I Don't Own Fnaf
"Hey Dave, remember me?" Mike took a visceral enjoyment in watching the man in his mask panic. The sound of Marionette's music box rang out as he marched ahead, twirling the bat in his off hand before grabbing it tightly and with a harsh swing tried to crack it straight across the man's head. He had to give the guy credit, he dodged, as the bat hit one of the nearby tables, leading to an incredibly loud crash.
"Come on now! I thought you wanted to play!" Mike, needless to say, was pissed. Admittedly one problem about his anger issues he never quite worked out was how to not be a dick when he was angry, unsurprisingly as he continued to march forwards at the killer, at Dave Miller, he wasn't all that interested in correcting that behavior.
The man just continued to back up, his head shooting between the two animatronics Mike was sure he would never see in front of him. Marionette without a second thought shot forwards, directly on a collision course with the man as Mike got ready for another swing. Marionette though was as fast as Mike remembered, and watching on the other side of things was brutal, seeing the way the puppet's body twisted unnaturally, wrapping around to he back of the man, as thick corded metal wires for puppet strings came from Marionette's wrists to ensnare and choke the life out of the man.
Maybe it was arrogance, maybe it was the fact that Mike knew exactly how dangerous Marionette was first hand, but he hadn't thought the Purple Guy would stand a chance once he was within Mari's grasp.
Mike couldn't have been more wrong, and his newest friend paid the price for his underestimating of the psycho that they were dealing with, as he watched with horror breaking past his anger at the sight of the Miller twisting around, his hand digging into some bag he had on his back that Mike hadn't noticed, as in an instant a hand taser had come out and had slammed itself into the puppet's suspended body.
"Mari! You son of a- " Before Mike could charge, Goldie did it for him, rushing at the Purple Guy with heavy pounding footsteps as the puppet's body slipped off of his target's back, the song that had been playing having cut off with a sharp painful sounding chime as his body smacked on the floor before he could right himself. The puppet pulling himself up though not floating straight into another pounce but by his own arms, telling Mike just how much he had underestimated the puppet's reaction when he mentioned being tased.
Before he could try to support his brother, the sound of distorted static of a faulty voice box echoed from across the room. It was a trained instinct from being a night guard at Freddy's that made Mike turn his head to see who it was.
For a single moment, Mike was relieved to see it was Foxy, not that it could have been anyone else from what he had been told on the ride over by the Marionette, Goldie having spent the entire time crammed into the backseat, silent. But that relief turned to terror as he took in the sight of the animatronic, his entire body twitching with clear unstable rage, as a spectral white filled his shown eye, as it flickered between the two humans in the fox's line of sight.
And then Foxy charged.
"What the Fu-Foxy!"
And he charged at Mike.
"H-hey sto- Ah!" Mike barely had time to pull the bat up in time for it to be what was hooked around by the sharp metal hook on the end of Foxy's arm, as the entire weight of the animatronic was barred down on him as the two stumbled back in a crash into another table as Mike let out a pained grunt as his back impacted first into the wood before the combined weight of the animatronic and himself carried them both through it onto the ground.
It was only out of reflex and luck that Mike rolled out of the way of the Fox with all several hundred pounds of metal of his weight, didn't crash straight down on top of him. The sound of distorted static ripping from the fox's voice box as Mike rolled onto his side and then his next, stumbling backwards in his rush to get away, words already spilling out of his mouth, "Foxy! It's me, wrong target bud-Ah shi-"
Mike had to practically jump out of the way of Foxy as the fox from a prone position shot at him in a lunging leap that nearly caught Mike. Needless to say, Foxy wasn't in a listening mood, he would keep attacking Mike until one of them went down.
And Mike knew exactly why.
Foxy had already long since told Mike himself that he can't really tell a difference between the Purple Guy and Mike. The only things that really put them apart was that the Purple Guy had a knife, a long silver colored weapon, and Mike had a Foxy mask. And, well, guess what? Purple Guy was wearing Mike's mask, and Mike had a silver weapon in his hands. It was no wonder the fox couldn't tell them apart. That didn't mean Mike wasn't pissed even more about his stuff being taken. It also didn't stop him from trying to get the fox off his back as he called out as Foxy crashed onto the ground before bounding up to charge at him again.
"Stop it Foxy! Come on!" Mike couldn't fight Foxy, for one he'd lose, he had one hand and was hardly exactly healed from the many injuries littered around his body, not to mention a baseball bat of all things was a horrible weapon against someone made of metal. Plus he just couldn't anyways, he wouldn't fight the animatronic unless he had no choice. Meaning Mike had to make a decision as he half rolled over a table to get out of the way of Foxy's reckless charging, on just what he was going to do.
Inspiration hit in a surprising way as Mike gritted his teeth, reaching into his own bag, yanking out an item from it before frowning as he said with genuine guilt.
"Sorry about this Foxy" With that he swung his hand up and lit the end of the flashlight right into the pirate's one eye, using the time that the animatronic recoiled back as his servos were briefly overloaded, a trick he learned how it worked from Jeremy that he hadn't wanted to put into practice, but Mike didn't think about that, instead charging past the stunned Foxy, even as his hook flailed through the air, getting just close enough to Mike that he honestly wasn't sure if he had been cut or not.
Instead of caring, Mike used the adrenaline in his veins to push his legs even harder, rushing across the main room towards the one location that he had already used once as his final bid to live. In a messed up way, the familiarity of it all almost made Mike feel comforted in that it was going to work. Because if it didn't... well, Mike was cutting his own way of escape off as with that last thought he jumped up and disappeared into the purple curtains of Pirate's Cove, Foxy was not even three steps behind him as the two vanished from the view of the others.
The other's naturally couldn't do anything about this even if they wanted to, for one the puppet was barely holding onto to focus, being shocked for an animatronic was a lot like being forced through a seizure, it hurt like hell and the lack of control of even the most simple of actions for an extended period afterwards made it down right terrifying even past the agony that it caused. As it stood as well, focus was a requirement to do basically anything the puppet would be able to do to contribute to a fight.
