A/N: So…much of the past has been uncovered, but there's still plenty left that's yet to be revealed. And there's more surprises to be found…I wonder what's in store? Also, the quick update is the result of me deciding to not give a shit about a med school exam I had this morning and instead write for 3 hours straight yesterday. Seriously, I took that exam in only 11 minutes (though I still got an 87 so yay for me I guess).

Guest: I don't get the reference. Sorry.

Superior: I'm really glad you took the time to write this, and my response will draw from both FNAF3 and FNAF6. Skip the following part of this A/N if you don't want spoilers (though tbh why are you worried about spoilers if you've already gotten this far into the fic?).

The thing is, simply getting revenge on the Purple Guy WASN'T enough to set the kids free. They were still trapped in the animatronics, maybe not literally stuck in the heads (otherwise they couldn't chase William Afton into the Spring Bonnie suit) but still ultimately bound to them. That's why there's two possible endings for FNAF3 – the Bad Ending where the kids are still trapped in the heads, and the Good Ending where they were set free not because they got their revenge, but because the Night Guard (likely Michael Afton) took the time to comfort them and make them feel better through the cake minigames. But here's the thing – the Night Guard has to go through a lot of loops and explore a lot of secrets to put the kids to rest in-game by making them happy, but when he's being hunted by Springtrap, would he actually have the time to do all that? In my mind, that's somewhat unrealistic, and in my fic at least, Michael Afton didn't have the time to do all that while he was at Fazbear's Fright. So this means that, yes, the FNAF3 Bad Ending is this fic's canon ending.

But even if it wasn't, there's a LOT of evidence from FNAF6 that suggests that the kids weren't properly allowed to pass on to the afterlife until AFTER the final pizzeria burned down and everything was destroyed. Scrap Baby makes references to "gathering all those little souls to one place" and Candy Cadet's stories imply that all the murdered children's souls were gathered together in such a way. In addition, Cassette Guy (Henry) directly tells the souls that for "most of them, they would find peace and perhaps warm," and he is saying all this when Molten Freddy is burning on the screen. And the final Gravestone ending only shows six gravestones (4 named kids, 1 in the background implied to be the Puppet, and 1 that's hidden), which implies that it's still the same kids we've been talking about throughout the entire franchise.

So here's what I think happened and here's what actually did happen in this specific fic's universe. The kids were never freed from their shells, even after Fazbear's Fright burned down (FNAF3 Bad Ending). They were trapped, unable to escape, until Molten Freddy found the remains of the suits and incorporated them into his own body. By doing so, he brought all their souls into himself in the process. Baby somehow found about this (possibly because she was still a part of Ennard when this happened) and later decided to try and bring the souls to the pizzeria as a gift for her father. Except that entire plan went to shit when Henry and Michael Afton, who ALSO knew about the lost souls, activated their trap and destroyed all the animatronics, freeing everyone's souls and condemning William to Hell.

Hope that clarifies my thought process behind all this. The backstory of FNAF can be incredibly confusing, but that's what makes it so interesting as well.

Chapter 30 – Return to Freddy's Part 1

"So, I'm back here again, am I?" Mike asked as he rolled his eyes. The office at Freddy's had barely been frightening to him when he'd been there in real life, and it was an outright joke in a dream where he had absolute power over what occurred. This would be easy enough to deal with. Just de-activate the animatronics down to utter uselessness and wait until he woke up. Nice and easy.

"Mike…"

Mike jolted in his chair. That voice…he hadn't heard that voice in decades…it couldn't be…

"Mike!" the call came again, and this time it was much more authoritative and assertive. And it destroyed any doubts he'd had.

"Oskar?" Mike breathed out. The air flickered in front of him, and the old war officer appeared before him looking exactly as he had when Mike had first met him and saved his life. At that moment, the man felt as though he were 16 again, sitting at the foot of Oskar's couch as the colonel bequeathed his life lessons onto him.

The colonel smiled, and Mike could see the pride and joy in his eyes. "Mike, my son…" Oskar greeted him warmly. "It's been far too long. You've grown so much, endured things that no child should ever have to suffer, and look at you now! You are every bit the man I had hoped you would become, and so much more."

