A/N: Happy Easter and Happy April Fools' Day, guys! Do you like Heartwarming? Do you like Horror? Well, you're about to get plenty of both this chapter! And ironically enough, this is not an April Fool's joke. Or an April Fool's chapter. RIP.

To answer some questions from reviewers:

Mike's mansion is somewhat isolated from most of the town, so the chances of someone seeing a "self-moving" lawnmower are pretty low. And the chores they plan to do are going to be inside the house, anyway. As for making robot bodies, Mike might be a retired robotics engineer, but he doesn't have the materials to pull off that kind of thing, even with his workshop factored into account.

BlazingGroudon There's actually some hidden background info. in FNAF6's Insanity Ending that suggests that there's something called Remnant smeared on the animatronics that was the real reason why the souls of the kids, Charlotte, Elizabeth, and William Afton were trapped in them. It's also implied to be the reason why Michael Afton was stuck as a living corpse. Either way, I'm going under the assumption that only the original animatronics were smeared in Remnant, so there won't be any other Night Guard ghosts lingering around. And as for Nightmare possibly trying to corrupt Mike, I'll address that topic later in this chapter.

Warning: Torture. Cause Hell.

Chapter 26 – Returning the Favor

"Pssttt…Cassidy! Cassidy, wake up!"

"Hnnnnggghhh…" Cassidy mumbled in protest, still half-asleep.

"Cassidy, wake up!" Susie insisted, this time a bit more loudly. "We have to make breakfast for Dad, remember?"

Cassidy's eyes shot open. "Oh crap, you're right!" she got to her feet. "We've got to hurry before Dad wakes up!" The two of them quickly floated through the floor and down into the kitchen. Susie flipped open her laptop. "What are we making?"

Susie shrugged. "I figured we should probably do something nice and simple," she replied. "The more complicated we try to make this, the more likely we're going to mess it up. Especially since we can't taste what we're trying to make. Eggs, sausage, and pancakes sound good?"

"Yeah, that works," Cassidy agreed. "But I don't know how to cook anything!"

"Eh, it can't be that hard," Susie assured her. "Just get the things out of Dad's fridge so I can get started."

As Cassidy opened the fridge and started rummaging, Susie started looking up directions on how to cook breakfast. As she read through them to make sure she understood, she could sense another ghost enter in the vicinity.

"Hey guys…" Liz's voice greeted them. She as back in her human form by now, but she still looked and sounded incredibly tired. It wasn't hard for either Susie or Cassidy to guess why. "What're you doing this early?"

"We're making breakfast for Dad," Susie explained. "The whole mess with Nightmare showed us that we really haven't done anything to thank Dad for everything he's done for us, and we're gonna fix that. Jeremy, Fritz, Gabe, us, we all decided that we were gonna start helping Dad out with the stuff that he needs to deal with every day."

"You didn't tell Mary or me about this though?" Liz asked.

"Mary spent a good chunk of the night taking care of Dad last night, and you tried to fight a demon for him," Cassidy replied. "It didn't feel right asking either of you to do even more work."

"Yeah…I needed a bit of time to recover from that, but I'm better now," Liz replied. There was something in her tone that hinted that she was not all right, at least not fully, but Susie and Cassidy decided not to poke any further. "So what are you guys making?"

"Eggs, sausage, pancakes, stuff you'd usually find in a breakfast," Cassidy answered.

"Sounds like fun! Can I join you guys?"

The question was innocent enough, but Susie and Cassidy could both see it. Liz really wanted to take part in their family activity with them. Both remembered what Gabe had said about her, especially about how important it was to Liz that she did things for her dad. Susie hid her thoughts with a grin. "Hope you know how to make pancakes!"

Liz smiled and breathed an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. "I'll do my best," she promised as she took hold of a pan and looked at the instructions quickly. "Got any batter?"

"Right here!" Cassidy chirped as she mixed some with water. "Let's hope we don't make a complete mess out of this."

Liz laughed. "I think as long as the inside's solid when we're done I'm sure it'll be fine. So all we've got to do is pour it on and…"

"Wait!" Susie interrupted. "Put some oil on the pan first so that the batter doesn't stick."