Marionette wasn't built to stand on his own, he required a control cross with his wires set up, made to glide around the prize corner and nothing else, it was out of necessity that he learned to use his abilities to move around in other ways, unlike most others who could get by with nothing, Marionette never got that luxury.
He also didn't get the luxury of a rest either, even with a clouded mind, or rather scrambled servos, Marionette fought past it and used his naturally strong arms to grab onto the Purple Guy, even as the killer tried to get out of the way of a charging Golden Freddy, a look of genuine shock barely see able through the mask, only being able to be seen in the man's eyes at the sight of the two of them, even as he ripped his foot from the puppet's grasp and easily moved around the bear.
Golden Freddy had never had the need to learn to fight, never had the need to learn to use his abilities under pressure. It was costing him, his body wasn't like Foxy's, it wasn't incredibly fast and durable, nor was it like Marionette's, long and flexible, made to move with easy with a surprising amount of hidden strength, speed, and tricks. His body was made of cumbersome springlocks. He had incredibly amount of power because of it, as he charged at the Purple Guy, every strike he missed shattered whatever it was that took the hit instead of the man, but that didn't matter because he was slow.
Incredibly so, both from being unused to moving and the lack of experience and knowing of how to use his body at all, much less in a fight, but as well because springlock suits weren't made with mobility in mind. Every swing was large and slow, no matter how much power was behind each swing, it meant nothing if they never had a chance of connecting. On the wider side or not, Purple Guy was clearly beyond an expert in handling dangerous animatronics, animatronics with years more experience than what Goldie was trying to do right now.
It was because of that, with Goldie without back up from either Mike, who was currently being chased around by the fox, and Marionette, who only now managed to pull himself up to his feet, that caused his failure. With expertise that must have come from years of practice, the man shoved his taser to his belt as he circled around Goldie in a near instant, another item being pulled out from the man's side bag, before being jammed straight into Goldie's back. Normally that probably wouldn't have been much of an issue, it hurt, in the way that he could feel his springs being poked and prodded at along with his inner machinery, but it wasn't that bad... Or at least it shouldn't have been.
If it hadn't been for the fact that the object that had been stabbed into Goldie's back had been a springlock crank. Goldie couldn't help but gasp in pain as he felt his back was forcibly pried open, his springs compressing back in a way to force the endoskeleton that allowed him to move to disengage enough that he couldn't even twitch his arms, much less move away, it was like his entire body had been locked in place for a single painful moment. Just enough time for the man to reach into the opened suit to grab onto something that shouldn't have been grabbed.
With the sound of a snap and the creaking of old metal Goldie crashed to the ground as his lower endoskeleton was disconnected from his upper body. The crank was then ripped out of him, forcing the springlocks to suddenly snap back into place for animatronic mode making his entire body tense up and jolt in agony in the cruel and uncaring way the man had bashed at his parts, incredibly unlike the suddenly gentle in comparison way that Fritz had done work on him in the past.
Goldie honestly hadn't imagined it could have hurt that bad.
Even then he reached out with a large golden hand to try and swipe up at the man, even as he simply just stepped out of the way, even if it was clear the killer was panting heavily now, clearly all this effort wasn't without cost, but it seemed to be useless as Goldie was removed from play, even as he tried to move, he felt his entire lower body tense and shot up with pain as his springs tried to move against something that wasn't there. Even if his parts weren't connected he could still feel every aspect of his body.
Meaning he could only watch with anger flooding back into focus as Purple Guy stepped away, that damn mask mocking him. Goldie refused to lose everything to a man wearing that damn mask again!
The Marionette on the other hand had finally managed to recover enough to return to their feet, the sound of music playing once more, as Miller made the decision to turn back to look at the puppet...
Before suddenly staggering back in a way he hadn't done before at the sight of the striped animatronic, swinging a wild arm out as with it an air of blur lighting coming off the tongs of the hand taser still in his hand, like he was trying to ward the puppet off given it hit nothing but air. It did nothing against the animatronic who was quickly making his way at the man. The man had already turned and run even before then, seemingly shaken to anyone else about the Marionette getting back up. Marionette simply followed, slower than he normally would have been capable of, but at a solid pace all the same as the two charged down the halls.
If it was any other situation the blank faced smile on the puppet's face might have turned to real amusement at the sight of the Purple Guy, his killer, cursing at the sight of the office doors already being engaged. But he had a job to do, he had people to protect, and that meant this Dave Miller would no longer be allowed to continue on this path as Marionette shot forwards, ready to pounce on the man when the puppet animatronic caught something that forced him to stop and take a change in direction.
Looking through the window which Miller had cursed at, Marionette could see two figures, both not looking all that well, and one looking all too familiar.
The Puppet never knew the only adult who he gave his gift to's name. But that didn't mean he would ever forget the face of Jeremy Fitzgerald.
While for Jeremy, saying that he wasn't doing too well would be a bit of an understatement. Today had been bad enough before Spring Bonnie showed up and did something to mess with his head, and that was before everyone decided to show up and start fighting in front of the main stage.
Honestly the both of them were in shock for the first few moments, as they watched as Mike charged ahead in tandem with the Marionette, an animatronic that Jeremy would have been more than fine with never having to see again in his life. Judging by the choked noise Fritz made as they watched as the puppet leaped over Mike onto the Purple Guy, who for some reason was wearing Mike's mask, the feeling was much the same on his side as well.
That question was answered when Foxy of all animatronics charged right at Mike just as the killer managed to do something to the puppet to make it drop like a stone, harshly crashing onto the ground with a heavy thud.
