Author's Note: These parts are going to be fairly short for the sake of pacing. Enjoy! Arctic Vulpix of course is always a cowriter on these.

What if...Ruby was Being Rhetorical

Part 2

Baby Puppet

Puppet turned in bewilderment as they came around the corner.

He was...newer. His paint was still faded but not nearly as bad. His suit was noticeably a darker black rather than the dark charcoal gray she was more used to. He instinctively covered the ears of the child he had been speaking to. "Excuse you." He looked at the bot. "Go find your mother please. And let me know if you see Wiggy around, will you? Please tell her I'm looking for her."

The boy snickered as he ran off.

"And don't let me catch you saying those words!" Puppet called after the child before turning with a sharp look at Ruby to scold her for the language. He jumped to find the teenager much too close and moving quickly as she stalked up to him, dragging Scott like she was in a hurry.

She somehow juggled the tablet she was holding into her bag before reaching to grab him by the front of his suit and dragging him closer.

"Don't ask how, you don't want to know. But Hedy is about to be in a hell of a lot of danger, so you both need to listen to me to save both her and the other kids."

Up close, those striking green eyes seemed really... familiar.

"You know this building is different Puppet. It's alive. So for five minutes, don't ask questions. I need you to come with me and you need to get the policeman in the building Steve."

Her voice broke a little at the words and there was a strange pained look that flitted through her eyes.

She saw them both hesitate for just a moment and it made her want to smack sense into them. She didn't though. But it was damn hard to remind herself that not even Puppet, this Puppet, had any reason to trust her.

But seconds mattered right now. She had no idea how long exactly she had before...

"Where. Is. Hedwig?" Puppet said, tone dark.

It didn't scare Ruby though. In fact, it hurt how clear it was that this Puppet had never killed someone. Not yet. There was something in his eyes that was softer, younger. Even with the frightening protective anger in those three words.

What really surprised her was when Scott pulled his arm out of her hold and nodded. He stared at her with a hard gaze and lightly shoved Puppet toward her. "Go with her, Mari."

"Scott?!" Puppet tripped over his own voice in shock as he stumbled. "What are you-!"

"GO. I have an anonymous bomb threat to call in." He turned and ran down the hallway with a focused look on his face. "Apparently…"

Puppet looked back at Ruby. Was he...afraid?

She was very good at reading him but what was a mix of body language she hadn't seen before.

Ruby let out a relieved breath. At least Steve was willing to take the leap of faith. She wasn't used to Puppet like this though.

He wasn't used to having to deal with life and death situations so often. This was one of his first, wasn't it?

So her tone was a little gentler when she grabbed his shoulder.

"You got this Mari Mari," she said, tone lighter with a teasing edge. He did so hate it when she called him that. "We need to get to Spring's hidey hole and I don't know this location well. You're gonna need to lead me there. And fast, stickman."

He recoiled. "Don't call me that, miss." He said sternly. He looked down the sides of the hallway as if to weigh his options. Luckily he didn't take long before he gestured. "Follow me." He took off at a fast pace. Not quite a full out sprint, although Ruby would have preferred it. They had to cut through the Main Room to get to the other hallway.

She kept her eyes on the back of Puppet's head as he weaved through a crowd of children chasing one another with cans of party string. She wasn't going to risk looking at any familiar faces. Not yet.

She couldn't help notice some of the kids rushing by wearing stickers saying "Cheryl's B-Day Bash." It made her stomach twist. It made sense that there were more kids, right? Maybe Cheryl was a popular little kid. Or they were just classmates her parents invited. Whoever they were, they weren't great friends if they didn't notice the birthday girl wasn't running around with them.

"Go faster," she hissed at Puppet.

"I don't want to alarm anyone nor catch their attention," Puppet snapped back, stress clear in his voice, but he did switch to more of a jog as he narrowly missed running into a worker with a tray of pizza who looked at him oddly.

This place was packed. Michael knew what he was doing... It was no wonder no one saw...

Ruby was twitchy as they got into the quieter hallways and she pulled out the tablet to check as she followed the bot.

She hissed out a curse when she checked the camera and found her…past self sitting. Staring at the clock. At least she was still there and hadn't counted down the time.

Wait. Had Puppet been there yet? Had he been passing through on his way to find Hedy already?