"Oh wow, you're right!" Liz realized. "Thanks for the catch." She quickly poured some on. "Now, if I'm reading the instructions of the laptop correctly, all we need to do is pour the batter, flip it after a couple of minutes, and…"

Thirty Minutes Later…

"Hnnrrrggghhhh!" Mike yawned as he sat up on his bed. "Man, I was out like a light last night. Surprised I didn't have any bad dreams or anything after what happened yesterday."

His mind flashed back to last night's events, and he sobered up considerably as he recalled Liz's sorrow at her brother's death. "I hope she's feeling a bit better now," he thought. "The way I handled that was fucking atrocious." He looked to the side to see Mary sitting on a beanie bag couch, sleeping peacefully.

"How long were you taking care of me, Mary?" he wondered silently as he affectionately stroked the back of the Puppet's head. Fortunately, the movement didn't wake her. "Your dad would be proud of you."

Mike slipped out of his bedroom and quietly inched open the door to Fritz and Liz's room, and was surprised to find that only Fritz was alone in there, sleeping peacefully. "Huh…where'd Liz go?" It was then that the smell of a freshly made meal began to hit his nose. "Oh my God, that smells amazing!" he thought. "But who's making it?"

He climbed down the stairs and walked into the kitchen. To his surprise, Cassidy, Susie, and Liz were all there, and they all looked up at him and grinned as he arrived.

"Hey, Dad!" Susie cheerfully greeted him. "We made some breakfast for you!"

"We figured you could use a break after what happened for us last night," Cassidy added.

Mike stared at the plate of food in front of him. The ghost girls had prepared a stack of golden pancakes, two sausage patties, and a fresh batch of scrambled eggs arranged neatly into sections of the plate. "This looks amazing!" he exclaimed. He sat down and began eating the pancakes with a fork. His face glowed with delight. "And it tastes just as amazing as it looks! Did you guys just figure all this out this morning?"

Cassidy smiled at him. "Yep! Well, Liz and Susie did, I just kept handing stuff over to them."

Susie shrugged. "I still don't know how we pulled this off considering that we don't even have taste buds. Honestly I was just following instructions off the Internet the entire time."

Mike pat her on the head. "Well, you did a great job with this." He turned to other two girls. "All of you did. Who knows, maybe I'll start having you guys make breakfast for me instead. This is definitely better than a lot of things I make!"

The girls glowed at the praise. "Thanks, dad!" they all gushed.

Mike continued eating the breakfast they had made. "Did you sleep all right last night?" he asked with concern. "After everything that happened…"

Susie shook her head. "I can't answer for Liz, but Cass and I were just fine."

Liz shrugged. "I didn't have any bad dreams or anything. Surprisingly…" she muttered the last word under her breath, though Mike heard it.

"If you need anything, you know you can come talk to me, right?" he asked. All three girls nodded. "Okay. I'm going to finish this breakfast, and then I think I'll try and come up with the next stage of our Pathfinder campaign. Sound good?"

"Yep!" the girls replied, and they watched as Mike finished the meal they had made for him. He was about to get up and put the dishes in the sink, but Susie suddenly approached closer to stop him. "Hold on, dad, I'll take care of this."

Mike raised an eyebrow. "You sure? I don't mind taking…"

"I'll take care of it, Dad," Susie insisted. Mike shrugged and backed off as Susie picked up the dish and utensils and floated over to the sink to start cleaning them. "Did Jeremy make a new character yet?" she asked as she put them in the dishwasher.

"Yeah, he decided to be a Paladin," her dad replied. "Makes sense since a lot of your enemies that you're going to be fighting are supernatural Evil and all that. I can't help but feel like he got his character killed on purpose so he could make a new one, but whatever." He got up from his chair. "I'll be in my library if anyone needs me."

"Gotcha!" the girls replied as he left the kitchen and climbed back up the stairs. Once he was gone, Cassidy looked over to the living room. "He's gone!"

Instantly, Fritz, Jeremy, and Gabe all appeared out of nowhere. "You did great, you three," Gabe commented approvingly. "Dad has no clue why we're doing this or even that we're doing it at all. Longer we can keep this a surprise, the better."

Fritz looked around. "So, uh…what do we do next?"

Gabe and Jeremy both smirked at him, and he groaned. "Aww, come on, guys…"

"We made bets last night before we went to bed and you lost. Fair's fair."

