A/N: Surprise! I bet you weren't expecting a weekly update this time around! Fortunately, I had much more time than I expected this week, so here's an early chapter!
We've hit a milestone with this fic, ladies and gentlemen! 1000 reviews! I am amazed and so grateful that you've devoted so much time and interest in this fic, and it inspires me to continue to deliver the high quality writing and storytelling that you guys have come to expect.
The night of terror is over, and it's long past time for us to return to happier (and hopefully funnier) times. I need a break from tackling FNAF lore after the massive monstrosity that was William Afton's escape from Hell anyway.
Cow: In hindsight and from an author's perspective, yes, I should have handled that better and had the kidnapper brought over to the police. Absolutely a mistake on my end. I will say, however, that in-universe Liz has been trapped in existence as Circus Baby for decades and there's a decent chance she may not really know what the police is (it's not like there's anything on Earth that can threaten her as a ghost). Even if she does, she may not necessarily trust the police considering how badly the cops fucked up the past investigations into CBEAR and/or Fazbear Entertainment.
JZKiller96: Technically, since Michael and Evan can go to Heaven whenever they wish, it's only Liz that hasn't seen her mother yet. That wouldn't be a bad idea for a Christmas chapter, actually, since that seems to be the only time God is willing to let ghosts visit Earth (besides special emergencies like, you know, Nightmare Springtrap being an asshole).
Norja: Arrogance is absolutely one of his greatest character flaws, that's for sure.
Fnaffan418: I don't know, why DO you have UCN vibes? *wink wink nudge nudge*
DISCLAIMER: I don't know how Law actually works and I don't have the time to look up laws in Utah or whatever. I apologize in advance if the details are wrong.
Chapter 86 – Restoring Order
When Mike woke up in his bed the next morning, he found himself surrounded by all of his ghost kids. With the terrors of last night still clearly in their minds, the ghosts had apparently taken it on themselves to make sure that their dad would spend the rest of the night safe and undisturbed, that nothing else bad would happen without them knowing about it. They had either climbed on him or laid down beside him while he had been sleeping, and the way they snuggled up and snoozed next to him (or at least the closest to an equivalent as ghosts) was positively adorable. His eyes fell upon Liz, who was sleeping comfortably in front of him; his mother had apparently healed Liz enough that she could finally turn back into her normal form without consequences, though she had warned her that the scars and possibly some remnants of pain would continue to bother her for days if not weeks to come. Mike could clearly see the scars on Liz's hand where William Afton had sliced at Scrap Baby's claw, and forced himself to quell his rage at the sight. With his mother's gentle but stern advice clearing his mind, he would only use his capacity for hatred and wrath when he was absolutely forced to, and under no other circumstances.
He smiled wistfully. After Serene had bonded with her adoptive grandchildren, spending hours talking with them about what their new life in Mike's family was like and the many adventures they had gone through together, Serene had spent the remainder of the night back inside of Mike's mental world, where his mother had gushed over and praised him over how he had overcome all the obstacles thrown in his way and lived a successful life in college and as the chief engineer of Eisensteel. To Mike's everlasting mortification, even after having seven adoptive ghostly grandchildren, Serene continued to insist that Mike get married and have some kids.
"Oskar told me all about that lovely woman you spent that vacation in Korea with," Serene casually told Mike, a knowing smirk on her face and a teasing glint in her eyes. "Why don't you invite her over to a nice dinner date sometime? It's not like you have problems handling money."
"Moooooooooooommmmm…." Mike whined. "That's not what's going on! We're just friends!"
Serene's smirk grew. "Really? Because you seem to care a lot for someone who's just a friend. You took her out on a vacation to her home country!"
"I did that just as much for the kids!" Mike protested as he groaned and buried his face in his hands and his mother laughed at her son's flustered expression. The man was thankful that the ghost kids weren't around and that they were still naïve and innocent in the aspects of romance.
