A/N: As you will soon see, there are consequences when demons get involved in the affairs of mortals. Even when the demons are working on Heaven's behalf, and are genuinely trying to help in their own twisted way…

Hopefully, there's some twists and turns here that are going to surprise you!

AlchemyWriter: Given my super busy schedule, I unfortunately don't have time to do research on a movie I've never heard of just to do a filler chapter.

Chapter 165 – Unexpected Confession

The Next Morning

It took every bit of willpower that Mr. Averus had to make it to work the next morning.

Nightmare had spoken the truth when he had assured him that neither his body nor soul had been permanently harmed. He had thoroughly checked his body the moment he had woken up, terrified at the possibility of seeing a large gash sliced through a part of his body, blood spurting out and dripping all over his bedsheets. To his immeasurable relief, there hadn't been even the slightest wound or scratch to suggest that he had been physically harmed in any way.

But Averus could still feel the thousand gaping wounds that Nightmare had torn into his soul, even if they had healed only seconds after they had been inflicted. He could hear their cruel, mocking laughter ringing into his ears, could still see their claws reaching out towards him in his mind. "God, I don't have a fucking choice, do I?" he groaned, clutching his head in consternation. "I can't go another fucking night of that shit!"

He had no choice, if he ever wanted to have a peaceful night again. He had to make sure that Mike Schmidt's plans went forward, and do everything he could to make them reality. He didn't want to think about what would happen if he failed.

As he stepped into the conference room of their headquarters, he saw that most of his fellow executives were already present. Some of them looked completely unbothered, apparently remaining undisturbed by a mental invasion from Nightmare. But many others, far more than Averus was comforted with, showed ever so slight signs of suffering the same fate that he had last night. For some, there facial expressions carefully concealed any signs of distress, the only hint of the truth lurking within the shadows in their eyes. For others, the signs were much more obvious, openly showing nervousness and anxiety when they had been calm only one day ago.

Averus wasn't the only one to notice the change in his fellows' demeanors. "What the heck is wrong with you?" one of the unbothered executives asked gruffly. "You look like you're about to shit yourself."

"Don't mind me," the target of his questioning replied, giving a thin and unconvincing smile. "I…I just had a rough night, is all."

"Get over yourself, we have business to get to," the first executive replied, before turning to Averus. "First things first being, what did Mike Schmidt say when you talked to him in the hospital the other day?"

Averus steeled his nerves. He couldn't look like a weakling if he wanted to convince his fellow executives to agree to Mike Schmidt's demands. But before he could say a single word, another businessman spoke up. "Hang on a sec…" the man pointed out, sounding confused. "Where the heck is Culpo?"

The executives looked around the room, all of them soon coming to the same conclusion. Culpo was nowhere to be found.

"Is he another person who had a bad night?" someone asked sarcastically.

"I'd bet on it," Averus muttered under his breath, but for reasons that only half of them would even possibly begin to understand.

As the executives grumbled to themselves, the door to the conference room suddenly barged open. A secretary ran into the room, a panicked expression on her face.

"What the heck?" Averus demanded. "What are you doing?"

"Sirs, you really need to see this," the secretary insisted. Averus felt a pit sink into his stomach, recognizing that their secretaries were only allowed to interrupt their meetings in the event of an absolute emergency. "Culpo's on the news, right here and now."

The executives looked at each other in horror, already having a sneaking suspicion of what was going on. It was Averus who vocalized what everyone was thinking. "Shit."

Meanwhile, at the Schmidt House

"Hey, guys!" Fritz called out to his siblings. "Fazbear Entertainment's on the news!"

The ghosts all immediately dropped what they were doing and flew into the living room, crowding around the sofa opposite the TV to watch what was going on.

On the screen, a news anchor was talking to a man dressed in a fine business suit. The man was clearly nervous, constantly shuffling uncomfortably in the chair and looking around with his eyes as though he were afraid someone or something were about to attack him.

"Mr. Culpo," the news anchor was speaking to him. "You are an executive of Fazbear Entertainment, correct?"

"Soon to be a former executive, but yes," Mr. Culpo nodded, forcing himself to calm down for the sake of the interview.

"And you've come to us to share some news about the goings-on behind Fazbear Entertainment, correct?" the interviewer pressed.