"Did you teach her how to tell the time?" Ruby asked as they hurried, tone a little odd. "Did you already do that? The youngest kid."

Puppet looked at her in alarm. "How did you know about..." He squinted at her and she could see how his pinprick eyes flicked over her hair before focusing on her eyes.

He suddenly looked confused.

"Mrs. Rose?" He didn't sound so sure of himself.

Ruby recoiled so sharply at that that she almost tripped.

"No." Her tone was angry, pained and grief-stricken all at once.

No one had ever-

Ruby shook her head sharply.

"No," she said, forcefully calm now. "We don't have time for this either. We're running out of time. By the time she counts down and leaves that room, we'll be too late."

"I-I don't understand...What are you-" He abruptly cut off, hearing something amidst the din of children shrieks of laughter. Something wrong.

His eye lights seemed to glow sharply brighter and he glanced at a vent beside them before bolting in the direction they were already heading.

Maybe if she wasn't so shocked by what he said she might have been in the state of mind to hear whatever he did. She didn't care. She just hoped the urgency she had been begging for wasn't too late.

She sprinted after him, everything tense.

What had he heard? A faint scream horribly out of place? One that wasn't laughter from the bustle behind them?

She lost him for a split second as he scrambled around a corner, slipping before recovering, his pointed feet having terrible traction. She turned the corner just in time to see him launch himself at a part of drywall, colliding solidly with the thick wooden door hidden behind fake drywall and seamless wallpaper.

That was all she needed. She could tell it was locked from how he seemed briefly confused on why it wasn't opening and she used that moment to pull him back and out of the way.

"You get the kids," she said quietly. "I'll get him."

It wasn't really fair. She hadn't warned him over who was doing this and what was even happening. But she didn't have time.

She yanked Betty out of her bag and pressed a hand against a door. The lock clicked quietly as the building followed her unspoken request and Ruby took a deep breath before slamming the door open.

There was blood and there was crying. But everyone was breathing.

She wasn't too late. Ruby let her most sadistic smirk cross her face.

"Hello Mickey, I think you need a new playmate."

She swung Betty hard and the bat collided with Michael's stomach with the rage of fifteen years of misfortune behind it. And yet she still held back. A lot.

She didn't want to hurt Spring.

The blow wouldn't do much damage through the suit, but it was enough combined with the surprise to force him to drop Felix. Ruby caught the kid and swung him behind her towards the others before turning her attention back to Michael.

Spring already had blood in his fur and that pissed her off.

"I'd rather do this face to face," Ruby mused as Michael caught his balance again against the wall. She grinned at him darkly. "You know what the downside to Spring and Goldy's suits is Mickey?"

She wanted him to know he couldn't hide. She knew exactly who he was.

She could hear the kids still crying but Puppet was behind her and he'd take care of them. That was one thing she could always count on him for. He'd focus on the kids.

"Who-"

She cut him off, annoyed at just the sound of his voice. Fully alive and not with the faintly echoing quality all the ghosts had.

"Those springlocks aren't the most stable, you know. Just a bit of moisture can make them snap." She pulled her taser pen into view and pressed it, the crackle making everyone startle. "What do you think happens when they get shocked, Mickey?" She continued. "Do you want to find out?"

She paused, smiling again. "Or do you want to get out of Spring?"

She cocked her head. The room smelt too much like iron and her stomach rolled.

"What's it gonna be?"

She couldn't see him directly, except for a faint glimpse of a purple uniform and skin through the crevices and gaps and in the shadow behind Spring's teeth.

Michael stared at her and she realized she was looking at the wrong place. She never cared about how a person was supposed to fit inside Spring and Goldy. Spring and Goldy were smaller, but they were still noticeably taller than most humans. It was impossible to tell from those old video tapes, but she understood what the younger her meant when she noticed that the eyes were "wrong."

Those were Spring's eyes looking down at her. Staring straight ahead and glowing in utter panic, dim and stuck unmoving but still glowing. He was awake and those were his eyes, forced to watch everything. Michael, however, stared at her from the dark behind Spring's teeth, looking out through the much taller rabbit's mouth much like how most mascot costumes were usually designed.

He tensed when she moved her manic stare to make true eye contact, smiling viciously as she let him know she knew exactly where he really was.

She saw him shift his weight and regrip the knife in his hand a moment before he lunged at her.

They both heard the faint clicking of springlocks.