A/N: Well, it's been a long time coming, but we've finally reached the end of Curse of Dreadbear. It's been real fun writing these chapters, particularly the Nightmares. But all good things must come to a close, and it's time for this arc to end as we leave Help Wanted behind. But hey, at least I finished this up right in time for Halloween! Speaking of which, have a Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you enjoy Trick-or-Treating if you're more into that sort of thing!
RicAlburquerque: Ooh, I didn't realize Security Breach was gonna be released on December 16! But we've got a bit of a ways to go before we get there. We still have to touch on Special Delivery, after all.
C: I had no idea it was THAT long XD
Jack0Lanterns: All I wanted was to give some food for thought. It's up to the reader to react and interpret it how they will. And yeah, the Nightmares are evil, but they aren't THAT evil. And any clue is better than nothing.
TU4Q: I'm truly happy that I managed to help you out this much with the words in this chapter. That alone reinforces my belief that I made the right call with how I wrote out the Corn Maze.
FrostTheFox: Yeah, that was a bit of an oversight on Nightmare's part. Either that or he was being a troll XD
Deblod100: They're absolutely gonna have to plan their next moves out both carefully and quickly…but even with "the secret" that Mike's about to find, they've still got a long, hard road ahead of them.
Fnaffan418: Yeah, pretty much XD
Thanatos D.E.M.: Glad you enjoyed it so much 😊
Chapter 145 – Curse of Dreadbear Part 7
Mike peered down into the cellar that had just been opened. The stairs led down into utter blackness, giving no indication of what he was about to find. Mike clicked on his button, and he immediately teleported down into the depths of the cellar.
What he found was not what he expected.
Having listened to his children gush about their experiences playing the game, Mike had a good understanding of what awaited them every time they won a level. The inside of a farmhouse, fully decorated and prepared for a child's Halloween-themed birthday party, with an orange-and-black gift box holding a prize just waiting to be opened.
The room Mike found himself in now looked as though somebody had attempted to replicate the party within the basement, only to abandon the idea midway through the decorations and haphazardly leave everything behind. The basement was dimly lit, with only the (thankfully wide) light coming from his flashlight to help him. It was also very cramped compared to the open area of the maze that he had just wandered through.
It wasn't the lavish party room that his kids had seen over and over again, but it wasn't empty either. Right in front of him Mike could see the Halloween-themed "Game Won!" banner, only now it was hung haphazardly and a good part of it had been torn to shreds. To his left was a single pile of orange and black balloons, and to his right there were a few large and unopened wooden beer kegs that wouldn't have looked out-of-place in a more "adult" party. A few pumpkins lay at the feet of the kegs, although they weren't Jack-O-Lanterns.
In front of Mike was a singular, rectangular white table. There was a pile of haystacks behind it with a few scattered gift boxes, and an old-fashioned lantern that sat on the right of the table. But the only thing that mattered to Mike was what was directly in front of him. A single rabbit mask that lay on top of an already-opened gift box with a red interior.
Right away, Mike knew that this was the prize and the secret that Nightmare had hidden so carefully. The rabbit mask was mostly white, though a large part of the face near the left eye was brown instead. And it looked fundamentally wrong in a way that rivaled Glitchtrap's own unnatural face. The mask's eyes were blood-red instead of white with pitch-black holes for pupils, and its mouth was stretched, distorted, in a wide grin. The face of the mask looked utterly deranged in the same way that Glitchtrap's had, an observation that was equally as disturbing as the fact that the mask looked female. As though it was the face of Glitchtrap's girlfriend.
"What the fuck," Mike mumbled, shaking his head furiously to clear that particular thought out of his head. "That is just all sorts of wrong…"
He looked down at the mask and reached down to pick it up, wondering what was so special about it. The moment he touched it, it immediately covered his face, the sound of heavy breathing playing through his ears as his world fell to darkness save for the faint light he could see through the eyeholes. And in only a few seconds, even that disappeared into complete darkness as well.
