A/N: Well, you guys have been really busy with the theorizing and talking about the new Security Breach that just came out. Unfortunately, I've been just as busy at my job. I don't have nearly as much time as I used to, so from this point forward I cannot promise that I'll respond to all the comments like I used to. I know this might be disappointing to many of you, but I barely have enough time to write these chapters as is.

That being said, I am and will continue to be incredibly grateful for all the support you have provided for this fic. It's mindblowing to look back and see how far my story has come from when I started it all those years ago.

Before I begin the chapter, I will say that Special Delivery and Security Breach WILL be involved in this fic, for those of you who still aren't sure whether or not their status is confirmed. However, the circumstances surrounding these two (especially the former) will be MUCH different. While I can believe Special Delivery is part of the canon (especially its hidden lore), some elements and aspects of it (like some of the skins such as Freddy Frostbear and Toxic Foxy) are way too nonsensical and unbelievable for me to think they actually existed in the FNaF universe, even in the context of the game universe. And of course, the events of both games would naturally be altered with the Schmidt family getting involved.

And with all that said, let's jump into the next chapter!

Chapter 149 – Espionage

The next few days seemed to drag forever for the ghost kids, as they waited to see what Fazbear Entertainment would do in response to the scandals and internet attacks they had launched against them. Mike had informed them that he had carried out his part in their offense against the corrupt company, but he made it abundantly clear he had no control over what Fazbear Entertainment actually did from this point forward.

"I think I might have actually won Averus over," was how the man explained the situation to his kids. "But that doesn't mean anything by itself."

"Why not?" Cassidy asked impatiently. "He's an executive, isn't he?"

"He's high up on the food chain," Mike agreed. "But he's not the sole top dog. The way these corporations work, he's more likely to be part of a board of directors, a full group of executives who are probably just as corrupt as he is."

"Oh, shit…" Fritz groaned. Even he could see the problem here.

"In order for any changes in Fazbear Entertainment to actually go through, Mr. Averus would have to both present Mike's advice to that board of directors AND convince them to actually make good on those changes," Charlie vocalized the situation out loud. "A board of directors that we have had exactly ZERO interactions with. As far as the outside world is concerned, there's no reason for any of these executives to ever even speak to Dad, let alone listen to what he has to say."

"They'd probably laugh Dad out of their building if he tried to talk to them," Susie muttered. "Either that or try and get him arrested."

"Well, they might respect him a little more than they would someone else, since he did help them with their video game," Gabe pointed out, before frowning, "but yeah, that's probably not happening anyway."

"So we have to depend on Averus," Jeremy grumbled. "Someone who's just as bad as the rest of them."

"Yeah," Mike agreed. "Trying to appeal to their better nature just doesn't work on people like him. In order to get him to listen, I had to convince him that it would be the smart and practical thing to do to prevent Fazbear Entertainment from collapsing completely."

"So you convinced him to do the right thing for the wrong reasons," Liz simplified.

"Basically," Mike nodded. "But as long as there aren't any really evil ulterior motives going on, I'll take someone doing the right thing for the reasons than not doing the right thing at all. Hell, we've worked with Nightmare before since he's pragmatic enough to realize helping us benefits him a lot more than hurting us."

Gabe rolled his eyes. "I think it says a lot of about how bad Fazbear Entertainment is when we're comparing them UNFAVORABLY to a demon lord."

"Heh," Mike chuckled, before shaking his head. "Anyways, we have to hope that Fazbear Entertainment's board of directors is at least smart enough to do the right thing, and that Averus can convince them. Not a great plan since I don't trust Averus to begin with, but with how limited our options are this is probably the best we can do."

Charlie's eyes narrowed. "If Fazbear Entertainment STILL doesn't get the message, then I think we just get them shut down," she growled. "I HATE the fact that my father's dream got tainted and corrupted into this monstrosity."

"If they still don't get the message, they're probably even more dangerous than Glitchtrap's victim being allowed to slip away," Mike muttered. "It physically pains me to say it, but not everything is William Afton's fault."

"Maybe one of us could try to spy on Averus?" Susie suggested. "See where he goes and see what he says to his friends on that executive board or whatever it was called?"

Mike stroked his chin thoughtfully. "That's…not a bad idea, though it'll probably only work if Averus is talking to his fellow board members over the phone or something. Anybody want to give it a shot?"

"I'll go!" Cassidy eagerly volunteered.

"I'll go too," Susie offered. "Since I came up with the idea after all."

"I guess we'll just keep bashing Fazbear Entertainment online while you two try to spy on them?" Fritz asked.

The two ghost girls nodded, and Mike got up off his chair. "Well, there's no harm in trying. I'll drive over to the building tomorrow so you can see where you'll be going, and after that you should be able to get home by yourselves."

"Sure thing!" the former Chica inhabitant affirmed. "Maybe we'll get lucky and see how things are going!"

The Next Day…

Mike parked his car at a gas station near the Fazbear Entertainment building, pointing it out to Susie and Cassidy. "That's it right there," he announced. "I'm not parking right in their lot because I don't want them to know I'm there if I don't have a reason to be there."

"No problem," Cassidy replied. "We can take it from here."

"Just make sure you don't stay too long," Mike cautioned. "I can stay in a diner for some time, but if you take too long people might ask questions about why I'm hanging around way longer than I should be."

"Got it!" Susie assured him. The two ghost girls flew out of the car as Mike drove away from the station and to a nearby diner that he could spend time in to justify his lingering in the area while Susie and Cassidy flew towards the building housing the local offices of Fazbear Entertainment. They flew through the walls, searching in the rooms for a man that matched Mike's description of Mr. Averus, until they finally found the executive at his desk, working furiously on a computer.

"Let's see what he's working on!" Susie telepathically communicated to Cassidy as she moved to look at Averus' computer, making sure her presence was completely hidden as she did so.

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that Averus wasn't working on anything particularly important or useful for the ghost kids. All the two girls could see where documents on the sales coming in from the VR game, something that by this point was old news to the Schmidt family.

"Ugh," Cassidy groaned after several minutes of watching the executive work. "This feels like a huge waste of time."

"Maybe this was a bad idea after all," Susie reluctantly agreed. It didn't help that they'd need to go back to Mike soon. She was just about to ask Cassidy if they should call it a bust and head home for the day, when the executive's phone suddenly rang. "Hold on!" the former Chica inhabitant breathed as Mr. Averus picked up his cell phone and brought it to his ear.

"Hello?" Mr. Averus barked. A few seconds of silence passed as someone else spoke on the other end. Susie and Cassidy both strained to hear, but neither of them could make out the words the other person was speaking.

"I know, I know!" the executive groaned. "All this backlash online is such a pain in the ass to deal with. And the worst part is we can't ignore it like we normally would, because with how bad things have gotten what's left of our reputation will go completely down the drain if we do!"

The other voice on the line said something that was still unintelligible, although this time Susie and Cassidy could tell that it was either angrier or more agitated than it had been before.

"I tried bringing Schmidt in here, just like we agreed," Mr. Averus continued as he shook his head, "but that didn't go anywhere. Schmidt's attitude pisses me off to no end, but his actions speak louder than words. At the end of the day, he and his friend are the only reason why our VR game ended up so successfully. He saved us from an even bigger catastrophe, and it wouldn't make any sense for him to turn around and suddenly sabotage us right after his friend spent weeks making our game. It'd piss off his friend, for starters. And there's nothing linking him to that asshole who blabbed to the press, either."

"That's pretty much what Dad said to us earlier," Cassidy telepathically communicated to Susie.

"Yeah," the former Chica inhabitant agreed. "Glad to see that they don't suspect Dad in our online smear campaign."

"As for what he said," Mr. Averus took a deep breath and sighed before continuing. "I…can't deny that what he said makes sense. We may have to bite the bullet and post a detailed apology online."

The other voice interrupted him with a burst of words in a tone that both ghost girls could tell wasn't pleasant. "I know, I know!" Averus growled. "If this were any other circumstance, we wouldn't need to worry about this bullshit. We could continue doing what we were doing and the rest of the world probably wouldn't care."

"That son of a bitch…" Cassidy looked furious. "They really don't care at all, do they!"

"They're greedy and corrupt as hell," Susie muttered, though she wasn't any happier about it than Cassidy was. "What did you expect?"

"As much as I hate to admit it, though, Schmidt is right," Averus continued, catching the attention of both ghost girls. "Our situation is incredibly precarious as things currently stand. One more mistake, one more scandal, and everything we've worked for to get to this point could fall apart completely. In order to ensure our long-term survival, we may actually have to prioritize safety and quality control for our projects, at least for the time being."

"Is that…good?" Cassidy wondered. "They may actually start doing what we want them to be doing!"

Susie sighed. "It only sounds like they'll focus on that for a short time, though," she pointed out. "I wish they'd actually give a crap, though…we'll definitely have to tell Dad and see what he thinks."

The other voice continued to speak, and Mr. Averus was now nodding. "Yes," a smile was worming its way onto his lips. "We'll definitely start with the apology, which if Schmidt is to be believed, is our best course of action to stemming the displeasure of the public against us. And we can discuss ideas on how to further win back the trust of the public at our next board meeting…"

"Ooh, hang on!" Cassidy caught the last part of his sentence. "That last part sounds pretty interesting!"

"Yeah, you're right," Susie quickly agreed with her sister. "Maybe we could get some info on their plans?"

Unfortunately, that was where their luck on their espionage ended. Instead of going into detail on the "ideas" that he had just mentioned, Mr. Averus went back to talking about the sales of the VR games, and after a few minutes it was clear that there was nothing further to be gained from his phone call. "All right," Susie gestured towards the door, "let's go find Dad and tell him what we've learned."

"Gotcha," Cassidy agreed. The two girls flew out of the Fazbear Entertainment building and back to the diner that Mike had designated as their meet-up spot.

"You know, for some reason I always get the breakfast meals at diners like these even if it's not anywhere near breakfast time," Mike commented as they made their way back to the car.

Susie shrugged. "We wouldn't know anything about that, Dad," she dryly pointed out.

"Good point," the man conceded, before turning his attention to the more important matters. "Did you guys hear anything interesting from your little spy session?"

"…maybe?" Cassidy ventured uncertainly, before shaking her head. "We didn't really get all that much, to be honest."

"Eh, you never know," Mike replied nonchalantly as they drove back to their home. "Even a little information could possibly go a long way."

Once they had returned to Mike's house, the man quickly gathered his ghost kids to the dining room so that Susie and Cassidy could share what they had learned. How Mr. Averus was actually arguing for Fazbear Entertainment to focus on safety and quality improvement, but only until the scandal blew over and the public stopped hating them so much.

"Goddamn it!" Fritz shouted furiously. "They don't give a shit at all! All they care about is making money and being famous. If William Afton didn't exist they'd be the worst assholes in existence!"

"Yes," Mike stroked his chin thoughtfully. "But this isn't news us to by this point. We already know for a fact that Fazbear Entertainment is greedy and selfish. That isn't ever going to change. And honestly, I actually this to be good news more than bad news."

Liz looked at her father incredulously. "How?" she questioned.

"To be completely honest, forcing Fazbear Entertainment to adopt reforms and safety improvements over the long-term was always overoptimistic," he explained. "With how corrupt they are, one scandal, no matter how big it is, was never going to be enough to permanently reform them. The scandal we unleashed and your following attacks on the Internet were just the beginning."

"This is just the first step, isn't it?" Jeremy commented thoughtfully.

"You got it," Mike nodded. "We forced a spotlight on Fazbear Entertainment, exposed the very worst of the company and all of its dark secrets for the entire world to see. It sounds like this motivated Averus to actually take safety and quality improvement seriously, at least temporarily. Now that we've done that, we have to keep putting on the pressure whenever we need to. Whenever Fazbear Entertainment decides to go back into shitty business practices, it's up to us to put them in their place."

"Right," Gabe agreed immediately. "By attacking them on the Internet like we did just now." He couldn't help but let out a whistle. "I had no idea the Internet was so powerful!"