Mike was about to express his gratitude through an embrace, but the sound of rushing footsteps echoed from the left corridor. Without even thinking, Mike slammed down the door and both listened as Foxy knocked relentlessly at the door. Fury poured through him – how dare these metal pieces of shit interrupt his reunion with his father in all but blood! With a wordless snarl, he slammed the other door down and increased the power meter until it showed ∞%.

Oskar chuckled at Mike's actions. "My, my, old friend…don't tell me that your temper has shortened over the years!"

"Not even close, Oskar," the former night guard replied, the old man's voice cutting away his rage. "The only thing that's gone down is my tolerance for bullshit. I've even added images of middle fingers on the other side of the doors, just for good measure."

A shriek of rage and annoyance echoed from the right side of the door, and Mike hit the lights to reveal both Chica and Freddy. He raised an eyebrow. "That's new."

"Allow me," Oskar interrupted. He took one look straight at the animatronics, his eyes blazing with contempt and his mouth curled into a menacing grimace. "Get out of my sight!" he growled. "And don't come back!"

To Mike's surprise, both Chica and Freddy showed…was that fear in their eyes? The animatronics immediately left the door, and Mike could hear their footsteps retreat into the darkness. "Wow," he whistled. "If only you'd been at the actual pizzeria with me. Those fuckers wouldn't have come anywhere near the office and life would've been so much easier."

Oskar laughed. "Unfortunately, that wouldn't have been possible. Those who move on to the afterlife are not allowed to return…"

"…and yet, here you are," Mike finished. "To be fair, this is only in a dream, but this is still the first time you've showed yourself to me since your death." He looked straight into Oskar's eyes. "You're not just here for a family reunion, are you? There's more to it than that, isn't there?"

Oskar nodded. "Your mind has always been very sharp, Mike, and I'm glad to see that hasn't changed. You're right, of course. There are important matters that we need to discuss. Secrets that have yet to be unearthed, duties that even now remain unfulfilled." He took out a cigarette and lit it, before offering one to Mike."

"I don't smoke, Oskar."

"We're in a dream. It's not like you're going to destroy your lungs doing this."

Mike shrugged. "In that case, fuck it." He accepted the cigarette, put it into his mouth, and then leaned forward into his chair. It was no surprise given his military background, but Oskar had always placed a high value on duty and that had been one of the many values Mike had learned from him. The fact that Oskar had chosen to come to him in a Freddy's dream, implying that his new children were involved somehow in what was to come, only heightened that importance. "I'm all ears."

A chair suddenly appeared in front of Mike, and Oskar sat down on it. "There are places that I need you to go to, Mike," the colonel began. "Places that still hide the past within them. I have only been allowed to guide you to one for the time being, Mike. And that first…the first is the old Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria."

Mike's expression didn't change outwardly, but he was suddenly on alert. "I'm not afraid of Freddy's, Oskar…but why do you need me to go there?"

Oskar grimaced. "Think about what you have read about the downfall of Freddy's, Mike. Those articles about the deaths of your children."

Mike tried to recall what he'd read. "Their bodies were stuffed in the suits…they were never found…" It suddenly hit him, and his expression suddenly turned into one of disgust and rage. "YOU'RE TELLING ME THOSE MANAGEMENT FUCKERS LEFT THEIR BODIES IN THOSE ROBOTS FOR TWO YEARS AND THEN THREW THEM IN SOME GODFORSAKEN HOLE TO ROT WHEN THEY FINALLY FOUND THEM!" he roared. He'd always been disgusted with the management of Freddy's for its incompetence, but the hatred that now blazed in his soul for it was second only to his loathing for William Afton himself. Even his fury towards Nightmare when the demon had attacked his home paled in comparison: at least Nightmare, for all his cruelty and malice, had never pretended to be a friend and had never held any responsibility for the murdered children. In the haze of his fury, a light of insight suddenly flashed inside his mind. "That's what you want me to do, isn't it?" he realized, forcing himself to calm down. "You want me to find the bodies of those kids and see them put to rest, don't you?"

