I Don't Own Fnaf

"These are incredible!" Mike just smiled as he watched as Marionette twirled through the air, a large collection of prototype foxy plushies in his grasp as he spun around with a trilling sound coming from his form. Apparently the puppet liked how the designs turned out. Goldie, who was with the two, given the plushies had been dropped off in large boxes at the warehouse, reached down and plucked one of the Foxys up. This one was one of the ones with a little styled black and golden eyepatch and a hook for one of his hands.

"They look good... Any of you in there Marionette?" The puppet floated straight back down and was suddenly digging into the box. Mike just shot his brother a small smile, knowing what his brother just did, even as the bear himself simply continued to look over the plush with some interest to his eyes.

"Yes! I know it's in here somewhere, I mean, most of these are different variants of Foxy plushies and foxy based stuff because he's the main star, but Jeremy mention we should have merch of all of the cast, so there should be a few things with my color scheme, and a plushy, which is... come on, where is it?" Mike let out a faint cough, watching with amusement as Marionette's head lifted up, while his arms were still buried all the way up to his elbows in different kinds of merch.

"That's the foxy box, your stuff is in this one" It was admittedly a smaller box than the Foxy one, about half the size, but Marionette shot over and eagerly took it from where Mike had picked it up off the ground, so he could quickly tear it open, setting it down on a nearby table, before letting out a delighted chime as he pulled out his version of plushy.

"Look! It's a small me! Oh this is just amazing! I never had any merchandise for myself before!" Mike just felt himself smile along with the puppet, letting the animatronic have his moment before... reaching over his friend's shoulder to grab something else from the box that Mari hadn't noticed yet.

"This is also you" Marionette was excited for about half a second at the idea of another plushy he hadn't been aware of before-

The rumbling laughter of Goldie contrasted to the aghast look on Marionette face nearly made Mike break into a fit of laughter himself, but as it stood he managed to keep himself composed enough to speak, "You could practically be twins" The puppet's whole body seemed to twitch almost violently at that, before Mike suddenly hand to fling his hand into the air to keep from the suddenly pouncing puppet away from snatching the prize from his hands.

"Mike! Give that here this instant! You-! I can't believe you made them make that!" Mike was now actively snickering to himself as he moved about as the puppet moved around, continuing to try and snatch the black and white styled sock monkey with a familiar looking white mask for a face from his grasp.

Goldie just watched in the background as the two idiots ran around, before shaking his head in a fond amusement, before slowly moving back over to the boxes. Looking them over for a moment, staring at the different kinds of plushies before looking over the more simple items that the pizzeria was planning on giving out. There were the simple ones, things like straws that were in the same black and white theme as the puppet.

A box of colors with a more cartoonish rendition of the pirate on the front that was no doubt Mike's handiwork, some erasures with the pizzeria's logo and characters printed on the sides, same with pencils, things that would help for marketing later on once the kids were back in school, so that was probably Jeremy's idea. It was all pretty simple stuff, things that would keep mindless children interested and looking forwards to winning tickets at least, which Goldie supposed was the main goal of the place more than anything.

Though, he found himself moving his silvered eyes back to where the numerous versions of foxy plushies were. Reaching down, he looked through them, glancing over the more bright and colorful ones, like the golden and silvered variants that had been remade based on the ones that Mike and the others had gotten from this very warehouse, before focusing on the ones that were just of foxy.

Eventually, he found himself reaching out and picking up a foxy plush that was truly just a toy of the fox. A bit on the bigger size, a number of them had been in different sizes to show scale, though none were big enough to look big when held in Goldie's large and clunky paw-like hands, this one was the closest to that though. With a simple design, showing off Foxy's simple black eyepatch, and a hook for a right hand. It was just... Foxy.

Glancing up, in the direction he now heard the sound of Pop Goes the Weasel, Goldie decided that those two were busy enough that they wouldn't notice this one going missing, as he moved over to the office/his room, and dropped the plushy off on the desk right next to where goldie, the original plushy version that is, was sitting. He found himself staring at the two for a moment before nodding, then decided that he should probably break up whatever was happening out in the warehouse before Marionette finally had enough with Mike's joke.

"We're sorry you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no lon-" Mike sighed as he hung up the phone, the number that he had 'gotten' from Gasper had been a dead end, the number was out of order and that was more than a little annoying, but he couldn't do anything about it now. So instead he just chose to give up on it for the time being, it was as a nonissue he was trying to solve at this point anyways, Mari had been doing better it seemed, so there was no need to chase trouble.

