Gregory stood on his own two feet, refusing to look up at the adult in front of him. Said adult held out her hand expectantly. Gregory wrinkled his nose. Still, he held out his hand and allowed himself to be taken and led out. He eyed the woman as they left the Daycare and walked around to a set of stairs leading up to a walkway. She held Gregory's wrist tight enough to keep him close, but not enough to bruise. Like Maria and Dylan and the person at the security desk, she wore a white shirt with black pauldrons and pants. A silver badge stuck to her chest and a black security cap sat on her head.

She decided to say, "I have to take you to your parents, okay? You need to go home. I can't let you just run loose."

"You think I'm going to steal stuff."

"I think if you encounter a criminal looking to steal things, you'll be in big trouble," the woman pointed out, throwing a short look at him as they walked through the dark and starry hall. "Besides, it's against the rules for guests to stay past closing."

Gregory stated, "Sun said he'd take care of me."

"And he definitely would. But the Daycare Attendant can't keep a child without staff supervision, and I don't have time to watch you. It's forty degrees outside. I can't let you go without knowing you're going someplace with a heater."

"I can go on my own. I'll take the bus," Gregory mumbled.

"That's not very reassuring, especially considering the bus is a twenty-minute walk from the front entrance."

"Fifteen."

"I'm not arguing with you, anymore. You're going to stay here until your parents or the police arrive and then I can let you go." They passed through a set of shutters to the balcony above the main entrance and ticket area.

Gregory eyed the entrance as they walked down the stairs. If he let her lock him in Lost and Found or a breakroom or something, he was dead meat. He'd be tossed in a cop car and taken back and that would be that. However, if he made it to the elevators, he could get into the atrium and just poof. The cops would give up eventually and he could sneak his way out. He would need a hiding spot…

"What about Freddy?"

Freddy? What do you mean?

"If you hide in his room in Rockstar Row, she won't check there. He's really nice, so if he sees you, he might not tell her you're there."

The same Freddy that tried to murder me?

"Maybe he'll be like the others and if you talk to him before midnight he won't kill you?"

Ugh, maybe. Hopefully.

Gregory looked up as they approached the movable wall barring them entrance to the service area. Then, he yanked her hand back toward himself.

The security guard squealed in pain and immediately released him.

Gregory bolted in the opposite direction of the entrance.

She cut herself off from a swear and pulled up a walkie talkie. "Hello? Anyone still here? We got a kid running through the daycare toward the theater!"

Hah! Let them believe he was in the theater.

Gregory ducked under the shutters that once closed and now slowly opened for him. He darted down the hall and then the stairs. He passed the restrooms without a glance. A security S.T.A.F.F. bot rolled out from in front of the toy store toward Gregory, its flashlight gleaming over the ground and security cap tilted down just a little.

Gregory spun around and darted in the opposite direction. He just managed to glance through the tall, rolling, opaque hills to see Sun in the Daycare, head up and toys in his grasp. After dodging another bot, he passed the stairs, keeping close to the wall, and ducked into the first door he found–one of two on a long, dark section of the wall with huge lettering on it.

Gregory stopped.

Arcade machines.

He shook himself and ran through the short curvy maze of arcade machines, loosely themed after Sun and Moon with splashes of advertising. He spotted a few air hockey and table machines, ATMs, coin machines, and claw machines. Gregory squeezed between the arcade cabinets in the middle and hunkered down as small as he could make himself.

The lady came back to look for him, as did a couple of others. Theyeventuallyretreated. The whirring of mechanical parts and wheels on the ground signaled to him the arrival of a few more bots.

Gregory waited until finally the only thing he could hear was the quiet rumbling and whirring of technology. Strangely, it took only a few seconds for the noise to die down. After a quick breath, he wriggled out of his hiding place.

"You're new here."

Gregory slapped a hand over his mouth to keep himself from screaming. He spun around and faced a little girl in a violet blouse and blue skirt. A blue bow stuck in her loose brown braid. He stared at her for a long moment. "…who are you? A-are you another spirit? Like Evan?"