"It is not only what I want, Mike, but also what Heaven wishes as well," Oskar solemnly confirmed. "Their souls may not be tied to their bodies anymore, but they have remained unburied and abandoned for far too long. I can trust you with this task, yes?"

"Do you even need to ask?"

Oskar smiled. "I would expect no less from you, Mike. But allow me to grant you some additional advice, like I did all those years ago."

Mike leaned back in his chair. "Those were always some of my favorite moments. Whatever you have to tell me, I'll be glad to hear it."

Oskar cleared his throat. "The children who were murdered by the monster who now rots in the Abyss…they are happier now than they have ever been. But one of them is different from the others. One of them is still bound by shackles of guilt and self-loathing that she places upon her own soul. The others, no matter how much they may try to support her, cannot help her break them. You know who I'm talking about, don't you?"

Mike nodded. "I know exactly what you're saying."

"You may not be able to break those chains completely, my son. But with this first quest, you CAN at least weaken them, IF you handle this correctly. To do so will involve some risk, and I will understand if you choose not to embark on this specific endeavor. But if you can accomplish both, you will make your old man very, very happy indeed."

"Wasn't it you who told me that nothing worth doing is ever easy?" Mike asked with a smirk. "Then again, I figured that out long before I met you." His smirk faded. "But I see what you're saying. I'm still new to this whole parenting thing, but I'll do everything I can."

Oskar smiled again, and to Mike's surprise, he got up from his chair and wrapped him in a warm hug. "You're a great man, Mike. You have accomplished many things and may yet accomplish even more. But now it is time for you to return…there are others who need you more than I."

Mike heard a faint noise in the distance. It sounded like…crying?

"Dad!"

Another familiar voice, though this one from a much more recent time…

"Dad!"

Mike's eyes opened and he groggily looked over at his clock. Only 3 AM? A weird time to wake up…

"Dad!"

He whipped his head around to see who was at his bed. Liz was at his side right next to him, and he could tell that she had been crying. "Liz?" he asked, as fatigue made a fast exit. "What's wrong?"

"I…I had a nightmare…" she sobbed out. "It…it was h-horrible." Mike wrapped an arm around Liz, and she solidified herself just enough for him to draw her into his embrace. "I…I was Scrap Baby, and I…I killed them. I killed e-everyone in my family! Gabe, Susie, F-Fritz, Jeremy, Cassidy, M-Mikey, Mary, Y-You…I…I killed all of you! I…I can still f-feel the blood on my hands. And every time I m-murdered one of you, I…I could hear h-him laughing. I could h-hear him laughing every time I…I…"

"Shhhh…" Mike interrupted her gently as he stroked her hair. "It was just a nightmare, that's all it was. We're all here, we're all fine. You can check every single room for yourself, if you want. Nightmare's taking care of William Afton and he won't be bothering us ever again. Everything's okay."

"C-can I sleep here tonight, dad?" she desperately begged. "Please?"

In response, Mike moved over on the bed slightly to make room, forgetting that she was a ghost. Liz gratefully got into the bed and snuggled up to her father. "T-Thanks, dad."

Mike smiled. "Good night, Liz. Hopefully the rest of the night won't be as shitty."

Despite everything, Liz let out a giggle. "T-That would be nice. Good night, dad…"

Mike watched her drift off to the land of dreams and thought back to what Oskar had said. He had a lot of work to do…

/

Throughout the next few days, Mike wore a mask of peaceful indifference as he thought about how to approach the duty that Oskar had given to him. He dismissed the idea of bringing all the ghost kids with him back to Freddy's – seeing their own mangled corpses would very likely be too much for them to handle. Besides, Oskar had made it clear that Liz should be the one to come with him for this. The colonel's ghost had talked about breaking the chains on her soul, but Mike knew that he could make them even worse if he screwed this up. It wasn't until a full two weeks after his reunion with Oskar that Mike was finally able to fully formulate his plan and carry it out.

It was late into Saturday evening when Mike popped his head into the living room, where the ghosts were playing video games together. "Hey, kids?" he called out. "I'm going to be going out for a good chunk of the night."

The kids paused their game. "Are you going out with some friends?" Fritz asked.

