A/N: This is the last week where I don't have any rotations, so this will probably be the last time that I'll be uploading weekly chapters for now. Hope you enjoyed the bombardment of weekly FNaF-related chapters while it lasted.

Funnily enough, I actually finished beating a perfect, 5-key Corn Maze run and got the Vanny mask on Curse of Dreadbear during New Year's Day. It took less time than I thought it would, but it was still annoying as fuck. The regular Corn Maze is pretty easy, but finding all 4 keys and then a golden/purple key that is scattered across any of over forty locations in the maze was a major pain in the ass. And in two of my runs I got all 5 keys but then got jumpscared randomly by Grimm Foxy. Normally, there's supposed to be a "danger" sound when he spots you, which gives you time to hide behind one of the cutouts while he charges at you. But both times, nope. I just got randomly jumpscared with no warning and no reason…in the same spot that had a hiding place next to it. Needless to say, I pretend that location doesn't have a hiding spot nowadays. And I'm never doing a 5-key run ever again.

I will say, though, that Grimm Foxy I think definitely got the best "visual upgrade" in the transition from Nightmare to Halloween animatronic. I was honestly never really scared of Nightmare Foxy all that much, partly because I always found his appearance a little bit derpy in some instances and partly because his mechanics in both FNaF4 and Hallway Crawl mean you always see him before he actually attacks you (ironically, he was the one who ended my Hallway Crawl runs the most). But Grimm Foxy, holy shit…Grimm Foxy looks absolutely fucking terrifying. Easily the scariest Halloween animatronic out of all of them. The way he hunts you down like the ultimate predator, getting faster and more aggressive with every key you collect…yeesh.

It's Liz's turn next, and whoo boy…she's gonna be reunited with some old friends very, very soon.

MCtheYoutuber: They would just be fangames in this story irl, especially cause I know next to nothing about them and I definitely don't know enough or have the time to research them to incorporate them into the story directly.

Guest: You'll find out soon enough.

Jack0Lanterns: Oh wow I didn't think about that regarding the Disappointment Chips, lmao. And I actually agree with you on Mangle, her animation when she's looking at you through the Freddy mask is honestly kind of endearing. And yeah, fuck the invisibility bug. I still love FNaF Help Wanted and will gladly play it (honestly I think its version of FNaF 2 is superior to the original), but it can be such a buggy mess sometimes.

RicAlbuquerque: That's an interesting idea, but the main problem is that Glitchtrap wouldn't know about the existence of the ghost children in Mike's house. This claim may not make sense right now, but I promise it WILL make sense later (there's a reason why the Help Wanted arc is so long, and believe it or not there's still plenty more to go). Also, I don't see how Glitchtrap would be able to give Vanny the ability to corrupt/harm ghosts. I do, however, find it MUCH more likely that he could give her the ability to corrupt/harm animatronics in some way. There's also the issue that it wouldn't make sense for Vanny to start murdering innocent kids randomly (as she's highly implied to do so in Security Breach) if the target of her rage was the ghost kids, although granted, neither Vanny nor Glitchtrap are exactly sane.

That's actually what I think Glitchtrap is in canon, a fragment/copy of William's soul. Whether or not that's the case here…you'll soon see.

Guest: She isn't in for a fun time, that's for sure

FrostTheFrozenFox: …goddamn it, another typo. Thanks for pointing that out. Also, Night 6/Withered Mode doesn't exist in Help Wanted…yet. That was included in a later update, and that will also be the case here. As to the nature of the "later update"…let's just say I'm going to have a lot of fun with this fic's version of Curse of Dreadbear

Guest: To be honest, I'm probably not gonna have the kids play any video game for a while after Help Wanted is concluded. This whole arc is the kids playing a giant video game…while also tackling important plot elements at the same time, and it gets exhausting real fast.

Tuangaming86: I know OF them, but that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge.

MegaMaster78: Partly because Jeremy hasn't gotten a lot of focus compared to some of the other ghost kids, and partly because he has the same name as the Jeremy who got fucked over by Glitchtrap in Help Wanted so there's an interesting parallel to be had.

DeaththeWolf: That's one of the reasons why I wanted Jeremy to play it.

ThomasTheTank: Mike would just tell Vengeful Guy that the animatronics that killed his family have already been destroyed a long time ago and paid the price for the people they killed. A sentence that's completely true, and reveals nothing about the presence of the ghost kids. I'd also like to point out that Vengeful Guy has no reason to believe the ghost kids exist in the first place, outside of hints in the FNaF games that could easily be passed off as a fictional embellishment to the story.

Chapter 121 – VR Help Wanted Part 7

"You didn't find the Spring Bonnie thing at all?" Mike asked incredulously.

The Security Puppet shook her head as she took off the VR headset. "No, not even once," she answered. "It was really weird too, since I played through like 5 levels. I would have expected it to show up at least once throughout the whole thing. As for the Tape I found…" her eyes flashed with worry, "I have a bad feeling about this. Fazbear Entertainment definitely knew something was wrong with this game…"

"…and they tried to cover it up," Rockstar Bonnie finished with a scowl on his face, "like the fuckheads they are."