He wasn't sure he'd be able to handle the embarrassment if they started trying to pair him with Melody.
Apart from that little SNAFU, however, the hours that Mike and his mother spent together had given him the closure that he had subconsciously needed ever since he had been a young child, and the light and joy from their reunion had been enough to pacify whatever traces of darkness that remained within him.
"I'm glad to see that you're awake, Mike."
Mike turned his head towards the door to his bedroom. His mother was floating there, smiling gently at him. There was a trace of sadness in her eyes, however, and Mike instinctively understood that she would be leaving soon. "Please wake your children for me. I have one last bit of advice to tell them before I go."
Mike nodded in understanding and began waking his children as quickly as possible. Though they were still groggy and responded only by snuggling harder in protest, their exhaustion quickly vanished when Mike told them that their new grandmother would be departing back to Heaven.
"Do you really have to go?" Jeremy asked sadly.
"We just met you!" Cassidy added in protest.
"Can't you stay a little longer!" Susie begged.
Serene shook her head. "I am very lucky that God allowed me to spend the entire night with you to begin with. But my time on Earth is about to end, and I can already feel myself being called back to Heaven."
The ghost children sighed sadly, Liz foremost among them. Not just because of Serene's impending departure, but also because her brothers had departed from the house soon after their reunion in Mike's backyard. God had apparently given them much less time to visit than He had given Serene, just enough for siblings to finally reunite for the first time in decades and promise one more time that they would see each other again as soon as possible.
"One last hug?" the orange-haired ghost girl suggested.
Serene smiled and spread her arms out. "Of course." The ghost children grinned and rushed to give their grandmother one final hug, embracing her in a way that they could not embrace their father until the day he succumbed to death. Once they had separated from the hug, Serene looked her son and grandchildren in the eyes.
"There's a movie that I see in Heaven every Christmas, one of my favorite movie adaptations from an old and classic tale about Christmas," Serene began, preparing to give her final piece of advice and wisdom before she returned to Heaven. "There is one particular line from that film that could very well be one of the most important messages in the entire movie. A lesson that I believe would be very important not just for you children," her eyes turned to gaze directly at Mike, "but for you as well, my son. If you don't remember anything else, remember this," though her voice didn't change in tone, there was an intensity in her next words that would resonate deeply within their souls."As freedom comes from giving love, so prison comes with hate. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"
The children nodded solemnly. "We do," Gabe answered solemnly, "and we're trying our hardest to let go of the hate that turned us into murderers."
"We hated everyone around us for what happened to us, and we nearly killed the most important person in our afterlives," Jeremy added. "We won't make that same mistake again."
The ghosts all made various expressions and statements of agreement, but none of them noticed the troubled look on Charlie's face. It could very well be true, and probably was true, that Serene was referring to their murderous rage when they had been trapped in the animatronics. But Charlie instinctively knew that Serene was primarily speaking not to her many grandchildren, but to her one living son. And she couldn't help but feel some relief that Serene was directing this message towards him.
The former Marionette would never forget the unholy glow of his burning scarlet eyes, the cruel, mocking laughter, and the hideous tortures that had broken William Afton's decrepit soul piece by piece.
Serene's ghostly form began to flow, and she gave them one last sad smile. "It is time for me return," she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. "I may visit you again on Christmas, but don't look for me at any other time. You've been given the beautiful gift of a new life. Take advantage of it to the fullest. It is time for me to say goodbye."
The ghostly children all but shouted their farewells towards Serene as the light around her intensified and her spirit began to fade, but in those final moments the woman had eyes only for her son. The two met each other's gaze, both of them filled with emotion without needing to say a single word. "I'll miss you, son…" Serene whispered.
"Goodbye, mom…" Mike finally murmured, lowering his head in a final, respectful bow. His eyes didn't leave his mother as there was a brilliant flash, and Serene finally vanished from the mortal plane to return to the Kingdom of Light. "See you soon," he whispered.
