As much as I love drama and messed up stuff, I also love humor and slice-of-life stuff. Anyways, Abby is a fun character lol

Abby was used to working nightshifts and therefore did not enjoy having to wake up early for work now. Not to mention that she would still be joining Lea at night for her nightshift. As such, she was incredibly tired and greatly appreciated naptime in the Daycare. When the kids were sleeping, she did not have to worry much about keeping an eye on the monitors, so she would take the opportunity to sleep as well while Sun kept watch over them. When she had to wake up, Abby had to find ways to keep herself awake and found that chewing gum seemed to help.

"Abigail," Sun gasped. "Gum is not allowed in the Daycare!"

"What?"

"It's sticky and a choking hazard!"

"Choking hazard? Dude, I'm not a child. I'm an adult. I can chew gum without – ACK!" She accidentally swallowed it while talking and began to choke.

"Oh my! Uh!" Sun panicked for just a moment before breaking the rule of not going behind the security desk so he could help her. With a quick Heimlich maneuver, she had coughed the gum onto the desk.

"Eww," said one of the kids who had stopped to see what was going on. "Miss Abby, that was gross!"

Abby was standing now, hunched forward with her hands on the desk, a startled look on her face, and breathing deeply. "Are you okay?" Sun asked as he took a nervous few steps away from the security desk area.

She looked at him. "Dude… You just saved my life."

"Oh! Well, um, i-it was nothing."

She calmed down and grabbed the wad of gum to throw it away in a nearby waste basket. "Man… That would have been such a lame way to die."

"Huh?"

The three watching kids giggled at her. "Are you okay Miss Abby?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." She gently shooed them away with a flick of her wrist. "Get out of here."

"Well," Sun said with his hands on his hips. "I hope you learned a lesson."

"Yeah… Yeah, I did. Thanks…"

Later, when Lea arrived to check on Sun, Abby left with her on her way to see the others. She was telling her about what had happened in the Daycare while complaining how stupid it would have been to die from a wad of gum.

"Anyways, I think he's my favorite now. Don't tell Monty."

Before Lea could respond, they heard the alligator's voice from behind the thin sheetrock. They had been passing through a narrow back area in the walls that was held up by sheetrock and wooden beams and smelled of cut lumber. "Did somebody say Monty?!" They both let out a shout when part of the nearby wall suddenly burst as he smashed through it. "Oh yeah!"

"What in the Kool-Aid Man!?" Abby shouted.

"Montgomery!" Lea yelled. "What are you doing!?"

"Hm?" He suddenly seemed to realize what he had just done and looked back at the big hole in the wall. "Oh! Uh, I can fix it!"

"Monty, why?" Lea was exasperated.

"I can fix it! I have glue!"

"What? Why do you have glue?!"

Abby sighed. "Ugh, great. We already had to ban you from watching wrestling, but now we can't even let you watch kid shows because of Kool-Aid commercials…"

Attracted by the noise, a cleaning bot went over to see what had happened and was dismayed by the scene. "WHY? WHY?" It said in a very robotic voice while it threw its arms out at the mess.

"I can – Uh, hm… Maybe I can't fix it…"

"Monty," Lea said. "You're making a bigger mess. Mostly on yourself."

"Uh…"

"Great. Now you're covered in sheetrock and glue." She sighed. "Okay. Let's get you to Parts and Service for a cleanup. You'll need a fresh coat of paint, too…"

He became awkward and nervous, tapping two of his claws together. "S-Sorry…"

"Jeez," Abby said. "What's with you guys lately? You all keep doing weird stuff."

"Sorry…"

"You owe more of an apology to that guy," she said, gesturing to the angry S.T.A.F.F. bot that had just returned with a broom and dustpan. It made an angry beeping sound at Monty, causing him to flinch.

While on their way to Parts and Service, Monty was leaving a trail of dust, which attracted a long line of Pat-Pats and several confused cleaning bots. When they finally got there, Lea instructed Monty to sit down on the floor while she gathered up some things to clean him. Meanwhile, Abby decided to start rummaging around in a box of spare parts.