The Security Puppet nodded. "And at this point I'm pretty sure the Spring Bonnie thing is what's wrong. Most of us have played this game by now, and none of us have seen anything out of the ordinary apart from it." She handed the headsest to Liz. "Well, it's your turn now, Liz. And I think most of the levels left involve the Funtime animatronics in some way."

Circus Baby sighed. "Right…" she muttered, the resignation clear in her voice as she stretched her hands out in front of her. "No point in trying to hold it off any longer. I'm not going to run away from my past like a coward."

"Good luck," Rockstar Foxy offered. Circus Baby gave him a grateful but humorless smile as she put the VR headset on. Liz found herself in the level selection hub and began looking through the levels that hadn't already been completed.

Once she saw what they were, Liz immediately groaned. "Oh, great…" she deadpanned. "I get to play against Funtime Freddy, Ennard, or…a bunch of plushie versions of myself? The heck?" She went back and forth between the Dark Rooms, Vent Repair, and Night Terrors menus, trying to decide which one to do first. "Urrrgghhh…I might as well take care of Funtime Freddy first, I guess…" she decided, pressing that level on the menu.

The room she found herself in was…definitely not anything that she'd expected. Liz had expected to find herself in a metal room in Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, similar to the one that Michael had escaped to in the vision of an alternate future that Nightmare had shown her, the one that their family had bunkered in to protect Mike against the lingering threats of that accursed place while he had look for blueprints and secrets. Instead, she was in a…bedroom, of some kind. The upper part of the room was decorated with purple wallpaper, with a bed behind her, a closet door in front of her, and one door on each side. There were also two dressers in the room, one on each side. The dresser to her left was much taller, with a purple fan, a digital clock that showed 12 AM, and a toy phone and caterpillar that lay haphazardly on its base. The dresser to the right was much smaller and only contained an inactive lamp, with a purple robot toy near its base.

"Why the hell am I in a BEDROOM of all places?" she wondered in disbelief. "This makes NO sense!" She took a look at the dressers again, only to realize that Bonnet was peeking out from one of the open shelves. "Bonnet?" she asked incredulously. Acting on instinct, Liz shined the pink bunny puppet with the flashlight, which promptly disappeared back into the shelf. The former Baby inhabitant sighed as she realized that Bonnet was very almost certainly still an enemy in this game, in contrast to the more benevolent real-life version that she had spared and that Melody now owned.

"Right, I need to look for collectibles," Liz suddenly remembered. She checked the closet in front of her and the bed behind her, but found nothing. Checking the left and right doors, and the hallways that they opened up into, also proved fruitless. "Is there really not a single thing here to collect?" she wondered as she turned her flashlight back into the room to see if Bonnet had reappeared. Sure enough, the pink bunny puppet was now popping out of the open closet, and ducked back in once Liz exposed her to the light.

Right as she dealt with Bonnet, a familiar, high-pitched laugh began to echo around her. "Hahahahahahahahaha…well, hello again!"Funtime Freddy's voice greeted her from the darkness, causing Liz to shudder.

"You're not a friend I ever hoped to see again," Liz muttered. Out of all the Funtime animatronics, Funtime Freddy had been the one that she had had the most hostile relationship with, even though Ballora had been the most resistant against her plan to escape in her brother's body as Ennard. "Then again…" she admitted to herself, "it was partially my fault since I didn't bother to make sure that Bon-Bon survived becoming part of Ennard. I think that's one of the big reasons why he rebelled against me…I let his closest friend die and didn't give a damn." It saddened Liz to realize just how much of a selfish piece of shit she had really been…and this was BEFORE she had become Scrap Baby.

Then again, Funtime Freddy had always been the most…insane, for lack of a better term…even before becoming Ennard. And the fact that, as Molten Freddy, he had willingly chosen to return to the trap pizzeria to continue a potential killing spree…given what William Afton had designed the Funtimes to do, it wouldn't surprise Liz if the rot had always been there even without her poisonous influence.

Liz snapped out of her thoughts as Bon-Bon suddenly appeared in front of her, waving its arms and screaming loudly. "GAH!" Liz yelped as the blue puppet jumpscared her, but to her surprise she hadn't been sent to the Game Over screen. "Wait, what?" Liz tried to regain her bearings. "Was that just a distraction? Does getting jumpscared by Bon-Bon not actually kill me?" As she recovered, she realized that she hadn't done anything to actually stop Funtime Freddy from reaching the doors. She raced over to the left door, where she could suddenly hear heavy breathing from the darkness of the hallway. She flashed the light down…and was greeted with Funtime Freddy's face right in front of her.

"GRAAAAAAAAAH!" Funtime Freddy roared as he jumpscared her, his faceplates opening up to reveal the metal endoskeleton underneath, before the world dissolved into static and reformed into the Game Over screen.

"Oh, come on!" Liz complained. "What was I supposed to do there?" She forced herself to go over the instructions again, and promptly facepalmed. "Oh, I'm supposed to close the doors if he's breathing at them, aren't I?" she muttered. "Dammit."

