A/N: It seems that vacation is overwhelmingly the most popular choice, and I am not one to go against the crowd. I will be introducing the Rockstars afterwards, as they will be important for the sake of humor and for…more serious matters.

I don't really consider the trip out to the cabin a vacation. A vacation is supposed to be a liberation from duties and responsibilities, the exact opposite of the family's purpose in going there that night. Not to mention the fact that Mike didn't really bring anything for a camping trip. He might do a proper one later on, but I'm not really going to go into what they did over there since they were focused entirely on burning the Puppet with little preparation for anything else.

A lot of you guys wanted the kids to go to places all over the world, but with what I have established from Mike's character, I think that he would want to go to a place relatively close to where he lives first, as he is very cautious by nature and would want to make sure a vacation to someplace nearby would work smoothly before he attempts something more ambitious (requiring a plane and whatnot).

I need a bit of time to prepare the arc (and I'm exhausted from both the last arc and all the med school exams I got slammed with), so I'm going to do something that's kinda like a Random Family Moments in the meantime. This one actually has more plot relevance than chapters of this nature normally do, though.

Blade: Mike's last name is whatever you want it to be. As far as he's concerned, Schmidt is his last name.

Chapter 52 – Setting the Stage

Police Business

"Good to see you, Mike," the police chief greeted him as he sat down at the table. "Thanks for coming down."

Mike shrugged. "No problem, John," he replied. "What can I help you with?"

Ever since the explosion at CBEAR, the police had been going around asking anybody who had been relatively near the now-destroyed facility for any information. To Mike's annoyance, an off-duty police officer had recognized him and put his name up for casual interrogation.

"Still," he thought, "I'd rather have this compared to how utterly fucking useless the police were back in the 80s and 90s." The sheer, abysmal incompetence of the police when it came to Freddy's – for both the murdered children and the night guards – was something that flabbergasted him to this day. A police force that went above and beyond to investigate or carry out justice was a godsend in comparison…

…even if that meant slogging through the waste of time that would be the next few minutes.

"I'm pretty sure you didn't have anything to do with CBEAR's explosion, so let's just get straight to the point," John continued. "You were at a diner nearby when the building exploded, right?"

"Yep," Mike confirmed smoothly. He had practiced his alibi in preparation for this, and even if he hadn't, there were numerous witnesses who could confirm his presence there. "Can even tell you what I had. Pancakes, home fries, sausage, everything you need for a breakfast at dinnertime."

John's lips twitched. "You're making me hungry, Mike," he complained. "I don't suppose you saw anything suspicious? Any lone vans or trucks going to the facility before it was destroyed that looked like they could be carrying explosives or something?"

Mike shook his head. "Didn't see a thing, John."

The chief sighed. "Figured as much. It's not like we found anything there anyway. The explosion was so big it blew up any evidence that we could find. I'm still thinking that multiple people were involved, considering that there were multiple places where fires were started from what we could tell. There's no way in Hell a single person could have set all those fires at once and made it out alive, and we didn't find evidence of anybody still in the building when it blew up."

"Sounds like whoever it was covered their tracks well," Mike commented.

John snorted. "No kidding. I'm tempted to just close the investigation anyway. Afton Robotics – that's the owner of the building, by the way – they closed down and never sold the facility, so I honestly don't think anybody actually gives a shit about what happened to CBEAR." He sighed. "I just hope that no other buildings get blown up like that."

"Did they leave a calling card or anything? A threat of some kind?" Mike asked, slipping on the mask of a concerned citizen.

John shook his head. "Nah, nothing like that. Everything points to this just being an isolated event, which I'm hoping it is." He wrote something in the file in front of him and snapped it shut. "Well, that's all I have for you, Mike. You're clear."

Mike smiled. "Thanks, John." He got up from his chair, then suddenly stopped. "Hey, do you remember what I showed you a couple of months back?"

The good humor slipped from John's face. "Yeah," he grimaced. "That was one of the most disgusting and horrifying things I've ever seen. Whoever killed those kids was a seriously sick fuck…and if you ask me, the company's not much better for trying to sweep it all under the rug. I still have no idea how you even found them to begin with!"

Mike shook his head. "It'd be way too complicated for me to tell you, John."

John sighed. "Well, I'm glad you found them, at least. We took the bodies out and brought them to the morgue. Considering when the MCI happened, it's way too late to give them a proper funeral. All we can do is bury them in a graveyard like they should have been from the start."

Mike leaned forward and looked John in the eye. "I'd like to handle the burials, John."

The police chief's eyes widened. "YOU want to take care of this?" he exclaimed incredulously.

Mike shrugged. "I have more money than I know what to do with. I might as well use it for something that actually matters."

"But…why?" John asked, still utterly baffled by Mike's offer. "I don't understand!"

"I was the one who found them," Mike answered, his face and eyes giving nothing away, "and I wouldn't feel right unless I followed through with taking care of those poor kids. And they matter a lot more to me than you could possibly know," he added in his head.

John looked uncertainly at Mike. It was normally the authorities' job to take care of things like burials and he had the sneaking suspicion that Mike was hiding something from him. But he had been friends with Mike for quite a long time by now and knew that he was a trustworthy and good person at heart.