"Wait, what?" Mike spluttered. "The heck just happened?" He was still trying to understand what had just occurred when the world came back to life around him. With a start, Mike realized that he was back at the very first part of Curse of Dreadbear, the introductory stage in the dark wood with the old-fashioned movie projector projecting "Curse of Dreadbear" onto the wall in front of him like a drive-in movie theater.
"SO YOU HAVE FOUND IT," a deep, booming voice declared, cutting off his train of thought. Mike tilted his head upward to see the towering silhouette of Dreadbear staring back down at him. He was mostly covered in the shadows, but his glowing yellow eyes were unmistakable.
"I have," Mike confirmed. "Grim Foxy guided me through the maze and helped me find the keys to find that weird…rabbit mask thing I saw in the basement." He shook his head in bemusement and confusion. "But I don't really see how that's supposed to help me."
"THAT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE ONLY UNCOVERED PART OF THE SECRET, SCHMIDT," Dreadbear explained. "UNLOCKING THE MASK WAS THE DIFFICULT PART, THE PART THAT YOU HAVE JUST ACCOMPLISHED. THE MASK WILL NOW BE PERMANENTLY AVAILABLE TO YOU AND EASY TO ACCESS. BUT THERE IS STILL SOME MORE WORK THAT MUST BE DONE."
"Please tell me I don't have to play another level for this," Mike groaned.
"DO NOT WORRY," Dreadbear's voice rumbled, and Mike could clearly hear the amusement in his voice, "IT IS QUITE SIMPLE. ONCE WE HAVE CONCLUDED OUR BUSINESS HERE, RETURN TO THE MAIN LEVEL HUB OF THE ORIGINAL GAME," he instructed. "ONCE YOU HAVE DONE SO, PICK UP THE GLITCHTRAP PLUSHIE AND TAKE IT WITH YOU TO THE PRIZE CORNER. THEN, TAKE THE RABBIT MASK YOU HAVE JUST UNLOCKED, PLACE IT UPON YOUR FACE, AND THEN STARE DOWN AT THE GLITCHTRAP PLUSHIE. ONLY THEN WILL THE TRUE SECRET BE REVEALED."
Mike nodded. "Seems simple enough. I'll get to it right away."
"GOOD," Dreadbear approved. "AND WITH THAT, OUR FAMILY'S BUSINESS WITH YOURS HAS COME TO ITS CONCLUSION FOR THE TIME BEING. ONCE WE HAVE CONFIRMED THAT YOU HAVE BORNE WITNESS TO THE SECRET, WE WILL WITHDRAW OUR PRESENCES FROM THIS GAME," the demon warned. "FROM THAT POINT FORWARD, THE INCARNATIONS OF OURSELVES THAT YOU SEE IN THE GAME WILL SERVE AS LITTLE MORE THAN PROGRAMS, PROVIDING THEIR BASIC PURPOSE TO ACT AS THE ENEMIES IN THE GAME AND TO ENSURE THAT NO LINGERING TRACE OF GLITCHTRAP EVER RETURNS."
"That's fine," Mike accepted. "Now that I've got what I need, you shouldn't need to be around here anymore anyway."
Dreadbear nodded. "I MUST SAY, SCHMIDT, IT WAS QUITE ENTERTAINING TO PLAY HOST TO YOUR CHILDREN IN THIS NEW WORLD THAT MY MASTER HAS CREATED," the Frankenstein Freddy commented. THEY MOST CERTAINLY POSSESS YOUR DETERMINATION AND YOUR REFUSAL TO ACCEPT DEFEAT…IF NOT YOUR SKILL."
Mike elected to ignore the jab at his kids. "I raised them well," was all he said in reply, before he pressed the button in front of him. Once he was back in the main menu of Curse of Dreadbear, he pressed the button on the cupcake pail to bring him back to the main level hub of the main game. He picked up the Glitchtrap plushie as Dreadbear had instructed, which looked for all the world like the plushie that the real Glitchtrap had transformed into after his brutal beatdown, and brought it over to the prize corner. Just as Dreadbear had assured him, the creepy female rabbit mask was propped up in front of the TV, staring at him with its soulless red eyes.