When she found herself back at in the bedroom, Liz neutralized Bonnet with the flashlight and waited for Funtime Freddy to greet her. Then she began running towards the right door. Once she was sure she hadn't heard any breathing, she shined her light down the right hallway. This time, she could see Funtime Freddy at the far corner, and instead of attacking the animatronic vanished behind the corner and disappeared.

"Oh I see now…" she mused, "if I don't hear him breathing I'm okay to shine the flashlight and maybe make him disappear, but if I do hear him breathing I need to close the door. Okay…let's try this out."

She quickly checked the room with the flashlight, fending off Bonnet's latest attack from the right drawer, before crossing the room the left door. As she arrived, Bon-Bon jumpscared her with a loud scream, but with the knowledge that he couldn't do anything to actually kill her he was already a lot less frightening. Liz heard heavy breathing coming from the doorway and shut the door. As she did so, she heard Funtime Freddy laugh, and when she checked the hallway again he was nowhere to be found.

"All right," Liz took a deep breath, "I think I've got this figured out. Run between the doors, listen for breathing. If I hear it, close the door. If I don't, flash the light. Sounds pretty simple."

And for the most part, it was. Liz ran back and forth between the doors, blocking Funtime Freddy with the appropriate action depending on whether he was right outside the doors or not. Liz noticed that every time she successfully blocked Funtime Freddy at the doors, he proceeded to laugh, and then it was safe to check the hallway with the light right after. She also continued to check on Bonnet's location in the room with the flashlight and all but completely ignored Bon-Bon, whose jumpscares startled her every time they appeared but were otherwise easy to ignore due to his technical harmlessness.

"All that programming," Liz couldn't help but snark at her former friend's rather simple tactics, "and you can't think of doing anything better than walking up to the doors."

Liz also noticed that the in-game hours seemed to fly by very quickly. Her other siblings hadn't mentioned it, but it seemed like for most of the other game modes, the time that passed per in-game hour seemed roughly the same as in the original games, possibly a tad bit faster. But in this bedroom, it only seemed to take a couple of seconds (and definitely way less than a minute) for an hour to pass by on the digital alarm clock. Liz started to relax, seeing that she had a strategy planned out to defeat Funtime Freddy at the doors and he didn't seem to have any other means of attack apart from the distraction jumpscares from Bon-Bon and Bonnet.

Then, as 4 AM approached, Funtime Freddy said something different. "Hahahahahaha…I know you're over there somewhere!" he taunted. Liz quickly checked the right door that she was currently at…but he was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh crap!" Liz muttered. "What's going on?" she looked around the room to check on Bonnet…and noticed that the closet door was now open. "How the hell did Funtime Freddy suddenly end up THERE?" the former Baby inhabitant exclaimed as she rushed over to the closet door. Part of her was tempted to check it with her flashlight, but some instinct told her to shut the doors shut instead. Perhaps it was the fact that the last time she had shined the flashlight when Funtime Freddy was up close, he had jumpscared her. Or perhaps it was the manner in which Funtime Freddy was attacking from the closet, very similarly to how Nightmare Fredbear and Nightmare had attacked her brother so many years ago, and she remembered how he had fended them off by closing the closet doors. Either way, the trick seemed to have work, and she was rewarded the same laugh that Funtime Freddy always did whenever she had successfully defended against him up close in the hallways.

"Nice try," Liz mentally asserted, "but your tricks won't work on me. You're just a pale shadow of the original Funtime Freddy. And you can't stop me from beating your level and finding out this game's secrets!" She raced through the last hours, continuing the same strats that had proven effective up to this point, and was finally awarded with the "DING! DONG!" of the alarm clock as it changed to 6 AM.

"Was that it?" she thought as she was teleported over to the Game Over screen. It was almost anticlimactic, how easy the battle to survive against Funtime Freddy had turned out to be. "That was disappointing, just how predictable and easy you were to deal with. Good bye, old friend." she murmured as she turned the crank on the prize box, and was rewarded with the Chica bobblehead that she recognized from the Five Nights at Freddy's 3 game. "For better or for worse, we won't be meeting again."

When she returned to the level selection hub, Liz could see the Spring Bonnie figure waiting for her to her right. The Spring Bonnie was waving at her with its right hand, its eyes glowing purple with a grin on its face, just like her siblings had described. There was something…familiar…about the figure, something she couldn't describe even if she had never seen it before.

And that, more than anything, made her instantly suspicious.

"Hello," Liz greeted the figure as neutrally as possible, waving at it back before turning her attention over to the level selection hub. If there was one thing that she had certainly learned back from her time as Circus Baby, it was how to pretend. "And for now," she thought, "pretending like nothing is wrong is the best way for me to go about this."

Liz looked at the menu for Night Terrors, noticing that another level had been unlocked…and promptly groaned when she realized it was showing Circus Baby. A Circus Baby that was looking into a closet that looked similar to the one she had seen in Funtime Freddy's level, with her eyes glowing red in the darkness.