Mike shook his head. "Nah, not this time. I've got some…business…I need to take care of. And I'm gonna need one of you to help me." He looked straight at Liz. "Liz… would you mind coming with me?"

Liz's eyes widened. "Me?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Mike confirmed. "For what I have planned, I'm gonna need you specifically." He looked over at the others. "Before you say anything, I promise you I am not giving Liz any preferential treatment. For outings that are meant to be about fun and having a good time, we either all go or none of us go."

Jeremy shook his head. "We're not accusing you of anything, dad," he quickly reassured him. "I'm just confused."

Mike looked apologetically at them. "I can't tell you more, Jeremy. Sorry."

The other ghosts looked at each other. "Well, whatever you have to do, good luck to the two of you," Mary finally told them.

Mike nodded as Liz got up from off the floor and floated towards her dad. "Thanks, Mary. Something tells me we're gonna need it."

Liz turned herself invisible as she exited the house and followed Mike to his car. "Where are we going, dad?" she questioned, utterly baffled. "And why haven't you asked Mary to silence my voice?"

"Where we're going, you're not gonna need it," Mike replied in a surprisingly ominous tone. They got into the car and spent the first ¾ of the drive in silence. It wasn't until the last stretches that Mike spoke up.

"Liz…what I'm going to ask you to do may be very uncomfortable for you, but I wouldn't be asking you this unless I had a very good reason for it," He took a deep breath and sighed. "When we get to our destination…I'm going to need your Scrap Baby form."

Liz instantly tensed up. "Why…why do you need THAT?" she immediately went on the defensive.

"What we're gonna be doing requires a lot of physical strength," Mike explained. "I don't consider myself weak by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm still an older man and I can't do heavy work by myself. You're the most powerful ghost physically out of all of our family in your Scrap Baby form, and I'm going to need that strength for what I plan to do." He turned the car and looked up in front of him, "and it looks like we've arrived."

Liz followed her father's gaze and her eyes widened. "Wait a minute…that's…that's…"

"Yep," Mike confirmed grimly. "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. My old workplace."

"But…why are we here?" she asked, feeling her confusion and nervousness increase. Mike hadn't been joking earlier; anything involving Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria would not be a fun time for anyone.

Mike sighed. "We're going to be doing something that should've been done years ago, Liz. Except for maybe Mary, the rest of our family…their bodies were never found."

"And we're going to find them, aren't we?" Liz asked quietly and Mike wordlessly nodded in confirmation. Her mind flashed back to the nightmare she'd had last night, the slaughtered bodies of her new family and William Afton's cruel laughter. She remembered Nightmare's cruel visage and how he had snarled his condemnation at her for betraying her brother and his dedication to undoing her former father's evil. Compared to everything Mikey had been through, especially because of her, what right did she have to complain about anything? "All right, dad. I can't say I'm happy about it…but I'll do it." Her eyes hardened and her form flickered and changed. Seconds later, Scrap Baby sat where Liz Schmidt had once been. "I'm ready."

Mike ruffled her hair affectionately. "That's my girl." They got out of the car and turned to look at the building that had once been Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. The structure had been left to rot like an open sore. The sign that had once showcased Freddy's cheerful face had tumbled off, laying broken and useless in front of the building. All the windows had been boarded up, and the decorative paint had long flaked off into oblivion. The only part that looked even remotely new was the chains that had been placed in front of the entrances, preventing any entry.

"I've got this, Dad," Liz said. She reached out with Scrap Baby's claw and clasped it around the chains blockading one of the doors. With a fluid motion, she clamped the pincer shut and crushed the chain, snapping the segment in two. She moved up and down the door, cutting the chain to pieces one segment at a time. After a few seconds, the last pieces of the chain fell, and the door lay bare to them. Mike reached out to the door and pushed against it, expecting to feel resistance, but to his surprise, the door swung open and into nothingness.

"The fuck?" Mike muttered. "They chained up the entrances but forgot to lock the doors?"

"Maybe the lock mechanism rotted?" Liz suggested, to which Mike shrugged. "I was going to use my claw to break the door down if it didn't open anyway, but it looks like we don't have to worry about that."