Thinking of the puppet, Mike lifted his head up a bit, where Mari was just sort of there, staring at him, and said flatly, "So, this is going to be a continuous thing?" The puppet just tilted his head to the side and asked innocently.

"What do you mean?" Mike raised an eyebrow, waiting, but the puppet didn't seem to be interested in explaining himself, so Mike just ended up sighing.

"I mean the whole stalking me thing. I didn't even know it was possible to do that when people already live together" Marionette just let out a huffing sound.

"I have no idea what you're talking about" Mike just reached up and pinched the brow of his nose for a second before saying.

"Mari... I'm in the office" The puppet nodded, "You're also in the office" The puppet nodded, "It's three in the afternoon" The puppet nodded, "We are in the middle of a work day. Net, why are you in here?" That finally seemed to get a reaction out of the animatronic, as he awkwardly waved a hand.

"Oh, you know, I heard Jeremy mention to Fritz that you were taking your break, and wondered what you were up to" Mike was noticeably unimpressed with that answer.

"You were wondering what I was doing during the fifteen minute break I take at the same time every day?" The puppet winced.

"Uh, yes?" Mike sighed again, unsure just how to handle this, he mostly and honestly didn't want to handle this, but it was clearly becoming a thing and he probably had been letting it go on for a bit too long already as it was so...

"Mari"

"Yes Mike?"

"I'm fine"

"I know"

"Do you?" The puppet fidgeted a bit.

"Of course I do" His reaction made Mike feel like that wasn't much of the case, as he said plainly.

"I told you we'll talk if I had any stupid thoughts, you standing around and staring into my head all the time isn't going to make you aware of what's going on up there. It just makes me feel like you don't trust me to handle myself"

"I- It's not lik-"

"I'm not a child Marionette, you don't have to comfort me over every little thing" The puppet looked shocked for about half a second before his expression defaulted back to his standard smile at the sound of his own words from months ago being tossed back into his face, not to mention Mike calling him Marionette, the man always used one of his many nicknames, meaning he was more serious than even his tone conveyed.

"I- I'm not-..." Marionette paused, truly considering what he was doing, looking around for a moment, before saying quietly, with more than a bit of embarrassment to his voice, "I- I am aren't I?" Mike just nodded, as the puppet wringed his hands for a moment, looking uncomfortable for a long moment before saying, "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel incapable or anything, just..."

"I get it, just... Don't treat me like some invalid just because I have some things going on. I'm not going anywhere alright Mari? At least, not without you-" The puppet let out a weird noise from his chest, as Mike continued, "And the others in the back of the trunk of my car. You all made the mistake of letting me get attached so now you have to deal with it" The sound turned into an awkward laughing chime, Mike wasn't sure what that meant, but assumed it got his point across as Marionette flickered away, probably back to his prize box.

Mike glanced back at the clock and grimaced... Well, that was his break apparently, and now he got to return to the exhaustion that was the kitchen. At least it was better than whatever it was Fritz was having to work on now. With how much the man mentioned or more accurately aggressively complained towards the things that weren't working, one would think it was a miracle the building was still standing.

As it stood, Fritz wasn't actually that certain anything was wrong most of the time, but there was always something that needed to be done. Even back at the first Freddy's location that Fritz had worked at where he was a glorified handyman with a paycheck that didn't even show it, nothing seemed to break down as much as it did at Pirate's Cove.

But even that wasn't really accurate, nothing ever was really broken down, it just stopped working for a while until Fritz smacked it around until it stopped existing just solely to give him more work. Lights were the most annoying, because that required him to get the ladder out and set it up to replace them, while things like the arcade machines he and the others already came up with an excuse for why they randomly just reset everything on them.

Honestly, the only electronics in the place that didn't have some level of constant interference or slip up were the animatronics, and Fritz was pretty sure that's because they didn't even run on electricity anymore, which was a whole thing the man had no interest in looking into. While for everything else, it wasn't... bad, it kept him busy that was for sure, on top of being a waiter, it was a lot of work.

But he couldn't say he regretted any of it, sure, there was always going to be a small part of him that thought he should have left, but he couldn't say for sure that if he did then he would be as... content as he was now. His days had meaning now, before it was just slogging through the week hoping that he didn't get shafted into the night shift, hoping nothing went horribly wrong and that everyone would still be there by the next week.

