A/N: You guys might have noticed that my schedule has started to slip for the last two chapters. Yeah, that's med school ramping up the difficulty and brutality when it comes to exams and quizzes per week. So far I've been able to at least keep a schedule of one chapter per week, but because I have a ton of hard exams coming up next week the chance of me posting a chapter next week is very low.

A lot has happened in the last arc, but one question remains. What do we do with the broken Marionette? It's time we answered that question.

Olive: BonBon was one of the animatronics that got scooped in Sister Location, so he's gone.

CirrusSeaEagle: Charlie was closely bonded with the Marionette due to being one with it for decades, which is why she felt the pain from Electrobab's attack. By contrast, Liz (and indeed any other ghost for that matter) has already been freed from an animatronic body, so she isn't affected by attacks that could harm a physical body like Charlie was.

Toonnette: I will probably have the Rockstars come out relatively soon. They're part of an important setup for a future arc that I have planned.

Jake: What do you mean? You can only see up to Chapter 34? That sounds like a problem on your end, sorry.

Chapter 51 – Pyre for a Puppet

Mike's jaw dropped when he saw Liz carrying the broken Marionette's body behind her to the rendezvous point they'd agreed on. "Hold on…I thought Charlie was going to burn herself in CBEAR when you blew it sky-high!"

"Yeah," Jeremy agreed. "Didn't Charlie say she wanted to be burned rather than broken, or something like that?"

"I know," Liz answered, "but there's been a change of plans." She proceeded to tell the rest of her family what she'd told Charlie, how the Marionette deserved better than to burn alone in a monument of all of William Afton's sins. Although she omitted the more personal details that fueled her rationale (such as Mike and Evan's final bonding moment in the trap pizzeria or the picture of her and Charlie), the family was still thoroughly stunned and awed by the initiative she had taken for her sister.

"So…yeah…" Charlie weakly giggled. "I'm…still…around…"

Mike grinned at Liz and ruffled her ghostly hair. "You did the right thing, Liz, and I'm very impressed." Liz would have normally beamed at the praise, but seeing Charlie's broken body sobered her instantly and she could only manage a faint smile in return. "I'm glad that Henry's biggest gift to Charlie didn't meet its end in William Afton's Funhouse of Fucked-up Shit." Then, his brow furrowed, and he frowned. "It's just that…"

"I don't like the sound of that…" Gabe muttered.

"…it's just that I didn't have a plan for Charlie still being the Puppet after this," their father admitted. He looked around, "Also, we should get out of here. I know we're far enough from CBEAR not to be connected with the explosion, but people are going to ask questions if they see me talking to a puppet."

He got into the car as the ghosts helped spread the ruined Marionette's body on the backseat. "Can you rebuild the Puppet?" Susie asked as Mike started driving.

"Unfortunately, there isn't even the slightest chance of that happening," Mike replied grimly. "The systems inside the Marionette's body are old as all hell. Believe me, I've checked. It's a miracle that the Puppet was able to last for decades as it is. Whatever that evil Pikachu knock-off did to Charlie completely fried everything beyond repair."

"So what are we going to do?" Cassidy asked, clearly worried. "I couldn't imagine what Charlie's going through right now."

"I'm…not…in…pain…I'm…just…completely…numb…" Charlie offered, trying to ease her family's concerns.

"That's not much better," Fritz bluntly interrupted.

"Well, the solution is simple enough in theory," Mike answered. "Burn the Puppet and set Charlie's soul free. The problem is where I'm going to do this. I obviously can't do it at home, unless you want a spontaneous re-enactment of the burning of CBEAR with my house instead."

"That…sounds…like…a…terrible…idea…" Charlie deadpanned, before letting out another weak cough.

"You need to stop talking and rest," Mike instructed with the full authority of a parent. "But yeah, I'd rather not. Luckily, there's another place that I think we can go to instead. One that hopefully won't have too many people around to see us burning a Puppet."

"Where's that?" Fritz asked.

"A camp site near the mountains," Mike explained. "Hopefully we can snag a cabin for ourselves instead of having to use a tent. The place has a bunch of pits that we can safely burn the Marionette in without causing a massive fire."

"So I guess this is technically our first vacation," Cassidy realized.

Mike shook his head. "Vacation is when you want to just enjoy yourself and relax without the worries of the world bringing you down. What we're doing is…pretty much the exact opposite." As he turned around a corner onto an open road, the ghosts noticed that they had left the bulk of the town far behind. "Well, Jeremy, you should be happy. I know you've had an interesting in camping, and I did promise you guys to bring you out to nature to see the stars."