"Th-that's right," Mr. Culpo explained, trying not to stutter. "More specifically, I've come to disclose information behind our latest big project. Something that we've kept secret from the public until it could be revealed at the right time. However, some recent events have occurred, and I can no longer in good conscience keep silent about the project. Hence why I have come to you now."

"Go on," the anchor invited.

Mr. Culpo sighed, knowing that the vengeance of Fazbear Entertainment would be coming for him soon. But he feared Nightmare's claws and the unending torment of his dreams over a company run by mortals far, far more. "We were developing a special project known as the Special Delivery project. A unique project unlike anything that any other entertainment company had ever created. Through it, we would be able to recreate the animatronics of the Freddy Fazbear franchise and deliver them to families all across the country. Resurrecting an era where fantasy and fun could come to life, and bringing the animatronic performers who brought that era to life right at the doorstep of your very own home." A wistful smile appeared on Culpo's face. "It seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time."

"…I thought they weren't going to reveal the Special Delivery project until right when they were ready to release it to the public," Jeremy mumbled.

"I don't think this Fazbear executive is doing what the company wants him to," Gabe pointed out.

"Really?" the interviewer asked a bit incredulously. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but your company has suffered several controversies both in the past and present. And a central part of those controversies featured around those animatronics and how they killed night guards in the past, as well as the Bites of 83 and 87. Is focusing your new project on those animatronics really a good idea?"

Mr. Culpo shook his head. "At the time, we hadn't received note of any significant abnormalities during development and testing of our animatronics. And do keep in mind, the reason why we kept silent on the project was so that we could iron out any problems before announcing the project." The man sighed again, and this time there was the unmistakable sign of fear in his eyes and voice. "But a few days, we had sent one of our animatronics to a patron who had been instrumental to the success of our VR game in the past. The patron, whose name I will not disclose out of respect for their privacy…was attacked by the animatronic, and sent to the hospital as a result."

The news anchor gasped, and the ghost kids could hear several people gasping from the audience in the background. They weren't the only ones shocked by the revelation though.

"Holy crap!" Cassidy exclaimed. "He actually exposed that to the whole world!"

Liz frowned. "Doesn't this mess with Dad's plans, though?" she asked worriedly. "He was going to use Toy Bonnie's attack on him as leverage to force Fazbear Entertainment to do what he wanted by threatening to expose it. But if someone else exposes it anyways, he can't do that anymore!"

The ghost kids' eyes widened in horror as they realized what their sister was saying. "Oh, fuck!" Fritz cursed.

"They don't have the actual footage of the attack, so Dad can still use that because the actual footage itself looks really, REALLY bad for Fazbear Entertainment," Charlie reasoned, before a frown crossed her face. "But yeah, this is still a pretty huge problem. Especially since this could possibly ruin Fazbear Entertainment completely, and then we have the worst-case scenario of Glitchtrap's possession victim disappearing into obscurity and being free to kill more people without anybody to keep tabs on her or stop her in any way."

"That guy on TV's only confessing because Nightmare tortured him and threatened him if he didn't change his ways," Susie commented, before sighing and burying her face in her hands. "This is my fault. If I hadn't talked to Nightmare…"

Charlie gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "We talked about this already, Susie. This is not your fault. You didn't ask Nightmare to do anything to them. And we were gonna have to tell him anyway."

"We don't even know if Nightmare went after multiple executives or just Averus," Gabe helpfully supplied. "And besides, I don't think even Nightmare would have expected one of them just up and confess like that, even if he is the reason behind this. Just like Dad, he's really smart, but he doesn't know everything."

Susie managed to smile. "Thanks for making me feel better, guys," she answered gratefully.

"Besides," Cassidy added, trying to add a bit of cheer to her tone for her sister's sake. "This isn't the end of the world! Like Gabe said, Dad is really smart, I'm sure he'll find a way to use this to his advantage!"

"Do you think he knows about this already?" Jeremy wondered.

The ghosts looked at each other as the interview concluded on the TV with the executive, Culpo, announcing his resignation from Fazbear Entertainment's executive board and from the company in its entirety, effective immediately.

"I really hope Dad's been paying attention to the news," Liz muttered.