"Oh, sweet," she said. "An eyeball!" She held the big artificial eye up to look at it and shouted in surprise when she noticed a strange creature looming over her. "Agh! What the hell is that!?"

Lea looked over at the thing. It was dark-colored and vaguely human-shaped with a strange face. Parts of its metal body were wrapped tightly with wires and cords. "Oh, that's an endoskeleton. That's like one of the things inside of each of these guys."

"You're kidding? Why is it so creepy?"

"Well… I guess because it's a skeleton."

"No way, skeletons are cool. This thing is nightmare fuel."

Lea smirked and went back to scraping dried glue off of Monty. "Be careful. Sometimes they activate and walk around on their own."

"Bullshit!" Abby looked up at the endoskeleton with a somewhat apprehensive look. It was currently standing there, eyes half-closed, and head hanging down as it started blankly at the floor. With a chill, she got up and joined Lea, far away from it. "I'm bored."

"Well, you can help paint. I've just finished cleaning him up."

"Okay." Abby took a brush and some paint then went to sit behind Monty to work on his back and tail.

After about an hour, Lea sat up straight and stretched her back. "Uh, finally. Done. Abby, are you done over there?"

"Uh-huh."

Lea leaned over to find her painting her own arms with green cartoonish skulls and flowers. "Seriously?"

"What? I am done. Heheh, I like the way the cold paint feels."

"I like it too," Monty said. "Kind of tickles."

Lea rolled her eyes at both of them, but she still could not help but smirk.

Abby gave Monty a weird look. "Tickles? So, you guys really do feel stuff?"

"Yeah?"

"How does that work?" She directed the question at Lea.

"Well," she began, "I'm not sure of everything yet, but from what I have found, they have specialized sensors that not only feel and react to touch, but different kinds of touch. There are special wires wrapped around their endoskeletons that only serve the function of feeling types of touch and even temperature changes. The ends of those wires are loosely attached to the exterior casing all over like a nervous system. They're also more concentrated in certain spots and excess sensor wires are stored in places that generally don't get touched, like the bottoms of the feet, the neck, or, um, other places. Of course, that means if those spots do get touched, they're more reactive."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning they can be ticklish in certain spots." As an example, she ran the tip of her fingernail up the bottom of Monty's foot, causing him to jerk his leg and make a strange noise.

"Hey!"

"See?"

Abby laughed. "Dude, that's awesome!"

"Yeah," Lea smiled. "Of course, it also means that they feel some serious pain when parts of them are hit too hard or forcibly removed in incorrect ways."

"Oh wow. But why though? Why bother making them so advanced when they're just made to entertain families? I mean, hell, they breathe!"

"At least they don't need to breathe," Lea said. "But Todd told me he learned that the company calling itself Fazbear Entertainment deals in some other more…covert things. They want to make the most realistically-functioning robots, whether they're cartoony animals or actually humans. They've taken a liking to designing them to behave as human as possible, even allowing them the ability to learn and grow mentally. Todd discovered that these guys really do have developed emotions and opinions based on their individual experiences since being activated. There are things they do or like or don't like that were never part of their original programing."

"That's kind of scary," Abby said, exchanging a look with Monty. "You're scary."

"Yeah, I know…" he seemed a bit downtrodden by that.

"Abby," Lea fussed. "Don't say that!"

"Uh, I didn't mean it like that! I'm sorry!"

"But it's true," he said. "I'm big with sharp teeth and claws, and sometimes I get angry for no reason. Plus, I always break everything…"

"Oh, Monty," Lea said. She reached up to lightly pat his cheek and gave him a small smile. "Don't listen to her. Abby's not good at thinking before she speaks."

Abby made a face. "I want to argue, but it's true."

"You're a sweetheart, Monty."

He stared at her, surprised, then suddenly became nervous again. "Uh, thanks! Um…"

"Silly gator."

Abby watched them until her eyes trailed over to where she had been rummaging around earlier. "Ah! Lea! That thing is gone!"

"What?" She looked back to see what she was pointing at. The endoskeleton had disappeared. "I told you they move around sometimes, didn't I?"

"That's so creepy! Where did it go!?"

"Probably down where they store the rest of them."

"There's more!?"