He and the ghosts stood silently for several seconds that seemed like an eternity. "I know that she stayed as long as she could…" Susie finally broke the silence. "But why did she have to go?"
"I'm just happy we got to meet her at all," Jeremy replied. "She was just as awesome as dad said she was."
"At least she stayed for the whole night," Liz replied with more than a little twinge of Mike's familiar dry tone. "My brothers left a few minutes after we went out to the backyard."
Cassidy turned to Mike. "What did you and grandma talk about in the dream world?" she asked curiously.
Mike shrugged. "Eh, just talked about what we did during my life. Basically college and Eisensteel. I already told you about the basics there."
"I wouldn't mind hearing about what you did a little more," Gabe offered.
"Another time, maybe," Mike replied.
"I still can't believe that was our grandmother!" Fritz exclaimed. "I always thought that grandmas were supposed to be old and wrinkly. But our grandma was young! And hot!"
And just like that, whatever solemnity that had been established by Serene's departure had been utterly demolished by the lovable redheaded idiot of the family. "Oh my God, Fritz…" Liz groaned, torn between cringing and laughing.
"You do realize that there's a very serious reason why she died young, right?" Gabe deadpanned. "A reason that we really don't want to talk about?"
"THAT'S the thing you choose to focus on, out of all things?" Cassidy spluttered in disbelief.
"I mean…he's not wrong," Jeremy admitted.
"Not you too, Jeremy!" Susie groaned.
Mike resisted the urge to burst out laughing as the ghost kids debated over the hotness of his mother. Even though he might have had his sensibilities offended by this conversation under normal circumstances, anything that washed away the horrors of what had happened last night was good enough for him. "They're going to be okay," he thought contentedly. "They're strong, they've been through worse. Also, thank God they're just kids, if they were older and less innocent they could've started using terms like MILF or GILF to describe their grandma and I'd cringe myself straight into the grave."
"Uhm…guys?" Charlie's voice broke through the debate and Mike's thoughts. "As interesting as this discussion is, I think we need to address the elephant in the room."
The ghosts and Mike turned to face her. "And that is?" Fritz prompted.
"The fact that we have a front door that's been busted open and the Rockstar animatronics are currently lying on the floor of the living room in pieces."
The ghosts stared blankly at each other as they realized that, despite how lucky they had been to make it through the night in one piece without any major injuries, William Afton had done more damage than they had realized. All eyes turned to Mike, who merely smacked the top of his face with his hand and groaned.
"I fucking hate everything…"
/
As it turned out, the damage to the house was thankfully minor. Aside from the front door that had been ripped off its hinges and smashed to pieces, most of the damage had been done to the furniture with claw marks and cracks in a few places throughout the walls. It was certainly ugly to look at and making all the appointments with the appropriate people would be irritating to say the least, but arranging the necessary repairs wouldn't be difficult to deal with overall.
The REAL problem was the broken remains of the Rockstar animatronics scattered on the floor of the living room. Though the ghosts themselves were thankfully unharmed, William Afton had torn the Rockstars apart just as he had broken the bodies of the classic animatronics in the abandoned remains of Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria. One look at the remains was enough to tell Mike that there was absolutely no way he would be able to repair the animatronics by himself, let alone within a reasonable amount of time.
"Who are you going to get to fix them?" Cassidy asked a bit sadly. "I really liked the Rockstars."
"That is the question, isn't it?" Mike answered with a shake of his head. "The safest bet would probably be Eisensteel thanks to the connections I have there, but even then I need to make sure that they keep this whole thing a secret. I don't want people to know that I have the last Freddy Fazbear animatronics in my house. The worst-case scenario is that you guys are revealed, and I think we all know just how much of a shitshow that would be."
"No kidding," Jeremy muttered. "Especially if people ever found out…what we did."
"Maybe you could ask Mr. MacGregor for help?" Charlie suggested. "The man we met back at my old house?"