Besides, he knew that his friend donated money to charities and special causes periodically. Maybe he just felt like contributing to society in a different way this time?

"All right, I'll see what I can do, Mike."

Mike grinned. "You don't have to worry about a thing, John. I'll take care of it for you." He got up from his chair again and held out his hand. "Good luck with the whole Circus Baby investigation thing."

John reached out and shook it. "Have a nice day, my friend."

Growth Spurt

"Has anyone seen Charlie?" Cassidy poked her head in the living room. "I wanted to ask her something."

Gabe looked up from the Percy Jackson book he was reading and shrugged. "I couldn't tell you, Cass," he replied. "I've just been reading all morning."

"I haven't seen her either," Jeremy added as he typed something on his laptop. "Sorry."

"That's o…"

BOOM!

A deafening explosion echoed throughout the house, causing Gabe to drop the book. "What the crap?" he exclaimed.

"Look over there!" Cassidy suddenly pointed. A blinding light was glowing from the entrance to the basement. Even as they watched, the glow was slowly starting to fade away.

"I just heard an explosion!" Susie exclaimed as she and the other ghosts started floating into the room. "What's going on?"

"It came from the basement," Jeremy pointed downstairs. "Whatever just happened, it's really big!"

"We have to go down and find out what's happened, but let's be careful," Gabe shuddered. "I hope it's not Nightmare again…"

Fritz shook his head. "Doubt it. Feel like it'd be a bit more shadowy and flame-y if it was Nightmare." He looked uncertainly at the door again. "Still, guess it couldn't hurt to be careful…"

As a group, the ghosts slowly floated down the stairs into the basement. Normally, they would have just simply gone through the floor, but without knowing what was going on down there they couldn't take the risk. Once they were at the last few steps, Liz followed to peek her head around, and…

"WHAT THE HELL?" she exclaimed.

The basement was, to put it simply, a mess. Several pieces of furniture had been overturned, the TV had been outright destroyed with a giant hole in the screen, the picture hiding Mike's safe had fallen to the ground (though the picture itself was miraculously unblemished), and several of the alcohol bottles Mike had reserved for his friends in the past had toppled to the ground and shattered.

And in the middle of all the chaos was the ghost of a teenage girl, who looked exactly like an older version of the child that had been liberated from the Puppet.

"Uh…sorry about that, guys…" Charlie had the grace to look sheepish.

/

"So let me see if I've gotten this down correctly," Mike said once he had finally taken in what had happened a few minutes later. "Ever since you were freed from the Puppet, you were having issues with doing your magic."

"That's right," Charlie agreed, "and it was just so frustrating. It was like part of me was missing even though I knew it was still there. I wanted to practice without getting in the way of everyone else."

"So THAT'S why you kept going down into the basement," Susie exclaimed.

Charlie nodded. "Every time I practiced, I felt myself getting closer and closer to reaching my potential again. So I just decided to give it one final push right now."

"…and shit hit the fan," Mike finished.

Charlie gave her dad a sheepish look. "Yeah."

Mike took a look around the destroyed basement. "Well, this is gonna be a massive pain in the ass to clean up," he commented dryly.

"We'll take care of it," Gabe assured him.

"What I REALLY don't get is why Charlie suddenly looks older!" Liz exclaimed. "I mean, I know she's supposed to be like the older sister, but still!"

"I want to turn into a teen too!" Fritz declared. He closed his eyes and tensed his body up…and the only thing he accomplished was puffing his cheeks. "Aww come on, this isn't fair!" he complained.

"You don't have the maturity for that," Jeremy snarked, smirking at Fritz's dirty looks.

Charlie shrugged. "To be honest, I don't even know why I've transformed into a teen," she admitted, her confusion clear in her voice. "I know I have magic powers, but I don't see how that fits into anything."

Mike thought for a moment. "Maybe it's because you had to mature a lot more than the others," he suggested. "You had a ton of responsibility forced on you ever since you died and had to grow up far faster than you ever should've had to because of it. Maybe this new form is meant to show just how much you've grown compared to everyone else."

Fritz made a face. "So if we want to look older we have to…GROW UP?" he shuddered. "No thanks, I'm fine with looking like a kid."

Mike shrugged. "Whatever works for you, kiddo." He shook his head and stared at Charlie in amazement. "Wow. I've heard of puberty hitting people hard, but letting out a magic blast that explodes the fuck out of my basement? That is some next-level shit right here…"

A Brother's Gift

"How am I gonna reprogram you?" Mike wondered as he looked at the lifeless Bonnet that was currently propped up on his work table. Ever since they had recovered her from Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, he had left her inactive until he could find a way to safely remove the hostile programming that William Afton had installed into her. He was confident enough in his programming skills that he could do so, but the problem was that he hadn't paid careful attention to the blueprints regarding the hand puppets, so he had no clue where to start.

"If I screw this up, I'll destroy your entire personality," Mike mumbled. From what Liz had said about the Funtime animatronics, they had personalities that were separate from the vicious programming forced onto them by their creator, and it didn't feel right to just destroy someone's mind unless he was out of options.