"We need to get out there!" Fritz's words were something Jeremy would have normally agreed to, and he would have easily already been moving to head out of the office to do his best to help, no matter how little he'd probably be able to do, he would still try. But just as Fritz moved to the left door to open it up, Jeremy froze in place as in a single burst that he had no warning for, a wave of agony shot through Jeremy's skull so harshly it nearly floored him instantly as a wave of raw unfiltered excitement and rage filled his mind.
"F-Fritz" That was the last thing Jeremy had managed to say before he was overwhelmed with the feeling, almost immediately passing out this time, making Jeremy all to aware that what Spring Bonnie had done before had only been a test to see just how much they would be able to push Jeremy.
While Fritz himself could only watch in horror as his friend managed to only croak out his name in the time it took for him to turn back to see blood trailing down the man's face, from both his eyes and nose. Fritz only managed time to gasp before moving forwards quickly, catching the other man before he collapsed to the floor.
"Jeremy? Jeremy, come on man! F-Fight it or something! Come on, don't get a freaking rabbit beat you!" Fritz honestly had no idea what he was saying, he was just spitting out words as he panicked to hell and back about what he was suppose to do, seeing the man in such a fragile state, his face covered in blood slammed memories back to the front of Fritz's mind so hard it nearly left him staggering.
Instead of that he just lowered the younger man to the floor, looking him over, not knowing what the hell to do as Jeremy just muttered something up at him, his eyes half closed and looking delirious. He was trying to figure out what the other man was saying when suddenly Jeremy's eyes snapped back open, and for a brief moment Fritz had thought the man had managed to get a hold of himself, but that couldn't have been less the case.
Because instead of the familiar sight of Jeremy's clear green eyes, the whites of his eyes were black, and instead of green dots of white stared up at Fritz. The sight on a human face nearly gave Fritz a heart attack. He nearly had another when Jeremy's entire body tensed before a flailing fist found itself slamming into the side of Fritz's head. Both of his hands had been holding onto Jeremy to keep him from dropping meaning he had nothing to defend himself against the man's sudden attack as the blow to the head.
Fritz wasn't nearly as accustomed as getting hit in the head as others and as such felt his head snap to the side as a wave of dizziness hit him as he half fell out from under Jeremy before getting himself under control to try to pull back only to find Jeremy trying to move up and grab at him.
Fritz felt a roll of revulsion as he realized just what he was seeing. Then he felt anger as he found his hands quickly coming up to grab onto Jeremy's hands as they tried to make the effort to choke him as the two men rolled around on the office floor in an attempt of a scuffle. Fritz just gritted his teeth and tried to keep the surprisingly strong younger man as he grunted out.
"G-Get the hell out of his head you Golden Bonnie reject!" That didn't seem to do much of anything as those horrible black and white eyes continued to stare down at him without blinking as Fritz continued to keep the younger man held down while he fought back. Jeremy was kind of a smaller guy, but said guy was definitely and quickly getting the upper hand, with Jeremy half rolling on top of Fritz who was still just trying to pin him down.
An elbow nailed him in the side of his gut more than a few times and the pain was steadily getting harder to ignore, but Fritz couldn't risk even the thought of hitting Jeremy back, he had no idea what was going on, and he was damned if he was going to hit his friend in the head or even risk the accident of something like that happening. So Instead Fritz just gritted his teeth, took the shots to his body, and held down the man as best he could as he listened to the hell on earth that was sounding out from the outside of the office.
The sounds of crashing tables and impacts weren't the background sounds he wanted, but frankly Fritz wanted a lot of different things happening at the moment, so he held those complaints to himself.
Of course it's when those sounds stopped that Fritz got really worried as Jeremy began to fight even harder when there was suddenly a pounding sound on the door as Fritz managed to crane his head up, silently hoping it was Mike, despite everything he knew about the man now, he really needed the man's help right now. And instead stared at the sight of a familiar mask on a unfamiliar man.
Before Fritz could even curse, like the man at the door was, the sound of a very familiar song that often played in Fritz's nightmares played and in an instant the man in the window rushed away only to be replaced with the visage of the puppet from the prize corner. Fritz was going to ask Mike so many questions about why he thought finding that thing was a good idea if they three of them made it out of this alive.
Of course that's when the puppet appeared in the room with them, and Fritz was trying really hard to not scream while actively fighting to hold Jeremy down, just in time to get a punch in the side of the head, again, this one felt worse and he could feel something trail down his head. The sound of the puppet's song cut off as they lowered down, staring at Jeremy.
Was... was it trying to help? It did come in with Mike. Fritz had to make the decision if he was going to try and fight off the puppet while holding down Jeremy or trust Mike's decision to bring it here. Fritz felt like an idiot for still trusting Mike enough to make the decision for him.
"Spring Bonnie is doing something, he needs help" The puppet simply nodded, leaning down into a kneel, strings coming out of the animatronic's wrists which quickly, yet somehow gently wrapped around the arms of Jeremy before pulling him off of Fritz in one yank, as the puppet's hands grabbed onto the head of the man as the two stared directly at each other. Fritz just stumbled up to his feet, he felt horrible, but as he turned to look at the monitor, still propped up on the desk, he grimaced at the sight of Goldie, broken down on the ground, still trying to move. Mike wasn't anywhere to be seen.
Fritz took a deep breath before making another choice today that wasn't on his favorites list. He moved to the left door and opened it up, calling out to the puppet when it left out a distracted sort of chime sound.
"I'm going to help Goldie and Mike, then we're finishing this" The puppet didn't give an answer back, and frankly Fritz was glad for it as he moved out into the hallway, smacking the door button on his way out just in case the Purple Guy tried to go around the other way to get into the office. It was the only place in the building that could be considered safe after all, and Fritz was not going to risk Jeremy being in the same room as that psycho if said person could get around him.