Mike nodded thoughtfully. "That's not a bad idea. Even if he can't help us with our current problem, he might be able to help us in another way." The man flipped open his cell phone and called Nelson. To his relief, the man was both at home and available to meet with him. About thirty minutes later, Mike opened the gate to allow Mr. MacGregor access to his house.
"What happened here?" Nelson asked in shock, taking in the smashed front door and the broken Rockstar animatronics.
"William Afton broke out of Hell and tried to fuck up our family," Mike answered curtly, and the growl in his tone made it clear he wasn't joking. When Nelson's eyes widened in horror at the implications, Mike quickly added, "that problem has been dealt with. But as you can see, he left quite a mess. I need to send these off to the robotics company that I was a chief engineer for once to get them repaired and I'd like to try to keep this as secret as possible. Do you have any tips?"
Nelson thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "I don't think I'll be able to help you with this specific problem, Mr. Schmidt, but I think I can help you with another one that you may not be aware of."
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Do tell."
"You see, Henry left me the Rockstar animatronics in his will before he died, and gave me authority to pass them onto whoever I felt deserved to have them," Nelson explained. "By granting you full ownership of the Rockstars, nobody will be able to legally take them away from you even if the existence of the animatronics is exposed."
"Why would this be an issue though…oh, God…" Mike smacked his forehead with his palm. "You think someone might be stupid enough to try and revive Fazbear Entertainment? Again?"
"Considering how there were fools who thought Fazbear's Fright was a good idea, I wouldn't discount the possibility," Nelson replied. "And should that accursed, imbecilic business return to life, there is always the chance that they might seek to seize control of the Rockstars away from you. Fortunately, they lost their copyrights when they went out of business last time and never bestowed them upon a successor. By giving you ownership of the Rockstars through the authority of Henry's will, they will have no legal grounds to claim your animatronics even if they discover that they exist and where they are located."
"So, essentially a backup plan in case people hear about the Rockstar that we don't want them to hear about," Mike summarized, his tone laced with approval. "Not a bad idea. I'll take your advice, Nelson. Thank you for helping me sort this out."
"A pleasure, Mr. Schmidt," Nelson replied as he shook the man's hand. "The children and the Rockstars seem to be in good hands. And I would very much like to keep things that way in honor of Henry and the dream he tried to create before William corrupted it with his evil."
The two men exchanged farewells and Nelson departed with the promise that he would officially cede ownership of the Rockstars to Mike as soon as possible. Nelson's offer wouldn't solve all the problems that could potentially arise with sending the Rockstars off to a robotics business for repairs, but it would at least make sure that nobody could take the Rockstars away if they found out. Mike asked the ghosts to move the broken pieces of the animatronics to his garage workshop, a request that they happily complied with. Once the pieces had been moved out of the way and separated into piles corresponding to each animatronic, Mike felt more comfortable calling Mr. Santor and relaying his…special request.
"Our main facility was destroyed in the fire, but I believe we can fulfill your request in another location," Mr. Santor answered once Mike had finished relaying his quest. "Though I must confess that I am a bit confused as to why you are so insistent on keeping this a secret. Fazbear Entertainment was closed, if I recall correctly. I can't imagine you would face any legal repercussions since the company no longer exists."
"I can't really explain, Mr. Santor," Mike replied. "But it's important for me that this whole thing is kept under wraps as much as possible. Preferably with fewer people working on it, and people we can trust to keep quiet."
There was silence on the other side of the line for several seconds. Then, Mr. Santor sighed. "I'm not going to pretend to understand your rationale and insistence on secrecy, Mr. Schmidt. But you've served our company faithfully for a long time, and you were one of our best and brightest. If it really is that important for you that we repair these…Rockstar animatronics with as much secrecy as possible, I'll do my best to keep everything under wraps as much as possible. It's the least we can do."