…

Three nights more had passed and Lea was still no closer to figuring out what was going on at the Pizzaplex. When she was not working with the animatronics, she was with Abby snooping around in back areas and unused rooms. Vanessa worked many nights as well, but recently she had begun to behave rather oddly. It felt like she had been avoiding them, and they rarely caught even a glimpse of her, even on the nights they were all present in the mall. Sometimes she would not respond to their messages or calls, and when she did her conversations were short and vague.

The animatronics had also begun to act even stranger at times. More often than not, Lea or Abby would have to stop Chica from tearing through the garbage in search of something edible. Worse was that she would eat things that were not edible, which always resulted in Lea having to do internal work on her. Monty's fits in his room sounded as though they were becoming more frequent, but he remained calm and friendly when they encountered him anywhere else. Though, with Lea he would usually become awkward and nervous for some reason. Though typically friendly, Roxy had been acting both vain and nervous, stressing herself out and causing her to sometimes act rather rudely. Abby mentioned to Lea that she would catch the wolf talking aloud to herself, praising herself. Sun remained friendly and had even stopped acting nervously with Lea, but Moon remained cautious of her and seemed paranoid about something he would not discuss. Lea did not think that even he knew what it was. Interestingly, both Freddy and DJ Music Man seemed wholly unaffected by whatever was going on. The two remained their usual selves, though Freddy expressed concern over the well-being of the others.

"I just can't figure out what's going on with all of them," Lea said. She and Abby were taking a break in El Chip's – Abby's favorite place in the whole Pizzaplex – and sharing each a half of a shrimp burrito Abby had made. "Todd's still trying to figure it out, but he's having some trouble with things."

"Do you think their weird behavior is related to other things going on?" Abby asked.

"Maybe…" The Fazwatch on her left wrist suddenly began to beep frantically, displaying a red screen. "Huh? What's going on with this?"

Abby leaned over the table to get a look at it. "Oh, hey. Did you connect it with the animatronics? It looks like it's trying to tell you something about Monty."

"Yeah. What do you mean? Where is he?"

She shrugged. "Tap it."

Lea tapped the icon flashing on the screen. The beeping stopped and it opened to display a red exclamation mark blinking over a spot on the digital map. "What? Is that the main lobby?"

Abby scarfed down the last big bite of her burrito and said through a mouthful of food, "Mm! Let's go see!"

Lea got up to follow her as she hurried out of the restaurant. Lea kept checking the watch while they rode the elevator down; the exclamation mark did not move. When they entered the main lobby, they could hear loud crashing and the sounds of growling and roars and quickly jogged down the inactive escalators. There were two security bots trying to figure out what to do while Monty tore his claws into the chest of a collapsed mop bot. With a snarling hiss, he slammed his jaws around its head and ripped it clean off before tossing it aside and getting up to approach the security bots. They backed away from him, but he lunged forward and managed to grab one, lifting it over his head with a roar.

"What the hell?!" Abby shouted. "He's gone nuts!"

"Monty, no!" Lea called.

"Monty, yes!" He slammed the S.T.A.F.F. bot down hard, snapping its body with a loud crack.

"Holy shit!" Abby gasped.

He suddenly turned towards them, hunched forward with his claws outstretched and jaws gaping. He took a step over the broken security bot and bent his knees slightly.

"Monty," Lea said. "Wait –"

He roared at her and suddenly lunged forward a great distance, closing the gap between them. Instinctively, Lea shouted and held up her left arm to protect herself and was knocked to the floor. She had closed her eyes for just a moment, but in that moment she felt the heavy pressure of his jaws slam shut on her arm as sharp teeth pierced into her. He pulled and shook his head, ripping flesh and tearing into the inner workings of her arm. Lea shouted again, this time in pain.

"Monty! Stop! Let go!"

He froze, his jaw immediately dropping open to release her arm as he pulled his head back to look at her. "Lea?" He was shocked and confused. "I…" He got off of her and stood up quickly, backing away. "I…I'm sorry…"

"Monty –" Before she could say anything more, he turned and ran off somewhere. With a hiss of pain, Lea grabbed at her arm and looked at it. The sleeve of her shirt was nothing more than ragged shreds, revealing the huge gashes in her arm. No blood came, and the shredded wires stung severely, but the metal bone was still intact.