"Seriously, what the hell," Mike muttered as he stared back at the mask. "Did someone actually make this thing in real life? I can't think of a single thing off the top of my head that screams "I'm a creepy, insane fuckhead" as hard as this thing right now!" And the idea that he had to actually put this thing on his face didn't appeal to him. At all.
Still, it had to be done. Mike dropped the Glitchtrap plushie onto the floor. Then, very reluctantly, he took the demented female rabbit mask and placed it upon his face, and tilted his head downward to look at the Glitchtrap plushie through the mask.
"Yes…" a female voice whispered into his ears. "I hear you. I know…" The voice was unmistakably human, and yet…it was disturbingly emotionless. As though the one who was speaking the words was merely reading them off of a script, instead of actually communicating with another person. "No. There's no miscommunication…I understand…"
"What the hell is this person talking about?" Mike wondered. Unfortunately, he didn't need to ask the question of who this person was talking to…because he had the sinking feeling that he knew the unpleasant answer already.
"Yes…I have it," the voice continued, Mike paying rapt attention to every word. "I made it myself. I think you would like it."
"Fuck…" Mike muttered. Anything that Glitchtrap would like, was something that he, his children, anyone with even a semi-functioning sense of morality, and anyone with half a brain decidedly wouldn't.
"No, no one suspects anything…don't worry," the voice asserted. "I'll be ready, and I won't let you down. It will be fun…" the last sentence echoed further around his ears for a few seconds before finally fading, and Mike removed the mask from his head. He knew he hadn't misheard the tinge of anticipation in the mystery woman's voice in her last words, which was already a bad sign even without knowing the context of what was going on.
"The kids need to know about this for sure," he thought as he turned the game off and took off the VR headset. The animatronics immediately turned their heads towards him once he had taken the headset off, giving him their full and undivided attention.
"Well, Dad?" Rockstar Chica eagerly called out to him. "What did you find?"
"What did Nightmare want to show you?" Rockstar Bonnie asked.
"I think it's best if you guys listened to it yourselves," Mike replied, his grim tone and expression doing nothing to ease his children's minds. Mike gave them the same instructions that Dreadbear had given him, and one by one, each of the animatronics put on the VR headset and listened to the same female voice that Mike had found after putting on the disturbing rabbit mask.
"I think it's time for a family meeting," Mike solemnly declared once the last animatronic, Security Puppet, took off the headset. The ghost kids vacated the animatronic bodies they had possessed, and together they followed Mike into the dining room where they often held such meetings.
"That woman's voice is creepy as hell," Susie muttered once they had positioned themselves at the table. "And the fact that she's working with Glitchtrap makes it even worse."
"She must have gotten possessed by Glitchtrap directly, and now he's in that person's mind, trying to corrupt her or drive her insane," Gabe observed. "I don't think Glitchtrap locked her mind away in another copy of the game, cause then it'd just be him in that person's body."
"What I'm wondering is how she was able to record her talking with Glitchtrap and hide that deep in the game," Jeremy pointed out. "That still doesn't make any sense to me why she'd leave something around like that."
"Maybe he didn't take over her body right away?" Fritz speculated. "Maybe he tried to drive her crazy first and THEN possess her once she found all the 16 Tapes?"
"I can believe that," Liz muttered darkly, knowing full well just how corruptive William Afton's influence could be.
"Does any of this even matter though?" Fritz interrupted. "It doesn't matter how Glitchtrap got out and possessed this woman's mind. The point is, he did, so what the hell do we do from here?
It was a good point, even if it was most likely born out of the former Foxy inhabitant's impatience.
"This secret that Nightmare found and showed us…" Mike put his own two cents onto the table. "I don't think I've ever seen anything before that's been so very helpful…and yet not helpful at all at the same time."
