Baby was sitting in silence, leaning forward with her face buried in her hand and claw. Just from looking at her, you could tell she was already mentally exhausted. Which was impressive considering she hadn't been here for a day and she already looked about ready to spark another fire just to end it all. Molten and NightBon looked at her silently, both of them worried.

Although NightBon was a lot better at showing it through his more sophisticated demeanour.

Molten got off his spot and moved to sit beside Baby, the side opposite of Bonnie, and put a wiry hand on her shoulder. She groaned as she felt the weight on her, and silently shook her head as it remained in her hand and claw.

"You okay, Baby?" The wire amalgam asked gently.

Baby lifted her head and sighed harshly, standing up and pacing around the tent. "No, I am not okay Molten. I'm not okay with the fact that Cassidy is basically using all of us as this mindless army for her over the top revenge scheme. Am I mad at Afton? Of course, but not this mad!"

"Funtime Foxy said the same thing", Bonnie interjected, crossing his legs. "They said, and I quote, 'As much as an excellent showman knows how to put on a good performance, even I see the flaws in such an excessive beating'. He also told me that sometimes 'Too much is too much', and I have to agree with that."

"I'm just so… hurt", Baby continued. "Cassidy has to give those close to her special treatment, which leaves the rest of us where? At the bottom, in the trash and junk they don't need."

"If The Puppet is in on this", Bonnie added. "Then it's safe to say she helped get us all here in some way, since she's the one with the powers to help the souls."

Molten looked terribly confused. "Okay, hold on, I need some catching up. Who is Cassidy, and what is this about The Puppet controlling souls?"

"Right, so…" Bonnie faced the wire bear and ran him through a brief but still bulky summarization of everything he wasn't aware of. Realising she had a bit of a reprieve, Baby rolled out of the tent and looked around the somewhat barren area out front. She sighed, grabbing a chair that was on the floor and pulling it over so she could sit down and just think.

Her head buzzed with static and mechanical clicking as it processed all the thoughts bouncing around inside. She was just… Not doing okay, and she hissed as things felt so… Stuck. She was stuck in a place she didn't want to be in, surrounded by people whom she loathed.

Well, there were two she was okay with right now.

And it stung a bit that Lefty couldn't be considered a third.

She shook her head and clawed her hand over her face plates, feeling all the cracks, wearing and tearing. It made her miss the new face Zomboss made her, because that felt more like her. It felt more like she was her own person in that moment, and not just the crazy version of Elizabeth. She missed the warmth there, the sun, the sky, the shopping, the bed… God how she just wanted to go back and never leave.

"Baby?" The voice of Molten said out at her. She shook her head and turned to face him, looking at him peeking out of the tent's entrance. "You doing okay?"

She hesitated a bit, then did a weird head bob. "I am a bit better than before, but not by much…"

The wire amalgam hummed, and extended some of his cords so they could wrap around Baby's arm. Gently, he started to pull her back inside, first meeting a bit of resistance before the clawed animatronic gave in and headed inside.

She sat back down between Bonnie and Molten, and the wire amalgam straightened up. "Okay, so. Bonnie gave me the rundown of how everything worked. And, now that I know that, I have a bit of a plan when it comes to not bending over backwards for Cassidy."

"And what would that be, Molten?" Bonnie asked inquisitively.

"We defy her." Molten sounded like his usual sadistic self right there and then. "We make things difficult during the night shift, like blocking doorways and vent exits. We just… Don't move. Sure, Cass said she had control of us… But how true was that? Maybe it was just so she could freak Afton out."

NightBon looked thoughtful for a moment. "That is a surprisingly sound idea and reasoning. Because yes, while she is the most angry of us, she's just a ghost. Even The Puppet never had any way of directly controlling the others, so I do see that working."

Baby quietly absorbed the information. "So just be a bunch of pests?"

"That's the idea, Babydoll! If we ruin things enough, Cass might not ever drag us into the night shift ever again!"

"Unless she's exceptionally mad", Bonnie elaborated. "As per the rules of Afton not going near her and her inner circle, if he does for any reason, Cass will instantly have the next night shift be so all of us are on 'max AI', whatever that means…"

"Weren't some night guards fired for tampering with the animatronics so their night shifts were easier?" Baby asked.

Bonnie opened his mouth, then closed it, then spoke. "Hmmmmmm… You're right, Baby. Perhaps that's what Cassidy does."

"If that's the case, it gives me all the more reason to protest like that", Molten spat. "I'm not letting her rip into my head whenever she feels like it. I'd rather stay me, myself and I, thank you very much."

Baby numbly nodded, feeling sick at the idea of being forced to act like a beast. The thought of acting on nothing but pure instinct and bloodlust.

Exactly how she first found herself in Caleb's life.