"I didn't want it to happen like this, though," Jeremy mumbled, giving a sad look at the broken body of his sister.

"Well, it won't be an issue for long, I can tell you that much," Mike promised as they drove onward. Most of the ride continued in silence, aside from one of the ghosts occasionally asking Charlie if she was all right. Eventually, as they approached the sand-colored mountains, Mike drove his van under a sign that marked the entrance to a camping ground. Though night had fallen, the ghosts could see the outline of the mountains under a starry night sky, a sight that would have filled them with wonder if they weren't so concerned about Charlie's state.

"Wait here," Mike instructed as he drove into the parking lot and got out of the car. The ghosts watched him head towards a large cabin that served as the administration building. After several minutes, they saw him come back with a faint smile on his face. "Well, we're in luck," he declared. "I managed to snag a cabin for us. It's a bit distant from the rest of the campgrounds but considering what we're trying to do that's actually better for us."

He got back into the car and drove towards the cabin he had rented. "How many times have you been here before, dad?" Susie asked.

"Not many," Mike admitted. "Back when I was in college, some of my friends insisted on taking me out here. They insisted that I spent way too much time around machines and that I should take a break out to enjoy nature's wonders. I complained all the way there," he chuckled, "but after I went through with it I'm glad I did it. There's things you can see in nature that you won't find anywhere else."

"Guess we'll have to wait until morning to see them," Jeremy commented as the outline of a cabin came into view. Mike drove up to the cabin and got out of the car, holding a set of keys that the ranger had given him.

"Come on out, guys," he ordered. "I'm gonna need help preparing the fire pit."

The ghosts flew out of the car, carrying the Marionette between them. "Let's put her on that chair over there," Liz suggested, and they propped the animatronic onto the chair. To an outsider, Charlie looked as though she was merely resting instead of broken.

Mike, in the meantime, had found the fire pit. "Okay, since the whole point of our little fire is to burn something on it rather than keep it going through the night, I just need you guys to stack a few branches and logs so that we can safely lay the Puppet's body on it. Then we just need to pour some lighter fluid on it and the flames will take care of the rest."

Despite everything, Fritz couldn't resist a small chuckle. "Man, lighter fluid is really the MVP of the night, isn't it?" he asked.

"I guess you could look at it that way," Gabe replied as he and the rest of the ghosts got to work picking up various branches and logs and stacking them inside the fire pit. After a few minutes, they had enough of a framework built up to place the Marionette's body on. Mike picked up Charlie and placed her on the makeshift pyre himself.

"You ready?" he asked her.

"As…ready…as…I'll…ever…be…" Charlie coughed out. "Let's…finish…this…quickly…"

Mike nodded and opened the bottle of lighter fluid he had found outside the cabin. He poured the lighter fluid on the Marionette, covering as much of the animatronic as possible without risking a fire hazard. Then, taking a deep breath, he lit a match, dropped it onto the pyre, and stepped back.

The pyre instantly burst into flames, the lighter fluid allowing it to engulf the Marionette completely. Everyone tensed, fearing that they were going to hear Charlie scream in agony just like she had when Electrobab had attacked her. But instead, Charlie simply let out a long final breath, more akin to a sigh of relief than anything else.

Their worst fears allayed, Mike and the ghost kids watched in silence as the Marionette burned on the pyre they had made for her. The ghosts' minds went back to the moment when they had first met the Marionette, and how she had given them all the gift of life with her magic. Even though that gift had led to terrible consequences that they all dearly regretted, they couldn't help but feel grateful that she had tried her hardest to alleviate the suffering of their souls.

"You'll soon be free," Cassidy murmured as she watched the flames eat away at her friend.

"It's almost time," Susie added quietly as she watched the Puppet's white mask char and blacken.

"We're here for you," Gabe finished. "It'll all be over soon."

Charlie let out another contented sigh. "Liz was right," she thought as the flames rose around her and she felt the bonds connecting her to the Puppet begin to break. "This is so much better than burning alone in Circus Baby's. I don't think there could be a more beautiful way to be free and join my family."

For several minutes, Mike and the other ghosts watched in silence. Then, Mike noticed a small, ghostly hand rise out of the flames. The other children saw it too and immediately began to whisper amongst themselves. "Charlie?" Jeremy was the first who dared to ask. "Is that…is that you?"

The specter stirred faster in response to the question, and everyone watched as the figure of a young girl emerged from the remains. Before anyone could process what they were seeing, the girl tried to levitate from the pyre, only to stumble out of the air. Gabe acted quickly, catching Charlie before she could fall through the ground.