The girl huffed and rolled her eyes. "You're half-right. I am a spirit, but not like Evan. I was killed by that stupid rabbit lady. I can see her. He can't. He's a coward and sad and stuff like everyone else. I'm not."

Gregory forced himself to relax. Evan said he'd try to talk to the spirit who didn't like them. "So can you help me?"

She nodded. "Yep. I haunt the arcades. I know how to manipulate all the technology around here. I can make the arcade machines spit out tokens and coins and glitch out. I can get a air hockey machine to keep playing. I can make those light flashy booths go off. All the spirits can if they want, but they don't. I know where all the arcades are. They're my favorite place to be, 'cause that's where all the other kids are. I can also made the bots go weird and the lights flash, but that's boring."

Gregory's eyebrows furrowed. "So, if you know where the arcades are… do you know about the broken or the weird ones? Like the Princess Quest and Balloon World ones?"

She nodded again and then hesitated. "Well… I know where most of the broken ones are. But one of the Balloon World ones got rolled away somewhere when I wasn't looking and now I can't find it again. There are some special ones, like Balloon World. You saw the one Vanny stole." She wrinkled her nose as if she had smelled something foul.

Gregory nodded. "Yeah, and I played it. I beat it, too. How'd you know?"

"Because it's special," she answered simply. "I have an idea! Tonight, if you stay, you go to the other arcades. I'll point you to the special ones. The first you want to go to is the…" She squinted her eyes and tapped her chin. "What order should we do this in…? Uh… East Starcade! The one by El Chips. It's on the balcony on the third floor just outside of the East Starcade."

Gregory nodded. "Balcony by East Starcade… and you'll just… meet me there?"

"And I'll point you to the arcade cabinet, yep! If you stay." She shrugged. "If you can go, I'd recommend you go, though. Maybe you can do this during the day, when that evil rabbit isn't around." She narrowed her eyes at the wall facing the Daycare. "And I can play distraction so you don't end up in there again. Well, bye!" She skipped out the arcade, phasing straight through the door. When Gregory ran to the door and opened it, she was gone.

yeah. I'll do this… tomorrow morning.

"Good idea."

Chipper music bled from the well-lit daycare play place. Down the walkway both a story up and on the lower floor he stood on, humanoid bots with wheels, black security caps, and flashlights rolled to and fro. Thankfully, he could only see one per floor, but he wasn't taking a chance he just couldn't see the others never mind the fact he didn't know their range of sight.

Gregory crept-ran down the hall until he got to the stairs and then to a half-gate leading to the sleepy blue waiting room. It was cracked open so he could walk straight into the sleepy blue lobby.

Click

He looked back to find the gate closed completely behind him. Meh. He wouldn't need to backtrack any time soon. Hopefully.

He looked up at the golden statue of Moon and then back at the wall facing the play place. A hole attached to a colorful, curly slide with a rainbow ending in clouds announcing "SLIDE INTO FUN" was the real attention grabber.

Gregory turned his back to it and made his way through the dark room and ducked under a pair of shudders to enter the even darker hall speckled with stars in the ceiling. The soda machines still glowed, throwing multicolored lights over the shiny, dark floor. Neon lights decorating the walls gave him something to see with, but the main lights stayed off. He took out his cupcake keychain and clicked on the light, barely illuminating a few feet in front of himself.

Down the stairs, past the fountain, and beyond the ticket readers were doors. He knew the mostly empty parking lot, lit by the reflection of harsh orange lights upon cars and dark pavement, lay behind those doors. After a few minutes of brisk walking, he'd be on a bus and out of there, regardless of what Sun said. For good.

A headache started to form as he crept closer to his escape. His ears rang and eyes went fuzzy as his head filled with static. Fear bloomed in his little chest as he barely registered the party-colored shutters at the end of the starry hallway.

Oh no.

The shutters groaned open, sliding upward to reveal the darkness of the front area. More prominent neon lights crossed over the walls and glowed over the shiny, multicolored floor. A break in the neon light stood directly before Gregory. As the shutters pulled upwards, they revealed two huge, off-white rabbit feet attached the patchy gray-and-white legs with one red-cross-hatched patch.

