I Don't Own Fnaf

The night passed and the next morning came, the phone number Mike had been given led to a older sounding man who seemed a bit too excited to get in contact with Mike, making more than a few comments about 'owner to owner', and 'as one boss to another', it was... uncomfortable to listen to. but Mike powered through it, turns out that Bounce land or whatever it was called hadn't been doing to well, and given that Foxy's had been apparently booming in business right out of the gate, the man decided to leave his card at Mike's to get in contact and see if they could do something together.

That would have been all well and good if it wasn't completely bullshit. Mike didn't call the man out on it, much rather being there in person to do it so he couldn't weasel himself out of the situation by ending the call, so instead he just said he could be down there today, and now they had something on the books for Mike to be able to look around the bounce park place thing without a single problem. Because there was no way in hell Mike wasn't going to be questioning the man, this Richard Gasper character, about just how the hell he knew where Mike lived to drop off a card.

That was only something that truly bugged Mike more than most of all of this, and the thing that Mike used to talk it over with Fritz and Jeremy with. Neither seemed all that put out about it thankfully, just telling him to be careful, well, Jeremy said to be careful, Fritz told him not to punch anyone unless he had to. It was a whole thing, Mike was mostly just amused at that, and before long they were in the car.

Marionette was in the floor of the passenger's seat, his head laying on the front of the seat itself, while Mike drove, though right now he was working on getting a bit extra information for them, given Mike didn't really find much online about the place when he tried to look them up, and neither Fritz or Jeremy had heard anything about them. So it was time to call in on the information line.

The line rang for a bit, but soon enough it connected.

"Hello hello?" The man sounded a bit more hesitant than he had not even the day before, but Mike didn't think anything of it. According to Jeremy and Fritz, both of whom tried a lot harder than Mike to keep in contact with Phone Guy, the man seemed to go through occasional paranoia spirals. Something Mike couldn't judge him over, even if he couldn't quite feel it in himself to feel all that bad either.

"Hey, it's Mike again, got a new line of questions for you. Ever heard of a place called Balloon Boy's Bounce Palace?" The line wasn't even quiet for a moment before a hiss came over the line.

"Yes! I- I mean yes, I know about them... I got a call not too long ago actually, Richard was, uh, well asking about Foxy's actually, I suppose this is what that's about?" Mike frowned, a bit of a sharper note coming to his voice.

"Yeah, he showed up at my house, left a card, know anything about that?" The man was quick to defend himself, sounding honestly surprised.

"N-No! I didn't say anything to him about you or anyone else over there, said I didn't even know about a foxy pizzeria, I-I was surprised he even had my number! He must have looked me up through someone we both are still in contact with. He used to be a day manager back, oh, it must have been the first Freddy's, the one after Juniors closed and reopened. He had a ton of ideas, and afterwards started up his own business, the bounce park, after the location in '87 he rebranded with an old Freddy's property, it... uh, hasn't been doing to great from what I've been told" It was times like these that Mike was glad that Phone Guy liked to blab, always saying more than needed, even if any of it was hardly useful unless you yourself knew how to read between the lines. Here onto the other hand, it was pretty up front and center.

"Yeah, I figured that out when he practically shoved three separate deals down my throat for cross advertising before I got through with introducing myself" That got a slightly stressed chime out of Marionette, as Mike shot him a smile to try and break the tension the puppet was under, as he said back to the phone, "We're heading over there now, I got a tip that the BB he's using for a brand might be more up the alley for Foxy's brand of animatronic entertainers" Mike didn't need to say anything more than that, instead Phone Guy just let out a hissing sound.

"R-right, yeah, that might make sense, I know he has a Balloon Boy out there, though I have no idea which one or if it could be the original, or if it'd be... occupied" Mike just hummed, Phone Guy knew a lot more about these places than he was letting on, then again, if most of the spin offs that came from the many Freddy's locations all happened to be run or at least have employees at them that used to be Freddy's employees, then there was a good chance Phone Guy had a connection to just about all of them, or at least some working knowledge.

He was like the Carol of the animatronic entertainment industry, incredibly connected, only instead of being nosey about everything that was happening, he was the exact opposite. Still, it was useful to know, as Mike asked over the line after a moment.

"What's Richard like? Should I be concerned about him trying to shove several NDAs down my throat like Freddy's just to get in the door?" Another small laugh-like chime, a bit louder, Mike noted absently that Phone Guy had paused half a second after, probably hearing it, before continuing on.