"I know what you mean," Charlie agreed. "On the one hand, we now know that the person who Glitchtrap possessed and escaped the game through is female. And that by itself cuts the number of possible victims to around half of what they were before we learned about this. More than that," she added, "we now have a voice. A specific way that we can identify whoever might be possessed or corrupted by Glitchtrap. It's not much, but it's WAY more than what we had before…aka nothing."
"Yeah…but we still don't know anything else," Cassidy countered. "We don't have a name, we don't have a face, all we have is that voice. And I really don't think that whoever this person is is going to be wearing a creepy rabbit mask in real life."
It would be both hilarious and creepy if they actually did, and it would also make their job a hell of a lot easier…but nobody else expected their luck to be that good either.
"How do we deal with this?" Susie wondered. "We can't just wait for this possessed person to go start another killing spree. We can't let what happened to us happen again!"
"That's another thing that worries me," Jeremy added. "Whoever this person is…it sounds like they're planning something really bad really soon, and they've either already gone crazy or are pretty close to it. So I don't think we have a lot of time."
The family sat in morose silence for several seconds as they tried to come up with a strategy to tackle the problem of Glitchtrap, now that they had some more information on who he had possessed (even if it was not much).
"As ironic as this sounds, and as unfortunate as this might be, I don't think going after the possessed woman directly is a good idea," Mike finally broke the silence. "A voice just isn't enough to go off of. You can't just go after every young woman in this town and in the surrounding town, hoping to find the one person with the same voice as the person we heard behind the rabbit mask. There's just way too many people, and that's assuming that the person even lives anywhere near here to begin with."
"Well, the Fazbear Entertainment office is here, isn't it?" Liz asked. "Shouldn't our mystery person work around there?"
Mike shook his head. "Not necessarily. Depending on how much Fazbear Entertainment has developed, where she works at might not even be in the same state. And we know that they at least had enough money to buy and maintain three storage facilities…since Nightmare blew all of them up."
"And even that voice we heard might not be enough to identify someone," Charlie added. "The person might sound different in real life, even if they're not trying to disguise their voice. Or there might be other people, relatives or not, who sound similar to her."
"So we could end up chasing after someone who looks and sounds like her but could actually be completely innocent and have no idea what's going on," Gabe concluded.
"And we all know what happened the LAST time you went after someone who you thought was your killer," Mike pointed out.
The MCI children all flinched. It was a harsh reminder, and arguably a low blow on Mike's part…but the point needed to be made. Regardless of what came after, they would never murder another innocent person ever again. They would not make the same mistakes they had made in the past.
"Is there anything we CAN do about trying to find this person at all?" Fritz wondered.
"It might not be a bad idea to try and go into Fazbear Entertainment's office anyway and try to see what we can find," Charlie suggested. "Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll mention someone by name, and we can go off of that?"
"A few days' worth of spying could pay off in a big way," Mike agreed, "but you guys are gonna have to go in there and do it by yourselves. I can't go snooping around in that office without getting a LOT of uncomfortable questions at best, and getting the cops called on me at worst."
An older guy trying to find information and track down a younger woman that he doesn't know? Essentially being a stalker? Fazbear Entertainment would be jumping to get him arrested for that. And honestly, they wouldn't even be in the wrong for doing so.
"That can't be the only thing we can do, though," Cassidy exclaimed. "We have to do more than just that, especially if there's a good chance it won't even work!"
"I know…" Mike agreed, "which is why I think that if we can't find our mystery woman, the next best thing we can do is to target Fazbear Entertainment instead."