"Thanks," Charlie breathed as she steadied herself by holding on Gabe's shoulders. "God, it's been decades since I've been a regular ghost like the rest of you. I've forgotten what it's like to move around without a physical body."

"Took us a bit too," Fritz assured her as the family crowded around her. "You'll get used to it eventually."

"Let me take a look at you to make sure you're all right," Mike offered. Gabe handed her over to Mike, who was able to "hold" her thanks to his supernatural attunement. To his immense relief, there didn't seem to be any injuries or wounds on Charlie's spirit from either Electrobab's attack or the burning of the Marionette.

With their worries alleviated, Mike and the rest of the family could now take the time to marvel at just how different Charlie's appearance was from what they had expected. The kids had always looked to Charlie as a leader and guide, and Mike himself knew how much the girl had matured mentally compared to the rest of them with greater responsibility being forced on her shoulders. As a result, everyone was completely stunned by how young Charlie was as a ghost. The spectral figure couldn't be any older than 5, a young girl with long brown hair that extended down her shoulders. The hair matched perfectly with her eyes, which twinkled with kindness and compassion but were also shadowed with maturity born from decades of hardship and responsibility.

As for her clothes, Charlie was wearing a small purple T-shirt with a green sweater over it, along with a pair of blue jeans to cover her legs. Mike was privately impressed that Charlie had had the foresight to materialize clothes over her ghostly figure before departing from the Puppet's body, and Liz couldn't help but marvel at how similar Charlie's clothes were to the first set of clothes she had chosen from herself in their first shopping trip.

"So this is what you really look like…" Mike marveled. "I know I saw a picture of you back at your old house, but this is still blowing my mind…"

Charlie giggled, and Mike was amazed at how refreshing it was to hear her normal voice instead of the strangled whisper. "I guess I'm still a kid at heart. But it's me, dad. This is who I really am." Mike let go of her and she stayed in the air, occasionally balancing herself from a lingering unsteadiness.

"How do you feel?" Liz asked as she floated up to her sister.

Charlie smiled at her. "I feel…free…" she answered after several seconds of thought. "I can feel the breeze flowing through my soul. I can feel the gentle coolness of a spring night. I feel like this is the kind of existence I was meant to have, no longer bound by any physical limitations. It just feels so…so…natural…"

Jeremy grinned. "Welcome to the club, Charlie!"

Before she could say or do anything, the other ghosts swarmed around her, wrapping her in a tight group hug. "Ack!" Charlie exclaimed as they buried her in their embrace. "This feels so weird without being in the Puppet!" Mike chuckled with amusement and was about to make a dry comment, when the fire suddenly crackled and shot out sparks, drawing their attention.

"Oh, right…" Mike muttered, his smile fading. "The Marionette's still burning. Under most circumstances, I would have asked Charlie to say a few final words for the Puppet since it was something special for her and a gift for her dad, but with how badly it got damaged I didn't want to waste any time setting her free from it. But now that Charlie's safely out…do you have anything you want to say?"

"I do," Charlie affirmed as the ghosts slowly broke their hug. They separated and returned to a respectful distance as Charlie approached the pyre. By now, most of the Puppet's body had been fully destroyed by the flames, and its mask had fallen to the ground, blackened with ash. Charlie reached down and picked it up, her enhanced magical capabilities compensating for her lack of experience with interacting with physical objects as a ghost. "Marionette…you were always my favorite animatronic." she murmured. "Other people thought you were creepy and weird, but even back before all this mess started I knew there was more to you than most people could see. The night I died, when those kids locked me out in the rain…"

"THEY DID WHAT?" Fritz exclaimed, outraged. The rest of the family except for Charlie gave him dirty looks and he immediately felt a wave of embarrassment. "Sorry…" he apologized.

Charlie smiled at him. "No, don't be. I'm glad you care, Fritz." She sighed. "But…that night…with Dad called away to a meeting with his board, the Puppet was the only one who looked out for me. He tried to rescue me from the cold and the dark, and he held me in his arms as I lay dying from the wounds William Afton inflicted on me." She looked down at the blackened mask. "You were my closest friend in the darkest hour of my life, and even if I didn't intend to, I am truly honored to wear your body as my own."

Charlie brought the mask to her chest and held it to her. "But all good things come to an end, as they always do. Necessity has demanded we part ways, and even though I'll always be grateful to you I know that it's for the best. Good bye, my friend." She closed her eyes. "If you exist in the world beyond, I hope that you finally have peace."

She placed the mask at the bottom of the pyre and backed away from it, joining her family in their vigil as they watched the final destruction of the Marionette begin. Nobody said a word as the fire reduced one of the oldest relics of the Freddy Fazbear franchise to a pile of ash.