He was scared of getting to know any of the people around him, or even when he was just around town, because he wasn't sure how long he would have left to be around before he had a bad night of his own, just like everyone else around him that vanished one after the other. It was a life held together out of fear and a desperation for something more, where he could do what he wanted without worry or concern for his and the people around him's safety.

Sure, he didn't think that kind of life he had held onto as hope for the last few years of his life would present itself in the form of another pizzeria, working with an old coworker who was barely held together by metal in his head, and another coworker who would get him wrapped up in a murder conspiracy a decade in the making before becoming Fritz's boss, because he happened to have been some kind of returning heir to the fazbear throne... But, it was nice, it was good.

Fritz could actually have a life again, he could go out and meet people, could talk to others without wondering if he would see them again, could even truly begin to look forwards to a future without it just being a distant hope. Sure, not everything was perfect, the shadow that Foxy's Pirate Cove had been created in would never go away, the ghosts there had kind of willingly gone with them to this new place, but Fritz couldn't find it in himself to mind.

Foxy, who Fritz had once been terrified of, was now, as strange as it was to consider, one of his best friends, even weirder to consider the kid was a decade younger than him, but Foxy was the animatronic that Fritz spent the most time around. As the older man often found himself here at least an hour before opening and an hour or two after closing just sticking around, mostly to handle whatever new problems he found during the day in between running between tables, and as such spent a lot of time with the fox.

Marionette was much in the same case, though he wouldn't or much rather couldn't say much about the character of the puppet directly, only seeing the way he interacted with Mike up until recently, but that as well, someone who used to strike nightmares into his sleep, now Fritz was more likely to see pestering the local giant to get a plushy designed correctly more than strangling anyone.

It was... weird, but it was a new normal that Fritz let himself fall into without even the idea of stirring the boat unless he absolutely had to. He knew everyone had their own problems and issues, but unless someone needed his help, he was more than willing to keep him to himself and just worked on what he had to. And that was what he was doing now, because of course he was.

One of the kid's parents had come up to him, complaining about one of the machines, of course they had, so Fritz was off once more, moving to see what the problem was. It was one of the arcade machines, which was unusual, usually the things liked to at least wait a bit before falling apart, it was still closer to the afternoon than evening at this point, but all the same, he moved over and leaned about to look the thing over.

The display was completely black with the occasional flicker of single white lines running across the CRT screen. Some kid probably just smacked into the thing and knocked the back of the monitor out of place, an easy enough fix, if one he couldn't fix right now without disconnecting the whole thing to not risk shocking himself, so he reported back to the lady the machine was just out of order for the time being and put a small already printed paper onto the front of the machine to label it as such. This happened more often than he liked to admit.

Even the ones at Freddy's seemed more sturdy than these things, and considering how many of these were from Freddy's... It was probably an age thing, but even then it had to have a limit, because no matter how much Fritz looked over everything there just wasn't an answer to be found as to the root cause of it all. It was genuinely pretty frustrating, but as it stood, he just dealt with it and made the note to fix the machine later this evening after closing.

Moving on, Fritz found himself falling back into his standard rhythm, moving between tables, dropping off orders to Mike or Jeremy, depending who was in the kitchen or on the main floor at any given time, and when he wasn't running around and acting busy, then taking a second to find himself at the side of the main room, across from where the private rooms were set, and just... watching.

It could have been a built habit of playing the role of security guard once upon a time, or a new habit he gained when the pizzeria first opened where he just liked to admire the place and the warm atmosphere he had helped create. Either way, this area in the Cove was sort of like his spot, it was the place he sort of just gravitated to over time and where he found himself now, as he watched as the last of the lunch rush people headed out, a few kids still around, but the place was once more mostly empty until evening came around and a few families made the decision that this was a good place to not have to deal with their kids for dinner.

The place was weird like that, unlike Freddy's, which during his time was more like an attraction place, with an arcade section and even rides for the kids, as much as a small carousel could be considered a ride, where pizza was mostly just a side thing to draw kids in, this place... Well, it was almost like the diner it probably used to be, some kind of mix between what Fritz was used to, and what Mike had known it as, made into something that attracted both sides of the coin.

Sure, it was definitely made with kids in mind, and there was plenty of times when kids came in alone with a few spare bucks just to play the games or listen to one of Foxy's tall tales, but Fritz was still occasionally shocked by just how many full families came in during the evening just for dinner and to let their kids get any remaining energy out for the day. Some even watched the shows, something Foxy himself having noticed at some point and began to slowly introduce more... adult kind of jokes into his routine, jokes that easily went over the heads of the kids, but got the occasional snort or huff from a parent or two.