Mike took out a flashlight and switched it on, while Scrap Baby's eyelights began to glow with their ethereal green light. Both cast their lights into the darkness, but there was very little to be seen from the outside. "Geez, I can't see a thing," he muttered. "Guess we have to go in to actually find anything." He strode forward into the darkness before Liz could respond, leaving the animatronic ghost to follow her father in close behind.

The moment Mike let go of the door, it slammed shut behind them, plunging the entire area into darkness. Mike cast his flashlight around, trying to orient himself properly. After a few seconds, he realized that they were in a colossal room, easily the largest in the entire abandoned pizzeria. "Holy crap," he realized. "This is…this is the Dining Area!"

He should have expected this, given that the pizzeria had been closed down a long time ago, but the room was almost unrecognizable to Mike apart from the large size. Back when he'd been the night guard, it had been filled with tables draped with colorful tablecloths and party hats neatly arranged on top of them, along with several chairs that would normally have been occupied by cheerful, playing children. But now, all of that was gone. There was only a barren space left where the furniture had once been. The walls hadn't been spared either – the Freddy posters had all been ripped off and the paint had chipped off in several locations, leaving the walls damaged and lifeless. Mike resisted the urge to shudder…seeing a once vibrant and lively place deprived of its vitality disturbed him more than his actual night shift at Freddy's ever had.

He forced himself to pry his attention away from the ruins of the Dining Area and back to his mission. "If I remember correctly," he mused out loud so that Liz could hear his thoughts, "the animatronics followed William Afton to…I think it was the bathrooms?" He flashed his light onto the Show Stage and was not even remotely surprised to find that the area was deserted. "I guess that's the best place for us to look."

He was about to walk in that direction, but he felt Liz put Scrap Baby's hand gently but firmly on his shoulder. "Dad…I know that we're not here to mess around, but I…I've always been curious about your office. What was it like? Can I see it?"

Mike shrugged. "We're not in any hurry or anything, Liz," he assured her. "Sure, let's take a detour. I have to admit I'm a bit curious as to what the place looks like nowadays."

Liz tried to give him a grateful smile through Scrap Baby's monstrous face as Mike guided her through the West Hall. He had expected the hall to be stripped of everything like the Dining Area had been, but to his surprise there were a couple of papers still attached to the wall, although most of them had long since tumbled down to the floor. "Foxy used to rush down this hall from the Pirate Cove to try and get me and Bonnie always attacked from this direction," Mike explained to Liz to try and distract himself from just how utterly dead the place looked. As they made it to the end of the hall, Mike instinctively shined his light to the right, where he'd seen the one Freddy poster that occasionally changed into a dismembered Freddy head or Golden Freddy.

His eyes widened and he stopped moving. "What the crap?" he exclaimed. Liz also stopped short and gave her father a confused look.

"What are you talking about, dad?" she asked.

"That poster…it's still there!" he pointed at the poster in question, the same one that Liz had seen in Mike's drawings of the West Hall Corner. "And it looks so clean compared to everything else. Just…what? How? That thing must've been there for years now!"

Liz looked more carefully at the poster in question. Mike was right…it did look surprisingly pristine for a sheet of paper that had probably been exposed to the elements for God knows how long. "Something's off with this poster…" she murmured.

"You're telling me," Mike muttered. It was admittedly disturbing and out-of-place, but at the end of the day, it was just like those hallucinations he had experienced during the Night Shift. Functionally harmless and irrelevant. He turned his flashlight to the opposite direction. "Well," he declared, "you wanted to see my Office. Here it is."

Liz trained her eye spotlights into the Office. For such an important location, it was almost anticlimactically small and empty. From Mike's drawings, she recalled there being a desk with several electronic devices on it, but all of that had long since been removed. The same applied to the poster and the papers that had been pinned to the wall years ago.

"Man, it's almost unrecognizable now." Mike commented. "Heck, if it weren't for those switches next to each door, this could easily be some random room in some building in the middle of nowhere. Never realized just how much atmosphere this little Office actually had until it's gone."