"Lea!" Abby ran over to her. She had been so frightened and surprised by the attack that she did not know what to do when it happened. She was about to apologize when she noticed Lea's arm's strange interior. "What the – You're a robot!?"

"No!" Lea said quickly, an edge to her tone. "I'm not a robot!"

Abby stared at her for a moment. "You're a cyborg!?"

"No, I – Well, I guess so… Technically?"

"How!? When!? And how come you've never told me!?"

Lea got to her feet, wincing, and clung to her injured arm. "Six years ago, before I met you. And it's a story I really don't want to talk about right now."

"But why didn't you tell me!? I'm offended! My best friend was a cyborg this whole time and didn't say anything!? Do you have any idea how cool that is!?"

Lea shot her a glare.

"Sorry! Uh. Does it hurt?"

"Yes. It hurts a lot, actually," Lea responded impatiently.

"Ooo… Uhm, so, like… Do we need to go to the hospital or a…mechanic?"

"I am the mechanic." Lea sighed. "I just need to get to Parts and Service. My tools are there and they should have some things I can use for now."

While Lea sat on the floor of Parts and Service tending to her arm, Abby began to ask many questions. Lea expected this, but it was also pretty annoying considering the types of questions she was asking.

"So, do you need to sleep?"

"Yes."

"Eat?"

"Yes." Her tone was steadily getting more irritated.

"Bathroom?"

"Oh my god, Abby. Yes, I go to the bathroom!"

Abby leaned away and held up her hands. "Okay. …Do have any hidden weapons?"

Lea gave her a look that read "seriously?"

Abby smirked a little. "Heh. Okay, okay. So, like, about how much of you is a cyborg?"

Lea thought about it for a second, pausing in her work. "I guess about… forty percent?"

"Forty percent!? Holy shit, Lea! What happened?!"

"I told you, I don't want to talk about it right now. I'll tell you later, I promise. It's not a pleasant memory."

Though she was disappointed, Abby stopped pestering her about it. Lea finished up her patchwork job then went to the first-aid kit to wrap her arm in bandaging. She explained to Abby that she would have to deal with the exterior damage at home. After, she left Parts and Service and made her way over to Rockstar Row, stopping at Monty's door to listen; it was silent.

"What are you doing?" Abby asked, appalled. "You're not seriously going in there? What if he finishes you off!?"

"He won't."

"You don't know that! He totally lost it earlier!"

"I'll be fine, Abby. Could you please go check on the others to make sure they're acting normal?"

"And you're going in there alone!? You really are crazy. And people call me a weirdo…" She turned to start heading for Chica's room next door.

Lea sighed, took a slow breath in, then entered the room. Monty was sitting on the floor, huddled up in the opposite corner with his head on his knees. "Monty."

"Lea?" His head shot up, surprised. "No!" he shouted when she tried to approach, startling her. "Don't come near me. I… I don't wanna hurt you again… I should be decommissioned for that…"

"Oh, Monty. Don't be silly. You didn't mean it."

"That makes it worse! I don't even remember any of it!"

"You don't?" She found that curious. To his dismay, she approached him anyway and sat very close to him to grab either side of his face and gently pull his head over to press her forehead against his. "It'll be okay Monty. Nearly all of you are acting strange lately. Todd and I are going to figure it out and have you all back to normal. Promise."

"Lea…" He noticed her bandaged arm beneath the torn sleeve of her shirt. "I'm so sorry I hurt you…"

"Don't worry, Monty. I'm not upset with you. I understand."

"But what if I do it again? What if I hurt a guest? Or a kid?"

She shushed him gently and slowly stroked her fingers down the side of his bottom jaw. "Don't think about that right now, okay? Just try to calm down. Look. I'm right here with you. I'm okay. And you're okay. Everything is going to be okay. We're going to work it out together." She tilted her head up to press a soft kiss to the top of his snout.

After a bit of hesitation, he carefully wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up against him, nuzzling his face into the crook of her neck. "Lea… You're so…warm…" She was comforting, and he did not want to let go. He wished he could hold her forever, listening to her quiet breaths and feeling her calm heartbeat. He felt even warmer when she hugged him back.