"Oh, God…" the former Baby inhabitant smacked her forehead with her palm. "Really? They had to give me glowing red eyes too? As if I wasn't bad enough normally, they had to go out of their way to make me look evil too?" she sighed and pushed the level with her finger. "Not like I didn't deserve it, I guess…"

When she arrived at the level, Liz immediately noticed some significant differences in the environment compared to the Funtime Freddy level. She was still apparently in the bedroom, only this time she was in the closet. She could see the bed across from her, as well as the digital alarm clock underneath it showing the time. Around her in the closet, she could see various scattered objects. Most of them seemed relatively mundane, but there was one particular exception. There were several plushie versions of Circus Baby scattered around her, complete with their light blue eyes and wide grins. They looked innocent enough, complete with the blue eyes that Baby had had before she had possessed the animatronic, but there was something off-putting about them that Liz couldn't put a finger on.

Liz started looking around for collectibles, and noticed that unlike in the Funtime Freddy level, there were plenty of things to pick up. There were two coins she noticed immediately, one between the two boxes the Plushbabies were sitting on two her left, and one next to a Plushbaby's head to her right. Liz picked them up right as a very familiar voice reached her ears from out in the room.

"It feels like, my birthday…" Circus Baby's soft voice echoed as the animatronic in question looked around the room. "Did you have a gift for me?" She looked and sounded so innocent, like a child searching for a present…but Liz knew better. Even apart from the obvious fact that Circus Baby was the primary enemy in this level, Liz knew about Circus Baby's true nature all too well, for it had been hers long ago. At her best, she had been a tragic villain fueled by desperation and a desire to escape the prison her father had sealed her in. And at worst…she had looked every bit like the monster she had become.

"How far I fell…" Liz thought melancholically, "…and how lucky I've been to get a second chance." She watched as Circus Baby looked towards the closet. Immediately, her green eyes started glowing red, and she raced towards the door. Liz yelped and closed the doors shut, blocking Circus Baby from entering. She was about to relax, when she suddenly heard a demonic growling noise. Liz looked down at the floor and discovered that the Baby plushies were shaking uncontrollably, looking like beasts about to be caged. "Ack!" Liz exclaimed as she shoved the doors back open. She looked up anxiously, wondering if she was about to be attacked, but Circus Baby had moved away from the closet back towards the bed. And not only that, the plushies had immediately stopped shaking and growling, ending the threat they posed…for now.

"It feels like home…" Circus Baby mused as she kept looking around.

"You don't know anything about what it feels like to be part of a home or a family," Liz thought viciously at the past self that Circus Baby represented as she looked around for any more coins or tapes. She found one more hidden behind the head of a Plushbaby to the left, and noticed a glowing purple object that looked like a Tape on a shelf behind her head. But before she could grab it, Circus Baby spotted her again and charged towards the door with her glowing red eyes.

Liz slammed the closet door again, waiting eight seconds before opening it and quieting the Plushbabies. "Did I catch you off guard?" Circus Baby asked as she looked around the room again. Liz took the opportunity to reach up and grab the Tape on the shelf, which disappeared with a flash of purple.

"No, you didn't," Liz commented acerbically, "because you keep trying to do the same damn thing over and over again!" As if to prove her point, Circus Baby looked at her direction and rushed towards her, prompting Liz to close the closet door.

Once she had left the closet area, she checked the closet around to make sure there weren't any more collectibles. She was honestly surprised by how many things there had been, compared to the Funtime Freddy level where there had been literally nothing to collect. Still, it seemed as though she had collected everything, as she couldn't find any more coins or tapes scattered in the small closet space she was in.

Circus Baby attacked again a few seconds later, and Liz didn't have any more trouble blocking her off this time than the last. "You should've known I'd find you,"Circus Baby murmured as she departed from the closet again.

"Except you clearly haven't," Liz retorted. "If you wanted to catch me so bad, why the hell wouldn't you just stay right outside the closet the whole time?" As much as she wanted to distance herself from her past as Circus Baby as much as possible, to see her past self trying and failing to catch her this idiotically was frankly starting to get insulting. "At least this night is going by quickly," she thought. It was already 4 AM, and it seemed as though barely any time had passed at all.

"You won't die…" Circus Baby promised, and then her voice suddenly turned menacing, "but you'll wish you could."

"The FUCK?" Liz exclaimed, so taken aback by the sudden threat that she was almost too slow to block Circus Baby's latest attack. "I don't remember saying that!" Even though it had been many years since Liz had escaped from CBEAR with Michael's body, she was fairly certain she had never threatened him so openly and viciously. Yes, she had told him that he wouldn't die, but that had been her genuine (albeit still twisted) attempt to comfort him and reassure him that being scooped for Ennard was the right thing to do and wouldn't be so bad. Liz had almost certainly never threatened anyone with a fate worse than death so malevolently.

"And with the voice matching so perfectly too…" Liz shuddered. She had no idea how the game developers or Fazbear Entertainment had made it so that Circus Baby's very own voice had delivered such a chilling threat…one that she had never spoken, but would have been perfectly in character for her as Scrap Baby and nothing more than a tool for her father's depravity. She could only pray that Fazbear Entertainment hadn't somehow learned about Scrap Baby's existence and implemented her in the game just as they had with Circus Baby…although given her luck, she wasn't holding her breath.