Right now, it was mostly just kids, which Fritz made sure to keep an eye on, just in case. There was the occasional moment or two when a kid fell or made a mess, but Foxy was usually on deck or the first, easily being able to cheer up any kid before they could start crying and Fritz, Jeremy, and Mike all had become old hands at quickly dragging out cleaning supplies from the storage closest at this point. But it didn't hurt to keep an eye out.

His thoughts were pulled away from the moment at hand as Jeremy moved around, spotting Fritz, before moving over, seemingly without anything on his mind but without anything to do either.

"Hey" Fritz just returned the greeting as Jeremy glanced about, seemingly realizing the same thing Fritz did a while ago, about how good of an angle of the Cove this spot gave them, before turning back to Fritz, "So, about last night" Fritz groaned.

"Don't tell me Mike's making you get in on the teasing thing too?" Fritz didn't really mind, but it was a bit embarrassing, especially because he really did like Janet, she was sweet, so the occasional poking at the two for showing up at the same time, which really was just because they saw each other in the parking lot before coming in at the same time and nothing else, was a bit much. Thankfully it had petered off as the night went on but still.

Jeremy just shook his head, "Oh, no, nothing like that, I'd never have time for anything else if I teased everyone I know for their feelings. I was mostly just wondering if you had fun?" That... felt a lot like teasing, Fritz felt his face heat up a bit, wondering for half a second if he was that obvious to both his friends, before realizing Jeremy was cheating... Still, he asked all the same before he could help it, sounding a bit too defensive in his ears.

"What's that mean?" Jeremy just shrugged, glancing back out towards the main floor with a hint of exasperation in his tone.

"Nothing, just that I'm surrounded by oblivious people" Fritz was definitely being made fun of, so he just shrugged it off and chose to focus away from the conversation topic that he accidently brought up.

"Yeah yeah... But, no, really, it was nice to be somewhere that wasn't my apartment, the warehouse, or this place" Jeremy nodded, looking a bit subdued for a moment before nodding.

"Yeah, I know what you mean, I love this place, the energy it gives off... It makes me happy to see, but it was nice to go out for a bit and just hang with the people I'm close to without being weighed down by anything else"

"The lack of screaming kids helps" Jeremy smiled a bit at that and nodded.

"Yeah, maybe, it's still nice here though, places like this, the life these places have... Better than just spending all my time at my apartment" Fritz hummed a bit, before sending a side glance at his friend.

"What's your place like anyways? I've never been over, thinking about it" Never much of any reason to do so, both men had been to Mike's place a few times, back when the Cove was still the diner, and they didn't have the warehouse yet. Said place was bigger than anything Fritz knew what to do with, and from what he had been only sort of half told, Mike and Marionette didn't know either, most of the rooms had just been left alone except for the few they had a use for. But outside of that, none of them had ever met up at Fritz or Jeremy's place, it made him curious about how his friend lived.

"It's nothing special, just a small one bedroom apartment, quiet neighbors which is about the best part of it really, beyond that it's something I can afford, only moved in about two years back. What about your place?" Fritz had to take a second to think if there was anything about where he lived that had anything to it that made it worth mentioning. He came up short, as he finally just shrugged and said.

"Nothing special, but I guess most apartment's aren't all that special to begin with, been there forever basically though. Mine's a two bedroom, my brother used to live with me for a while when we first left home, he went off to the next state over for his job, but the rent never really went up much so I just stuck around" While Jeremy seemed ready to say something to keep the talk going, they were interrupted by the sound of a small crash as both men's eyes shot over to look with matching winces as a kid, who hadn't been looking where he was going, charged head first into Mike who had just exited the kitchen, probably to enjoy getting through the lunch rush with some air that wasn't pizza sauce flavored.

Needless to say, Mike didn't even budge, while the kid, who had been holding onto one of the metal pizza trays that the men used to transport whole pizzas with, seemingly using it as a play shield, went flying, the plate making the crash, as it continued to roll on the around before toppling over, still spinning in a way that made quite the loud sound. There was more than just Fritz and Jeremy's eyes on the sight.

Fritz mostly just watched, hoping the other could handle it, as Mike glanced down, while the kid had to crane his head up at what had to be a painful angle, even with the kid being on the ground, to look up at the man. Fritz had to say, the kid was brave, given Mike with that fox mask on could look a bit scary, and even then, he could still see the kid trembling a bit, waiting for something to happen when...