"Target?" Susie looked at him with confusion. "But I thought you said…"
"I'm not talking about getting rid of them," Mike clarified. "I don't mean slandering their reputation so badly that they end up closing from bad press. Number 1, we probably don't have enough influence to pull that off to begin with, and Number 2, even if we did, what I said before is still true. If we close Fazbear Entertainment, then whoever Glitchtrap's possessing can run off and start a killing spree somewhere else completely, and there's no chance that we'd ever find her," A smile started to form on his lips, a reassuring sign to his children that he did indeed have a plan. "But what WE can do is make people aware of just how fucked up Fazbear Entertainment was in the past. Make their mistakes painfully clear to everyone, and force Fazbear Entertainment to be competent and actually give a shit about safety this time. They'd only be doing it because they'd be afraid of the same dogshit reputation that their past versions had, but in this case, doing the right thing for selfish reasons is still infinitely better than them not doing anything at all."
"I actually really like this idea!" Liz exclaimed, her green eyes shining with enthusiasm. "It'll be a LOT easier than trying to find some random woman who we don't know anything about apart from their voice, and even if we can't stop this person directly, then we can at least make things harder and more annoying for them."
"At least until we can think of a better way to find this person and stop them," Susie added.
"But how do we do that?" Fritz wondered. "Dad has spent so much time and made it very clear that we can't reveal ourselves to the world. We can't just go up and pop up in front of people, warning them about all the shit that's going down!"
Mike's smile turned into a grin. "And that, kids, is where the Internet comes into play," he declared. "We might have had a hard time spreading the word about something big thirty-plus years ago back when you were still alive, but now? All we need to do is find any discussion board, forum, or even your run-of-the-mill Reddit thread that's talking about Fazbear Entertainment or that Fazbear Entertainment is trying to advertise to, and we stir shit up. Make everyone aware of just how fucked up the PREVIOUS," he emphasized the word, "incarnation of Fazbear Entertainment was, and put so much pressure on this new Fazbear Entertainment that they HAVE to step up their game when it comes to safety. And if they still don't get the message and end up going out of business cause everyone hates them again, then that's just too fucking bad for them."
And honestly, if Fazbear Entertainment were THAT apathetic when it came to the safety of the children in their facilities, then whoever Glitchtrap was possessing could probably get away with anything short of taking out a knife in the open and stabbing a child in full view of the public anyway.
"And the best part is," Charlie added, "on the Internet, you can be as anonymous as you want to be."
The ghost kids were smiling with anticipation now, understanding the strategy that their father was recommending. A strategy that, unlike the idea of chasing the mystery woman in a wild goose chase, was something that they could pull off with a realistic chance of success, and without the risk of exposing their existence.
"But hold on…" Gabe suddenly interrupted, a concerned frown on his face. "Couldn't Fazbear Entertainment just deny everything? They've been doing that all the goddamn time, and they'll probably try to do it online too."
"You're right, Gabe. We're going to need some hard evidence before we start attacking Fazbear Entertainment online," Mike nodded in agreement…before a calculating glint appeared in his eyes. "And fortunately…I think I know where I can find some."
Meanwhile, in Hell…
"IT IS DONE, MY LORD," Dreadbear bowed before Nightmare. "SCHMIDT AND HIS CHILDREN HAVE UNCOVERED AND ACKNOWLEDGED THE SECRET THAT YOU HAVE WORKED SO HARD TO KEPT HIDDEN."
"GOOD…" Nightmare hissed. "THEN YOUR BUSINESS IS CONCLUDED. THERE IS NO FURTHER NEED FOR YOU TO MAINTAIN YOUR PRESENCE IN THE VIDEO GAME FOR ANY LONGER."
"GOOD…" Dreadbear growled. "NOW I CAN FINALLY GET RID OF THIS STUPID COSTUME!" The Frankenstein Freddy incarnation turned around and departed from the throne room as fast as possible, eager to change back into the much more menacing and ghoulish visage that he had grown accustomed to wearing before his embarrassing defeat.
Once he was gone, only Nightmare, Nightmare Fredbear, and Nightmarionne were left. "WE HAVE DONE OUR PART FOR THE TIME BEING," Nightmare declared. "FOR NOW, WE WILL ALLOW SCHMIDT AND HIS FAMILY TO TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR HANDS."