"Let's see how many pieces I can cut you into," Circus Baby hissed out in the bedroom.

"I never said that either," Liz muttered. Again, a quote that would have been fit Scrap Baby almost too perfectly…and one that she had never technically spoken either. "It doesn't even make sense," she complained. "How's she gonna cut up anything without my old claw? You just have a bunch of hands and a microphone…" her voice trailed off as she remembered the claw in the original Circus Baby's chest, and the echoes of her original death at the hands of her father's creation echoed in the back of her mind. "…Still wouldn't cut up things all that well, though," she finished hollowly, a lame attempt to make light of the situation.

6 AM rolled around, and Liz blinked at how easy it had been to fend off Circus Baby away from the closet. "You know what?" she commented as she arrived at the Prize Won room. "That right there was a perfect summary of what I was like as Circus Baby and Scrap Baby. A violent, psychopathic idiot too stupid to realize what she was doing and deserved every single one of her failures. Good FUCKING riddance to you!" she finished with a snarl as she cranked the music box handle. When she saw that it was a Funtime Foxy action figure, Liz groaned. "Oh, great, there's going to be a level with him now too, isn't there? Delightful…" she deadpanned as she returned to the main menu screen.

The Spring Bonnie figure was still there, a little closer and a little larger than before. This time, however, it wasn't waving at her. It was staring at her with its arms at its sides, its head tilted slightly to the right, looking at her pensively. Liz tried to think if any of her siblings had attempted to think if any of her siblings had seen it doing anything other than waving, but she couldn't recall.

That wasn't the only difference either. The Spring Bonnie figure had been mostly silent before, but was now making a bizarre, deep, garbled noise that Liz couldn't decipher.

"What is going on?" she pondered. "Why is it acting so differently to me and Charlie? It was mostly waving at my siblings, it didn't show up at all for Charlie, and it's looking at me like that while making weird noises? I think Charlie was right…" she thought worriedly, "that Spring Bonnie thing is definitely an anomaly. And it's not like any glitch I've ever heard of before."

Liz debated whether or not to try and communicate with the Spring Bonnie figure directly, but decided to once again ignore it for now. Looking back at the menu screen, she was surprised to discover that the third and final level in Night Terrors, Pizza Party, was still locked behind static. "Wait, what?" She pushed the level again, with no result. "I did the other two levels though. Why is this one still unlocked?"

It took a few seconds for Liz to realize the answer. "Ohhhhhh…" she realized, "this must be that one level Dad mentioned that wouldn't be unlocked until every single other level was completed first." She moved the selection over to the other two level categories, the first one being "Dark Rooms" that showed the innocent-looking Plushbabies, while the other was the Vent Repair level featuring Ennard. Liz shuddered as she saw Ennard's picture on the level button. Though it was small and hard to tell the details, the clown-like mask it wore and its monstrous metal looked disturbingly accurate to the real Ennard that she had once been. "Was I so desperate to escape that I forgot to hide from the cameras in Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental?" she wondered. "Or were there enough people who saw Michael vomit me out of his own body that they gave enough of a picture for Fazbear Entertainment to work with?"

Liz looked between the Plushbaby and the Ennard level, debating on what to do first. With a sigh, she decided on the Plushbabies. "I mean, it's just a bunch of plushie versions of me, right?" she asked as she pushed the button to enter the level. "How bad can this be?"

She looked at the instructions, which similarly to the Night Terrors level seemed to involve shining a flashlight. Unlike those levels, however, there appeared to be a battery mechanic involved, suggesting that she would have a limited amount of power with her flashlight this time around. The ultimate goal, however, was the same: Survive Until 6 AM.

"Geez, it's like we have to survive until 6 AM in like 80% of these games," Liz deadpanned as the level loaded. But unlike all of the other levels she had played, where there had been a reliable light source, this particular room was plunged in complete darkness save for an alarm clock on her right showing the time. Liz could also tell that she was holding a flashlight, but this one had a power meter showing 10 green blocks, and there was little left to the imagination as to what the consequences would be if she ran out of power. Out of the corner of her eye, Liz saw something purple to her right and realized that it was a Tape. She reached out to grab it, and it promptly disappeared with a flash of purple. Before she could do anything else, she heard high-pitched laughter that sounded distinctly like a female version of Balloon Boy's, as well as the clanging of a vent.

Liz began experimentally shining the flashlight around the room, and she was shocked to discover how big it was. It was a room very similar to the Prize Counter in the main level area, and yet it was structured differently at the same time. The room seemed to be divided into 3 different sections. There was a table to her right with a few various objects on it and a few crates underneath, with a Funtime Freddy plush on the far edge. The area straight ahead of her was a mostly empty corridor that led to a vent, above which was a cupboard filled with Chica, Freddy, and Bonnie plushies. The area to her left had a cupboard with red doors that stretched from one side of the room to the other, and several shelves with different plushies including the Marionette, Funtime Freddy, and Funtime Foxy above it. There was also an overturned box at its base very close to her location.