"W-Well, I-I mean, I doubt you have anything to worry about there, he's not all that... business minded, big ideas, not always the best follow through, but he's been pretty good at talking people into getting the things he wants, so be careful about that" Mike took that as the warning it was, though highly doubted that some smooth talker would be able to get him to do anything, he's been dealing with idiots trying to worm their way into his good graces for longer than he liked to think about. Being big just made people in his old... line of work want to stick around you, thinking if they stuck by then you could be used as leverage, this wasn't that different.

"Well don't worry, I think I'm a bit too old to fall for a bounce palace's charms" The call ended soon enough, they two were hardly going to be chatting much about anything else. Though that did mean now Marionette could ask questions of his own.

"Was that the old Freddy's employee you were talking about?" He said the name with clear distaste, Mike just nodded.

"Yeah, Phone Guy, just seeing if he could give me a heads up about Richard Guy so I would know what to look out for, but I doubt it'll be that big of a deal, if we're lucky it'll be in and out to confirm if Richard happens to have his place haunted" Marionette just paused after a moment.

"And if he's there?"

"Then we break in at night and kidnap him" That got a startled laugh out of the puppet at out of left field the serious sounding comment had been.

"Mike! I'm serious!" Mike himself just gave himself a mental pat on the back for the laugh, before saying.

"So am I, I'm not going to be doing any business with this Gasper guy that's for certain, I don't need some failing bouncy house business to be tied to Foxy's, but we can't just leave anyone there if there is something going on" That line of thinking reminded Mike of something he had been meaning to ask, "Oh, by the way, how close do you have to be to tell if a bot is haunted or not? I don't know what kind of place we're going to, but from what I know, to bounce you usually need a pretty clear and unobscured area, so I'm not sure if you'll be able to just wander around, or at all" The puppet just shrugged.

"Depends on the animatronic really. Some just... ooze off energy without meaning to, Goldie for example, if someone was just naturally good at picking up the ques of whatever spiritual energy it is that we use, then they could probably tell something was off with him right away, but for others? Or at least those who never really developed any kind of ability? It would be much harder. I'd have to be up close and personal, Jeremy would honestly be better at it for finding out someone like Foxy than I would for example, us animatronics aren't great at masking our emotions like we can our movement"

"I see... Well, that's something... Is there any way for someone like me to be able to tell, because I got nothing like spiritual sensitive or whatever, and given I own three separate buildings all being haunted by three separate ghosts, that probably says something about me" That got a good laugh out of the puppet though he gave a serious answer soon enough.

"The eyes, even for animatronics that even I can't pick up on, without at least peeking a bit too close, the eyes can give them away the easiest, it's the hardest body part to keep still and unresponsive if the soul inside is awake and aware" Mike just nodded, taking that information in and accepting it as it was.

"Makes sense... How often is there an animatronic that you wouldn't be able to tell? Cause I've been using you and Goldie as check engine lights when Jeremy isn't around"

"I know souls, I'm the best out of us three to tell, I just don't often like to see someone that closely, it's pretty invasive, you don't have anything to worry about" Mike... found something about that worrying, or at least weird enough that even he felt the need to call it.

"Uh, right, so you can see just souls then... How? Like, can you see mine?" Marionette was surprisingly silent at that for usually being more than fine with answering nearly any question Mike could throw at him, it was a weird thing to not answer, a simple yes or no... Then again, it was Mike's literal soul he was asking about, most people would probably already be in a mental hospital at this point of his line of questioning. "Something wrong?"

"N-No! I- Well... I mean, the answer probably isn't going to make you happy" Mike just hummed.

"How so?"

"Well... I just mean it's probably going to upset you" Now Mike was worried, but he hid it easily enough, letting his just as present curiosity as to whatever it was that Marionette could be talking about take hold.

"I'm sure I can handle it, I'm a big boy Mari" Mari himself didn't seem to think so, as he took another long minute without saying anything before finally speaking about what it was that he was thinking about. The puppet had a point, Mike had not been ready for the conversation he was about to be a part of.

"I can't really see any human souls, or souls still in humans, but, uh... People who have died and come back, we can all see some things that you humans can't. Like... You know how Purple Guy got his name?" Mike tilted his head at the sudden shift before saying.

"Yeah, I gave it to him because Goldie said Miller was purple, like, not just wearing it, but just was purple... I kind of forgot about that to be honest" Mike figured it was just the uniform thing, but Goldie had said Miller was just purple, it's why Mike started calling the killer Purple Guy in the first place.

