Chapter 8: Acquired Sight

"Did I really have to take Roxy's eyes?" Fredi said to Glenn.

They were sitting at a bench in the park near the racetrack, with the afternoon sun starting to peak out from behind the thick clouds overhead.

"You had no choice," Glenn claimed. "She damaged your eyes beyond repair. And so it only seems fair for you to take hers as payment, like the saying, 'an eye for an eye.'"

Sighing, Fredi said, "I didn't mean to kill her. She had no pulse when I checked."

"That doesn't mean she's dead, since you don't have a pulse either."

Fredi didn't know how to respond. If Glenn was right, that meant he wasn't a murderer. Yet if Roxy/Roxana was still alive, he feared what she might do. Because after he knocked out Roxana, a flood of memories had come back to Fredi. He remembered protecting a boy named Gregory from several animatronics that were after him, which included Roxana. Though in Fredi's memories, she looked more wolf-like than human.

Even Fredi himself wasn't human in the flashbacks, as he recalled having bear-like features. It certainly explained his amazing sense of smell, though, which helped him get out of the racetrack building earlier. The other animatronics that chased Gregory resembled a chicken, an alligator, and a man with a moon-shaped face. So Fredi deduced they must have been the ones who accompanied Roxana when she attacked him the other night. But like her, they were also given human-like bodies.

"Something terrible must have happened at the pizzaplex," Fredi assumed. "Because why else would me and the other animatronics be given new bodies?"

"Well, that much is obvious," Glenn said. "Fazbear clearly wanted the cover up the whole thing, but they didn't want to just throw the animatronics and robots away since they would lose more money than they already had. So they sold the robots and gave the animatronics new casing that resembled human bodies. They also apparently gave you all aliases, since Roxana Lupine's real name was Roxanne Wolf, or Roxy for short."

"If what you're saying is true, why risk exposing our cover with this experiment to test how animatronics handle traumatic events?" Fredi wondered.

Glenn thought for a moment. "I suppose Fazbear could be using you guys to make improvements on the animatronics they have at the Freddy's Cafe restaurants."

"But assuming those animatronics I fought earlier had escaped from one of the restaurants, they certainly look human — though they aren't very obedient."

"True, and I would think Fazbear wouldn't want to have disobedient animatronics in their locations. So maybe Fazbear staged the attack to get rid of you all."

Fredi shook his head. "That doesn't make sense either. Because if we're to believe Roxy's claims about Fazbear, they wouldn't have ordered her and the others to record the attack if they wanted to destroy us."

"Hmm, yes, Fazbear does seem to favor leaving no kind of evidence behind. After all, they do have a history of shutting down locations when something goes wrong."

Somewhere in Fredi's mind, he knew what Glenn said was true. Even the few memories he had from the pizzaplex indicated a series of misfortunate events happened there, which clearly led to the place being shut down. Though what Fredi couldn't figure out was how he and the other animatronics factored into the pizzaplex's shutdown, let alone Gregory's involvement.

As he started to ponder these unanswered questions, he caught the strong odor of garbage followed by multiple footsteps. Then as the footsteps stopped in front of him, Fredi had a sinking feeling that he knew who these people were.

"Hey, amigo," said a familiar Hispanic voice. "Remember us?"

Before Fredi could react, he was punched in the gut by Chips. With the wind knocked out of him, Fredi doubled over which allowed Patches to use his chain to wrap around Fredi's neck. Fredi struggled, but he could barely breathe and passed out.


"What do you think? Pretty good job, I'd say."

"Yes, Hip, you did good…for once."

Fredi blinked, seeing a bright light over him. But upon realizing he could see again, he turned his head side-to-side. On his right stood Hip, who was standing behind a machine that was on the other side of a glass wall. To his left was Nate and the other members of his gang that were also behind glass. Looking down, Fredi noticed he was sitting in a reclining chair with his wrists and ankles bound by metal clamps.

Then the glass wall that separated him and the others suddenly lifted, causing Fredi to look up and see that it was actually a glass cylinder. Around the lightbulb shining down on him were various robotic arms holding delicate-looking tools. But as Fredi's eyes adjusted, he could see more than just what was on the surface.

Nate and his friends' human faces disappeared, revealing the metallic endoskeletons they had underneath. The walls around the space Fredi was in became transparent, revealing they were in a landfill near a junkyard in the city. Even when Fredi looked down at his own hands, the arteries he expected to see were really black wires pumping a red-colored liquid that he originally thought was blood and his skin was just a synthetic covering over a metallic armature with reinforced metal plating.

"How do you like your new eyes?" Nate said in a mocking tone. "Are you able to see what you really are?"

Fredi closed his eyes and re-opened them, allowing his vision to return to normal. "Roxy's eyes are working fine."

"Roxy?" Patches looked surprised. "As in Roxanne Wolf? You got the eyes from her?"

"Yes," Fredi answered reluctantly.

"Damn," Chips remarked. "We heard on the radio that some lady running for mayor was murdered today, and her name was Roxana Lupine. I'm guessing that was Roxy."

"Of course it was Roxy," Hari said, shoving Chips in the shoulder. "Fazbear isn't very subtle when it comes to aliases for their human animatronics."

"I think they do it to make the repairmen's work easier when they track us," Orson suggested.

"But we haven't been caught yet, and we'd like to keep it that way," Nate abruptly said and turned his attention to Fredi. "So if you bring us that camera from wherever it is now, we'll let this morning's fight go."

"And if I refuse?" Fredi said nervously.

"Then we'll call the cops and take away your new eyes."

To be continued…