After a few seconds, Liz found one of the Plushbabies, the one with the red dress, standing on top of the table to the right next to the alarm clock. She focused her light on her, and the Plushbaby disappeared with a loud Balloon Boy-ish giggle. She continued to scan the room with her flashlight to look for the Plushbaby again, grimacing as the light bar went down to 7 bars as 1 AM arrived.

"You won't die…but you wish you could," a voice whispered in the darkness, the exact same line that the Circus Baby had uttered in the bedroom, only more high-pitched.

"Oh, God…where the hell is that Plushbaby?" Liz asked nervously. She scanned the room around crazily, her battery dropping to 5 bars, until she finally found her at the far edge of the right table, its head shaking crazily like she had been possessed. Fortunately, her flashlight seemed to do the trick, and the Plushbaby vanished with another laugh.

"Why the hell do I feel like there's going to be another one soon?" she muttered. Her fears were confirmed a few seconds later, when she heard a rumbling sound near her and the sound of something dropping. She moved the flashlight up to the top of the left shelves, where there was a Plushbaby with a blue dress staring down at her with that aggravating grin. The Plushbaby laughed and disappearing but when Liz tried to find the red one she just couldn't spot her anyway.

"Wanna see the Scooping Room?" the elusive Plushbaby asked.

"No, I don't want to see the Scooping Room," Liz protested. She tried to shine her flashlight all around, looking for her, when suddenly…

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" the Plushbaby jumped up in front of her face, shaking and screaming, sending Liz straight to the Game Over screen.

"Dammit!" Liz complained. "Where the hell was that stupid Plushbaby anyway? I couldn't find her anywhere!"

She restarted the level and immediately shined her light in front of her. The light revealed the three Plushbabies in the center…who proceeded to laugh and disappear immediately, instead of waiting a few seconds like they had done the first time. "Oh, shit…" Liz groaned. "I made a mistake, didn't I?"

The mistake of activating the Plushbabies indeed proved to be an ill omen for this particular attempt, as she was down to 6 bars of battery by the time 1 AM rolled around. By the time 2 AM arrived and the second blue Plushbaby joined the game, Liz's battery was down to 3 bars.

"I guess you forgot about me…" one of the Plushbabies whispered in the shadows.

"I didn't forget about you, I can't fucking find you!" Liz retorted as she desperately shined the light around. It was not to be, however, and she was jumpscared this time by the blue Plushbaby that she just couldn't find anywhere.

"For fuck's sake!" Liz snapped as she arrived at the Game Over screen again. "How the hell is this level even possible? I haven't even gotten to the third yellow Plushbaby with the missing eye yet!"

What followed was by far the most painful gaming that Liz Schmidt had ever experienced in a FNaF game. Her runs were met with failure after failure, either from failing to find a Plushbaby before she jumpscared her with her increasingly aggravating scream, finding the wrong Plushbaby when another one was seconds away from attacking her, or having her battery run out and remaining helpless in the dark for the inevitable Plushbaby strike that she had no way to deflect.

"They're just fucking PLUSHIES!" Liz all but screamed in frustration. "How the FUCK are they so much harder to deal with than Funtime Freddy, the actual Baby, or literally ANY other animatronic in this game? FUCK THIS GAME!" she shouted, and if she could see her eyes in that moment they would have been glowing with her rage.

Gradually, with speed that seemed painfully slow, the former Baby inhabitant started to pick up some tricks and strategies to make the night less irritating and more manageable. The first trick had been to not shine the flashlight immediately when the level started, and instead to wait until the Plushbabies laughed and disappeared into their little hiding spots by their own. Despite its grueling difficulty, the level seemed to offer one small mercy, and that was the fact that the timer for in-game hours seemed to pass by much quickly compared to other levels (even though each hour seemed to take an eternity while she was actually playing the game itself). By waiting for the Plushbabies to make the first move, Liz was able to shave off half of the first in-game hour, and in a level as hard as this every advantage counted.

The second thing that Liz soon learned was that the Plushbabies always seemed to spawn at specific points in the room. This revelation was originally of little comfort to Liz, considering that there were many, many potential spawn points, some of which the Plushbabies moved from and others that they remained stationary at. It didn't help that there were times when Liz could have sworn she saw a Plushbaby in one location, only for her to suddenly and randomly vanish without laughing and reappear in a different location without being stopped by the light, her head shaking frenziedly and seconds away from attacking. But after several attempts, Liz was slowly able to identify the potential spawn points, and knowing where a Plushbaby could potentially spawn would help her greatly in identifying and stopping them with the flashlight.

The third tactic that Liz developed was potentially the most important one. Scanning the room with her flashlight for prolonged periods of time quickly proved itself to be a failure of a strategy, as it took way too much battery life to be a sustainable method of tracking down the Plushbabies and getting rid of them. Instead, quickly flashing the light on the spawn points and moving the flashlight while it was off proved to be a much more economical strategy for saving battery power. While it was originally quite disorienting, moving the flashlight in the dark, Liz slowly got the hang of it, and she was relieved to find out that only flashing the lights quickly (but not too quickly, as that ate up battery power in its own way) and only keeping the light on when she was focusing it on a Plushbaby was much more effective in saving battery power.