"He wasn't wrong, Miller was... horrible, he was colored, no, more like doused in purple, it practically dripped off of him... I don't know why, but we can... see purple as threats, it's not always right, we get confused sometimes, the night guards were always purple but I'm sure all of them now were at least mostly innocent, but because we saw them as a threat and thought it was Purple Guy, they... appeared like that to us, like confirmation bias or something to that effect. But that doesn't mean the purple is always a lie, it wasn't for Miller, it was like a stain on his soul to us animatronics about what he had done, like... Like we could see his sins stained on his skin"

Mike had been nodding along, before... stopping, a sudden horrid thought occurring to him as he felt his hands grip tightly onto the wheel harshly, his eyes trying to stay on the road and focused on the drive, but he found his words coming out of him anyways.

"Foxy mentioned once I was purple... I figured it was the purple uniform, and that he never was able to get that image out of his head or something, but... But that's not the case, is it Mari?" Marionette stayed silent for a long moment, before his head tilted up from where he was sat, curled up on the floor bed of the car, and stared at Mike's face, as the man turned to look down at Mari with a faintly haunted look on his face.

A face that had a long thick streak of purple stained across it.

"No Mike..." The man took in a sharp breath of air, his knuckles turning white with how hard they were gripping the steering wheel, Marionette quickly tried to clarify, "It's... It's not always there! I- I don't see you as a threat so I often don't even see it, really! It's hardly like you scare me or the color sets me off or anything either!" Mike just stayed quiet for a long moment before shaking his head.

"I- It's... fine, Mari, really, I just... I need a moment with that... Explains a few things though, can every animatronic see it?" Marionette was a bit hesitant to answer any more questions, but the man seemed mostly fine, worryingly so even, with Mike's hands slowly untightening around the wheel as he stared out at the road.

"Yes, we all can, it's one of the inherent shared things we can do, I think it's some kind of warning system we just have... But I wasn't lying, it can fade and it can lie, I really don't see it all that much, and it really doesn't bug me any! I promise Mike" He made sure to sound as genuine as possible, and it seemed to take some of the tension off of Mike's shoulders, as he said after a moment.

"Yeah... Is it at least in a cool pattern, or like, show up in random spots, or am I 'dripping' with sin?" Mike sounded genuinely curious, Marionette worried about answering, but anything was better than the awkward silence that he knew would follow the second they stopped talking, so Marionette answered anyways, thinking that at the very least he could clear up that last thing, no one was truly as disgustingly purple as Purple Guy had been.

"Ah, no, it just covers your face and hair a bit, like someone splashed paint over your head, it's on your hands too sometimes, but it doesn't do whatever you're wearing" Mike's answer back was easily and smooth, and thankfully Marionette was to busy fretting over comforting Mike to realize the stabbing pain that just went through the man's heart at the puppet's words. Or the memories that played back in his head.

"Oh, neat... Well, good to know I'm one big walking purple flag for animatronics, I'm sure that'll never come back to bite me in the ass" Marionette just let out a chime and said back.

"Don't worry, if any bot wants a piece of you, then they'd have to get through me first, I'm not the sharing type" Mike just huffed.

"No kidding, you gave Jeremy a twenty minute lecture about how the prize corner should be handled while you were out hitting the town" That had been a very big surprise for Mike, seeing how easily Marionette just casually dropped into conversation with the blonde man like it was nothing, it... was a weird feeling, a fair bit of it was pride, glad that the puppet was finally coming out of his shell. A small part of it was something a bit more ugly and unnecessary, something Mike banished from his mind the second he realized what it was.

"Hey, it's an artform to be able to give out gifts!" Give gifts... Mike felt a small part of him, or, well, a not so small part of him wanting to ask about that, it had been on the back of his mind for at least a while now since his talk with Goldie making him realize that there was something going on there, but after the conversation he just had, Mike decided he didn't want to have another heavy talk while he was driving, it could wait a bit longer.

So instead, he kept his thoughts to himself and kept driving. Ignoring the faint tingling memory of blood on his hands, the blood he never thought he was able to wash off, and he had been right, it just... changed form. Stained, in a way he'd never be able to be clean of, it made him feel sick. So instead he moved the subject to something else.

"Why do you cry purple then? Any importance there?" The Marionette just shrugged.

"I don't know, it just... sort of happened? I don't know any other animatronic that cried much, we weren't really... willing to let our feelings out back then in any way, so maybe purple is just a color that symbolizes bad emotions or something and it's my soul's way of trying to purge the feelings" Mike just hummed.

"I mean, there are certainly worse ways to cope than soul-crying paint of all things" ...What was the puppet's tears made of thinking about it? It only looked and acted like paint, but he doubted it actually was... Know what, Mike was fine with not knowing.