Mike breathed out a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you so much, Mr. Santor," he gratefully thanked his former boss. "I don't think I'll ever return to a full or even part-time job at Eisensteel, but if the company needs my help for something, don't hesitate to ask."
"I'll keep that in mind, Mike," Mr. Santor chuckled. "I'll send a truck and a few people we can trust to pick up those animatronics you are so inexplicably fond of."
"Will do," Mike finished, and hung up his phone. Once he was done, he sat down on the couch in his living room and breathed a heavy sigh, his ghostly children surrounding him with concerned expressions.
"Are you all right, dad?" Liz asked worriedly. "You look tired."
Mike chuckled tiredly. "This is probably the most I've interacted with the outside world in a long while," he commented. "You guys know you have to hide yourselves when all the people come by to fix the house and pick up the animatronics and whatnot, right?"
The children nodded. "We know," Gabe assured him.
"If things take a lot longer than I expect, we'll go out to a hotel somewhere for a night, but hopefully everything is taken care of in a short time," Mike decided. After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly got up from his couch. "You know what?" he declared. "We've been through a lot of crap last night, all of it either terrifying or depressing as fuck. So enough of the serious shit, let's go do something fun!"
The ghosts' eyes lit up at the idea of doing something fun. "Can we go visit a city?" Susie asked excitedly.
Mike opened his mouth to answer, when a thought suddenly struck him. "I just realized that I haven't taken you guys to a single American city besides Las Vegas yet, and yet I've also taken you guys out of the country," he remarked. "Wow, that is some ass-backwards travel planning on my part."
The ghosts giggled at their father's self-deprecating humor. "In all seriousness though, how soon will we be able to visit a city?" Jeremy wondered.
Mike thought for a moment. "Not right now," he decided. "We need to be around for when the people come by and repair the house. I don't think I need to tell you this, but taking a trip to a different part of the country when your front door is literally smashed to pieces is a fucking God-awful idea."
An image of the thief that had tried to break into Mike's house many months ago flashed in their minds. "No kidding," Gabe muttered.
"We can talk about visiting a city at a later point," Mike declared. "But what I'm talking about is introducing you to a very popular video game that came out a long time ago. You can set up your own entire server so that all of you can play on it at the same time."
The ghosts' eyes widened. "Really?" Fritz asked eagerly. "I don't think we've played any game that big before!"
"Oh yeah, it's REALLY popular," Mike replied with an encouraging grin. "There's a lot of Youtube videos made by some really funny people that summarize all the crazy shenanigans you can get up to. And frankly, the fact that it took me more than a year to introduce a game this popular to you is an embarrassment and a black mark on my reputation as a fun parent."
"When you put it that way, this HAS to be good!" Cassidy exclaimed.
Mike grinned. "Oh yeah, there's so many ways you can have fun with this game. Go and bring your laptops over here, kids. I should have introduced you guys to Minecraft months ago."
/
A/N: For once I'm actually going to be telling you what's in the next chapter for a change :D
Yep, this chapter signals the return to the happiness and fun for the ghost kids that was always meant to be the primary purpose of this fic. More than one of you has recommended Minecraft for the next "Fun with Video Games" chapter, and since this is a game that I'm actually familiar with and have plenty of inspiration to create funny moments for (mainly from the videos of VanossGaming and his friends), it's one that I definitely have a lot of material to work with.
As you may have noticed, I mostly glossed over the details of Mike fixing the damage done to his house by William and how he's going to get the Rockstar animatronics repaired. I didn't want to bore you guys with the details about how things are going to go "back to normal." Though maybe Mike is being overly cautious. Surely nobody would be stupid enough to bring back Fazbear Entertainment…right?
Lastly, you get a special kudos if you can identify where Serene's last, most important piece of advice came from. Considering the ghost kids' bloody pasts and what Mike did to William in the last few chapters, it really is a lesson that can be learned by everyone.
That's all for now. Hope you guys enjoyed!