Though, as he moved out into the main stage room, he gave a wince at the sound of crashing that came from Pirate's cove, he had an idea that he knew where Mike was as he rushed over to Goldie, knowing that if anyone could get to the fox in that state, it certainly wouldn't be Fritz. He couldn't help without risking making the situation worse or just having the animatronic switch targets and make everything more complicated than it needed to be.
With that he slipped down next to Goldie and looked his body over. Under any other circumstance Fritz wouldn't have had any idea about just what he was suppose to do, if all of this had happened before he got dragged back into this chaos he'd be out of his depth. But Fritz had spent way to long building this animatronic's body back up, going over and learning every bit of detail about Golden Freddy that he could, without the help of a single blueprint, to not be able to find the issue in an instant.
"You have a servos line going down your endo's spine that's suppose to stay connected with the hip of the endo, I think Purple Guy unconnected it. I can't get to it without the crank unless I take off some of your outer suit on the back" Goldie was silent for a moment before saying.
"Do it quick, I don't need to move to be useful here but I need to get to the office" Fritz blinked in confusion before quickly getting to work, asking as he carefully looked to try and find a way to pry the lower back golden colored suit panel open to let get to the endo spine.
"Ok, uh, any reason why?"
"Cas- Spring Bonnie is too busy trying to keep us out of the way to get the killer in the right spot. If that's what she wants, then she can have him. I don't care who kills him, but you need to be safe and out of the way, that means you being in the office" Fritz was almost offended and almost flattered at the same time about Goldie both implying that he was getting in the way and wanting him to be safe, but instead he was to busy being completely focused on the task at hand.
He could feel the way Goldie's whole body tense in what was probably pain as he removed the panel, normally Fritz was a lot more careful, took time to deactivate the servos and electrical parts around any areas he was working with to keep things like this from happening, but he was in a rush job and the sounds of crackling electricity was filling the air that was from a taser, and there was a lot of shouting from what sounds of a panicking person from somewhere in the room and he was only sort of sure that wasn't anyone on his side given he was too busy to look around.
He did notice the sounds of screeching metal and other such sounds from pirate's cove has finally stopped, which was something at least.
That something was Mike of course.
After managing to get Foxy into the cove, Mike was scrambling to find what he was looking for, and frankly Foxy was not making it easy on him, the stage itself was not that big, barely big enough for a few props that would be the proper size for something as big as Foxy's body, as it stood, Mike was honestly just as big, the only good thing was there wasn't any props... But there was a lot of papers, most of which were on the floor.
Foxy was too heavy to be slipping around on loose paper, and while Mike wasn't exactly light, he wasn't made of metal. It made the next moment honestly luck that he didn't trip over actual paper with how tired he still honestly was, it was as he jumped out of the way of Foxy as the pirate leaped right past him, slamming into the wall so hard he slammed a dent into the damn thing, given that was an outer wall which had bricks on the other side, Mike was very glad to have had that miss as he shot forwards to try and do what he had to, flashlight in hand to try and blind him once more.
He wasn't fast enough, having to duck barely with enough time under a hooked hand trying to stab itself through his head as he half fell to the floor from how hard he had to drop himself before springing his body to the side to avoid Foxy stomping his foot over right where Mike's body had just been. Thankfully, because Foxy was several hundred pounds of metal, the impact immediately put a hole straight through the wooden stage. The Fox didn't even seem to care, already making a move to rip the foot out to charge at Mike again.
He knew that this was the only time he was going to get to be able to do this, as he shot forwards, moving around the side of the fox without the hook, so just as Foxy was on one foot, with the other beginning to come out of the hole, he slammed his shoulder into the side of the fox to push him off his feet into the back wall, with another crash hard enough that it felt another dent, Mike moved in without a hint of hesitation as he moved to the side of the dazed animatronic, his head hit the wall harder than Mike wanted it to.
But it was also only because of that that Mike managed to snake his hand into the back of Foxy's neck, finding the small set of wires that he knew were there that sent information from the main servos in the fox's head to the rest of the body, and with a sharp tug disconnected them.
Just in time to as with a crash, Mike turned to see the arm with it's hook had been on it's way to stab into his back stop, before dropping into the Fox's lap as he took in a long shaky breath, the only moment he allowed to himself before quickly standing up and moving a bit down the wall of the back of Pirate's cove, thankfully Foxy hadn't crashed against this section. It was where, like with his old office, Mike had hung up a number of pictures that Foxy had been particularly proud of.
Mike found the one he was looking for easily. It was hard to not spot the purple blob with a red mask in it's hand among the wall of various splattered colors.
Snatching it off the wall, Mike quickly marched over back to Foxy, who now only had control of his head, the fox's eyes locked on his form as Mike bent low enough for the fox to see him perfectly well before holding the up against his chest and simply waited. If words wouldn't be able to be heard, then the animatronic could put those spooky eyes of his to their intended use and piece together the context clues. And so, Mike waited for a long moment for the fox to calm down enough to see him for who he was.
Even if he wanted nothing more than to rush out of this cove right now, now that Foxy would be out of his way to beat the hell out of Miller, he would never allow his rage to cost anyone he cared about anything, and that meant he would not, could not, leave Foxy here defenseless in case something went wrong.
Eventually though, it happened, Foxy's eye slowly dimmed back into it's normal color, a standard plastic casing yellow eye. His head tilting up to look up at Mike's face, and he finally felt like he wasn't in danger, as Mike let out a soft groan of relief as at least some stress on his shoulders was reduced as he said with a small smile.
"Hey buddy, want to get back to the hunt?" Foxy continued to just stare, Mike wasn't worried, instead quickly moved over to awkwardly get to the wires in the fox's head to reconnect them again, it was hard with one hand, but he managed it quickly enough, as he did so, he spoke softly to the animatronic, "I'm sorry I had to do that, I hope it wasn't too bad, but I didn't have any other ideas"
Foxy's whole body jolted when Mike finally managed to put everything back into place. Mike was expecting the fox to immediately shoot out of the curtains once more to try and find the guy who pretended he was Mike now that Foxy knew he was the killer. Instead the fox's head slowly lowered and suddenly, for the second time today, a mute animatronic spoke.
