Birds of a Feather

by Cassiun

Evan Afton never had an easy life. After his short life of fearing animatronics and promptly dying to one, he realized how awful this world could be. Though, after many changes he realized that animatronics were similar to him and so he vowed to help and take care of the ones who wanted a new life. Except, nothing is bound to go as planned. Cover Artist: @saints wake art

15. Chapter 15

Author's Notes

IMPORTANT NOTES AT THE END!
Also, mild trigger warning for suicidal talk.

Thank you very much for all of your kind feedback in the last chapter! :D Touching my heart so sweetly when I came back made my week, honestly.

Moving on, I feel the need to explain something as someone personally brought this up to me and I'm unsure if I made this clear enough. Michael went ballistic over two things:
1) Roxanne told him that she and Vanny both felt the same way and, before what Michael thought was Vanny pouring his heart out to him, stabbed him and threw him in a pit to die. It's pretty much a large misunderstanding but having the two people you put all your trust into basically 'betray you' was devastating.

2) Michael personally believes that Evan's family is mostly a good thing… except they're a living testament to everything he's been trying to hide thus far. In his rashness after basically becoming a walking pile of meat, he has given up trying to let this go on any longer especially since there's a 'copy-cat killer' about now to back up his mental claims.

All-in-all, the guy isn't thinking straight. Probably knocked a few screws loose on the descent (into madness). I feel like this oughta clear up any confusion there may be and everything here has basically at least briefly been mentioned in the last chapter so think of this as a recap.

Lastly, will probably change how flashback dialogue functions. Yippee.

With all that being said, I hope you're all buckled up for this upcoming chapter. Time for the Manhunt. Err… Corpsehunt, I guess.

---

Corpsehunt - Insanity

Unlike how Cooper thought Michael would show up the next night for work, neither him nor Vanny were anywhere to be seen. Michael's vehicle had still been sitting outside and hadn't been touched whatsoever since it parked the night before. Naturally, a lot was thrown off from having two important people, one from each company, going missing suddenly.

Evan decided to reduce working hours of the business until further notice while, on the other side, the Glamrock animatronics had been feeling the change, especially Roxanne. She, in particular, had not been seen coming out of her room the entire day and no one had the audacity to make her. It had been obvious how broken over this she had been but, what they didn't know, is that she was no longer crying over Michael's disappearance. In fact, she did leave the room on what seemed to be her last ditch attempt at hope.

"Are you certain this will work?" Whispered Roxanne nervously as she inched through the now barren hallways of the Pizzaplex as she had been since the place closed down for the night.

"Yeah, I think so." Said the boy through the watch, guiding her to the destination. It had been an entire twenty four hours since Roxanne made a deal with the boy and his robot, but what choice did she have? According to them, and the evidence he brought to the table, Michael had been in peril and the only person, or animatronic, who could bring him back was the wolf herself.

-SB-

"What do you want from me?" Said the reluctant Roxanne. Gregory fistpumped as he celebrated getting what he felt was the hardest part of this operation done.

"There are three rules. They are simple yet not so simple." Said the boy. "Firstly, you mustn't tell anyone else what is going on. In fact, it would be best to seem as if you're holed up in your room for now." Roxanne didn't like the sound of the first rule, but no one would believe her even if she told them.

"Okay…"

"Second, you must do as we say at all times. Your health and safety is just as important to us as it is to you." She increasingly started to hate agreeing to this but then she thought about Michael's disappearance once more and resolved herself.

"Lastly, you need to keep calm at all times. I'm sure there will be things that will terrify you and even make you feel sick to your stomach. No matter what, do not let anyone outside of me and Michael know about what's going on until we assess the situation." Weirdly enough, this had seemed to be the most reasonable request out of the three.

"What do I need to do?" Huffed Roxanne again, impatiently tapping her off hand.

"First off, we need to find him." The wolf rolled her eyes at this.

"And how do you plan on doing that? What can you do that everyone else can't, kid?"

"Well, Freddy is smart in his own right but he doesn't exactly understand the potential of the other functions of Faz-Watches radar. Signals actually can be tracked even after they end. It's something basically like a digital footprint or leaving digital data behind. Either way, we just need to find it." The gray animatronic didn't understand all this technology talk, but she had watched enough CSI-type shows with Michael to understand that there was something they could track Michael off of.

"Okay and how exactly do we do that?"

"Well… there's two ways. I can either look for it manually, which will take too long, or I can get you to move around the Pizzaplex until your watch picks up a signal. Speaking of which, I am sending you some mail to your Faz-Watch. Just press it and it will download the necessary stuff for us to help you remotely."

Roxanne shook her head and gave a frustrated sigh as she quickly gave in, tapping the file and watching the download bar spring onto the screen before slowly filling up. There had been a lot going on at once and a lot of questions the wolf wanted to ask, but there were a few in particular that stuck out first.

"Aren't you Evan and Chara's little brat?" Said Roxanne who was seething. "What the hell would you know? This had better not be a prank because I am not in the mood for it." The call was silent for a moment before the boy spoke.