"It is done," Charlie bowed her head. The other ghosts took this as the sign to end their silent vigil and they began pouring water onto the pyre from buckets that Mike had prepared in case the fire spiraled out of control. When the fires had died completely, Charlie picked up the Puppet's mask and held it to her chest as the family retired to the inside of the cabin.

"I'll find a place to put the Puppet's mask when we get home," Mike assured her as he sat at the wooden table. "I'm sure we'll find a place."

"Thanks, dad," Charlie replied as she put the mask on the table in front of her.

"Not sure what we're going to do with the music box now that the Marionette is gone, but I guess that's a bridge we'll cross when…"

"…Charlie?" Susie's timid voice interrupted. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Whatever you need, Cass."

"I've…noticed something a bit weird. You didn't seem all that surprised about having to burn the Puppet. Actually, I'd almost say you were expecting this to happen. And I don't understand why. Was this something you had planned before we came here?" Susie asked.

"Very perceptive of you, Sus," Charlie smiled faintly as memories of past discussions flew through her mind. "I wouldn't say that we PLANNED to burn the Puppet, exactly. But yeah, we HAVE talked about this before."

"We knew that Charlie was bound to the Puppet, and that burning him would free her since that was how it worked for all the other animatronics," Mike continued. "We just didn't know why, though that wasn't really a detail that mattered. It's easy to forget, but the Marionette was technically a prison just as much as it was a physical body for Charlie. To be honest, I never really liked the idea of Charlie still being forced to live as the Puppet for as long as she did."

"Dad offered to take me out here and set me free whenever I wanted to. And many times, I was tempted to," Charlie admitted. "So many times I wanted to just burn the Marionette on a pyre like we did just now and burn my last direct connection to the physical world. And when you guys came, I only felt that temptation even more."

"Why, though?" Jeremy asked, confused.

"Because I felt like I was holding you guys back," Charlie explained. The ghosts immediately began to protest the idea, but she raised her hand to quiet them. "You guys can hide yourselves from the outside world. I can't. The reason why dad has been waiting so long to start our family vacations is because I couldn't enjoy them without exposing myself to the rest of the world. I even asked dad a few times to just take you guys out on vacation and leave me behind to take care of the house…"

"…which I shot down every single time," Mike interrupted, "…because barring a few specific exceptions, we either do everything together as a complete family or not at all."

"It would have been so easy to end that problem by burning the Marionette earlier than we did tonight. But every time I felt the urge to give in, something stopped me."

"What was it?" Liz asked. She would never really know what Charlie's life with Mike was life before the rest of them had come, but with all the terrible things she had been through as baby it sounded like an offer that she would have jumped at the first chance she had.

"A couple of things, actually," Charlie explained. "Sentimentality was one of the biggest reasons. Yeah, the Puppet might have technically been a prison, but it was who I had become, and once upon a time, it was my friend. It just didn't feel right for me to throw that all away, it'd feel like I'd be spitting on everything my first dad did for me."

"I'm sure he would have understood," Cassidy assured her.

Charlie sighed. "I know he did, but there was always this feeling I had that if I destroyed the Puppet for no good reason, one day I would greatly regret it. And that possibility scared me enough to resist that temptation. And that's where my second reason comes in." She took a deep breath. "I always had this instinct that one day I would need the Puppet for something incredibly important."

The ghosts' eyes widened. "You knew you'd have to sacrifice it for dad this whole time?" Jeremy exclaimed.

"What?" Charlie spluttered. "Oh God, no, I can't foresee or predict the future! If I could, then I would have sought out Liz and found her first before William did. Not to mention the fact that taking care of him afterwards would have been laughably easy." She shook her head. "No, nothing specific like that. It was simply a gut feeling, but it was one that always lurked in the back of my mind."

"Gut feelings are worth a lot more than people give them credit for," Mike added. "If I didn't pay attention to them back when I was a kid I don't think I would've lived past my teens."

"And it was a gut feeling that saved you tonight," Charlie kissed her dad lightly on the cheek. "I finally understand why it was so important for me to keep the Marionette alive as long as possible. I…I don't want to think about what would've happened down there if I hadn't…"

"…then don't," Mike gently but firmly interrupted. "Like I told you before, Charlie. Keep yourself grounded in truth and reality."

"…I know," Charlie wiped her eye once before continuing. "And I'm so, so happy that I made the decision that I did. With how much my first dad respects you, I don't think he could have asked for a better way for the Marionette to meet his end: as the ultimate sacrifice to save my new dad's life."

"Amen to that," Gabe declared, and the rest of the ghosts followed suit.