"S-Sorr-y Laddy!" His voice box had the same static quality as Goldie's did, and it was in character, but that wasn't any prerecorded line, for Mike would know if it was given he kind of had them all memorized from when he was a kid and Foxy was about half of his personality. And for another, while there was still that put on pirate accent, the voice was clearly different, younger and less gruff. Mike just blinked in shock for half a moment before focusing back at the problem at hand, giving the fox a pat on the shoulder.
"No problem, I get being blinded when you're really pissed off. I'm on the edge of that right now, so how about we get back to it huh?" The fox's head moved, just a bit, and Mike got the impression of a smile as Foxy moved to stand, ripping his foot out of the flooring with ease as Mike reached down to scoop up his bat, that he had dropped when he first got into the cove, looking back to give a nod to Foxy as the two moved to leave the stage for another act.
Stepping off the stage, Mike's almost frenzied calm was immediately broken as he called out in a panic.
"Fritz behind you!" Dave had managed to sneak up on the two prone forms, a steel knife in the man's hand, posed over Fritz's head, ready to strike down, when there was a cry as Foxy leaped straight off the stage from Mike's left, literally throwing himself across half the main room right at Miller's head.
Miller's reaction was instant, jumping to the side, but just like everyone else, he was not faster than a determined Foxy, and with a sharp cry of pain, Mike watched with a visceral satisfaction as Foxy's hook found itself sliced itself down the man's left arm, tearing down the flesh that instantly bloomed into a near spray of blood as he flung is arm away to try and mitigate any extra damage.
Foxy didn't give a damn about that, instead moving to slash down once more at the stumbling man, ready and willing to put an end to it, only to freeze in place. Mike was on his way over, ready and willing to help, so he saw it when it happened, saw the way the fox's entire form shook, twitching, like he was glitching, stumbling like someone had taken control of his strings. Like he was the puppet instead of the actual Marionette that was around somewhere else in the building, unable to move or defend himself for some reason in that moment.
Mike didn't think twice about marching forwards, just as Miller tried to get a free shot in, Mike's bat came up, slamming into the man's not cut up arm, making him yell in pain as he dropped the taser he had just pulled back out, backing up in it, before looking around wildly at the four, it was hard to see the man's eyes, but not impossible, seeing them scan around at and even past them all as he back up. Goldie was slowly getting back up to his feet, the animatronics' eyes flickering from the pin points of red back to their dangerous white.
Mike didn't know what his brother was doing for the first moment before suddenly the man grabbed onto the side of his head with his good hand before stumbling back even more before turning and fleeing back down one of the halls towards the office. Clearly whatever vision he forced into Dave's head hadn't been much of a pleasant one. Mike could relate, but he chose not to. Instead Mike and Foxy both made to move, only Foxy made it to continue the chase, seemingly suddenly back in control.
Because as he got ready to charge forwards, a large golden paw placed itself onto his shoulder effectively locking him in place unless he was willing to risk dislocating his shoulder. Glancing back up at Goldie, who's eyes were still those points of white, Mike just frowned.
"What? We should keep chasing him"
"Don't bother, Foxy will keep him pinned... He's entered the sealed room" Mike blinked for a long moment, before something clicked. He had heard Mari and Goldie talking about what was happening when he first got back to the diner, he knew some information, someone, Cassidy was causing problems, of a kind that Mike didn't have the heart to fully address right now. But what he did know was she was in Spring Bonnie and was looking to kill Dave himself. And if Foxy was on one side of the door and Cassidy was on the other...
"He disabled you and Marionette both without issue, he could do the same to her" Mike made to move again, but his brother only held him still, saying after a short moment.
"Trust me" That... That made Mike freeze in place, the rolling rage in his chest wanting, more like needing, an escape of some kind. He wanted to be there, he wanted to follow Foxy to that room, to get in that room, to be the one who finished it himself. It was a cold thought, an easy one at that, Mike wanted to be the one to kill Dave. It was messed up, but it was hard to think of wanting anything else. But those words, from the one person he's already killed made him pause.
Eventually after a tense moment he finally glanced back at Fritz, who looked beaten up, blood was leaking down the side of his head and Mike wouldn't be surprised if the man had a black eye in the following few days. He gave Mike a side look, looking unsure about something, but clearly unwanting to go charge back at the psycho.
"We should get to the office, Jeremy wasn't doing good last time I saw him, the... puppet was trying to help" Suddenly Mike remembered the fact Mari had been tased and with another wave of boiling anger rushed through him, for half a moment he wanted to stomp to the sealed room and bash Purple Guy around until he would be known as the Red Guy instead, but his concern for his friends, Jeremy and Mari both, won out as he quickly nodded.
"Come on, Goldie you doing ok? I didn't see what happened but I heard you crash" His brother didn't answer, Fritz picked up the slack.
"Disconnected his lower endo skeleton, he's, uh, missing a part in the back at the moment, I'll get him fixed up after all this though" Mike just nodded absently, giving his brother a concerned look before the three quickly made their way to the office from the other hallway, as the sounds of an enraged Foxy wailed on the metal door.
Getting to the office was quick, Mike just looked inside for a moment, and frowned at the sight. Jeremy was sitting on the only chair in the room, his face somehow having more blood on it than Fritz's, though without any obvious damage, while Mari was simply floating in front of him, staring at the man, neither were doing anything, just... kind of there. Mike could practically feel the awkwardness from here as he reached up and tapped on the window before calling out.
"Mari, mind opening the door?" The puppet's head snapped up at an almost painful angle to watch and locked onto Mike, who just gave a tired wave before he floated over to the door to hit the control to open it up. The three stepped inside of the now incredibly cramped space as Mike hit the button again, just in case, as it closed behind them. Goldie instantly collapsed into a heap against the back wall while Fritz moved to look over Jeremy, the two looking at each other with vague looks of horror showing at what they saw on each other's faces, that being all the blood.