"I suppose, just wish it didn't stain so much, I liked that shirt of yours before it was covered in purple streaks" Mike barely remembered which shirt the puppet was talking about, he hardly cared if he had to throw one out, especially as the end result of something as emotionally taxing as a cry break, as it stood he just hummed consideringly.

"Yeah, getting on me about making messes, while your eyes are a whole vandalism act by themselves" The scandalized gasp from the puppet did manage to lift Mike's mood enough to not think about it for the rest of the drive. Though Mike was a bit too aware of his own hands and the fact he wouldn't be looking at any mirrors any time soon.

It was in the middle of the afternoon by the time that they finally arrived, the traffic had gotten bad at some point, and Mike was already tired, not to mention the place was out of the way, off the highway and a bit away from any nearby city or towns, which probably didn't help the business issues that were apparently happening. Still, there were a number of cars that were parked out front, not too many, but... some. It was about a third of what Foxy's would be having today.

If Mike wasn't... Well, Mike, he probably would have found it sympathetic, as it stood, he was too busy looking up at the big building itself. It was a decorated warehouse, given Mike happened to spend a fair portion of his free time in one, he knew what they looked like from the outside pretty well at this point. It made sense, if this was some kind of attraction place, the fact that it was all indoors was a bit weird. Mike had honestly been expecting a large bounce park with those inflatable playground things.

He wasn't expecting... this.

"It makes BB look worse than he actually is" Mike could only hope so.

The outside of the big building was painted over with a light blue color, the top had clear white spots that were supposed to be clouds and there was a lot of spots of different colors that were probably supposed to be balloons... but it was clear that no one had redone the paints in a long while, leading to the paints to be incredibly faded and in some spots... drippy, causing weird streaks of colors down the front of the building.

And then there was the... Balloon Boy, or at least that's what Mike assumed it was, on a large drawn on billboard out in the front, clearly an advertising and welcome sign kind of thing, the only problem was Balloon Boy looked like a weird round child with eyes the size of Mike's head in proportion to the rest of his body, added onto the striped outfit and weirdly wooden looking limbs, even in drawing format, made the caricature of the animatronic look...

"If he looks like that... He's not coming home with us, especially if he's haunted" Marionette let out a chime before saying with good humor.

"He was always a weird one, but don't worry about it. BB never was one for violence"

"That... Makes me feel not at all better about this. Right, well, I'm going to head in, I'd say just stay here, I'll be back in a bit to give you the rundown, or if you want, try to sneak around if you're sure you won't be seen" Marionette frowned at that, studying the front of the building before his eyes moved back to the few cars parked around.

"Maybe I should stay this one out, I didn't really consider how much I might have to sneak around... Just hurry back" Mike nodded, really he probably should have known it would have turned out like this, and honestly he did, but he also knew it would do nothing to help his friend if he just left the puppet at Foxy's to worry about the situation all day, even if Mari couldn't join him directly, this was the best they would be able to get without taking any risks.

"Whatever you think is best, I'll see you soon Stripes, if anyone looks in my car, try to not scare them to much" He just got waved off as Mike took a deep breath before turning to look at the building again for a brief moment before heading towards it after getting out of the car.

Walking in, the first thing he noticed was the large open front space, looking around, it was clear just how the place was set up... It mostly helped because there was a large map next to him that he could use to orientate himself which happened to be right next to the front desk, where a woman was sitting, looking incredibly bored, having not noticed Mike yet, showing she was really zoned out, given it was kind of hard to miss Mike, as he look the minute of peace to study the layout of the building.

It was sectioned off into six parts, the first of which was this help desk area and check in, there was a number of lockers along the back wall showing a place to put valuables so they wouldn't get lost while someone was jumping around. Then the building itself was sections off where while the help desk was right in front of him, to the left and right of it, it lead into hallways, with each hallway having two fairly large looking rooms attached to them, and each hallway leading into the back of the building, where the most space was located.

The two rooms on the left were labeled on the map as the 'Game Jam Junction' and 'Bounce Room Break' which Mike figured were an arcade section and a place to take rests between activities, while on right it was labeled as 'Balloon Boy Ballroom' and 'Party Room', one... gave balloon's if Mike had to guess, and the other was just a place to hold a private party, sort of like how Foxy's had a number of private rooms for guests to rent out.