Instead of chastising or saying something to the kid, Mike just half dropped into a crouch, tilting his head, seemingly saying something to the kid before making a hook gesture with his hand before waving it in a dismissal, and before anyone knew it, the kid let out a not so quiet giggle before hopping up and rushing off to rejoin the ground he had been playing with. Mike just leaned over and grabbed onto the tray before moving back into the kitchen, probably to wash it off before he forgot.

Fritz found himself speaking before he realized he was saying anything, "I'm always kind of surprised with how good he is with kids" Jeremy just hummed.

"He was an older brother, and grew up in a place like this, I bet it's second nature" Fritz found himself nodding, it wasn't anything new, the man knew what he was doing at least the few times kids thought he was apart of the show, given he refused to take off the mask while working for whatever reason Fritz knew he probably shouldn't pry into. But it still occasionally did catch him off guard, mostly because he's seen the man in so many other... less than child friendly situations.

The two split off after that, a new group coming in for a late lunch, so Fritz moved to take their order, going through the motions and managing to catch Mike as he was once more leaving the kitchen, giving the man a shrug and grin as the giant stared at the ticket in Fritz's hand, before grumbling good naturedly and turnings right back around to head back into the kitchen once more. That was another thing about all this that Fritz really enjoyed, Mike was technically the boss, but each of the three definitely put in the same amount of work and so each of the three had about the same saying power within the business.

Fritz wasn't all that used to the idea of having a boss that actually was willing to listen to him, much less one like Mike who practically just tossed full control and responsibility of somethings to Fritz and Jeremy when the man knew he didn't know enough to make an informed decision. Mike was surprising like that, he really didn't seem like the type that would make a good 'boss', as loose as the word was among the 'crew', as Foxy had referred to them all as, but as it stood, he was. Or at the very least, Fritz's bar was so low from his time working at Freddy's that Mike would need to be playing limbo in the underworld for him to have the chance to trip over it.

Moving on from there, Fritz headed around and made himself busy, feeling the need to do something now that he had had a moment to himself to think over things. He ended up just helping Jeremy out with bussing tables that the man didn't really need any help with, but he liked doing something even during the more lax times of the day instead of just letting himself stand around doing nothing.

This culminated into Fritz finding himself moving into the Prize Corner, watching from the side for a moment at the puppet moving around, interacting with a single child who seemed to be trading out their tickets for something. He didn't really need to be here, Marionette ran a right ship, keeping everything stocked and when he needed things to be looked at he usually now got Fritz himself, but the man was looking for something to do, and had heard a complaint about the token exchange machine catching quarters instead of releasing change, that that was a simple five minute fix that he could get done before the late afternoon rush came in.

He gave a nod to the animatronic who sort of gave him a half look before turning his attention back to the kid in front of him to not break the 'life-like' illusion that he and Foxy both had to work on balancing. Fritz wasn't exactly sure just how well they managed at that, moving slower and more robotic could only do so much with how no animatronic out there should be able to react and have as many 'recorded lines' as Foxy liked to pretend was normal.

The ones at Freddy's usually stayed on stage for a reason, animatronics weren't really made for roaming around in mind, to many variables, so having them up on stage just made it easier for them to just be a show to be watched, not something to directly interact with and have those moments with like they were real people, something Foxy didn't get the memo of to take fully from his old place of employment. Instead enjoying his mind being back by often roaming the party floor and doing smaller routines for kids who approached him outside of his main stage time.

Then there was Marionette, who... well, he didn't say anything on the clock, but that didn't change the fact that while he certainly nailed a certain unnaturalness that made someone be able to see him as nothing but felt and machinery, he was a bit too animated and coordinated with the kids for it to be programming, at least for how old of models they were. Fritz never felt the need to point it out, he was probably one of the few people with the expertise on these kinds of machines to be able to tell something was off or that they did things that under the definition of animatronic they shouldn't, but it made them happy and the kids sure loved the more involved nature of the two than they did at Freddy's that was for sure, so Fritz wouldn't point it out any time soon.

With those thoughts done running their course, he made his way over to the token exchange, quickly pulling out a small Swiss army knife from his pocket, before using it to unscrew the bolts on the back. It really did only take a few minutes before it was done, as Fritz took the quarters out that had gotten stuck before just sending them through to get the equivalent amount of tokens out of them, and on his way out of the Prize Corner, dropping the tokens off in the basket Mari used to hand out free tokens.