But even though Liz might have greatly refined her strategy to make fighting the Plushbabies easier, "easier" wasn't the same as "easy." Though she might have learned how to save battery power and discovered where the Plushbabies spawned, it was still a major, major pain in the ass to try and locate them in the dark, their mocking laughter making Liz more and more frustrated with every Plushbaby she deflected and with every failure she experienced. But she was making progress. She had managed to get to the 3 AM mark with a decent amount of battery power left, and the yellow Plushbaby with the missing eye had finally made her appearance.

"DAMMIT!" Liz screamed in frustration as the blue Plushbaby jumpscared her for what seemed like the hundredth time in a row. She had actually made it to 4 AM and was fairly confident that she was only a few seconds away from 5 AM, but she had run out of battery and could do nothing but wait for death while her one method of defense recharged so slowly it was practically a death sentence.

"I'm not giving up now!" the former Baby inhabitant declared. "I can beat this fucking level, I know it! I'm getting so close!"

The level started again, and Liz waited for the Plushbabies to laugh and scatter. "You're mine this time," she promised as she flashed the light around the various spawn points, doing it quickly but not too quickly so that she didn't drain her battery light. The red Plushbaby appeared in places as varied as a crate underneath the right table, up on the center shelf among the Bonnie plushies, and in the far corner of the left shelves among the Nightmarionne plushies. When the second blue Plushbaby appeared shortly before 2 AM, Liz still had 8 bars of battery left, which would be plenty to deal with the Plushbabies so far.

"Get the fuck out of here!" Liz snarled as she shined her light on the far side of the table on the right, causing the blue Plushbaby to laugh and vanish. "I am so DONE with your shit!"

3 AM arrived, and so did the yellow Plushbaby. Liz narrowed her eyes in concentration now that she had 3 enemies to deal with. From what she could tell, the red Plushbaby was the most lenient with how much time she gave her before preparing to attack, while the yellow Plushbaby was the most ruthless and the blue Plushbaby was somewhere in between. "I know you're out there," she growled as she caused two Plushbabies close to each other to disappear at the same time, scoring a double kill and a minor victory for her that gave her more time to find the third Plushbaby hiding among the Marionette plushies in the left shelves close to her.

Time passed, and Liz experienced 2 close calls that nearly ended her run. The red Plushbaby had been hiding at the far edge of the left table and the yellow Plushbaby had been hiding among the purple robot toys further in the left shelf, and both had been shaking their heads demonically and had been seconds away from attacking her and ruining her progress.

"5 AM!" Liz exclaimed as she looked at the clock. "I'm so close! I'm so FUCKING CLOSE!" She looked down at her battery and was dismayed to discover that there were only 2 bars of battery left. "No…not now…not now!" It took every ounce of willpower in her to keep her flashing at a steady pace and not increase the speed, for that would surely kill her run. It didn't help matters that the light itself was also fading along with the battery, making it harder for her to see the Plushbabies hidden in the room.

Liz was able to cycle through and find all the Plushbabies one more time, but just as she fended off the yellow Plushbaby her battery finally died. "Oh God, no…please…please, let me win…" Liz prayed to God, begging for just one miracle to find end her misery. One second passed…then three…then five…

DING! DONG!

The shadows of the Prize Counter room faded, replaced with the transition from 5 AM to 6 AM.

"YES!" Liz screamed the loudest she had ever screamed this entire game, but this time it was a sound filled with delight, satisfaction, and most of all relief that her torment in this absolute clusterfuck of a level had finally ended. "I DID IT! I DID IT! THANK GOD! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" She cranked the lever on the prize box with more enthusiasm than she had ever done before, and was rewarded with a Fazbar for her prize. "Oh wow!" she drawled. "All that hard work and all I get is a fucking Fazbar?" She lifted a middle finger up to the now-open prize box. "Fuck you too, game!" she growled as she stabbed the Continue button to take her back to the level selection menu. "Just get me the FUCK out of here already!"

Once she arrived back at the level selection menu, Circus Baby turned off the VR headset and almost ripped it off of her head, being greeted by the stares from the rest of her family. "What were you doing?" Rockstar Bonnie asked incredulously. "You were playing for over an hour!"

"We know that there were a lot of levels against the old Circus Baby and the Funtimes," Rockstar Freddy added. "That's the only reason why we didn't try to stop you from playing. But still…this is WAY more than anything we've done in the game so far."

"Let me ask you a question," Circus Baby asked, her voice filled with a deathly calm. "What do you think is the most dangerous enemy in this game?"

The animatronics looked at each other uncertainly. "Foxy?" Rockstar Freddy suggested.

"The Marionette?" Rockstar Chica guessed.

"Springtrap?" Rockstar Golden Freddy ventured.

"Nope, you're all fucking wrong," Circus Baby shot every answer down. "Somehow, three plushie versions of myself turned out to be the hardest, most aggravating pieces of shit I've ever had to ever deal with! Funtime Freddy? Myself? Fucking EASY mode compared to the Plushbabies! I mean, my God, who the hell thought making PLUSHIES this much of a pain in the ass was a good idea! I'm going to swear off merch for the rest of my existence!"