Though Mike had a suspicion that given there was only one room, and with the turn out outside, it... was unlikely that room got as much use as the ones at Foxy's. Nothing quite made a business owner's ego grow than seeing how their competition was struggling, at least, under normal circumstances, right now Mike kind of just felt... underwhelmed and kind of sad about the place. It felt large, but at the same time, Mike hadn't even needed to so much as move to the other rooms to tell how empty it really was. It was the lack of sounds, in a place like this, there should be echoing cheers and sounds of laughter from the children, but there was hardly anything, if anything. It made him wish he was back at Foxy's, the atmosphere there, for as much as it was tiring over a long day, was something he'd never want to replace for anything.

The last room, the biggest which according to the guide map, took up a solid half of the building, that being the back half, and it was plainly labeled 'Bounce Palace' which, if it was on the sign, then it would have to be the biggest part of the place. It had only taken Mike a few seconds to look the map over, but in that time, it seemed the woman behind the desk had finally noticed him, as she let out a quiet hiss of surprise that she was obviously trying to mask half way through, as Mike just turned to look at her, giving a faint smile he didn't really feel, and said.

"Hey, I'm Mike, Mike Schmidt, Richard and I had a set up appointment today?" The lady was still staring at him, Mike just waited, after a second she seemed to realize herself as a flustered look came over her as she sputtered out.

"O-Oh! Uh, right, sorry, I'm April, I'll just go get Mister Gasper now" She got up and quickly walked away while Mike just stood there for a moment, mostly just confused about what just happened, before deciding maybe he scared her, he wasn't exactly the warm and cuddly looking type. Before he could think too hard on it, the two reappeared, Mike took a bit of enjoyment in watching the man's eyes slowly trail up to look at Mike who in turn had to crane his head down.

Gasper wasn't a big guy needless to say, more on the shorter side, with really short dirty blonde hair on his head along with a set of normal brown eyes on a face that clearly was doing it's best to keep from developing stress lines. He was probably early or mid thirties though it was hard to tell. Still, the man's surprise went by quickly, as he moved forwards with an easy smile as he reached up a hand that Mike grabbed to shake.

"Hello! I've been expecting you, it's nice to see you in person Mike" Mike kept his own smile in place, though he didn't like the appraising look the shorter man was giving him, there wasn't any recognition, but there was a hint of that used car salesmen glint in his eyes that showed the man was wondering just how much he could get out of him.

"It's good to meet you as well Richard" Mike pulled his hand away and put on a look of pretend consideration, as he looked around for a moment, saying in a casual voice.

"Nice place you got here, mind showing me around before we talk?" Richard just hummed, looking around, a faint look coming across his face, probably wondering how he was going to spin the place into looking better than it was, Mike just wanted an excuse to explore to see if he could find this BB animatronic as fast as possible. He knew what it looked like thanks to the others and the not so small image of him on the front of the building.

"Sure, we can move through the left hall first, all the good stuff is there, beyond the big attraction of course, my office is behind the trampolines, so we can circle through the right hall later on your way out if you're still interested" Trampolines? Mike just nodded, as long as he saw BB by the end of this, he could count it as a win, then they could go about planning something else, and given this place was named after the animatronic, it shouldn't be that hard.

That thought went out the window as they stepped into the first room, the Game Jam Junction, and Mike found himself staring at an animatronic that most certainly wasn't Balloon Boy.

The room itself was pretty plain, the wallpaper wasn't the best, cheap, and beyond that the walls were covered in arcade machines that looked somehow older than the ones at Foxy's, or at the very least they were much less maintained, giving off that appearance of time passed. While in the middle of the room, on some kind of weird balloon styled fountain that didn't actually have anything coming out of it, making it look more like a weird podium, was the animatronic in question.

Standing at somewhere between four and five feet was one of the strangest animatronics that Mike has ever seen, a round ball like body attached to peg-like arms and legs, wearing what looked like painted on purple paints, and a shirt with vertical bright orange and purple stripes, and a large purple button on it's chest. Then there was the face, two massive green eyes that took up it's also ball-like head, with three massive and curled out eyelashes, clearly trying to denote the bot as female. The massive pink circle dimples on the side of it's frankly grimy looking painted on plastic skin didn't help. With brown plastic for hair, topped by a pinwheel hat that had the same design as the shirt, only orange and pink, which was currently spinning slowly around.

Mike had never been so glad that his family chose to use animals as mascots instead of that. Even Marionette wasn't nearly as inherently creepy as the thing he was staring at right now, not that Mike found the puppet all that creepy anymore, but the point stood. Of course that's when it got so much worse as a slightly crackling young child-like girl's voice came from the thing, as it's head creaked to look at them both, the things eyes locking on Mike it felt specifically.