"Still…" Charlie looked down at the Marionette's mask. "I can't help but feel sad knowing that my oldest friend is…gone. With no way to bring him back."

Liz went up to her sister and hugged her. "It'll be all right, Charlie," she promised, to which Charlie affectionately stroked her hair.

"Absolutely," Mike agreed. "One of the best ways to get through bleak moments like this is to look for a bright side. Every cloud has a silver lining, as the saying goes. And in this case, I can think of a very, VERY big upside to freeing Charlie from the Puppet. She's no longer bound to a physical form anymore, and after a bit of practice I think she'll be able to catch up with the rest of you in terms of keeping herself hidden, especially with her magic capabilities. Which means…"

Gabe's eyes widened with realization. "We'll be able to go on vacations soon!"

Mike grinned. "Got it in one, Gabe."

The ghosts began to chatter excitedly, but their father raised his hand to calm them down. "Hold up. I know you guys are excited, but this is still a somber moment. Let's give the Marionette the respect he deserves." He yawned. "Besides, it's past midnight. Way too late to be talking about this. I'll check the pyre to make sure we doused it properly and then we'll go to bed."

"That sounds good to me," Liz yawned. "I'm tired too. It's been a long day."

"I have to say," Fritz looked over at Charlie as the ghosts began to separate and Mike got up from the table to make sure the pyre was properly put out. "I always saw you as the older sister for all of us. And I didn't expect you to look like this! You're tiny!"

Charlie's eyes narrowed as everyone immediately stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, Mike could see Liz, Gabe, and Jeremy smack their faces with their hands. "You're tiny," she repeated with a dangerous tone in her voice. "You're tiny? My soul is finally free after decades of living as a physical animatronic, the only thing I remember about what I originally looked like is from a picture that's just as old, and the FIRST thing you say to me is YOU'RE TINY?"

Fritz knew immediately that he'd fucked up massively. "Oh, shi…" he didn't even have time to finish his thought as Charlie whacked him on the head with her tiny fists. "Ack, I'm sorry!" Fritz feebly apologized as she proceeded to chase him around the room, the rest of the ghosts collapsing into laughter at the sight of an older boy fleeing scared shitless from a little girl. "I'm sorry! I'm an idiot! And I have the social grace of a low IQ baboon!"

"Damn right you do!" Charlie declared as she leaped onto Fritz's back, forcing him to give her an impromptu piggyback ride. Mike didn't know how piggyback rides would even work for ghosts, but he was laughing too hard to care.

"She'll be fine," he thought as Charlie finally let go of Fritz and both joined their siblings in laughing at the absurdity of it all. Even though he had kept silent about it, part of him had been worried that the destruction of the Marionette would end up crippling her mental state – having dealt with both Liz's depression and his own, Mike knew how unpredictable and dangerous it could be. But he had forgotten just how strong Charlie was despite her youthful appearance and seeing the antics in front of him was a reminder he would happily accept. "I'm so proud of her. No…I'm so proud of them all."

/

A/N: Geez, Fritz, you just keep finding ways to piss off your sisters XD. Ironically enough, I always thought that Foxy would fit the "lady's man" archetype the most out of the original four. Not really much of a lady's man if you annoy every girl you meet though :P

I've always imagined that Charlie's appearance looked like a younger version of her book counterpart, so that's why they're so similar. There's plenty of drawings and pictures of teen Charlie on Google (including those by Scott himself), so just find one and imagine her as a little girl to get a good bearing of what she looks like here.

On a more serious note, I wanted to give the Marionette a proper and respectful send-off. And I think the way the I handled it here was much more appropriate and heartwarming than simply leaving the Marionette to burn in the CBEAR explosion, which was my original plan until inspiration convinced me to change my plans a day or two before I started writing this arc.

Having spent a lot of time on FNAF Reddit and learned a lot about things I didn't know beforehand (Cassidy's name was one of these, for example), I've looked back at some of my earlier chapters and realized that I might have gotten some of the timeline details wrong. There have also been times when I have looked back and found out that things might work out better for a future arc if I "rearrange" some of the history I had previously established. Because of this, I may decide to go back to earlier chapters and rewrite some parts of them. None of these retcons will change anything in the present day or alter anything fundamental – for example, Cassidy will always be the Golden Freddy ghost. If I do go back and change things, be assured that it will be because I genuinely believe it is for the betterment of the story.

Anyways, I hope you're content with the Marionette's funeral. I think the next significant development will either be the introduction of the Rockstars or the family's first ACTUAL vacation. Which one do you want first, and if it's the latter, which place should they go to? Please let me know in the reviews section 😊