Gregory attempted to take a step back, to heed the warning bells clamoring in his head. However, his mind went blank, and his muscles froze. His dream crashed into him like a bus, the image of her raised knife and her shiny red eyes and her hand on his arm all too real–

An oval-shaped, patchy white head tipped under the opening entryway so one white and one gray ear flopped to the side and two giant red oval eyes set above a cartoonish grin stared up at him. Her slit pupils stared straight into him. "Welcome back!"

With a mind of their own, his legs took Gregory as fast as they could back down the hall to the Superstar Daycare. Light shone through the parting bottom of the shutters like a brilliant sunrise through a broken thunderstorm. He squirmed under it before it could open all the way and shot out into the small, sleepy room. His headache cleared as he got away, but it still infringed on the edge of his senses, especially as he had to stop in front of a closed gate. He jingled the half-gate as hard as he could and spat a word he shouldn't know.

Gregory looked at the hole in the cloudy wall with a rainbow above it. "SLIDE INTO FUN!" curled above it. A protest started up in him, but the harsh return of his headache spurred him into action, and he flung himself into the hole.

He grimaced as each bump in the slide struck his ribs.

The slick slide flung Gregory out into a pile of multicolored plastic balls. He immediately struggled to the surface, Bonnie's arm tight in his grasp and his feet barely able to touch the floor. He had to readjust the knitted hat on his head. At least his headache went away. Still, he threw a look back at the empty mouth of the slide to be sure.

When he heard a squeaking noise, he ducked back under and wiggled down further. He found some breathing room as the plastic balls were too odd of shape to fit neatly together. However, some wasn't a lot and soon the area before him was stifling and warm.

"What's happening? Gregory? Where are we?"

The Daycare. Vanny was right outside.

"Are you stuck?!" a familiar, masculine voice gasped above him. Not half a second later, two large hands grasped him from around the middle and yanked him out of the pit and into the air.

Gregory gasped and blinked owlishly at Sun, who stared back with a slightly cocked head and held Gregory out at arm's length. "Are you okay? What are you doing here? It's late! You look scared. What happened?" Sun shot off at record's pace. Sun didn't require air to talk and had no lungs to force pauses between sentences. That did not make it any less creepy.

Gregory stammered. "I-I'm hiding." His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "I'm hiding. I ran and hid from those people who tried taking me away. But when I tried to escape again, she found me. I had to run, and the gate was locked."

"Who is she?" Sun asked, his voice a little slower and half a notch lower in energy.

"The-the rabbit lady. Vanny. She's in the hall here!"

Sun's small movements stopped. "The rabbit lady?"

Gregory nodded, holding onto his hand. "You have to hide me before she sees me!"

Sun's spokes twitched and he brought Gregory out onto the floor. "Well, you can hide in the play structures. She might not see you there!"

Gregory shook his head. "Then she'll come in here and catch me. She'll expect me to be hiding in the play structures! Can you just open the door for me, and I'll go find somewhere else?"

"No!" Sun squawked and then caught himself and went on, "Oh, no, I can't do that! If you saw her, you could get hurt! It's safer in here. No one and nothing can get in or out without me knowing about it."

Gregory narrowed his eyes. "You did a great job warding her off when she popped in and turned off the lights. She's scared of Moon, you know. If she doesn't know I'm here, she won't do that."

Sun made a weird noise in his voice box. "Gregory, I… look, there aren't a lot of places to hide here. Everywhere in the Daycare is accessible to staff and children alike!" There was a short pause. "…but you're right. If she knows you're here, she'll force Moon to do something he'll regret, and no one will be happy with that. Okay, well, you can stay in my room for a little while. How does that sound?"

Gregory raised an eyebrow. "Your room?"

"My room!" Sun repeated, cheer leaking back into his voice. He pointed up at the castle balcony cut off by red curtains. Gregory had first seen the yellow daycare attendant exit from there and jump into the ball pit to grab him. "No one will find you there. Only staff with high enough priority even know it exists!"

Gregory nodded. "Okay. Just until she leaves."