The kid that the puppet had been occupying was gone, so Marionette gave him a small grateful nod to the basket he just helped refill, Fritz just gave a thumbs up, ready to head out when he paused as he caught sight of something from where he was standing.

"Who's Mike hugging?" He hadn't meant to say it out loud, but apparently it caught the puppet's attention as in the next moment, whether it be supernatural speed or teleportation, the puppet was next to Fritz, only seemingly realizing at the last second to have his strings come out to just grab onto the top of the track, his cross left behind above his box. Fritz... decided to not point that out, mostly because he was still caught up in the sight of Mike absolutely smothering what looked to be an older teenage girl in a bear hug.

Fritz could only really make out that much detail because the hug recipient was on the smaller side, around Jeremy's height and just as slim, while Mike was a mountain. It didn't help that Mike seemed to get bored of just hugging normally, having to hunch down and instead straightened his back enough that the girl let out a yelp as she was easily lifted off the ground, before she seemingly smacked at Mike's side playfully, as he finally let her down as the two beamed at each other with matching smiles before the girl gave him a look, saying something that was probably supposed to be scathing, while Mike just laughed, his face lit up in a way that Fritz was sure he hadn't seen before, like years that weren't there were suddenly gone to show just how young he really was himself. It also made Fritz realize something else.

"Huh, he took off his mask, that's a first. She must be impor...tant?" He turned his head mostly out of surprise, as the sound of a dialing tone only slightly broken up by static suddenly seemed to crack out of Mari's chest, his mask, blank with its standard expression, staring straight ahead at the strange sight. Looking back, he noticed a few people now looking at the two, the sight of Mike and his... Friend? Apparently not being as interesting as a static sound releasing puppet. Fritz put on a sharp grin and managed to pull the Marionette out of the doorway, the strings loosening thankfully to let him, as he quickly kind of guided Mari back to his box.

"Uh, are you doing ok?" The puppet didn't say anything, just still staring ahead at the door before slowly nodding, the sound cutting itself off with one last almost painful sharp spike in static.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine, just... Surprised" Fritz didn't believe that for a second, but he wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do or say, the person whose territory this was, was at the moment... occupied, so...

"You sure, that was a bit of an extreme reaction for a little surprise" The puppet was quiet for a moment before simply saying.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it, I don't really know what came over me" Fritz just... shrugged, before quickly straightening himself up as the puppet shot himself into his box as he turned around just in time to hear the knocking on the side of the opening to the Prize Corner as Mike leaned his head in.

"Hey, sorry, I'm going to be a bit busy, I'm showing someone around. Mind asking Jeremy to man the kitchen for a few minutes?" Fritz found himself nodding, as he moved out just a bit to see the girl he had been probably not so subtly looking at, and went back to observing her.

She was on the shorter side like Fritz had noticed, with fairly long and frizzy light brown hair framing a fairly round face, she looked... tired, but there was a smile playing on her face, even if it was a bit faint, as she looked around and about at the inner walls of the Prize Corner with a bit of interest in her light green eyes, before they settled on Fritz. She was wearing a fairly large, for her size, dark green jacket and simple jeans with an even more simple baggy black shirt underneath it. And he had been right about her age, she was probably around twenty, if only just that, though the seemingly baked in tiredness to her face could be adding an extra year or two.

"Uh, sure, mind me asking who this is?" Mike opened his mouth to say something but the girl beat him to it, shoving a hand out with a small but present smile on her face.

"My name's Charlie, it's nice to meet you"

Holy shit, Charlie? But... But... But she's not dead!

Yeah, that's the twist, no one expects the animatronic shuffle to end up meaning someone survived I bet! But, no, seriously, Charlie's here now! It's only been, what? Nineteen chapters since the Marionette was introduced before we got to Charlie Emily? That's not that long right? Only, what, 140k words give or take? That's not that long, but, yeah, like I said ages ago, she'll be playing a much different role than what anyone would think off. I hope the twist was worth it and hit the right level of surprise, I know with the foreshadowing I feel like I'm giving out a bit to much off, a lot of the end twists and surprises are all kind of obvious, at least on my side, as the guy who happens to know everything, so I'm hoping this is keeping everyone guessing. Beyond that, Fritz chapter, been a while, he's great and just existing, which, you know, good on him, he deserves it. Anyways, don't got much else to add on, so, See ya!