Liz looked at the now defunct Door-Light mechanism next to the door leading to the East Hall Corner. "That's all you had to keep the others out?" she asked.

"Besides a tablet? Yep," Mike answered. "And the sad thing is, that's still a better defense than what I had for most of my entire early life."

Liz shuddered and tried not to think about the picture of scars on teenage Mike's back. "Dad…I've been wondering something," she decided to change the subject. "When the power went out after each shift, the doors automatically opened, right?"

"Yeah."

"It was the same for the Private Control Module at Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental. But WHY would they operate like that, though?" Liz asked. "Shouldn't they STAY shut if the power went out? Why would they just open up?"

To her surprise, Mike chuckled dryly. "You know, I wanted an answer to that question for the longest time," he commented. "I didn't find one until college, where I could actually look up the answer to questions like that on library computers and stuff." He pointed at the doors. "The thing is, Liz, these are electromagnetically-sealed armored security doors," he explained. "And doors like these are designed to fail in a way that would be…eh heh heh…the safest way possible for whoever was inside here. Under most circumstances, you wouldn't want the person in here to be trapped with no hope of escape, which is why doors like these are designed to open if the power goes out." He scrunched his face up in irritation. "One logical question to ask would be why security doors like these are even at a freaking pizzeria to begin with, but these doors saved my life for 20 days, so hey. Fuck details."

"Fail in the safest way possible?" Liz repeated with a rare touch of sarcasm. "I don't think the Night Guards who got killed because their power ran out would agree with you."

"To be fair," Mike countered, "I'm preeeeeeettty sure that when the safety features of these doors were designed, haunted killer animatronics weren't exactly a maximum priority on the list of threats and emergencies that people had in mind." He began to imitate a conversation by shifting his voice into a blatantly exaggerated baritone. "All right, we need to make sure that this Office is well protected by two heavily armored security doors, even if this office is in a pizzeria which probably has absolutely nothing worth stealing from in the first place and these doors would probably be better off used in a bank or something. The best way to do this would be to make sure they open in case of a power outage or an earthquake or something so that the Night Guard doesn't end up getting trapped and killed. Any questions?"

He changed his voice into something high-pitched and nasally, which earned a stream of giggles from Liz that was rapidly escalating with every word Mike said. "Uhm, sir? Maybe we should have these doors stay closed if the power runs out? I mean, what if these friendly children's animatronics suddenly turn into nightmarish hunters possessed by the ghosts of murdered children that try to attack the Office and kill the Night Guard by stuffing him into a spare suit? Maybe we should keep the doors closed if the power runs out just in case that happens."

Mike shifted his voice back again. "Irwin, what the fuck are you smoking and can I have some after this meeting?"

Liz burst into laughter for several seconds as Mike finished his fake exchange. "When you put it that way, Dad…" she finally managed to breathe out.

"Yeah, reality is fucking weird," Mike commented. He took a breath. "Okay, I think we've spent enough time here. Let's take the East Hall out, it'll bring us out close to the bathrooms."

"Okay," Liz nodded her agreement. She cast Scrap Baby's eyelights around the Office one last time, and as she did so her lights fell upon the West Hall Corner poster of Freddy.

Only…it wasn't a poster of Freddy anymore. The bear was completely gone, and now the poster was completely black. Black…except for two white holes for eyes and a row of white teeth. Liz shrieked and cast her eyes away from the poster, drawing Mike's attention.

"Liz!" he exclaimed. "What's going on?"

"The…the poster…" she stuttered out, point at it with a ghostly metal finger. "It…it changed to…something…"

Mike cast his light on the poster, but the illumination revealed only the normal brown bear. Still, he wasn't going to dismiss what his daughter had told him, especially if it was a potential threat. He flashed the light on and off the poster repeatedly, and it was only after several iterations of this did he finally stop.

"If there was something there, it's gone now," Mike muttered. "I think it's best if we finish what we started and get the hell out of here as soon as possible." Liz had absolutely no disagreement to that whatsoever, and the two quickly left out into the East Hall. The posters on the East Hall were gone, but instead of the "IT'S ME" message that Mike was expecting, there was only blank wall space. "I guess those really were just hallucinations after all," Mike commented as they made their way over to the Restrooms. Mike cast his light down onto the floor, and there they were.