Meanwhile, at the Hospital…

"…what the heck just happened?" Mike mumbled through his phone as he watched the interview with the now-retiring Fazbear Entertainment conclude.

"Hell if I know!" Nightmare retorted. "I wasn't expecting this!"

The demon lord had briefly manifested on Earth and adopted his human form of Matt R. Nacht before speaking with Mike through his cell phone, as trying to communicate with Mike through standard methods would have meant opening a flaming portal to Hell in the middle of a hospital room. "What exactly did you do last night after you finished talking to my daughter?" Mike asked, forcing himself to stay calm. No matter how much his relationship with Nightmare might have improved over the years, he could not afford to get angry at a powerful demon lord who had proven he could make his and his family's lives hell in the past.

"Over the last night, I visited about half of the executives of Fazbear Entertainment to…teach them a lesson, shall we say," Nightmare explained. "I took great care to educate them on how they had earned the wrath of Heaven and Hell alike with their creation of the abomination known as Glitchtrap, and with permission from powers greater even than myself, I made that displeasure known through a night of punishment not unlike what I forced Michael Afton to suffer through in his teenage years several decades ago. Afterwards, I made it very clear that if they did not do everything in their power to facilitate their plans, if they made any moves against you, or if they revealed the events of last night to anyone else, the torment would continue for many nights beyond the first."

Mike scowled as he immediately heard what Nightmare hadn't said. "But you didn't mention confessing about the nature of the project itself and the attack on me to the public anywhere in your conditions, did you?" he asked.

"No," Nightmare reluctantly admitted, "I did not. I didn't think that this would be a possibility, given how notoriously greedy and corrupt Fazbear Entertainment's leadership were. I didn't foresee that, either through a crisis of conscience or out of pure fear, that one of my victims last night would go out of there way to confess to the public and send in their immediate resignation." The demon lord let out a growl of frustration. "I can't even torture him anymore since technically he did the right thing and I didn't forbid him from his confession."

"Great," Mike sarcastically replied, before sighing. "Well, I'll have to see what I can do to swing things back in my favor. But this is yet another scandal on Fazbear Entertainment's plate, and I can't let them fall apart completely until after we find and deal with Glitchtrap and his possession victim."

"Well," Nightmare replied, "whatever you're planning, you can count on the support of half of the Fazbear Entertainment executive board." A sinister tone manifested in his voice. "They will suffer the consequences otherwise." And with that, the demon lord hung up.

Mike hung up the phone himself and threw his head back into his pillow, letting out an annoyed groan. For the first time that he could remember, Nightmare's intervention might have actually made his situation more complicated rather than making things easier. There was always that risk when it came to dealing with the demons of Hell, but now those consequences were directly biting him in the ass. "What do I do now?" he muttered to himself.

His phone rang again before he could start brainstorming, though he relaxed when he realized that it was one of his kids' numbers on the line. "Hello?" he greeted as he raised the phone to his ear.

"Dad!" Cassidy's voice greeted him without preamble. "Did you see the news?"

"I did," Mike confirmed. "I just got off the phone with Nightmare, we were talking about the confession a few minutes ago."

"Yeah, I don't know what to think," Jeremy admitted. Evidently, this was a group call. "Are we screwed?"

"Not necessarily," Mike reassured them. "If we're talking about whether this will affect how much Fazbear Entertainment will listen to me, it's hard to say. The public now knows that an accident happened, but they don't know exactly what happened or how bad it was. The footage itself would look really bad if it got out to the public, so I can at least threaten them with that. The problem is, Fazbear Entertainment is probably going to get thrown into another scandal even if it's not as bad as it could've been, and I have to find a way to keep them from getting shut down because of Glitchtrap's possession victim. That's what I'm worried about more than anything else."

"I…don't know what I can do to help with that," Susie confessed. "We can post stuff on the public forums to argue against shutting down Fazbear Entertainment completely, I guess."

"Fazbear Entertainment needs to do something to win back the public's trust, though," Liz pointed out. "They have to prove that safety is the number one thing they care about, cause otherwise nobody's going to buy an animatronic when another one's attacked someone in their own house."

The family fell silent as they tried to come up with a good strategy for Mike to use. It was Gabe who finally broke the silence with a suggestion that none of them had expected. "What if…what if you went public with becoming the new head of the Special Delivery project?" the former Freddy inhabitant ventured.

"WHAT?" multiple voices exclaimed.

"Are you crazy?" Cassidy exclaimed. "That's one of the worst things that he could possibly do!"

"I thought we were trying to keep our existences a secret from the public," Fritz agreed. "This just screams shitty idea in so many ways!"

"I'm not talking about all of us revealing ourselves to the public, just Dad!" Gabe defended himself. "If we're trying to save Fazbear Entertainment from going under yet another scandal, having them announce Dad as the head of the Security Delivery project is probably the best thing that Fazbear Entertainment could possibly do!"

"Go on," Mike invited, his willingness to entertain Gabe's idea effectively silencing all opposition for the time being.

"If we're talking about a PR standpoint, letting people know that you're the person who's going to be in charge of the Special Delivery project really is the best thing that Fazbear Entertainment could possibly do," Gabe explained. "Think about it, Dad directly got injured because of animatronic in his house. That means he understands just how dangerous these animatronics are better than anyone else Fazbear Entertainment can hire, and he would be by far the most likely person to take the job of making these animatronics safe seriously. That's the kind of message that Fazbear Entertainment needs to share to the public if they want to win back even a little bit of trust in the Special Delivery project."

"I see what you're saying," Liz acknowledged, and Mike could hear the frown in her voice, "but I don't think that's going to be enough to convince people."

"Well, I'm not done explaining," Gabe replied, his voice gaining more confidence as he continued to speak. "There's also the fact that Dad's willing to do this for free, and that he's not being paid for it. That's actually huge. Because not only does it show how much Dad cares about making the animatronics safe that he's not even accepting a salary for it, it also spreads the message that Fazbear Entertainment can't buy Dad with money. They can't threaten to reduce his pay if he suggests or does things that Fazbear Entertainment doesn't like because he's not being paid to begin with, and if they try to fire him, that would just make Fazbear Entertainment look REALLY bad after a public announcement."

"That's one of the big reasons why I made that offer in the first place," Mike agreed. "I wanted to make it very clear to Fazbear Entertainment that I don't care about the money." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "And I can see how spreading that message to the public could leave a good impression on them."

"And there's one more big thing," Gabe concluded. "If you make it clear in the public announcement that you're the one in control, Fazbear Entertainment will have to follow through with it. They won't have a choice. Especially when you've already got half of the executives on your side because Nightmare threatened to torture them if they didn't what you say."

"It's still risky, though," Susie still sounded uneasy about the whole idea. "I don't like the idea of the public knowing who Dad is. We don't know if somebody will try to break into our house and stumble upon our existence."

"We've been careful about keeping our identities hidden for years now," Charlie reminded her, trying her best to reassure her sister, "and Dad's security system is top-notch. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to see Toy Bonnie coming."

"And obviously, I'd make damn sure that my personal details didn't get released to the public," Mike added. "But honestly, Gabe…I think you have a point. Despite what we were trying to go for just a few days ago, me publicly announcing myself as the new head of the Special Delivery project might be the best solution. I'm not exactly happy about it, but it's the only way I can think of to accomplish all of our objects at the moment. Good job with this, Gabe, you've clearly thought all this through."

"Thanks, Dad!" the former Freddy inhabitant replied, his voice containing a mix of pride for having come up with an idea his dad agreed with and relief that it wasn't instantly dismissed for being too stupid or too dangerous.

"Sounds like you're going to have to talk to Averus again, though," Jeremy pointed out. "Since your negotiation terms are going to be different now than what they used to."

Mike smirked. "I don't think that'll be a problem," he answered smoothly. "For better or for worse, Fazbear Entertainment is very vulnerable right now thanks to Nightmare's attacks and that Culpo guy's sudden confession. I don't think there's going to be a better time for me to get them to do what needs to be done to make the animatronics safe than now."

The Next Day…

"Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Averus is here to see you again," a nurse reported as she poked her head into his hospital room.

Mike smiled at her. "Thanks, Stacy, I'm ready to see him," he replied as he prepared himself for the meeting. In a complete 180 of his previous meeting, the man now had to act more gleeful over Fazbear's situation than what he was actually feeling, instead of acting angrier over his own situation. Given the circumstances, he didn't really appreciate the irony all that much.