Fritz sighed. "Fiiiiiiiiiiiiinnneeeee…."

/

Mike hummed to himself as he read through the list of monster encounters. There were several reasons why he wanted to introduce the ghosts to fighting demons and devils (not the least of which was because it would allow for some well-deserved schadenfreude after their encounter with Nightmare), and he wanted to set up a fight that would be difficult but still beatable. He was reading through the description of an Ice Devil when the sound of something loud suddenly echoed into his ears. "What the heck is that?" he wondered as he put down the book. He went over to the door and poked his head out. "Who's making that noise?" he called out.

Jeremy floated up from under the floor. "Sup, Dad!" he called out. "Sorry about the noise, I'm vacuuming up the house this morning."

Mike raised an eyebrow. First the girls making breakfast and cleaning the dishes, and now Jeremy was vacuuming the house? "Not that I don't appreciate you doing this, but, uh…why?"

Jeremy shrugged. "Parts of the house were getting a bit dusty and it was starting to annoy me a little," he replied. "Besides, cleaning up the house makes me feel like I'm freshening up the place after Nightmare showed his ugly face."

Mike could certainly sympathize with THAT statement. "How far have you gotten so far?" he asked.

"I've only finished the basement," Jeremy reported. "Right now I'm working on the living room and the kitchen."

"Well, you shouldn't have much to clean," Mike commented. "It's not like you guys make messes in my rooms or anything." He shook his head in bemusement. "Honestly, I'm surprised you guys are going through all this trouble. After what happened last night, I would've thought you would have rushed to the TV and spammed video games all day. Heck, that's what I would've done."

Jeremy shrugged again. "It's like you said earlier, dad. We've got to do things other than video games at some point or another. Might as well get something done for real."

"Hey, whatever works for you, kiddo," Mike ruffled the boy's phantom hair. "Don't work too hard."

The former Bonnie inhabitant smirked. "Don't worry, Dad, I'll be rotting my nonexistent brain on the TV soon enough."

Mike's lips twitched as he retreated into his office, but as soon as he was out of sight he frowned. He didn't doubt that Jeremy genuinely wanted to help him, but something felt a little…off…about what he had said. He couldn't put a finger on it though. Maybe it was just the fact that the kids were, for a lack of a better term, doing chores, and doing them happily.

"I bet most of my friends would kill to have kids who want to do chores," he thought with a smirk, then cringed at the wording in his sentence. "Yeesh, glad that thought was in my head and not out loud for them to hear." He turned back over to the list of monsters he had been reading earlier, and smiled. "Ah, okay, I think this one would be a good choice for the next campaign…"

A couple of minutes later, he got up from his chair. "Okay, got to hit the bathroom real quick," he thought. He left the library and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. He pushed the door open, and…

"Fritz?"he spluttered.

The red-haired ghost boy was busy scrubbing the floor of the bathroom with a sponge. He quickly looked up at his father. "Oh hey Dad!" he greeted him. "Did you need to use the bathroom?"

"Uh…yeah…but that's not important," Mike shook his head, trying to clear away his confusion. "What are you doing here?"

Fritz held up the sponge he was manipulating. "Cleaning the bathrooms. It's not like I can get my hands or body dirty since, you know, they're not solid or anything. Thank God, too, never knew how dirty toilets can get over time."

He picked up an air refresher can and started spraying the inside of the toilet. "Huh, this wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. A bit surprising, actually."

Mike raised an eyebrow. "You sound like you weren't too happy about this," he commented.

"Oh, I don't have a problem with it now," Fritz clarified. "But Jeremy, Gabe, and I were randomly distributing the chores out, and I ended up getting the bathrooms. Would probably be a lot more annoyed about this if I could get myself dirty, but since I can't, hey! Not gonna complain."

"Lucky you," Mike smirked. But inside, the gears of his mind were beginning to turn. The ghost kids had distributed these chores out beforehand? That means they'd planned this all out from the beginning. But why?

"Earth to Dad?"

Mike snapped out of his thoughts. "You did a really nice job, Fritz," he complimented, earning a grin from the boy. "How much have you done so far?"

"I've gotten most of them done," Fritz replied. "I've just gotta clean the one next to your room and then I'll be good to go!"