The four animatronics that had once been the cornerstone of the Freddy's franchise (five, if one included Golden Freddy) lay on the ground, dismantled and discarded. Several of them had their parts missing, having been taken away to what would eventually become Fazbear's Fright, and all their heads were gone. But half of them still had their bodies remaining, bodies that, perhaps, held the corpses of the murdered children within. Farther away from the pile of jumbled parts was an opening that Mike had never seen before, one that no doubt led to the Safe Room where Springtrap had been trapped for years.

He instinctively reached out towards the metal body of Bonnie, but Liz stopped him. "Let me, Dad," she insisted. "You might get hurt trying to open these suits, and I'll be able to open them much more easily."

Mike backed off and gestured for Liz to continue. The Scrap Baby ghost carefully approached Bonnie's body, which was missing its head and left a hole large enough for her to work with. Grabbing hold of one side with her hand and the other side with her claw, she slowly and carefully pried open the suit. The metal creaked and groaned as Liz slowly tore it in half, and Mike flinched instinctively, expecting to see the desecrated corpse of a child who had become one of his own. But instead of a brutalized carcass, there was…

"…nothing?" Mike asked incredulously. "There's nothing inside? But…I thought…"

Liz looked just as confused as he did. She moved on to another animatronic's body, this one being Chica's, and pried it open in the same way. Except for a few metal parts, it was completely empty.

"Did I miss something?" Mike asked himself aloud. "I was so certain that we'd find the bodies of our new family here. What am I missing?" Oskar would not have led him astray as some sort of sick joke. He had specified the old Freddy's location, and made it clear what he had wanted Mike to do. But there was nothing of significance here. What was he missing? He had come to the place that Oskar had asked him to go to…

…or had he?"

"Oh my God!" Mike smacked himself in the forehead. "I'm such a fucking idiot!"

Liz looked up in surprise. "What?" she asked. "Why would you call yourself an idiot, dad?"

"We're not in the right place!" he explained, furious with himself for being so stupid. "The children weren't murdered here. This isn't the old Freddy Fazbear's location at all!"

"There's another pizzeria?"

Mike nodded grimly. "Yep," he confirmed. "The one where even Mary was caught up in a murderous rage before she came back to her senses. The one where your brother started his quest to undo your old dad's evil."

He took one last look around the place where he had once worked. "There's nothing left to see here, Liz. We already know what happened. If we want to put the other kids' bodies to rest, it's time for us to move on."

Liz nodded her agreement, and Mike stepped out of the restroom hallway and back into the Dining Area. She was about to follow him, when she suddenly felt a strange feeling on her back. Almost as though she were being watched…

Remembering the changing poster, she quickly scoped around with her eyes, trying to find any presence that could be spying on them. But she found nothing. And even as she searched, the feeling faded away, leaving her alone in the darkness of the hallway.

"Liz?" Mike called out to her. He had noticed that she hadn't followed him out into the Dining Area.

"Coming!" she called back. She took one last look at the broken remains of the animatronics. "I'll make things right," Liz whispered. "I'll do what I should have done from the beginning. I promise, for your sake…and for Mikey's." She left the hallway to follow her father, leaving the metal parts and the shadows of the past behind.

/

A/N: I hope I managed to surprise you guys with this chapter. I'll be honest…I actually didn't come up with the idea of Oskar reuniting with Mike until WAY after I had the rest of this arc planned out. As you might have noticed, there wasn't all THAT much digging into the past here. But don't worry, there will be plenty of that to go around in the second half of this arc, and MUCH more to come in the future "duties" that Oskar mentioned.

On a side note – the doors in FNAF1 actually do work like that in real life. It's a textbook case of "Reality is Unrealistic." You can look up the entry in the FNAF 1 TV Tropes page for more details, even though I pretty much described most of it here through Mike.

And as for that poster…it's always been a weird one. The one that switched to a distorted Freddy head or Golden Freddy, you know the one. But this time, there was a new face. I wonder who THAT could've been? Or maybe Liz was just imagining things?

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed!