Chapter 23: Lurking Below

Fredi glanced between G and Sunny before stepping into the charging station. He then closed his eyes and tried to relax. His vision suddenly darkened and he felt lifeless. But then his mind was filled with a flood of memories including the ones he forgot. When he opened his eyes, the lights in Sunny's apartment were off, there was overturned furniture, and a hunched figure was picking up books and other things that had fallen onto the floor.

"Hey!" Fredi said, knocking on the glass of the charging station from the inside. "What happened while I was rebooting?"

"Naughty boy," the hunched figure grumbled. "He ruined everything…again."

"Where is he?"

"That woman took him."

"You mean Vanny, or Vanessa?"

"Does it matter who I'm talking about?" the hunched figure stood up from the floor. "You're stuck with me!"

Turning around, the hunched figure was revealed to be Sunny. His robe had changed from red-and-yellow to blue-and-white and his left eye was glowing red.

"Moon!" Fredi realized. "I thought Sun's new casing got rid of you."

Laughing maniacally, Moon said, "How naive of you to think that, Freddy. Sun is me, and I am him! We are one, yet we are not!"

"You're not making sense!"

"Then listen, you numbskull!" Moon slammed himself against the glass window of the charging station, making Fredi flinch. "Sun and I are different sides of the same AI personality that inhabits this body of ours. While Sun is the friendlier energetic side of the Daycare Attendant, I am his more disciplinary frightening side. Each part serves the same purpose, which is to nurture young children with happiness and obedience."

"But what does that have to do with why you're here now? And what happened to Gregory?"

"Gregory?" Moon paused. "Right, the boy! He's certainly grown a lot the last time I saw him, but maybe…a little too quickly."

"What do you mean?"

"From what Sun and I remember, Gregory was roughly 10 years old when he was accidentally locked inside the pizzaplex four years ago. So he should be 14 now, yet my scanners indicate he's 16. That doesn't add up, Freddy."

From his restored memories, Fredi remembered scanning G after he emerged from Fredi's stomach compartment. He noticed something odd about the boy, but said nothing at the time. But now it made sense, based on what G told him about his fragmented memories in the underground chamber.

"If you don't let me out of here, something very bad will happen to Gregory!" Fredi said.

"That brat deserves what's coming to him, as do you — for what you did to our friends!" Moon's menacing grin widened as he opened the door to the charging station.

He pulled Fredi out by his ponytail and threw him onto the floor. Suddenly, Fredi saw an image flash in his mind. It resembled a rabbit face, but it was more sinister-looking than Vanny's mask as it had glowing purple eyes instead of red ones that looked unnervingly human.


"I'm telling you, there's something much bigger going on here!" Detective Larson insisted.

"So you've been saying," said the brunette-haired woman who was seated across from Larson.

Her name was Renelle Taggart, and she claimed she would be taking over for Jacaré as Chief of the Endopolis Police until he was found either dead or alive. And because Larson was one of the last people to see Jacaré alive, Renelle had been interrogating him since he was released from the hospital earlier that day. It was now close to midnight, and Larson was at the breaking point of telling Renelle about the Night Watch Repairmen even though he feared what the Phone Guy would do if he did.

"First, Roxana Lupine gets murdered by a mysterious assailant," Larson said, counting on his fingers. "Then Jacaré goes missing along with Chicana Gladstone, who was the owner of the house where Jacaré's things were found. Now these seem like unrelated events, unless you look into their files. What these people have in common is their personal lives are a mystery, with no living relatives or clear origins of where they came from."

Renelle played with her silver heart-shaped necklace in irritation. "Mr. Larson, you're starting to sound like a broken record. I've checked the backgrounds of these people, and their official documents are perfectly organized."

"But those could've been forgeries!" Larson argued.

"Don't test my patience!" Renelle stood up, glaring at Larson. "We'll resume this interrogation tomorrow, and hopefully you'll be less hysterical by then."

Just then, Renelle's wristwatch suddenly vibrated. She pressed a button and spoke into it.

"Hello? This is acting Police Chief Renelle Taggart," Renelle said.

"Miss Taggart, it's Officer Clara," responded a familiar voice on the other end of the watch. "I just responded to a disturbance in the downtown area, and there's a man dead in his apartment."

"What's the dead man's name, and why are you calling me about this?" Renelle asked.

"Sunny Dewdrop, and the reason I'm calling is because the attacker's description given by a couple of witnesses matches the description of Roxana's killer."

After a pause, Renelle said, "I'll be down there soon."

Renelle then hung up and glanced back at Larson. "I might have to humor your idea of a larger conspiracy going on just a little longer. Come with me."

Larson bowed slightly to hide his confident grin before following Renelle out of the interrogation room in the police station.


"My son," said a gravely British voice. "It's time to get up."

G opened his eyes and found himself tied to a chair in a rundown place. It was too dark to see much except for the checkered floors, a charging station in the corner, and two people in front of him. One was Vanny, and the other was a thin man he didn't recognize.

"How did I get here?" G asked Vanny.

Vanny chuckled. "Simple! I tracked you to Sunny Dewdrop's apartment after you pulled a fast one on me, so I decided to give you a taste of your own medicine by turning the lights off in the apartment, knocking you out from behind while Sun was turning into Moon, and bringing you to this room beneath the pizzaplex."

"The pizzaplex?" G looked up, noticing the ceiling was starting to crumble. "But it's been abandoned for several years! Aren't you worried we might get buried alive?"

"Not to worry," said the thin man with the gravely British voice. "Fazbear's previous owner, Henry Emily, made this Fazbear location that's below the pizzaplex quite sturdy — even when it was destroyed by a fire that he set himself."

Hearing that, G looked at the thin man with surprise. "That kind of information is only known to a few people. Who are you?"

"You don't remember me, Gregory?" the thin man said. "I'm Will Afton, your father."

To be continued…