"W-Well good morning and hello boys and girls, you're the first visitors today! I'm so happy to see that you're all ready and set to be bouncing to go! You know the rules I'm sure! But just in cas-" Whatever the monstrosity was about to say was cut off as Richard, with a clear sense of embarrassment rolling off his form, moved over and hit something on the 'stage' the animatronic was connected to, cutting off its speech. Mike just glanced at the man and asked.

"So... Who's that?" Mike decided to save the man from the humiliation of pointing out the animatronic just tried to do some motion activated morning introduction to the room in the middle of the afternoon. He wasn't sure the man was grateful, but Richard sure did grab onto the life line presented to talk about anything else, as he coughed and said quickly.

"Ah, well, uh, this is Dee-Dee! DD for short" Mike... had no idea if the man said something different there or not, "She's here for the arcade section, she actually is pretty advanced, most of the machines are linked to her control stand, uh, the stage here, she can have all the machines work at once, or if you ask nicely she can give you free games, though that's pretty rare" Mike felt like that was more an attempt to save face than something that actually got much use, as he turned to look up at the Animatronic, the stage itself was only about two feet off the ground, so the two were practically at eye level, while for any kids, the thing would tower over them.

More specifically he looked at the things eyes, they just... stayed there, staring where Mike had been when he first walked in, before she was shut off, nothing. Right... He took a step closer, acting like he was looking the thing over, and in a way he was. It was... not in great shape, the static in the prerecorded voice showed the voice box in the thing hadn't been getting much maintenance, and given those things didn't take a lot of work to keep running smooth, it said something about how long it had been since the thing saw a proper technician.

It was kind of dirty too, the plastic casing it was made with made things like dust and grime show much more starkly in contrast that the felt fur materials that the animatronic suits he was used to had. As well, while he hadn't gotten an overly close look at the toys he had stored back at the warehouse, this one in front of... felt wrong. There wasn't anything that he could really say as to why, just experience telling him this wasn't anything from Freddy's, the fact he hadn't been told about a DD also helped. After about a second too long he heard his own voice asking something.

"Oh, that's pretty impressive. How many animatronics do you have around here?" He had to ask because Mike had only expected to see a singular one, a mascot animatronic that more stood around and existed as a part of the place than there being actual robot entertainers. Richard seemed to appreciate a chance to speak highly about his place, as he puffed up, just a bit, before saying quickly to distract the other man from the situation.

"We have five here at BBs! One in each room, come on, I can show you Ballboy next!" Ball... What? Mike let the other man go ahead of him if only so he didn't have the mask the absolute disbelief at what he just heard. First off, five?! Even Foxy's didn't have five, and Mike had more animatronics laying around than honestly any of them knew what to do with. Even if he knew it didn't mean much given the state of this place, it made a small part of him want to work on getting more working for Foxy's.

But then there was the other thing, Ballboy... What the hell was a Ballboy?

"I don't suppose you meant to say Balloon Boy? That's the only one I know about I'm afraid" Richard waved him off.

"Understandable, that's the one on the door, but no, this is Ballboy and his Bounce Break Room " he gestured as Mike moved through to the next room, which was connected via a side door to the arcade, meaning there was two ways into each room it seemed, one from the hallways and one from the adjacent room. Mike looked around for a moment, before deciding it was... ok.

It had a pair of ball pits against the back two corners, a few hoops hung up on the walls with a set of basketballs next to them, the ground itself was different than the other rooms Mike had been in so far, it was treated, or at least it had been at some point, to be that of a court, probably for the basketballs, but it was clear it had been in need of a waxing for a while. While in the middle of the room was the break room part, where a number of tables and chairs were laid out, clearly this is where people were suppose to catch their breath after having so much adrenaline pumping fun.

And once more there was... one of them. This one wasn't quite as bad, Ballboy was against the side wall, it was a bit taller than DD had been, but not by much, but it seemed that height helped the incredibly rounded out portions of it. The thing honestly looked a lot like Balloon Boy, just... smoother and with less detail, and a big red clown nose on it's face. It's clothing design was basically the same as DD, just red and blue instead, and two smaller buttons instead of one that took up it's entire chest.

It seemed to not be on at the moment, which Mike didn't mind at all, he wasn't really here for any of them anyways, as he made the motion of looking around and acting vaguely interested as well as he could for just long enough to be fair before they moved onto the next room, there wasn't really much to see in the one they were in, so it didn't take long.