The sound of footsteps alerted the man to the presence of his guest, and he forced a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "Well, hello there," he coolly greeted Averus as the executive walked into his room. "I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon. Then again, it was only a matter of time that we'd be seeing each other soon, seeing how you've been on the news. Man, that Culpo guy…I didn't expect one of you to actually grow a conscience and spill the beans to the public. Guy practically did the job for me." Mike's smirk widened. "Just imagine how they'd react if they saw exactly what happened in my house that night…"

Averus wasn't in the mood to play around. "What do you want, Schmidt?" he grumbled. "Are you going to bail out on us too, just like he did?"

"Oh, not at all," Mike grinned. "I merely want to…re-negotiate my current terms for working as the new head of your Special Delivery project. The first and foremost being that I now want to go make a public announcement of my new role."

Averus couldn't keep the surprise off his face. "What?" he spluttered. "But didn't you make it clear that one of your stipulations in our last meeting was complete privacy?"

"I did," Mike agreed, "but things have changed. That Culpo guy's confession put your company in some hot water, and I think that if I were to make a public announcement that explains why I'm a good choice to be the new head of your Special Delivery project, I just very might save the whole thing from going under completely."

"If you could, that would be very much appreciated," Averus made sure to phrase the request politely. The last thing that he wanted to do was to alienate the person who could potentially save them from yet another scandal.

Mike's eyes narrowed, the friendly and helpful expression vanishing in an instant. "But let me make it clear," he warned. "In this new public announcement, which I plan to make as soon as I can get some good mobility with this arm and this leg, I'm going to make it very clear that the safety and quality of the animatronics is my first and only priority. And I'm going to make absolutely damn certain to enforce that truth." The grin returned, and this time there was zero friendliness in it. "Which means that I have some new conditions that I'm going to be making, both with regards to the announcement itself and how I'm going to be running the Special Delivery project…"

Averus barely suppressed the urge to let out a groan. He had seen this coming; there was no way that Mike was going to take advantage of an opportunity like this, no matter how much he supposedly wanted to help his company. But it wasn't like he and his fellow executives had a choice. If they didn't successfully navigate their way out of the mess that Culpo had thrown them into soon, then not just the Special Delivery project, but the continued survival of Fazbear Entertainment itself was in serious jeopardy. And that was without factoring in the threat of Nightmare's torments hanging over his head like a sword, ready to slice down and bring doom upon his nights of rest if he didn't comply.

There was going to be a price to pay, Averus was certain of it. He could only hope that it was one that he and the rest of Fazbear Entertainment could afford to pay.

/

A/N: Well, that certainly constitutes a change in plans, doesn't it?

I'll be honest, I had a bit of a writer's block issue when I was writing this chapter. The big thing I wanted to introduce here was some negative consequences to having literal demons from Hell influencing affairs on Earth. The Bible makes it very clear that dealing with demons is a very, very, VERY bad idea. The Nightmares might be among the most moral demons in Hell and miles above William Afton or Fazbear Entertainment in terms of competency, and Mike might have been extremely fortunate to earn Nightmare's respect, but to expect Mike to work together with them for an extended period of time and NOT have negative, unforeseen consequences is honestly unrealistic. Granted, Mike didn't technically ask for their help this time around, but the point still stands. And it doesn't help that, at least to a degree, Nightmare actually fucked up for once, as he didn't account for the possibility that a Fazbear executive might confess and spill the beans about the Special Delivery project to the public anyway (even if he didn't reveal as much as he could have).

But, what's done is done, and Mike and his family are certainly capable of improvising around these unforeseen consequences. Nightmare's actions might have ramifications down the road, but they've also provided opportunities as well. Opportunities that Gabe was the first to identify, and that Mike certainly knows how to take advantage of.

Finally, I'm making a point of having the ghost kids themselves be the ones to drive events and come up with ideas, especially the MCI kids. Charlie and Liz have had plenty of time in the spotlight, for good or for ill, and I'm trying to make it so that each of the MCI kids will have their time to shine. I started this out with Help Wanted, but I can always do more.

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