"Well, take your time, kiddo, nobody's in any hurry to go anywhere. I'll use the bathroom in my room then so I don't end up ruining what you've already done. Keep up the good work!" Mike gave the boy a thumbs-up and left for his bedroom. As he did so, he began to think about what he had seen in the last hour or so.

"I just don't get those kids," he thought. After Nightmare's attack, he'd expected them to distract themselves as thoroughly as possible with things like the Net and video games to bury last night's bad memories as much as they could. Chores had not been on the list of things he'd had in mind.

He walked into his bathroom to relieve himself, and as he walked back out Mary yawned as she stretched her long, spindly arms. "Good morning, Mike," she drowsily greeted him.

"Morning, Mary," he answered back. "Gotta say, those kids are something else."

Mary's eyes flickered on and off, the equivalent of her blinking. "How so?"

"Well, if I were in their shoes, after last night I'd try to forget about Nightmare as much as possible with things like video games and stuff like that," Mike told her. "But when I found them this morning, they were doing chores of all things."

"Really?" Mary asked. "That sounds rather odd."

"Tell me about it," Mike replied as he sat down on his bed. "Liz, Susie, and Cassidy made breakfast for me. It was kind of weird, since they can't taste the food they're making and haven't ever cooked before, but the food was so good I didn't think about it at the time. Then I found Jeremy vacuuming the house, and Fritz of all people was cleaning the bathrooms." He scratched his head. "I just don't get it."

"Considering what I know about them, that is definitely out of the ordinary," Mary agreed. "They might have been forced to mature, but they're still kids, and kids don't like doing chores. There has to be a specific reason for what they're doing, but I honestly couldn't tell you. I didn't talk to them at all last night because I was taking care of you."

He thought for a moment. "You know…" he said slowly, "I think I know why they're doing this. And I honestly can't believe it took me this long to figure it out, because it's so obvious in hindsight." He got to his feet and held a hand out to Mary. "Wanna go see what they're doing?"

She took the hand gratefully. "I'd be glad to." The two of them walked through the hallway and down the stairs. As they entered the living room, Mike's eyes fell on the empty space where the broken ruins of his side table had once been.

Gabe popped up into visibility behind him. "Hey, dad! I got rid of the pieces of the side table. They're in your garage now."

Mike smiled at him. "Thanks for taking care of that. I gotta make sure to buy a replacement later. For now, Gabe, would you mind getting the other ghosts and bringing them all here? I've got something I need to talk to you all about."

Gabe felt a flicker of nervousness in him. Had Mike figured it all out already? "Uh…sure thing!" he replied as he floated out of the room. Mike sat down on a couch and began humming as he heard Gabe call out to the other ghosts in the distance. A few seconds later, he returned, with the other ghost children following closely behind him. "Did you need us for something, Dad?" Liz asked.

"Yeah, actually…" Mike smirked. "Come on, guys. You already know that I don't usually miss a beat. What's this really all about?"

The ghosts looked at each other. "Uh…what?"

"The whole chore thing," Mike pressed. "A lot of my friends from college have kids now, and I've been around them long enough to know how kids normally act. And I can tell you right now that most kids your age definitely don't do things like cleaning up after bathrooms or vacuuming the house. I mean, I'm not complaining…I was going to take care of the house today anyway, and this really makes my job easier, so thank you all so much for that. But…what's really going on?"

Fritz sighed. "No point in trying to hide this anymore, is there?" he asked. "Might as well tell'em, guys."

Gabe nodded. "Yeah. The thing is, Dad…last night, before we went to bed, we spent a good long time talking about what Nightmare told us. And even though he tried to make things out to be a lot worse than they actually were…it doesn't make what he said wrong. We came here to carry out a redemption quest for all the innocent people we killed, but we never once did a single thing to show for it."

The ghosts nodded in agreement. "That's what this was all about, Dad," Jeremy admitted. "We can't help you out with the big things in your life, since you've already gone through them. But we can help you with the small things. Cleaning the house, making food for you, just making your life easier one way or another…I don't think that's too much for us to do after you gave us a home and defended us against a demon."

"None us ever trusted an adult after we died," Susie finished. "It was an adult who killed us, and that was part of the reason why we hunted the Night Guards so much. But you, dad? We love you and we trust you. And this is how we're showing it."