"Thanks, Sun."

"Thanks, Sun."

"You're welcome, Gregory!" Sun held out a hand and grabbed a cable that dropped from the ceiling. He clipped it to his back and held out his hands. "Let's go up to our room!"

For a moment, Gregory just stared. Then, realization dawned on him. "You want me to come to you?"

"Flying can get a little scary for someone who's never done it before," Sun admitted. "I know that you didn't like me grabbing you before, Gregory. And you shouldn't touch someone without their permission." He chuckled at that last part.

Gregory eyed him. The image of Sun with warped spokes and the feeling of intense fear swam back into his mind. He shook it off the best he could and stepped up to Sun. "Just up to your room. I'm not a baby. I can walk on my own."

"Oh, of course. I don't doubt that for a second!" Sun picked him up from under the arms and held him close to his chest. He smelled faintly like birthday cake and cleaning supplies.

Then, they were up. Gregory watched as the ground left them behind–the padded, multicolored floor growing smaller and the ball pit they'd been beside quickly becoming a rainbow blob. Sun landed deftly on the platform. Sun rocked on his heels, jangled the bells attached to his shoes. "Eh…. Excuse the mess. I'll tell you when you're good to go. Just don't handle any of the machinery in here, okay?"

Mess? He nearly scoffed, but instead said, "Okay. Chica let me stay in her greenroom earlier and I've been in their maintenance rooms a few times. So, I think I know how to not touch things that'll kill me."

Sun tsked at him, but there was no real force behind the noise. "Again with the tone! You need to learn some manners, young man."

Gregory snorted. "And who'll make me? You?"

Sun tapped his chin. "Well, since you wouldn't listen to me… I'm sure Chica would be very happy to help."

Gregory narrowed his eyes at him–more accurately, at the underside of his faceplate. "You wouldn't."

Sun chuckled. "I'd do anything to help my little starlings. And sometimes that help comes with a firm talking to."

Gregory muttered, "This whole thing is ridiculous."

"Aw, don't worry, I'm just messing with you!" Sun chortled, pushing through the bright red curtains.

Gregory gave him the side-eye. "Really?"

"Maybe~!"

They passed up a mountain of stacked up toddler chairs and a crate. Sun climbed over a tall railing and hopped a fairly long distance into the room to reach the floor.

"I didn't know you lived in my brother's room," Gregory snorted. A few tables stood up toward the stage. Daycare objects scattered everywhere, including an entire playhouse and a toddler table clustered with chairs, which were occupied by a Monty, a Freddy, a Chica, a Roxy, and a Bonnie plush–all in pristine condition. A Sun plush lay against the play house near it. String lights drooped over the walls, connected to the ceiling every few feet. What took the smile off his face was the headless S.T.A.F.F. bot hunched over a table under a big complex section of electronic devices and stuff connected directly to the wall. Another mangled bot lay crumbled in the corner and a broken, partially disassembled S.T.A.F.F. bot lay on a table against the wall opposite the entrance. An endoskeleton head and torso lay amongst the wreckage along with some other electronics. A slightly scuffed Moon plush lay discarded on the other side of the room.

Sun chuckled and walked toward a hole in the wall opposite the headless bot. "Ah, well, I just… haven't gotten around to cleaning. I've been a bit of a busy bee."

"Why are there broken bots here? And why doesn't that one have a head?"

Sun set Gregory down in front of the hole in the wall, which turned out to be a tunnel. "Well… they're… I–I found them that way. The staff would've just thrown them away. So, I decided to, um… help them. Or try to. A-anyway! In here there should be some room for you to sit down and stay a while. You can take a nap o-or play with some of the toys in here. Just please don't touch the machinery."

Sun pointed to the tunnel.

Gregory kept his gaze on Sun. "What do you mean 'help them'? Are you an engineer, too? I didn't know bots could do repairs on other bots."