With that the two stepped into the main room in the back half of the warehouse. It was... Well, it was a bounce park. The flooring had been raised a bit and the entire ground for the most part seemed to be made out of trampolines, the walls as well had been moved in to put them there as well, along with a large number of those inflatables play grounds that kids could climb up and around on without worrying about being hurt.

Admittedly, Mike probably would have loved something like this when he was a kid, it seemed like a great way to get your energy out while having fun with friends, but as it stood, and from where Mike was now, he doubted he'd enjoy it all that much. Mostly because he was six foot four and two hundred and some odd pounds of weight and would probably break everything in front of him if he tried to move over it to quickly.

Though it seemed the kids, that he could now see around, weren't having all that much fun either. Instead just lazily walking around or lightly bouncing about without much interest in doing anything, a few parents were off to the side, looking more relived for a break from their kids than enjoying the environment. The place probably lacked a lot of luster after a while.

Mike just continued to glance around as Gasper walked him back past the set up trampoline wall at the end of the building's length.

"Who's the mascot for this section" Mike didn't see it, but given the things weren't that big from what he had seen, and with how big the space was, maybe he just missed it, he wasn't that bothered about the idea, but still felt the need to at least ask.

"Oh, Browboy? He's on one of the catwalks, he's more like a look out than an animatronic for performing" Browboy? That was the third BB that Mike knew of, it was getting a bit ridiculous. Also, Brow? What was that about? After a second Mike came to the conclusion that he didn't really care, instead saying casually as his eyes slid back over towards the man.

"Oh, alright, so no security then? I haven't seen any, unless you have a night shift thing going on" It was interesting to see how hard the man flinched at that, he probably worked that shift himself at least once back at Freddy's, if just the mention of it got that kind of reaction.

"A-Ah, no, no need for something like that, we're pretty out of the way, and the animatronics can alert the authorities to anyone breaking in. Facial recognition you know" Mike did know, it had been something that had been a staple of the toy line, he even knew a fair bit about all of it from just overhearing some things from Fritz and Jeremy, as well as living with Marionette, who was basically the precursor of them. So the idea that this place had something at least related from copying whatever was in Balloon Boy made some sense.

Something about that had always made Mike a bit confused though. After all, Marionette had been made by Henry to manage the prize corner, but his father had been the one to make the Security Puppet for handling and helping with security matters... so why had Henry put so much security based code and protocols into Marionette? It was confusing, but nothing he could get an answer on, instead just having to make a note of it and move on.

"Oh, that's cool. Foxy can do that as well, I didn't get a great explanation about it, but something about a night mode or whatever for it's servos. Figured if anyone broke in, the moving fox that's a big as me would scare them off pretty quick. It the same here then? Or do they just do alerts" Okay, Mike might have said that one just to watch Gasper's skin tone pale another notch at the casual mention about an old Freddy's animatronic wandering at night. Plus trauma reminders did a wonder to knock someone on the off foot.

"U-uh, well, they used to, strangely enoug- I mean, yeah. Uh, but not anymore, just Browboy alerts a system if there is any motion past midnight" Like that, Mike kept his smug look to himself, and kept walking. This proved that at the very least the BB here was haunted if it moved around in the off hours, now he just had to find it. Though of course that opened up a whole new set of problems to deal with, but at the very least Mike now had something he could focus on.

Though... Word that the animatronics didn't do that anymore was a bit weird, but he chose to not think about it. It was fine.

From there things got too boring to really feel the need to explore in detail, Mike danced around the subject for a while, moved between absently nodding and actively disagreeing with whatever inane idea Gasper had in mind to help 'promote both sides of this deal equally', but really amounted to him looking to get literally anything inside of Foxy's Cove's walls so people would realize Bounce Palace even existed in the first place.

Mike could tell the man was actively getting more and more fed up the longer and longer they continued to talk, he didn't really care, but he did decide to finally throw in a line of his own to see if the man would hook himself on it. As he leaned in absently, like he was thinking about something he actually had already had the idea for nearly twenty minutes ago, and said with a far bit of intrigue.

"Well, I mean, just putting up some posters isn't going to do much, we'd need to do something to actually, you know, show off each other's stuff. Like, if I could have one of those BB's out there then it would be pretty easy for people to get interested, or just a Balloon Boy himself, and you could have a few stands of foxy merch around as well, given I don't have any robots I can just give away" It was interesting to see the way Gasper's face shifted and morphed between a mix of relief and hesitance.

"Uh, well, normally I would be more than fine with that, it's a great deal even, but uh, Balloon Boy... He's not around here anymore" Mike raised an eyebrow at that, trying his best to not look to... anything really, as he said.