Mike sat there silently for several seconds, and the ghosts started to wonder if they'd somehow angered him in some way. Then, he broke into a smile. "You know…" he began, "…I retired from my job when I was 47. I thought, hey, I'm rich as hell and I'm only doing my engineering job for shits and giggles, I might as well just drop it now and laze around for the rest of my life doing whatever the heck I want to."

He shook his head. "I had no idea that leaving my job would end up being nearly the worst thing that I'd ever done in my adult life. I thought my job was basically a bonus hobby, but it turns out it was the one thing in my life that gave me a consistent purpose. There's a reason people don't usually retire from their jobs until they're in their 60s. Without my job, I had no clue what I was going to be doing with the rest of my life. Even when Mary came along, I still had no idea. I was even considering going back to my job, I was so bored."

Mike's smile widened. "Then you guys came along. You popped up in my bedroom out of the blue, asking to make a family. I didn't know what was going on, but I did know what the right thing to do was. So I said yes, partly because I didn't have a proper family ever since my early years, and partly because it's what Oskar did for me so many years ago. And taking care of you guys, teaching you how to play video games, showing you why good grammar is important…I finally realized just what you guys gave me. Both you and Nightmare have said that you didn't give me anything back, but you're wrong. Both in terms of how I feel and through objective fact. You guys gave me the first real and complete family I ever had, and the first purpose that I've ever wanted to put in 100% of my time and effort into. Not a purpose to die, like I did back at that pizzeria. A purpose to live."

"Dad…" Cassidy murmured. Her eyes were beginning to water, and the other ghosts weren't far off.

Mike shook his head. "The way Nightmare was talking last night, he was making it sound like you guys should be my servants. And that's just not right. I've been able to take care of myself ever since I was 11, and there's no reason why other people should be doing that for me. Especially not you guys. What really matters to me is that we be the family that we were always meant to be, and the life we were living before Nightmare showed up is a perfect example of what I want. That's what I really want you to do for me, more than anything."

Cassidy couldn't hold herself back anymore. She rushed forward and wrapped her adoptive father tightly in a hug, tears pouring out of her eyes. Susie, Fritz, Jeremy, and Gabe followed her one by one, embracing Mike until he was surrounded by spectral arms and bodies. Liz was the last to join, the doubts over whether she deserved to be a part of their family briefly returning. Mary put a hand on her shoulder and nodded towards them, wordlessly beckoning her towards the rest of their family. The lips of her mask stretched into a smile as Liz finally joined them. From the moment that she had first met their lost souls in 1987, Mary had never seen her fellow ghosts genuinely happy. Even when they had finally killed the Purple Guy, that had only been a vicious streak of satisfaction that had lasted for a short time, and that fleeting feeling of victory had died even more quickly once they'd realized that William Afton had found a new lease on life as Springtrap. Mary had only ever wanted the best for them, and she finally felt at peace with herself knowing that they had finally found what they had been denied for far too long.

"We love you, dad!" Cassidy bawled.

"We don't deserve you, dad!" Susie sniffed.

"We don't want anyone else but you, dad!" Gabe exclaimed.

"I stopped questioning whether I deserved the good or bad things in my life a long time ago," Mike answered. "If life really was fair, my mom would never have died and you guys would never have been killed. It's better to just take things as they come, and do the best with what you have." He slowly released them from their hug, and they did the same. "Now then, no family would be complete without doing some family activities together, and I think you've done more than enough work around the house to take a break and then some. I've got a game I want to show you that is one of the most popular out there. It can be fairly complicated, but it's really fun and exciting when you can figure out the details."

"Ooh, what is it, dad?" Fritz eagerly asked.

Mike grinned. "It's one of my favorites. It's called Pokémon…"

/

Nightmare grinned as he watched the family embrace through the scrying portal. William Afton had refused to concede defeat when Nightmare had first told him about the events of the night, claiming that they might still break apart afterwards. The demon had accepted this line of reasoning for the next few hours; fairness was one of the few virtues that he still acknowledged. But now, here was incontrovertible proof that the family had stayed strong despite his attempts to break them apart.