The robot remained silent as the other two plotted, her mind going back to that moment in that beautiful field, just her, her Caleb and her Gladius talking away the world's troubles. Helping her through her worries. Sure, it only happened about a week ago, but the memory felt like a lifetime ago, the cool summer breeze against her plates and the smell of the gentle flowers. How Laney, Gretchen and a few of the other girls took her to get fixed…

Her heroism and vitrelle protectiveness for the others in the Convergence Universe…

The relaxing and love she got to feel in the Capital…

The heartbreak she felt when she heard Caleb's trauma…

The calm she absorbed the day after…

And her urge to scream at the goddess of colour at their supposed goodbye…

Baby, still in a trance of memories, reached into her damaged body and pulled out the locket, clicking it open and gazing at the image inside. Her body cooled as a melancholy feeling washed over her, the fear of never seeing any of these people again making her want to lock up and never move again.

As she stared, she saw out of the corner of her vision that Molten and Bonnie, who had moved to the other couch, were both looking at her in silent curiosity and subdued sadness.

Baby blinked and put the locket away again, shaking her head. "So… I blacked out there for a bit. Just… Had some memories enter my head."

Bonnie silently looked between where she hid the locket and her shy face, curious as to why she was acting so much more differently than he expected. He knew Baby was against this Afton Hell idea, but it seemed there was something deeper going on he had yet to figure out.

Molten, meanwhile, left the other couch and returned to Baby's side, resting a hand on her shoulder and looking into her eyes. "Is everything okay, Babydoll? You've been acting off ever since we got here."

"Your mood swings have been drastic", Bonnie said, failing to mask his genuine concern. "And this anger is directed at everyone but us. Which… Which makes me need to ask why?"

"Nothing you two need to worry about", Scrapy said almost frantically, standing up suddenly. "You two hold down the fort, I'm going to go for a walk and get some fresh air." She started to quickly leave the tent, and was gone before Molten had a chance to stop her.

When she was at the door for the storage room, she paused as she gripped the handle and then looked over her shoulder. She was upset she couldn't tell the others her full truth, but she didn't think they'd believe her anyway. It seemed Molten was still not convinced she was truthful about what she did when they were in Henry's trap.

With a withered sigh, she left the room and closed the door behind herself, heading down the hall she was now in to do anything. Anything to take her mind off this turmoil crashing around in her body.

That turned out to be a big mistake, because as soon as she closed the storage room door and turned around, she let out a scream as something tripped her up. With a loud slam, she was on the ground face first. She was pissed, so she rolled onto her back and glared at the cause for her tripping up.

Nightmare Balloon Boy.

Baby growled as the spindly fingered robot stood back up and shot her a glare. "Watch where you're going, 'Scrapy'. There's other people that live here too, ya' know."

As the robot of her current plight brushed himself, Scrap Baby bristled.. A name only Molten was allowed to use was just used against her as an insult. She was already pissed before…

But now she was FURIOUS.

Before Nightmare BB could react, Baby had sprung back to her feet, grabbed him by the near non-existent throat with her claw, and slammed him against the wall. The nightmare was frozen in fear as Baby glared at him with red, piercing eyes.

"You are so, SO lucky this is only our first day you little shit", Baby hissed. "Because if it wasn't, I swear I would turn you into more scrap and assimilate you into Molten. So let me tell you something, 'BB': DON'T EVER CROSS ME AGAIN. Otherwise the next person that sees you will see nothing but broken plastic and twisted metal."

Nightmare BB was staring at her with horrified eyes, not realising how fast things could escalate. "B-Baby, look, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make fun of you or anything, I just… I just…" She fell silent as the glare became harsher. "Don't kill me…" Was the last thing he could squeak out.

"STAY OUT OF MY WAY, GOT IT?" Baby hissed. BB nodded in terror, and the clawed animatronic threw him to the ground behind her. He scrambled away, tripping over himself as he tried desperately to escape. Once he was gone, the furious animatronic huffed.

She had her arms crossed and was tapping her foot excessively, trying to help herself calm down. But she was just too mad for her own good, and when the foot tapping became too much, she let out a rage-filled shout and smashed her claw into the wall BB was forced against earlier. The already noticeable cracks were made worse when the weapon embedded into the surface.

That spent all her energy, and she pulled the claw out of the wall with a blank look on her face. Hugging her claw arm close, she continued down the hall, mind filled with nothing but a nauseating fuzz that blocked her hearing and clouded her sight.

This day couldn't get any worse.

~X~

It happened as she was making her way back to her special space. Baby was just going down a hallway after visiting the main dining hall to see what was up. Apparently Nightmare BB had snitched, because some of the animatronics were giving her weird looks. And she could hear whispering behind her back just out of ear-shot, which made me a lot more anxious then she'd like to admit.