Mike was definitely missing something. Instead of thinking about it, he just moved over to the monitor, needing something to do, and quickly being surprised to find it opened up and showing the sealed room. Marionette floated up to his side as they both watched what was happening with equal mixed reactions.
That was because on the camera, it wasn't just Dave and Spring Bonnie, it was... something more, three figures, completely pure white, but clearly people, it was hard to make out details, they weren't big, but just looking at them sent something spiraling down Mike's spine in a way he couldn't hope to explain, it felt... violating's to be seeing this. He knew what they were, who they were, Mari let out a soft pained chime from his side as the two watched as Dave stumbled back, trying to get away, before finally seeing the Spring Bonnie suit in the corner.
Mike didn't know the plan, he had no idea just why the man did what he did, why the man seemed to eventually make the decision he did. Because for a moment it seemed Dave was willing to try to fight off the literal ghosts of the animatronics he had already destroyed, the knife in his good hand as he waved it around... But then another ghost appeared, just for a moment, and it effected the camera, hard, the screen glitching out so badly Mike could only see the form for a moment.
But it was the only moment he needed to realize it was Evan, pale white just as the rest, in a hospital gown, bandages wrapped around his head, standing in front of the other ghosts before the screen flickered out. Mike turned to stare in near heart shattering terror, only to let out a breath of relief at the sight of Goldie still sitting there as he always was, eyes lit up, even as his entire suit seemed to tremble with some invisible effort. It was a hallucinations, just one on such a powerful level that it was visible to the real world outside of the person it was directly effecting.
Glancing back with a tense silence, Mike watched as the screen flickered back into place as he watched with mild horror as he finally saw what the man did that he wouldn't understand. Dave had forgone the mask, the camera angle didn't show him off well, the camera being placed over the head of the inactive Spring Bonnie, as the man with a fluid motion showing expertise in his actions, he pried open the back of the Spring Bonnie outfit before slipping inside of it with ease.
In the next moment Spring Bonnie stood up, and with a faint sense of confusion, Mike watched as the forms of the ghosts seemingly began to flicker in and out, like the sight of the man in that suit was effecting them, Mike didn't understand, but he didn't need to. He just sighed, because this was it.
It was over, and it felt... unsatisfying to the boiling rage in his chest as he felt more than watched Jeremy and Fritz move to his left side, seemingly still trying to watch without getting to close to Mari, under normal circumstances he might have thought it was funny that they found Marionette scary, right now he was too busy fighting down the harsh growing knot in his chest as they all watched as Dave, who seemed to be doing something close to gloating suddenly pause, even in the suit, Mike could practically feel the terror that shot through the man with how Spring Bonnie's body tensed.
Then Dave, more the suit itself, suddenly moved harshly, as they all watched as the suit began to tense and twitch seemingly without reason. Fritz was the one who mentioned it, knowing exactly what he was seeing, as he said with faint horror.
"The suit... She's trying to force herself through a springlock failure with him inside" Jeremy's voice croaked up next.
"W-Why isn't it happening then?" Mike continued to watch, refusing to let his eyes leave the second for a second, as the suit continued to try and close, as Dave fought for his life, watching and waiting as Fritz gave the answer to Jeremy's question.
"T-there's fail safes, small gears he can wind up internally, I remember seeing them in Goldie" Jeremy let out a hitched breath.
"H-How long is he going to be like that? Holding on? Could he get out?... Should... Should we go in there and... you know?" Mike finally answered.
"No point" He could feel the way the two's eyes locked onto the side of his head at the sheer barely masked fury of his voice hidden by a layer of icy cold that came out as a biting tone, "He won't be long, it's nearly impossible to hold onto those gears when they are greased with your own blood. I'd know" And he did.
Mike knew exactly what was going to happen, he refused to miss it. So he wasn't surprised when it happened.
The injury Foxy had given Dave, blood had been pouring down the man's left arm, covering his hand. Normally a bit of liquid in one of the suits wouldn't be that bad, but during a springlock failure? Where you had to hold your own life in your hands? Mike knew all to well how hard it was to keep those gears wound. It was the only part of all this that gave Mike's fury a small relief, the man's death would be fitting.
It happened in an instant, the left side of the suit gave in, the springs releasing and in a moment everything gave in on that one side, slamming into place with such force it sent Dave spinning to the right into a fall as his entire body was pierced, his right shoulder hitting the wall, and with it releasing the other side's springlocks, the man fell down, half hunched against the back wall, as the five in the office watched as the suit shook and spasmed as hundred of metal pieces slammed into and through the body of Dave Miller.
Blood almost practically sprayed out of some of the out parts of the suit, the eyes looked like they were almost crying with red, around the neck blood flowed freely, a pool of the liquid quickly growing more and more underneath the suit. It was horrific, Mike refused to look away, even as his own experience with his own springlock suit played in his mind, knowing if he had been even a second slower back then, he would have died the exact same way Dave was now.
Eventually the man and suit both stopped moving, leaving a still morbid image on the screen painting a horrific sight.
A long moment of silence continued to pass through the room before Fritz finally was the one to break the silence with a faint almost whispering tone.
"I- I think I'm going to be sick" Mike felt cold, as he reached out, grabbing onto the monitor... and simply turned it off. The only thing that had been left to see was the images of the ghosts fading away. And that wasn't for any of them to watch. Instead Mike took a deep shaking breath before saying.
"You two should get out of here, go to the hospital, make sure your fine, get some air" His voice sounded distant. Mike was vaguely aware that he felt a strange feeling hand grab onto his own, as he blinked and glanced down before moving his eyes over at Mari who was just staring back at him, his face holding his default smile on it hiding whatever the puppet was feeling behind his unmoving mask.