"A HAPPY ENDING FOR THEM, AND A HAPPY ENDING FOR ME," Nightmare said with a dark chuckle. His eyes fell on Mike, who by now was walking over to the video game pile to take out a Pokémon game. For a few moments after he had departed, he had entertained the idea of trying to corrupt Mike and bring him down into damnation. The man's darkness was truly impressive for someone so dedicated to the path of goodness, and the man would have made such an excellent torture planner. But he had dismissed the notion relatively quickly.

For one thing, the man had far too many moral anchors both in his past and his present to keep him on the path of darkness for any longer than a fleeting moment. Between the ghostly children who he now loved and protected as his own family, and the teachings and principles of Oskar that Mike had faithfully adhered to throughout his entire life, any attempt to corrupt him would have only a minimal chance of succeeding at best. He was looking at ample proof of that right this very moment.

And even if corrupting Mike in the long-term was feasible, Nightmare was no fool. Especially not when there was a very real risk of divine retribution if he attempted to go through with it. Nightmare was one of the very few demons who had been granted permission by Heaven to roam the Earth periodically, an exceptionally rare privilege that more than one demon had tried and failed to kill him over out of jealousy. Throughout the entirety of his assault on Mike and his family, he had already skirted the edge of what Heaven would consider permissible, and if he tried to interfere with their lives and souls any further then the realm of the divine would almost certainly retaliate. The right to leave the Pit of Torment and roam the Earth was far too valuable to squander on a fool's errand that was almost guaranteed to fail whether Heaven intervened or no, and there was absolutely no reason to turn a guaranteed victory into an embarrassing defeat. No, he would make do with what he had.

Besides, it wasn't as though he would be lacking in entertainment or satisfaction anytime soon. Oh, no, no, no, no…there would be plenty of both to go around. Nightmare grinned as he looked at the damned soul bound in chains in front of him. The man refused to look up at him, but he could sense William Afton's bitterness at his defeat.

"THERE IS NO DOUBT ANYMORE," Nightmare hissed with a malicious glee. "YOU HAVE FAILED. YOU THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD BREAK APART THE FAMILY THAT YOUR VICTIMS CREATED WITH THE NIGHT GUARD. BUT IF ANYTHING, YOUR ACTIONS HAVE ONLY STRENGTHENED THEIR BONDS INSTEAD. YOU HAVE LOST OUR LITTLE WAGER, AND IT IS TIME FOR ME TO CLAIM MY PRIZE."

"You didn't even try, did you?" the child murderer accused hatefully. "You could have gotten into their heads deeper, stirred their doubts up harder, before going in for the kill. But you didn't do any of that! You just went in and talked to them for a couple of minutes!"

Nightmare only laughed. "YOU NEVER SPECIFIED HOW I WOULD CARRY OUT MY ASSAULT," he sneered. "ONLY THAT I DO IT AT ALL. YOU LEFT THE DETAILS IN THE HANDS OF A DEMON, AND YOU ACT SURPRISED WHEN THINGS DON'T GO YOUR WAY? YOU ARE A FOOL."

"Why?" William Afton growled. "Why wouldn't you try your hardest to break them apart? We're both evil monsters! We should be working together!"

Nightmare's grin instantly vanished, and the serial killer realized he had made a terrible mistake. Moving far too quickly for him to even realize what was going on, Nightmare raised his right hand and viciously shoved his claws straight into the man's throat. Afton howled in agony as the demon pushed the man's head upward, forcing him to look straight into his burning red eyes.

"DID YOU HONESTLY THINK," Nightmare snarled, "THAT JUST BECAUSE I HAD MADE A DEAL WITH YOU, OUR AGREEMENT SUDDENLY MADE US INTO ALLIES? OR PERHAPS, EVEN FRIENDS?"he spat the last word with as much venom as possible. "YOU HAVE NO IDEA JUST HOW MUCH I DESPISE YOU, WILLIAM AFTON."

The serial killer tried to speak, but no words came out. The claws jammed in his throat prevented him from even breathing properly, not that there was any pure air to breathe down in the depths of Hell.