"Oh? Well, his name was on the door, I figured that would be the one that would stick around the longest" Gasper waved him off.

"You'd think, but uh, well. You have that Foxy right? I'm sure you realize just how, uh, lacking Fazbear can be" Mike did hsi best to not feel offended on his fox friend's behalf, which was harder than it sounded, as the man continued, "The thing broke down a few months ago and just refused to come back online, and soon after I got a notice about someone looking to buy it off me for scraps, and well... You know"

"You sold it to be scrapped?" Mike's voice sounded hallow in his ears, Gasper seemed to pick up on that, and clearly misread his meaning.

"Yeah, or something like that, I didn't get to many details, but the point is the thing wouldn't have done any good anyways for us, but you can take another one of our cast with you, we don't really need this many, and honestly it would probably be nice to not have to have to do so much for keeping them working" Mike withheld the urge to point out that the man clearly didn't have any technicians on staff, of even janitors from the conditions of the animatronics that he had already seen, but instead of saying that, he took a deep breath and just thought it over.

He really didn't want any of those double lettered weird looking things back at Foxy's, that was a nonissue, he wasn't looking for nay deal now, but what he did have to deal with was the fact that BB was gone. Of course, the animatronic couldn't have been out of condition, sure this place didn't seem to handle their machines well, but Fazbear animatronics were damn tough, Foxy himself was a great example of still being fully functioning even when well past out of order, Gasper was just trying to find a scapegoat for one of his toys breaking.

So the fact he went out of order at all and Gasper couldn't get BB working at all...

"Hey, weird question, when did BB turn off?"

"Oh, well... Hmm, it was around the start of the year, we got the call about two or three weeks later, around the end of January" BB 'broke' around the same time that Purple Guy got Springlocked... That explained it, it nearly made Mike let out a sigh of relief, knowing what had happened, or at least having the pieces in front of him layout out in a way he could reach the conclusion.

But it didn't, not yet, even if BB moved on and there wasn't anything to worry about for the osul inside, the fact that the body was missing was something he found himself focusing on, another problem that he could fix, as he asked casually.

"I see, any idea who got in touch with you? Maybe I can reach out, I have a guy on my staff who's great with those old machines, maybe I can buy it back or at least see what ended up happening to it" Gasper just waved him off.

"Oh, no, it's no big deal, besides I'd have to look all through my desk just to try and find the number, it's nothing to worry about, seriously. Now back to the deal" Mike could have pressed on the subject, but instead he found himself moving back, leaning back as well, as his eyes scoured around before locking on the clock. Thankfully it had been long enough that he could do this-

"I'd love to, but it's getting late and I need to find a hotel for the night before it gets to dark out, we can talk more in the morning though, get something sorted out before I head back to Hurricane" The man across from Mike sort of deflated a bit, but bounced himself back up quickly enough that it was hard to spot, as he said with an not so easy smile forcing itself on his face.

"Yeah, no, of course! Please, I'll be here a bit before opening, so feel free to come in around then so we can finish our discussion" Mike just nodded, stood up, and after a quick shake of the hand, he found himself quickly leaving. Having no use in the other two rooms, now that he knew it was empty, he moved past them and out into the front room, and then out to the parking lot.

He had a lot to catch the puppet on, and he really did have a hotel to find, given it would be hard to do what he had planned if they did what Mike would normally do, and get the hell out of dodge before Gasper noticed he was being stood up.

I... really thought I already had end notes here. Guess I just knew what I wanted to say but didn't put it down, so...

This chapter, lot of things happening isn't it? Balloon Boy is in the wind but at the same time seems to have moved on so that's something. But at the same time, the lore dumps in this chapter, I'm not going to pick it apart for everyone, that's just be pointing a beacon at all my foreshadowing and well, making it not in the shadows anymore, more like in the spotlight.

But what I will mention is the Mike and Mari scene. We finally got an answer for the Purple Man inconsistencies from what Mike thought to what some animatronics, like Foxy, has said. I bet no one wondered about that, but I like being able to point things out and gloating about how smart I am to have things set up dozens of chapters in advance, so I'mma point it out. And... yes, if anyone was wondering, the reason why Mike's head, hands, and arms at the ones that are streaked with purple, it's because that's where the blood splattered on him from when he killed Evan, where his hands holding him above his head, and his head itself would have been in the... splash zone.

Makes you think doesn't it? If that's how Mike's sin appears... What must have Dave Miller done to appear as he did as how Marionette described?

With that horrifying thought, I'll leave off here, See Ya!