Sun wrung his hands. "They-they can't. We can't. We weren't coded with that information. Moon was given the information to know how to render the other animatronics harmless and ready for transport, but that is the fullest extent of any of our knowledge. I've begged the engineer team over and over to help Moony and they won't do it." Sun's voice took a surprisingly hard edge. "They refuse to. I don't know why, but they won't do anything! They just keep the lights on all the time! So!" His voice leveled out. "I'm teaching myself mechanics. Maybe if I learned what went wrong with them, I-I'll learn what went wrong with Moony and I'll fix him."

Greogry raised his eyebrows. "You can do that?"

"It's really super duper hard, but I think I'm learning, yeah! But that's what brothers are for, right? We do things to help even if they're hard."

The comment stung, even if it wasn't meant to.

"Now, I-I should go clean the Daycare. She might suspect something if I'm not there. You stay in there, please." Sun gestured to the tube again.

Gregory bit back a sigh and nodded. "Okay." He walked to the tube, biting his cheek and hugging Bonnie tight.

"You still have me. You don't need him. You don't need any of them."

I know. I know. It's just… I know. But needs and wants rarely overlapped.

Gregory climbed over an oversized, soft alphabet cube into a cramped room with more string lights and a small, thin spotlight attached to a board on the ceiling. The spotlight pooled light over the wall he climbed through, glowing over a cluster of children's drawings of the band. A few had Sun or Moon on them. The spotlight was attached to a different cord than the string lights. He sucked in his breath as he almost tripped over another endo skeleton part and grimaced. Ugh. Merch hung on another wall. Pillows scattered over the corner under the pictures with the upper body of a mangled S.T.A.F.F. bot on them, a few huge mattress-like pillows lay in the center, and milk crates with some supplies. Other crap scattered about, including a Sun plush and a Roxy piñata. A golden Sun plush lay against the corner.

Most interestingly, a Balloon World arcade cabinet stood against the world, its screen glowing and flashing between the "START" and "HIGH SCORE" screen. A weird feeling overcame him as he looked at it. "Bonnie…"

"You have that feeling again?"

Yeah.

"I mean, at least it's safe here."

Gregory set Bonnie down beside the arcade cabinet. A note sat on the ground. "EXIT INTERVIEW: They are working together. The arcades. They are hiding something. The glitches. Glitch them all at the same time... then the Princess will recognize me. She's testing me. I am not yet worthy. The others are protecting it. Let me stay! I am so close! Just one more night, please! I can save the Princess!" Weird?

Balloon Boy stood on a diving board with three balloons in hand and a circus background and Sun in the top right corner. The game went as normal, Gregory pressing buttons and balancing keeping Balloon Boy in the air and out of harm's way while also collecting balloons and points. He found a glitch in a tree once he got to the woods. Everything went nuts and dark, and Moon's face superimposed over Sun's and a double layer of rays appeared around him. The lines between his jagged teeth and around his eyes glowed. Just as before, he got to the end and his character was jerked to the middle of the screen and the Sun character filled the dark screen.

Then, the screen turned black and Balloon Boy–a very, very simplified, eight-bit version of the character with one balloon and a red shirt without stripes–dropped from the top of the screen down to the bottom of the screen. The next screen was black with lines of varying gray shades like an old TV screen. The third screen had three Balloon Boy sprite silhouettes with gray tear streaks standing below a massive, simplified, three-branched tree. His colorful sprite landed on the same plane as the tree and crying balloon boy shadows. Hesitantly, Gregory edged his character toward the first one. His smiling sprite, having no walking animation but a springing noise any time he jumped and a click when he landed, moved over the sprites and to the next screen. This screen was black with a blue square, three platforms with two extended white circles like clouds, and a giant balloon flashing in multiple colors. He hopped through the blue square, onto the platforms and to the flashing balloon. Immediately, the balloon vanished, his character froze, and stripes of pure white overtook the screen. Then, the screen hissed in static and shut off.

Gregory stepped back. "…you saw that, right?"

"Yeah. I… saw that. That was different than the first game."

"I'll need to ask Sun when he gets back. It was definitely different."

Beep! [Ask me what?]

Gregory picked up Bonnie and sat down near the machine. "Your Balloon World machine. It was acting weirdly. Have you played it?"