"YOU ARE TRULY A MAN IN LOVE WITH VIOLENCE," Nightmare sneered. "PERHAPS, IF YOU HAD EARNED YOUR KILLS IN BATTLE, THAT WOULD EARN MY RESPECT. BUT, NO. YOU ONLY EVER TRIED TO SHED BLOOD WHEN YOU WERE UP AGAINST WEAK LITTLE CHILDREN WITH NO WAY TO FIGHT BACK, OR IN THE BODY OF ANIMATRONIC WITH METAL AND STEEL TO EMPOWER YOU. AND EVEN THEN, YOU ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING. YOUR ENTIRE LEGACY BURNED TO ASH AND OBLIVION WITH THE TRAP THAT YOU WANDERED INTO LIKE AN IMBECILE. THE ONLY THING YOUR MURDERS ARE A TESTAMENT TO IS YOUR OWN COWARDICE. AND I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR COWARDS."

William was still writhing and struggling to free himself from Nightmare's claws, and his feeble attempts only intensified the demon's contempt for the man. As a demon and a monster, he would freely admit that Mike Schmidt was a thousand times the man William Afton could ever hope to be.

"BUT THAT ISN'T THE ONLY REASON WHY I DESPISE YOUR EXISTENCE, WILLIAM AFTON," Nightmare hissed. "IT IS NOT EVEN THE MAIN REASON. I DO NOT PERSONALLY CARE HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU TRY TO KILL. BUT YOUR CRIMES RUN DEEPER THAN SIMPLE VIOLENCE, DON'T THEY? I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO YOUR OWN CHILDREN, HOW YOU TRIED TO MANIPULATE THEM INTO DOING YOUR WILL. I KNOW HOW YOU SENT YOUR SON MICHAEL TO DIE IN YOUR PLACE AT THE DEATH TRAP YOU DISGUISED AS A PIZZERIA. AND I KNOW HOW YOU TRIED TO CORRUPT YOUR DAUGHTER ELIZABETH AND TURN HER INTO A MONSTER AND A MURDERER JUST LIKE YOU. MAYBE YOU MIGHT HAVE CARED FOR YOUR CHILDREN AT ONE POINT. I DO NOT KNOW, AND I DO NOT CARE. BECAUSE IN THE LAST MOMENTS OF YOUR EXISTENCE, YOU NEVER SAW EITHER OF THEM AS ANYTHING MORE THAN TOOLS TO CARRY OUT YOUR PERVERTED WILL, DIDN'T YOU?"

The demon lord's eyes began to glow with utter hatred. "I HAVE PLEDGED MYSELF TO EVIL FOR OVER A THOUSAND YEARS," he snarled, "AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNTIL THE END OF TIME. THE MORALS AND PRINCIPLES I POSSESS ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN. BUT NO MATTER HOW DEPRAVED I MAY BECOME," he finished with a furious roar. "AT LEAST I UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE PART OF A FAMILY!"

He violently tore his claws free from William Afton's throat, taking great care to cause as much damage as possible. Afton gasped and began wheezing in agony, too overcome with pain to even think properly. Nightmare spat with disgust at the damned soul, and Afton barely registered the fact that there were more monsters coming behind him. All of them vaguely looked like one of the Freddy Fazbear animatronics, except with utterly monstrous and horrifying appearances. Except for a bear that looked remarkably like Nightmare himself, all of them were burning with hellish flames from within their bodies.

"CAN WE BEGIN, BROTHER?" the one that looked like Chica hissed excitedly. "IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE WE WERE GIVEN FREE REIGN!"

"PATIENCE, MY DEAR SISTER…" Nightmare replied with a grin. "YOU WILL HAVE A THOUSAND YEARS TO DO WHATEVER YOU WISH TO THIS PATHETIC SHADE. BUT A NEW…ACQUAINTANCE…OF MINE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO PROVIDE SOME SUGGESTIONS, AND I THINK THAT YOU WILL QUITE ENJOY CARRYING THEM OUT." He began speaking to them in an unholy language, and the other demons' eyes lit up in excitement. Nightmare gave a command, and Infernal Bonnie and Infernal Chica began to pull out a torture device. William Afton's eyes widened in fear as they took in the inner workings of the machine. It looked almost like…almost like…

"DO YOU REMEMBER THE SPRING BONNIE SUIT, WILLIAM AFTON?" Nightmare questioned, having adopted his tone of false politeness once again. "DO YOU REMEMBER THE DESPAIR, THE AGONY AS YOU SUFFERED A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH? THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHILDREN YOU WRONGED HAS LOST PATIENCE WITH YOU…AND HE HAS ASKED ME TO REMIND YOU OF THAT PAIN. IT WAS QUITE DISCOURTEOUS OF ME TO BREAK INTO HIS HOME UNINVITED, SO THIS FAVOR WAS THE LEAST I COULD DO IN RETURN."

