and handshakes from the anime-tronics—Douglas had learned that their skin actually felt a little different.

The patch of purple he was holding felt like it belonged to an anime-tronic. But none that he knew about had skin with this color.

So the question was: to whom did it belong? Golden and Spring's predecessors?

That thought made Douglas sweat. With an alarmed motion, he shone the flashlight around in search of any humanoid shapes. If these anime-tronics had been here for who knows how long, the isolation must have had some effect on their mental well-being. If he were to run into them now…

At least his objective was clear: Get out of the warehouse.

Dropping the purple skin, Douglas immediately made his way to the door. He opened it, expecting to find the stairwell.

His expectations were wrong.

Behind the door was a small room. In that small room, a humanoid figure sat slumped against the wall across from the door, its skin a notable purple.

Douglas' breath froze. In his haste, he hadn't even thought to properly look for the entrance to the stairwell. He'd just walked to the nearest door and blindly opened it.

A minute of silence passed as he stared the figure down. Its magenta eyes were aimed slightly downwards, its body lay completely still. Its skin had some damage to it, showing artificial flesh and metal parts underneath.

Despite its lavender color, the figure reminded Douglas of Bonnie. Aside from the two bunny-like ears that protruded from its head, the clothing it wore was a near exact copy. The only difference was the occasional rip in the fabric.

Having calmed down a bit, Douglas realized that the old anime-tronic looked very…offline. Against his better judgement, he took a careful step forward and waved his hand in front of its eyes. It didn't respond.

Douglas let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He let his flashlight go around the rest of the small room, and jumped a little when the older versions of Freddy and Chica were also illuminated. Aside from the damage and different eye colors, they looked quite similar to their current versions.

Mangle and Foxy's predecessors were nowhere to be found. Douglas reckoned they'd either been destroyed or were never created. Maybe the original version of the restaurant only included the band.

He was just about to leave when he realized there was something bothering him. He didn't need much time to figure out what that something was: the proto-anime-tronics' sentience.

If the current anime-tronics had the ability to think for themselves, what was to say their predecessors didn't? Granted, there was nothing to indicate that they did—their technology was a little outdated compared to their successors', after all—but Douglas knew he had to find out. If these…prototronics…were sentient, didn't they, too, have the right to use that sentience?

He glanced at them. If they were sentient, they didn't deserve to be forced to sleep like this.

Maybe the anime-tronics at Freddy's would know what to do.

Nighttime

"You're kidding," Chica said, a small smile on her face. "You actually found our predecessors?"

Everyone was sitting on a chair in the main dining room. After Douglas had told Chica that he'd found something interesting, the chicken had summoned the others as well. It had only taken a minute or two before everyone was present.

Douglas nodded. "You, Bonnie and Freddy. I suppose they started over with only a version of Bonnie and one of Freddy—Spring and Golden. They brought you back after that." He shrugged. "Just my theory."

"It sounds plausible," Freddy said, "although I don't see why they would leave Chica out of the golden generation."

"Or why they made us gold at all, instead of…more fitting colors," Golden dryly added.

"I guess they just wanted something more…simple—two 'tronics instead of three—after which they'd returned to the classics," Chica speculated. "Either that, or they're a generation younger than you."

"If they were younger," Golden said, "we'd have known about them. I think that first theory you mentioned is more likely."

"All well and good, I guess," the human-like recruit—who Douglas heard was a vendor, much like the puppet—said, "but then there's that little issue Douglas mentioned. About their sentience?"

Douglas ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe I should ask Griffiths to have them repaired."

"As good a guy as Griffiths is," Chica said, "I don't think he'll be willing to spend money on repairing old models."

"I can still ask him for more information," Douglas said. "There's got to be a reason why he hasn't scrapped them. Maybe he does have plans of bringing them back."

"Worth a shot," Chica said, standing up. "Just don't get your hopes up."

"I never do."