Later, when Lea rejoined Abby, it was nearly 7:00. Lea figured she might as well stay and wait for Mr. Stanley so she could tell him about Monty attacking her and the S.T.A.F.F. bots. After all, the other security bot was surely going to make a report about it anyway. She would of course not mention her little secret that Abby discovered. In the meantime, she decided to explain to Abby about how she came to be reliant on mechanical parts in her body.

"It's kind of a long and…weird story."

"I'm listening."

Lea sighed. "Okay. So, about twelve years ago, my sister and I were snooping around abandoned buildings in town when we came across an old pizzeria. Inside, we found a bunch of old animatronics that were still active. But they didn't act like animatronics back then should act. They were too smart. Too…aware. There's no way they had the advanced AI and technology that the ones over here have. Anyways, it turned out the reason why is because they were possessed by the trapped souls of murdered children."

Abby's eyes grew wider but she remained silent.

"A man named William Afton killed them while he was trying to harvest something called Remnant."

"I knew Remnant was real! Uh, go on."

"Okay? Anyways… When I found out that whole block was going to be bulldozed, I snuck them out and brought them home with me."

"Alex let you do that?"

"She wasn't happy about it. Hm. Eventually, we had to leave on a long road trip while we were being hunted down by another animatronic possessed by William himself. There was also his son, Michael. Long story short, we ended up in a metalworks factory the night of Christmas Eve and pushed William into a giant vat of molten lava."

"Dope."

Lea huffed in amusement at her remark then looked down at the floor with a sad smile. "Those kids were my friends… After dealing with that monster, they finally could rest. Their spirits left the animatronics. Michael brought Alex and me back home before he left again. He said he still had some of his father's mess to clean up. We never saw him again, but sometimes he would send us letters. One day, the letters stopped for good. Through some heavy research later, about six years ago from now, I found out that he had gone to a place called Circus Baby's Pizza World. Todd helped me, and we ended up going investigate the place shortly after it shut down. Eventually, clues led to the sewers."

"The sewers?" Abby made a confused face.

"Well, not the toilet sewers. The uh, one just under the street that the rain water goes in. Anyways, while we were there, we encountered something…scary. It was a weird animatronic, of sorts, and it was less than friendly. I call it Ennard, because it looks like a bunch of endoskeleton parts and wires. I'm not sure why it was down there, but it attacked me and started tearing into my body. It really messed up most of my left side. Todd scared it off by blasting it in the face with a shotgun. I would have died if brought to the hospital because of how bad it was. Also, what we had been doing was…illegal. Todd ended up saving me by implementing these mechanical parts inside. My whole left arm, part of my hip and thigh, my shoulder, some of my ribs, and a few organs."

"That's insane! I can't believe you survived that!"

"Neither can I… But I did. We haven't been back down there. No reason to, I guess. Still haven't found or heard from Michael. Now, six years later, I hear about missing cases suddenly popping up, just like in the past. I know we pushed him in that vat of metal, but the whole thing just screams Afton."

"Ah, so that's why you're so invested in this. I get it. Oh, uh, hey. The robots here aren't possessed, are they?"

"No. They're just disturbingly human-like."

"Hm. Not sure which is worse…"

…

Being the head mechanic, Lea's input on things regarding the animatronics was heavily considered by Mr. Stanley whenever he made decisions relating to them. Thanks to her – and also the company's greed – Mr. Stanley decided that Monty would just be put on lockdown for a week. He was not allowed to leave his room both during the day and at night. This, of course, caused a slight disruption to showtimes and other things during hours of operation. But Mr. Stanley was determined to make sure that Montgomery Gator was not going to attack guests before he allowed him to return to normal activities.

Every night, Lea would save her checkup of Monty for last, making sure to give him as much time and attention as she could, even if it was only to talk to him. She did not want him to get too lonely and felt bad that he was stuck in his room all the time. Monty would always perk up upon seeing her, and, best of all, did not show any signs of aggression to her or the objects in his room.

To be continued…

The secret animatronic has been revealed. Ah, but there is another! Also, Lea is a cyborg. Wow.