Afton struggled harder against his bonds with an incoherent yell, but there was nothing he could do. Infernal Freddy grabbed Afton by the head as Infernal Foxy sliced open the chains holding him, and then Infernal Bonnie dragged the serial killer over towards the torture device, where Infernal Chica was waiting. The demonic version of Bonnie shoved the child murderer inside, and Chica slammed it shut. The device began to whir and hum, and seconds later, all the Nightmares could hear agonized screams as the insides of the suit began to tear into the murderer's ethereal flesh and bone and shred him to pieces, just as the Spring Bonnie suit had done to him years ago. The dripping of liquid echoed faintly from within the suit, and the Purple Guy's yells of anguish intensified – Nightmare had coated the spring locks with poisons far more devastating than anything on Earth, which were now flowing into the gaping wounds that the locks themselves had caused and were devouring his body from within.

The demonic animatronics all began to howl with laughter at Afton's suffering, and Nightmare bared his fangs with glee. "OH, I ALMOST FORGOT," he added as an afterthought. "IT WOULDN'T BE AN INFERNAL TORMENT WITHOUT AN INFERNO!" He snapped his fingers together, and the entire device suddenly burst into hellish flames. The screams from the man inside escalated to an even higher volume, and those damned spirits who could hear Afton's shrieks were suddenly thankful that their punishments were not worse than what they already were.

It wasn't until several minutes later that Nightmare finally let the flames die down, and the only sounds William Afton was making now were quiet pleas for mercy that everyone knew he would never receive. "WHAT WAS THAT PHRASE YOU WERE SO FOND OF SAYING?" Nightmare asked mockingly. "YOU'LL ALWAYS COME BACK? HOW RIGHT YOU ARE, WILLIAM AFTON. BECAUSE YOU NO MATTER HOW CLOSELY YOU EDGE TOWARDS OBLIVION, HOW MUCH YOU MIGHT LONG FOR THE SWEET RELEASE OF NOTHINGNESS, YOU WILL NEVER FIND IT. THIS IS YOUR FATE NOW, AND TO OVERSEE YOUR ETERNITY OF HORRORS IS OUR PERSONAL PLEASURE."

The demons all laughed again as they heard Afton whimper piteously from within, Nightmare's laughter the hardest among them. It was rare for him to be able to unleash his full savagery on the damned, and it was even rarer for him to be able to claim moral superiority over them. He was going to enjoy this for a very, very long time indeed.

/

A/N: And there you have it, folks! The family have now officially overcome their biggest and most difficult trial, and William Afton finally got what he deserved! Funnily enough, despite the Nightmare arc being the darkest arc I will probably ever have planned for this story, the only real and unambiguous loser was William Afton. And he got what he deserved.

You know someone's an utterly depraved piece of shit when a literal demon is morally superior to him. I briefly hinted at Nightmare's morality in "A Legacy Laid to Rest", and now was the best time to expand on it where the family wouldn't be able to see him. Granted, letting your other family members have fun with torturing damned souls doesn't exactly fall under conventional definitions of kindness and care, but Nightmare treats his family (which visually look like the Jack-O Animatronics) with far more respect than William Afton ever did. It almost makes you wonder if he wanted his attack to fail…

A lot of you were wondering what Mike had in mind when he made some suggestion tortures. I figured that forcing William Afton to relive his agonizing destruction in the Spring Bonnie suit would be something quite fitting and ironic, though I'll leave it up to you to decide whether Mike or Nightmare came up with the poisons and the flame. Either way, Mike might be the most dangerous person in his entire family in his own way. He knows how to fight, he knows how to plan, he knows how to find and hit your weaknesses, and he knows how to make you suffer. You do not want this man as your enemy, a lesson that William Afton wouldn't learn until far too late.

I think this is more than enough darkness for a long time. I'm gonna be going back to more lighthearted and fun chapters, at least for the next few. This is meant to be a happier fic, after all.

I mean, it's been 17 chapters since the last Video Game Bonanza chapter, wow.

Hope you guys enjoyed!