"THEY STILL HAVE MUCH WORK TO DO IF THEY WISH TO PREVENT, OR AT THE VERY LEAST MINIMIZE THE DAMAGE THAT COULD BE CAUSED BY ONE WHOSE MIND IS BEING CORRODED BY GLITCHTRAP'S INFLUENCE," Nightmare Fredbear commented.
"INDEED," Nightmarionne agreed. "ARE YOU CERTAIN THAT YOU WILL NOT PROVIDE ANY FURTHER ASSISTANCE AT THIS TIME?"
"NO," Nightmare answered. "NOT FOR THE TIME BEING. I AIDED SCHMIDT AND HIS FAMILY IN DEALING WITH GLITCHTRAP BECAUSE THERE WAS NO POSSIBLE WAY FOR THEM TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM SUCCESSFULLY WITHOUT MY ASSISTANCE. HAD THE MANY COPIES OF GLITCHTRAP BEEN DELIVERED TO THE WORLD WITHOUT LIMITATION, IT WOULD HAVE CAUSED AN UNSPEAKABLE CATASTROPHE, AND A TRIUMPH FOR WILLIAM AFTON THAT I HAVE NO INTENTION OF ALLOWING HIM TO ENJOY."
"EVERY COPY OF GLITCHTRAP HAS BEEN DESTROYED, SAVE FOR ONE. BUT EVEN THAT ONE COULD CAUSE SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE, IF ALLOWED TO REMAIN UNCHECKED," Nightmarionne pointed out.
"TRUE," Nightmare acknowledged, "BUT NOW THE SITUATION IS NOT BEYOND WHAT SCHMIDT AND HIS FAMILY ARE CAPABLE OF ADDRESSING. I AM WILLING TO OFFER THEM MY AID WHEN THEY CANNOT SUCCEED WITHOUT IT. BUT I HAVE NO INTENTION OF DOING THEIR WORK FOR THEM, NOT AFTER I HAVE GIVEN THEM A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF AID ALREADY."
Nightmare Fredbear nodded. "WE ARE NOT BEHOLDEN TO THEM OR ANYONE ELSE," he growled. "OUR LORD HAS DONE MUCH OF THE WORK SO FAR. NOW IT'S TIME FOR THEM TO PULL THEIR WEIGHT, AND PROVE THAT THEIR COMMITMENT AND DETERMINATION ARE GENUINE."
"SCHMIDT HAS PROVEN HIMSELF RESOURCEFUL MULTIPLE TIMES, AND NO DOUBT HIS INFLUENCE WILL SPREAD THAT TO HIS CHILDREN," Nightmare commented, a fanged grin slowly spreading across his face. "LET US SEE WHAT THEY ARE CAPABLE OF…"
/
A/N: And there you have it, guys! The Curse of Dreadbear arc has finally come to a close, and the "secret" of Vanny's mask has finally been revealed! Of course, these guys don't know that the person is Vanny. They don't really have much to go off of other than that the voice in the mask, unfortunately…
As the family themselves addressed in the chapter, I really don't think going after Vanny right now is realistic, given how little they know about her. There's just too many unknown variables and too many people out in the world. Going after Fazbear Entertainment and making damn sure they don't fuck things up yet again is a better strategy. One that's focused not on stopping Vanny outright (at least not yet), but rather on making things as difficult for her and Glitchtrap as possible. Not just because it has a higher chance of success, but because the kids can actually do something that they know will be productive towards it. Especially when Mike has some pretty powerful cards he can play first if they go with this strategy instead.
Finally, as you've figure out from reading the last part of the chapter, Nightmare is not going to be providing the Schmidt family with as much help after this point, at least for the time being. He's done plenty of work already destroying the many copies of Glitchtrap and altering the VR game to include Curse of Dreadbear, putting in the Nightmares as anti-Glitchtrap failsafes, and finding/hiding the Vanny secret. He was a big help when he needed to be, but now it's time for Mike and his kids to do the heavy lifting.
That's all I have for now. Hope you guys enjoyed!