Everyone stared in stunned silence as Circus Baby continued to rant about how the Plushbabies were the true enemy of FNaF, how she wanted to do nothing more than rip apart every plushie of herself that she found, and how if William Afton had been a destroyer of plushies instead of a murderer of children, she would have absolutely stayed on his side. "Fuck this…" Circus Baby sighed as she sat down heavily on the couch, utterly exhausted. "I need a break. I'll continue whatever levels are left after I relax."

Circus Baby closed her eyes and began to sleep, the ghost within so exhausted from dealing with the Plushbabies that she outright forgot to leave her animatronic body. The rest of the family continued to stare, with Mike finally breaking their stupor with a shake of his head. "Wow..." he muttered, looking over at the animatronics who looked equally blown away by Circus Baby's rant. "Those Plushbabies couldn't have really been THAT bad…right?"

/

A/N: Yes they are, Mike. They really fucking are. Fuck Plushbabies.

I feel like at this point, Liz has overcome most of the guilt and regret that crushed her spirit earlier on in the story. Some of it still remains, but it isn't overpowering her like it once had. She acknowledges that she had some (probably significant) role to play in Funtime Freddy's descent to complete insanity as Molten Freddy with the destruction of Bon-Bon, but also recognizes that they were made to be evil with William Afton's tainted design and that the rot could have always been in both him and her from the start. And as for Circus Baby, she has nothing but withering contempt for her evil past self, as demonstrated by her vitriol during their confrontation.

And Glitchtrap is acting rather bizarrely, isn't he? He's been acting the same way for most of the MCI kids, didn't appear at all when Charlie showed up, and his mannerisms are a little…different…around Liz? How odd…

I was originally gonna do the Vent Repair – Ennard level third instead of the chapter instead of the Plushbaby level, but given that my notes for the chapter (and JUST my notes) ended up being over 3 pages long…yeah, Plushbaby was the better option here (unfortunately for Liz).

The next chapter will also primarily (but not entirely) focus on Liz, as we've only covered half of the Sister Location animatronics. And while I'm still up in the air about whether or not to let Jeremy or Susie do Pizza Party, I'm leaning towards Jeremy right now. This is because I've gone back over the Help Wanted chapters that featured Jeremy and Susie, and Jeremy's chapter barely had any substance to it compared to the other ghost kids who had plenty of time playing games or listening to the Tapes. I've honestly been doing Jeremy a bit of a disservice and not been focusing on him as much compared to the other ghost kids, so this would be a good time for him to get much-needed development that doesn't also apply to the rest of the MCI kids at the same time.

Here's the strategies I used for the levels mentioned in this chapter. All the levels actually have very quick timers with in-game hours that last only 30 seconds, not that it helps you much against the fucking Plushbabies.

Funtime Freddy – When you hear him laugh and say "Well, Hello again!" he has spawned. He and Bon-Bon will both approach one of the doors. Move back and forth between them to keep him out. If you hear heavy breathing outside one of the doors, close the door and you will hear him walk away laughing, an audio cue that indicates he's left and you're safe to check the hallway and move on to the other door. If you don't hear heavy breathing, flash the light down the hallway and then go to the other door. Around 3 AM-4 AM, you'll hear him say "I know you're over there somewhere" and the closet doors will open, at which point you should move to the closet and close the doors. You'll hear him laugh and go back to the hallway if you've deflected him successfully.

While you're keeping the doors closed, you can flash your light on where Bonnet pops up in the drawers to keep her in check. She can jumpscare you, but she can't kill you. Also, just completely ignore Bon-Bon, as his jumpscare might be startling but he can't kill you either. Just make sure that the bunny puppet jumpscares don't distract you from properly checking Funtime Freddy at the doors, and you should be good.

There are NO collectibles in this level, so you don't have to worry about that.

Circus Baby – This one is easy as hell. You start in the closet, and Circus Baby will wander around the bedroom. If she sees you, her eyes will glow red and she'll rush towards the closet door (moving surprisingly fast). Immediately close the door and hold it closed for 7-8 seconds, before opening it again. Any longer and you risk getting jumpscared from the Plushbabies, who will start making growling noises and shaking their heads as though they were possessed (fortunately, they're a lot easier to deal with here than in their level). Rinse and repeat until 6 AM.

Coins are located on the box next to the Plushbaby to the right, leaning against the left side of the box to the front-left of the player, and behind the back of the head of the Plushbaby to the front left of the player. There is also a Tape on the shelf behind the player.

Plushbabies – I'm not repeating this shit again, I wrote entire paragraphs on the strategies for Plushbaby in the chapter and just thinking about the Plushbabies pisses me off. The Tape is in the grasp of the Funtime Freddy plushie to the right of the player, and that's all I'm going to say about that here.

Like I mentioned before, this will be the last chapter that I upload weekly. Rotations are starting again next week and we'll be going to do the "chapter every 2 weeks" schedule…if we're lucky.

Stay safe and healthy, everyone! Hope you guys enjoyed!