"Well, don't get ahead of yourself," Charlie warned. "We have no idea just how effective our attack actually was. Fazbear Entertainment still hasn't technically made a move yet, even if Susie's and Cassidy's intel makes it seem like they'll actually follow Dad's advice, at least for the time being."

"We can try to keep spying on Mr. Averus to see if he spills the beans on anything else," Jeremy offered.

"That might not be a bad idea, but don't be surprised if we don't get much more out from him," Mike cautioned. "Knowing these guys, they probably won't talk about their big plans and secrets out in the open except at their actual board meetings, and we have absolutely no clue where they'll have those. Just try and discover as much as you can, and remember not to get caught," he warned grimly. "I don't think I need to explain why letting Fazbear Entertainment learn about your existences is the second worst possible thing next to Glitchtrap himself figuring it out."

The ghosts shuddered. "Yeah, no, we'll be careful," Gabe promised.

For the next few days, the ghost kids alternated on who would spy on Mr. Averus, with Charlie and Liz abstaining since they didn't want to take away from their siblings' acts of redemption unless it was absolutely necessary. Despite their best efforts, however, they weren't able to obtain much in terms of useful information. Whether it was because of paranoia or because the "future ideas" he had mentioned weren't actually more than just basic thoughts, the Mr. Averus simply wouldn't reveal whatever plans he and his fellow executives were working on, either through conversation or on his computer. The best they were able to gather was that Fazbear Entertainment did indeed seem as though they would follow Mike's advice to give a full apology online…but that was the most promising intel they could get, and it wasn't as though they didn't already have a clue of this beforehand.

What was even more frustrating was that when Jeremy got the idea to try and anchor himself to Mr. Averus' car, hoping that they might be able to follow him to wherever Fazbear Entertainment had their board meetings, the tether simply didn't seem to work.

"Wait, what the hell?" the former Bonnie inhabitant exclaimed as he tried again. "Why isn't this working?"

Gabe wasn't having any more success than his brother, and only had one more try before Mr. Averus drove out of the parking lot and away into the distance. "Dammit!" he shouted in frustration. "That was such a good idea, too! If we could've followed him to a Fazbear board meeting, we could've gotten so much juicy info out of it!"

Jeremy sighed in disappointment. "Well, now that Averus is gone, there's nothing else we can really do except report back to Dad and go home," he muttered.

Mike could tell that his kids were disappointed when they got back into the car, but it wasn't until they had all returned home that they could really discuss why the anchoring attempt had failed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Charlie who came up with the most plausible hypothesis.

"I think it might be because anchoring requires positive emotions to work," the former Marionette inhabitant suggested. "Think about it. Every time we've anchored ourselves to something, whether it's Dad's car or one of the rides in an amusement park, it's because we feel happy about it and we wanted to do it. But this greedy and corrupt Fazbear Entertainment executive that none of us want anything to do with unless we absolutely have to? We have nothing but negative feelings towards him, and that might be why we can't attach ourselves to anything that has to do with him. It was different with Remnant and the animatronics because we were forced to do it, but that's obviously not the case here."

"I think you're right," Gabe agreed with a sigh. "And it's not like our opinions on that Fazbear executive are ever going to change. So I guess that option just simply isn't on the table, since Dad can't follow Mr. Averus to their real headquarters without getting arrested for stalking."

"Yeah, let's not do that," Mike dryly replied, earning a few snickers from the ghost kids.

Fritz sighed. "God, when are Fazbear Entertainment going to actually say anything online?" he whined. "It's taking forever! They HAVE to make a statement soon, right? They're gonna piss off everyone online if they wait too long, right?"

As it turned out, they wouldn't have long to wait. Barely a few days later after Gabe and Jeremy's ill-fated attempt to follow Mr. Averus all the way to Fazbear Entertainment headquarters, the company finally released their statement to the online public.

"To our faithful clientele," Fazbear Entertainment's statement began, the meaning if not the exact words remaining consistent and clear across the multiple platforms where the Schmidt children had unleashed their attacks on the company's reputation, "Over the past few days, several tragic events and revelations have been brought to like regarding the past reincarnations of our illustrious company. It is with great shame and regret that we must confirm that the allegations regarding Fazbear Entertainment's past are true. The businesses practices carried out by Fazbear Entertainment were indeed both careless and unethical, and no one can be more appalled or disgusted than ourselves by the decisions made by the previous management. The fact that so many lives were needlessly lost through avoidable circumstances will forever be a black mark on the history of Fazbear Entertainment."