But that didn't matter all that much to her, because as she was heading back to the other, she heard a loud grandfather clock chime, which made her freeze. Looking over at a nearby wall clock, her pupils dilated as she saw it was now midnight. Which meant it was night shift time.

Feeling panic right through her as the clock chime sounded off, counting up to twelve, and she sprint-skated down the hall. Maybe her place was just out of reach, maybe she could escape Cassidy's stupid plan.

But as she grabbed the door handle to the storage room just as the twelfth chime echoed around her…

She suddenly appeared in what seemed to be the security office, frozen and slumped over in front of a desk. She blinked, and discreetly looked up at the man before her.

Afton, looking as old and withered as she expected.

He already looked tired as he glanced down at the tablet in his hands, clearly checking through the cameras. Glancing to his left, ignoring the ugly mug of Music Man right behind the murderer, she saw a scarily familiar mechanical switch.

The control pad from the rentals facility, with the blue light button and orange controlled shock button she came to fear and loathe so much. Putting two and two together, she knew what that was for, as she was reminded of Micheal's salvage task back in Henry's trap with how she was before the desk.

Using Afton's current distraction as an opportunity, she carefully looked around the room to take in the layout.

The main layout was two doors further back from the desk on the left and right walls, a vent opening in the top middle of the wall opposite the desk, tow vent openings on the ground beside the main doors, what seemed to be two hatched in the back corners of the room behind the desk, and two duct exits hanging from the ceiling on either side of the middle vent opening.

The room itself was filled out with a bunch of random knick knacks from across this company's tainted history, from posters to props to even that blasted fan on the desk.

And aside from herself, Afton and Music Man, there were others in the room with her. Rockstar Freddy was off to the side slightly, head down as he clutched his microphone to her left. To her right and behind her was Nightmare BB, also slumped down like he was deactivated. Baby also noticed Phantom Freddy slowly started to materialise into the room.

Returning to her original position as Afton looked up and used his flashlight to scare the phantom away.

Baby blinked and looked back down, staring and flexing her hand as her mind raced. This… This was all she was meant to do? Sit here and get shocked when she moved even the tiniest bit? How was this fair for her? How can Cassidy, who was only out to get Afton, put one of the victims in such a hurtful placement in this whole torture plan?

Baby looked up at Afton and opened her mouth to speak, but he saw her and instantly pressed that dreaded orange button on the switch, sending a painful amount of electricity coursing through her body. She didn't make a sound as her joints locked up and buckled, before she slumped back down.

Even when Caleb zapped her back at SunnySmiles wasn't that bad. This just flat out hurt.

Blinking as the pain rang throughout her body, Baby flinched when Rockstar Freddy suddenly started saying "Please deposit five coins" on loop till Afton did something on his tablet to shut the bear up.

Then she heard incessant laughing as the regular Balloon Boy had slipped inside the room, disabling Afton's flashlight. She also heard Ballora's music from the left hall, Nightmare's dark laughter from the right, Nightmare Freddy's Freddles accumulating of the desk behind her on the back wall, and that bizarre plastic crate with foam fingers and googly eyes jump out of nowhere and make a loud noise right in Afton's face.

Her head was already ringing from all the noise, all the screaming and stomping beyond the doors and in the vents. The doors would close, there'd be a bang, and it would open again.

Wires rubbing against each other could, making a skin-crawling squealing noise, be heard from the top middle vent before the door was shut.

The lights flickering as Toy Bonnie slid in front of Afton, an irritating buzzing being made as the man put on a mask.

A loud series of bangs accompanying flickering lights before a vent on the floor was closed.

The distant sound of pots and pans crashing together from a kitchen.

The constant ringing from the phone on the desk before one of the many past 'Phone Guy' calls screeched through the ancient speakers.

Phantom Mangle appeared out of thin air to make their nerve-grating garbled static sound, which made Music Man start to crash his cymbals together in slowly increasing volume.

Baby looked up to yell at them both to shut up, but Afton caught her and she was once again assaulted with the painful electrical blast, making her worn servos clench and twist painfully. When the shock was finished with her, she slumped again, her need to just flat out cry growing stronger by the second.

Looking down, she saw her locker was somewhat revealed, her wire-filled insides having parted a bit due to the shocks. Her mechanical heart beat a bit faster as she saw its shimmering silver material, and she was terrified the picture inside was ruined. Charred and crumbled because of others.

That sent a pang of pain and rage through her body, and her eyes subtly looked up at Afton. Her eyes were pointing lasers at this awful man, and she twitched a bit. The murderer was just standing there, and she was expected to play a pathetic game to keep Cassidy entertained.