"Are you ok?" He continued to stare at the puppet, even as he replied to Jeremy's question.
"No... But you two need to be looked over more, just... We'll meet up later alright? At the diner. Make sure you two are alright first then we can... talk about everything that's just happened, I need to get Goldie back to the diner and Mari and Foxy stashed away before someone comes looking around"
"I-... Alright, come on Fritz, I think... I think I actually really do need the hospital" The oldest of the three slowly just nodded, looking around, still looking vaguely sick before saying.
"I'll drive you Jere. You lost a lot of blood" The two continued to talk as they stepped out of the office as Mike just continued to stare at the puppet before glancing away finally. Now just staring down at the desk for a long moment before saying finally, quietly, to the two animatronics still in the room.
"I-... I'll be back in a moment" Mike didn't wait for an answer, simply pulling his hand out of the puppet's moving to the other office door and moved up the way until he spotted Foxy, who was sitting in front of the sealed room now, completely still. Mike felt his heart strain with pain and grief for a moment before nearly falling to his knees with ground shaking relief for what felt like to many times today as the Fox finally moved, glancing up at him with a slow, almost sluggish movement. Mike managed a strained and exhausted smile.
"Hey Captain... I- I'm glad you decided to stick around, sorry if that's a bit selfish of me" Mike had honestly thought all four would choose to move on all of this was over. The fox simply and slowly shook his head, the animatronic moved about as tiredly as Mike felt, before he spoke once more.
"N-not shoving off that quickly. Wanted to stick around for a while longer" Mike's mind absently tried to form some joke about being some kind of animatronic whisperer to get two mute bots to talk, but his brain was to... gone to be able to piece anything together, or even want to. Instead he just nodded, moving by the door. The fox didn't ask any questions, simply just moved out of the way for him as Mike spoke to the animatronic.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here" He didn't wait for an answer before slipping into the room, moving forwards towards the... bodies, Cassidy and Dave both. Mike should have felt worried about Cassidy trying something, but he couldn't imagine she wanted to stick around after... this. So instead he just moved forwards, reaching down with his good hand to pick up his mask that had been tossed to the floor. Looking over it for a moment before standing back up.
Mike wasn't sure why he did it, maybe his mind subconsciously needed the safety and comfort that had come from wearing the mask as a way of protecting himself from the frankly horrible last hour of his life, but in the end it didn't really matter why he did it he supposed, as Mike slipped the mask over his face with a practiced ease as he moved a bit closer, crouching down once more so he was basically on the same level of the animatronic slumped over in a large pool of blood.
He wasn't sure just what he wanted to do, Mike had thought over a few times what he wanted to ask the man, to get answers for, about just why anyone would think to do this. About why he decided to play games with Mike, why kidnap him and toy with him, why do any of this instead of just kill him and everyone else. He wouldn't ever get those answers now, and it left a painful digging sensation in his chest at knowing he'd never know.
He didn't have anything to say to the man now, he was gone and that should have been the only thing Mike should focus on, but... He couldn't, because Mike just felt mostly empty, the anger that had been so loud he could barely think had done nothing like it always did, in the end he barely even played a role in all of this thinking about it, he wasn't some hero or anything close to 'redeemed'. Because Michael Afton failed to keep Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie safe, he broke his promise and he'd never be able to tell them how sorry he was that they didn't get the chance to choose to stick around.
Michael felt like a failure, and that burned worse than nearly anything else. And more than that, he was just tired, with the anger gone, it was like the fight had left him as well, and now he was just stuck with all the feelings he hadn't had time to process and all the ones that he had been using to get through it gone to the wind. Eventually he was startled out of his mixed up mess of thoughts and feelings as a hand placed itself onto Mike's shoulder.
He only tensed for a moment before recognizing it as Marionette's hand, as he glanced back up at Mari who was staring down at him through the eyes of his mask. After a moment he just looked back at the suit before asking.
"No chance he's coming back right?"
"No, he died in the suit, but Cassidy made sure to take the man with her, there no coming back from being forced to move on. Spring Bonnie is just like the rest now, empty" That felt like a punch to the gut, but it was one that he needed to hear, he needed to know beyond doubt that Miller was gone, it was a painful kind of relief, one that came at a cost he was still trying to figure out if it was worth it. In the end Mike found himself talking before he could stop himself.
"I failed them. I failed those three" There was a soft almost comforting trill sound from the puppet as he spoke gently to the man.
"They made a choice, if they really wanted to, they could have tried hard enough to stay, they wanted to move on, you know that"
"Doesn't change the fact that it hurts like hell Mari" He just felt the hand on his shoulder squeeze a bit tighter as the puppet spoke softly, in his own tired, but understanding tone.
"It never does" Mike didn't say anything, but he did finally move to stand, feeling a bit awkward about just spilling any of his feeling out, but Marionette had already seen worse out of him, and it did help more than he liked to admit, though a stray thought struck him as he asked with a bit of trepidation as he finally turned his back on the two forms in the pool of blood to look fully at the puppet.
"Yeah... Are you going to be moving on soon?" For not knowing the Marionette for long, Mike still found himself dreading the answer. The puppet seemed to take that as a good enough sign as his mask finally changed from it's default expression, looking just a bit amused past a worn and tired look, as he said.
"Nope, I'm planning on sticking around the house as long as you'll have me" Another relief, one that finally broke some of the tension in both Mike's body and mind as he felt a ghost of a smile finally pull on his face as the two moved a way from the body back to the door as Mike finally found something to say as he let out a soft hum.
"Not sure, how are you expecting to pay rent?"
"You should be paying me to live in that pig pin"
"Are you still on that?"
"Of course I am! It's a disaster Mike!"
"We'll clean it ok! What else can you bring to the table expect nagging at me?"
"I can bake"
"Really?"
"Of course! What's with the doubt in that voice of yours mister?"