Beep! [Yes. But only a few times. It doesn't have an ending. Did you play it?]

"Yeah, and something weird happened. There's a Balloon World game in Vanny's room and when I played that, I beat it. You just have to find one of the purple glitches, go into it, and then follow the weird line to the end."

Beep! [You went into the rabbit's room? That's super not safe!]

Beep! [Gregory, you could've been hurt!]

"But I wasn't! You guys worry too much. Anyway, I did the same thing here and then it dropped me into a whole new eight-bit game. But like, nothing really happened. I just needed to grab a balloon and then the game kinda crashed. Also, there's this weird note by the machine talking about a princess and glitches."

There was half a second's delay.

Beep! [The game hasn't ever changed on me. Is it off?]

"Yeah. The screen's black. It cut to static and turned off. Now I can't hear any buzzing or anything inside of it." Gregory looked over the colorful, silent cabinet. Lights gleamed off the dark screen.

Beep! [I can check it out when I get back! Are you still in the room?]

"Yeah. So, what about that note?" Gregory picked it up. It was handwritten, like most of the others he found.

Beep! [Oh. That was stuck in the machine. It's from the previous Daycare Attendant. She was a nice lady. The kids really liked her! :) Too bad she left.]

Gregory blinked. "What? But you're the Daycare Attendant."

Beep! [Yep! But the Daycare used to be attended by humans! Then we took over after she left.]

Gregory looked down at Bonnie. "Did you know that, Bonnie?"

"Yeah. I was an original, Gregory. I've been here since the place was built!"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You never asked, and it never came up in conversation."

Gregory asked, "So, if you were made to be a Daycare Attendant, and she left, wouldn't that mean the Daycare would have had to be closed for a super long time while you were made?"

Beep! [Nope! We were told it only took nine days plus three to get used to the Daycare while it was empty and two days to work with the previous Daycare Attendant during the day. We weren't built to be in the Daycare. We were actually made to be in the Theater! We just switched jobs to go where we were needed.]

"Whoa, you were on stage? Like Freddy, Bonnie, Monty, Chica, and Roxy?"

Beep! [Haha! Whoa, not like them! They're rockstars. Moony and I were performers. We were in theater performances, not in a band.]

Gregory could recall Sun's words earlier that evening. "I'm not mocking anyone, Gregory! I'm acting~!" Later he put on a puppet show. "Do you miss being on stage? It's okay if you do. Monty says he does. He has a stage in Gator Golf he never goes on, too."

Another very short span of silence.

Beep! [Aw, that's nice of you to ask! Sometimes, but I'm happy to be here! We love it here! As much fun as theater is, we love working in the Daycare.]

"Because they've been re-coded to. Sun was a bit of a snobbish jerk before, but at least that's because he was doing what he was originally made to do, and he was proud of it. Moon got way into its role. Like too into it and would be his creepy persona outside of performances, too. At least Monty enjoyed the bit and played along."

What?

"Yeah, Monty would go to the theater sometimes and Sun or Moon would go to Gator Golf and they'd do stupid stuff. After they became babysitters, they kinda drifted apart, and after the Moon situation, well… you know what happened."

Gregory stared at his lap, eyebrows furrowed. Why didn't they stay friends?

"They turned into almost completely different people. They weren't them, anymore, Gregory."

Beep! Gregory jolted as the noise pulled him from his thoughts. [You got to spend a lot of time with the glamrocks, huh? Have you been here before?]

He nodded. "Twice. I got to meet Bonnie for the first time. But then the second time, Bonnie wasn't here, anymore. So, Mom got me this Bonnie plush instead. She said he was special. I don't know how she knew, but she must have known somehow, because he is."

"I don't know, either."

Gregory snorted. "I bet I would've liked you more back then. I was really little. And yellow was my favorite color."

Beep! [Well, you have great taste! Yellow is a great color! What's your favorite color now?]

"Um… green. Like, dark green. Bonnie's is dark green, too."

"Like the jungle. It's so crazy cool. I have things to say about Fazbear Entertainment, but they did really well with Monty's swamp."

"Heh! He likes how Monty's swamp is decorated."