And speak of the devil herself and she'll arrive, because as Baby's rage was peaking, she heard that laugh that almost taunted her. Looking behind herself, she saw the golden bear slumped over and lifeless, which made Afton panic a bit and put the mask over his head. She vanished instantly, which made Baby's eye twitch. She made a move to try and get William again, but was promptly met with a vicious shock that made her crumple and clutch the desk as a form of stabilisation.

She noticed Music Man subtly glance at her, but she just glared harder and tried to fight back against the shock. Afton shocked her again, however, and she just collapsed onto the desk, making everything on its top shift around. Despite what it might seem, Baby was still very much conscious, and well aware Afton was looking down at her in shock.

"Scrap Baby?" He asked quietly. "Are… Are you okay?"

He sounded so concerned, which only made her artificial blood boil even more. But this one moment of distraction from Afton allowed Classic Freddy to slip into the room and snag the killer, bringing an end to the night shift. Baby gasped as she was shot upright, and snapped her head to watch Freddy drag the unconscious murderer out through the left door.

"Golden said if he loses", Music Man said to her as he went to leave the room with the others, his overly jovial tone making her eye twitch. "That he needs to spend a few hours in an old Freddy suit like what he did to the kids all those years ago."

She was still as the others left till she was all alone in the office, and her blood ran cold. She thought all they did was kill him, and he woke up later just fine. Not this. Not making go through what they did to innocent guards who had nothing to do with his actions.

Her mind flashed back to when she overheard Henry as he was fishing her inside from the alley that he mentioned the old Phone Guy from the 87 location getting that exact treatment.

What. The. Fuck.

Baby let her scream come out as a loud bunch of screeching from her internal gears as she swung her claw around wildly, which only resulted in the fan being knocked off the desk and smashed.

When she finished her tornado impersonation, the tablet for the cameras blinked on.

"You sound angry, Scrap Baby", a voice sounded off from it.

Walking around and looking down at the tablet, she saw what looked to be an alligator fishing at a lake, in nothing but red and black 8-bit. She sat on the chair, staying silent.

"I understand your angry at Afton…" The voice said sadly. "And I do wish for Golden to move on, but if this is what she wants, I can't force her."

Baby scoffed and crossed her arms looking away bitterly. "Afton's not the only one I'm mad at. I'm mad at everyone but Molten and NightBon. This is not what I wanted out of my life, and now I'm here because some selfish brat decides she has control over my life now."

There was a flicker from the screen. "I… I see. I apologise, I misinterpreted where your anger was directed." He sighed, and Baby heard him quietly mumble a "This is not what I wanted…"

The clawed animatronic looked down at the tablet with a stony gaze. "Henry?" It was less a question and more of a demand.

The alligator visibly winced. "How… How did you know it was me?"

"Like how I knew Charlie, The Puppet, is your kid. How Golden Freddy is some brat named Cassidy. How you are a sad, tired old man that now has to babysit a bunch of wild animals."

The alligator was silent for a moment, then sighed. "You are a lot more perceptive than I thought. But I prefer to go by Old Man Consequences now, as I'd like to move on from the past and just fish my troubles away."

"So you're just a bystander, cool." She stood up and left, ignoring Henry from calling her name, and left through the left door. As she headed down the hall, she paused and peered into a janitor's closet, seeing the mangled corpse of Afton inside the spare Freddy suit. Just like Music Man said.

It still felt wrong to do this, even to their own killer. He just killed them by hand, they were already dead by the time he put them in the suits. And even with the Funtimes, they were only ever meant to lure and capture kids, never harm. So this just seemed to be a weird way to insult the night guards and technicians of the past.

Shaking her head, she continued along her way. Already, this was a bad sign of things to come. All this tension from just the first night? All this need to lash out and scream?

She was not looking forward to her life here.

She would've preferred the fire take her completely.

~X~

And there's chapter 4! One very heavy on the perspective with Baby, which is just a teaser of more to come just like this. She is the start after all.

But yeah, I really enjoyed this one. Writing the night shift from Baby's POV was super fun, especially selling all the noise and tension. OMC/Henry even made an appearance, if a brief one. Don't expect him to be a big key player, he's just here for the setting and because OMC was in UCN.

Also, we got some references to DCT in here too! Those made me really touched, simply because it's been a while since I finished that story.

Now, this is a bit different, but I wanna shoutout a friend who's not mainly an author. My friend Ben deals with a lot of bad stuff, and I just want to say how amazing and kind he is to talk to and such. He's got a YouTube channel, DualityDustman, so if you like Survivor and WWE, go give him a subscription. He makes good videos, and he deserves the love.

Anyway, I hope y'all liked this chapter!

Up next: A look into the aftermath of the night shift and Baby's week, where we see things slowly fall apart…

~Caleb~