"No no, I believe you. Just didn't expect it, but I am easily swayable with the promise of sweets"
As the two fell into an almost too easy banter as they walked out of the doorway, Foxy watched before simply just trotting along behind them as they moved back to the office.
Goldie hadn't moved, but he did finally stand as Mike stood in the doorway, the admittedly incredibly forced normality of the playful banter before with Marionette and Mike trailed off as the two brothers stared at each other for a long moment before Goldie finally spoke.
"Thanks for not leaving" Mike took a deep breath, swallowing down another wave of emotions that he knew wanted to escape him, and instead gave a soft smile, even if it couldn't be seen underneath the mask, as he said back with as much cheekiness as he could muster.
"I never would. I always come back, you know? None of you are getting rid of me any time soon" That got a faint chime from the Marionette as the one human and three animatronics moved back out of the office to the main stage, them all silently agreeing to take the left hall to not have to see the broken and empty bodies of the others, Mike could admit he did feel... better, in a loose sense.
Not prefect, not by a long shot, Mike wasn't sure what that even felt like anymore, but a weight, a sizable one at that, had been lifted off... Now he just needed to pick up the pieces of today and keep going, something he had gotten used to.
Today, no matter how painful, had been a victory, a terrible, terrible man was removed from this world, and no matter what else happened, or what else Mike would feel about all this later on, for right now Mike could accept this as it was.
Tomorrow was another day, and Mike would deal with it then.
RIP Purple Guy, he definitely won't be missed.
God I adore this chapter so much! I can not explain how fucking happy I am with how this turned out! I mean, sure, I think I could have written it a bit more streamlined and maybe not as confusing with all the shifting perspectives, but I wanted to make everything work together in one big act, and I think I managed it, because dear lord everything had to fit together to have this chapter work and flow the way it did! So much foreshadowing went into this that I could write a whole chapter on it! Every single thing before now played a part in this, I don't think there is a single chapter in this entire story that didn't have at least some kind of foreshadowing in it that wasn't paid off here! And I sure as hell am going to gloat to hell and back about it cause this took effort!
I'm not going to go over everything, because it would actually take a few thousand words, but I just want it to be known I tied literally everything I could back into this chapter, from Foxy and his drawings, to the mask, to the crank that Mike couldn't find at the warehouse and his own experience with being in a springlock suit, to Jeremy's sort of possession and connection with Marionette being used, to Goldie and Spring Bonnie once more when combined making sure their target never survives, to Marionette's history of tasers, to Mike knowing about the shut off on Foxy, along with so much more.
Not to mention if a single character here was missing then everything would have failed, and even then it was a near thing.
Purple Guy, now known as Dave Miller, or potentially... you know, though I'm not going to confirm jack shit with how vague I've made sure I've been, put up one hell of a fight for being a normal ass dude. And that was hard, cause how do I make a normal human stand a chance against several deadly and insanely powerful animatronics, especially when those animatronics involve Golden Freddy, the Marionette, and Foxy? The answer? By him being super smart.
Sure there are a lot of questions about just why he did all this, but you can't deny he planned for everything he thought he would need to. He had a taser just in case, he had a crank in case he needed to use Spring Bonnie, which he couldn't have known Cassidy being in, he took the mask from Mike with the expression reason of using it to trick Foxy, and when he knew he was at a loss, even after taking down two incredibly powerful animatronics by himself, he still thought he had a safe space with the office. He even had a knife on hand as an actual weapon in case he had to deal with Mike showing up.
But that's the thing, and the reason why I said if anyone wasn't there it would have failed. Without Jeremy, Fritz wouldn't have been convinced to go into the pizzeria again, and without Fritz being in the pizzeria, they wouldn't have waited in the office and been already in the room when Dave, Mike and the others all showed up, meaning no one would have been in the room to lock it down, allowing Dave a space to recover and plan. If Marionette hadn't shown up with Mike then Jeremy probably would have died from the strain Cassidy was putting on him, and at the very least hurt Fritz incredibly bad, bad enough that he wouldn't have been able to go back out to help and repair Goldie. And if Goldie wasn't there or fixed enough to be able to focus then Dave never would have been scared enough, with Goldie's hallucinations and the other ghosts, to actually get into Spring Bonnie. And Dave probably wouldn't have died in the suit if he hadn't been injured by Foxy, forcing the springlock failure to occur because he couldn't hold onto the gears in his blood soaked hand, while Foxy never would have thought to even attack Dave if Mike hadn't been there to point him in the right direction, and of course, Dave never would have been springlocked if the back room never had been opened by Mike for Cassidy to come out and play.
This chapter literally couldn't have happened if not every single person had been there at the same time, with the same events leading up to it, and I think that's so freaking cool. The main reason Purple Guy lost wasn't because of some overwhelming force or unbeatable odds or master play, he literally was a bit to overconfident in whatever game he was playing and didn't know to plan around variables he couldn't have predicted, like Jeremy and Fritz both being there, Mike bringing the puppet and Goldie both with him, the souls of the animatronics staying around to trap him, and Cassidy being in Spring Bonnie. It wasn't that Purple Guy made a mistake, he just got unlucky and was a bit overconfident, that's mostly what his death was, bad luck.
And I think that's fine, it's not narratively super satisfying, but it shouldn't be, this is reality, there is no nice bow on top, where everyone good walks away without a single problem. Not everyone is ok, Fritz and Jeremy are even more traumatized, Mike is dealing with incredible amounts of guilt on top of his own problems, at least five souls moved on, but three of them could have stayed, Marionette and Goldie both have years of problems they both haven't addressed, not to mention the mountain of unanswered questions and issues between the group... It's messy, it's not over and done just because the problem is gone, it's... life, and I think I like that more than anything about this chapter.
Anyways, I've wrote way more than I had planned here because I'm just gushing up a storm, so I'll end off these notes here, See ya.