The words were written with such a solemn tone that the Schmidt family might have almost believed them if they didn't know any better. Of course, they did know better, but even then they had to admit that Fazbear Entertainment was taking their online campaign more seriously than they had expected.

"We will not allow the follies of our past incarnations to drag us down," the company's message asserted. "Nor will we repeat those mistakes. Fazbear Entertainment remains dedicated to creating a wonderland for children to enjoy. The world of Freddy Fazbear will return, better than ever before, and we are committing to recreating that world with safety and the well-being of both our clients and our employees as one of our highest priorities. With your continued help and support, we will transform the dream of Freddy Fazbear into a reality, and we will surpass the works of our predecessors in ways that you cannot hope to imagine. This is our pledge and our apology to all those who have suffered from the mistakes of the past."

"Wow," Liz murmured once they had finished reading Fazbear Entertainment's declaration. "They really went all out to make their apology sound as convincing as possible, didn't they?"

"You can see their true colors underneath the flowery words, though," Charlie pointed out. "How they point all the blame towards the PAST incarnation of Fazbear Entertainment, and conveniently don't mention the scandals that are surrounding THIS version of the company instead."

"And from what we've heard, they're probably lying about making safety their highest priority or whatever crap they were saying," Susie added. "They don't give a damn, we know that for a fact."

"Still, this isn't bad news, all things considered," Gabe commented. "We wanted to keep Fazbear Entertainment alive so that we'd have a way to track Glitchtrap's possession victim, and they made the wise decision to apologize. Plus, they DID directly say that they'd make safety one of their highest priorities, even if they're not being honest about it. Honest or not, they actually WILL have to follow up on their promise, at least in the short-term. If they fuck that up right after they made that kind of statement, it'll be really obvious that they didn't mean what they said, and then they'd look even worse than they already do right now."

"We at least got them to make that statement to begin with," Mike added. "That's a good start. Now, it's up to us to make sure that they follow-up on that promise and actually commit to safety and giving a shit about the quality of their products, no matter how much kicking and screaming they do to avoid it." He turned his attention to Susie and Cassidy. "You guys mentioned that Fazbear Entertainment had ideas to, quote-unquote, win back the public."

"Yeah," Cassidy confirmed. "We didn't hear anything solid, but it seems like they've got something planned."

"We'll be keeping a very close eye on what Fazbear Entertainment does in the future," Mike declared. "Since this is Fazbear Entertainment that we're talking about, the chances that they fuck something up are very, very high. And depending on what happens, it could very well be your responsibility and your duty to fix or contain the damage from their mistakes."

All of the ghost kids nodded in understanding and agreement, especially the children murdered by William Afton during the MCI. "We'll be ready and waiting," Gabe vowed. "Whatever we need to do, we'll do it. It's the only way we can really atone for our own crimes."

"Good," Mike nodded, a grim tone in his voice. "Because as long as Glitchtrap's possession victim is out there, our problems are far from over."

/

A/N: Well, it looks like Fazbear Entertainment bit the bullet and actually apologized for fucking up for once. A very insincere apology and clearly one made for self-serving and pragmatic reasons rather than genuine remorse, but still better than nothing.

The Schmidt family might have achieved their objective, but they're already encountering obstacles that prove once and for all that, even with their ghostly and supernatural abilities, their quest for redemption won't be a simple or easy one. Admittedly, my reasoning for why anchoring to Mr. Averus' car didn't work was more for the sake of the current plot than anything else, but to my memory I don't think I actually break any of the rules with regards to how anchoring works in previous chapters.

As much as I enjoy writing about FNaF-related things and advancing the plot for this fic, I need a bit of a break from that for the time being. Especially since I need to catch up on Special Delivery and Security Breach and seriously expand my knowledge on them if I want to write good chapters later on down the road.

Anyways, that's all I have for now. Hope you guys enjoyed!