"Maybe if I look at the blueprints on the other project I'm working on, that can help?" he wondered.

"That will not be necessary, Mr. Schmidt…" a deep, unearthly voice interrupted him.

Mike's head jolted up from the table. He knew that voice. "I know you! You were at the pizzeria that me and Liz visited!" he exclaimed.

Shadow Freddy nodded. "Yes," he confirmed, "that was indeed me. I must thank you for clearing out the bodies of the children. That duty is now complete, and I am free to venture elsewhere to address…other tasks. And I must also thank you for…" suddenly, his voice seemed a lot more human and younger than it had been seconds earlier. "…for taking care of Elizabeth. Her suffering has ended, thanks to you."

"I'm glad I did what I could to help," Mike replied quietly. "I know who you are. You're Evan, aren't you? The youngest Afton."

If Evan was surprised that Mike knew who he really was, he didn't show it. "That's right. Much about me has changed since I was child so many years ago."

"Do you want me to get Liz?" Mike asked. "Is that why you're here?"

Evan shook his head. "Not now. Not like this. It wouldn't be right to appear before her right out of the blue. No…I came here to give you this." He held out his hand and Mike's eyes widened as he saw the roll of blue paper inside it.

"Are those…blueprints?" he gaped.

His visitor nodded. "While you were making your preparations to destroy the hellhole that my father created, I salvaged one specific blueprint from the fire that would consume it."

Mike reached out and took the blueprints from Evan. He unrolled it on the table and his eyes widened in shock. The blueprints were for Circus Baby, providing great detail on her structure and how she functioned. "Why are you giving me this?" he asked.

Evan sighed. "Circus Baby was my sister's favorite animatronic, once. Even after everything she's been through, part of her still loves her. Do you not remember what she said to you in the pizzeria?"

Mike thought back to what Liz had said to him in the pizzeria. "I do," he answered. "And you want me to…"

"…recreate her," Shadow Freddy finished. "Recreate her as she was meant to be. I know that you will be securing the Rockstars at a future point in time so that the other children will have bodies to wear, even if they can't use them regularly. Only my sister will be left behind, forced to use a form that she has only recently learned not to hate, just so she can fit in with the rest of her siblings. My older brother gave her a great gift on Christmas, and I want to give her one too. I want to give Liz her favorite animatronic back, untainted and restored."

Mike studied the blueprints that Evan had given him again. Circus Baby had been state of the art for her time period, and he suspected that a lot of its more advanced characteristics had been incorporated as part of her child-abducting/killing nature. Even with those taken out, he didn't have the time or resources to build an entire animatronic of that size from scratch. At least, not right now.

"In some ways, you remind me of my old father," Shadow Freddy commented. "There are more similarities between the two of you than you would likely care to admit. But it is the differences that defined the paths you would tread, and I can't help but believe that you are who William Afton would have been if he had made the right choices in his life instead of the wrong ones."

Mike's brow furrowed. "I…assume that's a compliment," he said warily.

Evan chuckled. "It absolutely is, Mr. Schmidt. But with that being said, it is time for me to depart. Please keep looking after my sister and the others."

Mike's lip twitched. "Didn't even need to ask."

Shadow Freddy started to fade away, but suddenly rematerialized. "Oh, before I go…" he pointed at the disabled Bonnet. "The solution is a lot simpler than you think. When my father created the Funtimes, he actually had two separate programming mechanisms. The first was for basic animatronic functions, which incidentally also gave them minds, thoughts, and feelings, while the second was for his despicable child-murdering plans. All of them operated in the same way so that William could avoid having the malevolent programming interfere with the normal animatronics at the wrong time and also remove the corrupting modules if anybody ever investigated." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, the creation of Ennard ended up tangling the two types of programming together, driving all of them insane."

"That would explain what happened to Liz," Mike thought unhappily.

Shadow Freddy shook his head. "Nobody could have foreseen the consequences of their plan," he sighed. "But anyway, I hope what I told you has clarified the matter."

The man smiled. "It definitely has. Thanks for the help."

Evan nodded. "Then I wish you luck." He started to fade again, and this time he did not return. Mike looked down at the disabled Bonnet puppet and smiled. Taking a screwdriver, he began to pop open the screws holding down a panel on the back of Bonnet's head.

"Let's see how many secrets you have left for me to destroy, William Afton," Mike thought as a cold smile stretched across his face.

/

A/N: Child Charlie didn't last very long, did it? :P

Up until last week, my first quarter of second year Med school was going smoothly. And then I promptly got DESTROYED by a serious of med school exams that have seriously upped the difficulty to the next level. Weekly updates will no longer be a thing, unfortunately, especially since I have to focus all my attention on not flunking out of med school. The old ways of first year no longer work, I'm afraid.

This chapter was really meant to nudge the plot along in a few ways rather than be a major plot development in and of itself. You'll see how things play out in the future 😊

I'm going to wait out a couple of reviews for who wants Vacation vs. Rockstars before I get to work on the next big plot arc. Right now, vacation is winning.

Until then, hope you guys enjoy!