"You already know who I am and this isn't a prank. Though, that's about all you need to know for now. We don't have the time nor the leisure to allow this to go on any longer unless you'd like to lose Michael for good." A silence filled the air and an anxiety like no other filled the wolf's chest as she realized that even after getting a chance to save her best friend, she could still potentially lose him. Another moment of silence, accompanied by a long sigh, passed by as she started to get up and move out of her greenroom, a new determination in her yellow eyes.

"Where do I go first?"

-SB-

In reality, Roxanne didn't need to hide from anyone in the Pizzaplex. Though, the questions that could possibly be posed were problematic on several different levels.

It had been nearly twenty four hours since Roxanne and Gregory made contact with each other and, periodically, the boy would tune in to check on the wolf to guide her in places she hadn't been which included areas that normally only technicians accessed.

It had been decently unpleasant for the faye to be here as she found herself constantly stepping into puddles and finding lots of stuff blocking her path didn't make it any better. Nevertheless, she trudged on with only the thought of possibly finding Mike and Vanny back here somewhere and giving them a piece of her mind.

It had been pretty quiet minus the occasional run in with the endos and water leaks dripping into pools of water that could be heard, but nothing had been found up to this point. At least, until a small trace of something popped up on Gregory's tablet.
He had been relaxing in his room, fiddling with a small contraption while giving the tablet he'd been staring at on and off for the past day to give him some sort of signal and, finally, something had been showing up. A faint purple dot, custom colored in order to keep track of certain individuals, had shown up at the corner of the screen. It had been quite hard to see with how faint it was, so much so that the boy had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things. After removing his hands from his eyes and checking again, Gregory scrambled to grab his tablet.

"Roxy, wait!" Cried the boy through Roxanne's watch, startling her as she was stepping over a puddle and nearly setting her foot directly in it. With a bit of moving and a growl, she set herself steady and looked annoyed at her watch.

"This better be good, brat…" Grumbled the tired wolf. She had been nearly non-stop searching the entire day, minus the times Gregory had gotten busy with family on his side. The weariness was starting to grow and her eyes drooped in response to it. Her tail sagged a bit when she stopped as her entire body felt the aching soreness and tired feeling creeping in, telling her to get some sleep. She had got to a point that she felt the little boy had lied to her all along but continued pressing onwards in foolish hope. To say Roxanne was grumpy was an understatement.

"I-..." Gregory started before cutting himself off, making small noises on the other side of the call.

"Spit it out." Growled Roxanne impatiently as she felt her body feeling more burdened as time went on and her spirit dwindled in comparison to her want to sleep. After all, they hadn't found a single scrap or trace of either Mike or Vandana since they started.

"I think I see them… Well, one of them…" Said the boy whispering, almost going unheard by Roxanne. Her ears perked up and her heart hopped up in hope.

"What?"
"I-... It's difficult because I had to put down the signal pings as he has been almost everywhere in the facility, but finally I think we found his last place which is-" Gregory had suddenly been interrupted by a loud wolf.

"Where is he?!" Cried out Roxanne directly to the mic, demanding the boy to give the location immediately. Her previously tired body felt full of energy and her mind swam through the many possibilities. The sooner she knew where the night guard was, the sooner they'd reunite.

"Whoa, slow down." Said Gregory, throwing a wrench in her train of thought. "The good news is that we found his last location which means he's either still there or something is blocking the signal. Luckily enough, it's not all that far away… but…"

"But?"

"He's outside of the bounds of the Pizzaplex and… it's not in a direction I would've expected." The wolf rolled her eyes, still not used to his prattling.

"Spit it out, already. We need to go find him."

"I know how you feel but… I don't like the look of it. Just… follow my instructions and be wary." From there on, Roxanne made her way back through the maintenance tunnels and out closer to the main employee area, but suddenly they dipped into an 'off-limits' area that she had never seen before. As she made her way through the already open door, she saw an extent to the disarray of the room.

It had looked like it was newly under construction years ago with the floor being nothing more than partial concrete and rebar and further floor looking more like wood and support beams. The walls had been made out of uncovered drywall that sorta rotted from the exposure to the elements. A singular red light shone out from inside the room perhaps to show that the door was open. Though the biggest issue of all sat, or sank moreso, in the middle of the floor.

A gaping hole spanned a good portion of the farther floor, disappearing partially into the shadows along with the rest of the room. Just in the space in front of the door, a bit of light shone on what looked like dried blood leading towards the hole. It had been obvious something had been going on here but Roxanne wasn't sure she could figure it out. Taking herself back into reality, she asked Gregory the question he'd been expecting to hear.

"Is… is he down there?" Said the wolf softly as she peered into the abyss.

"That's where it says he's at and… I suggest not falling in. It's a looooong fall." Roxanne's heart nearly stopped when she thought about the blood and her night guard being down there in the same thought.

"Is he going to be okay…?" Said Roxanne even softer, a bit of worry seeping into her sentence.
"Okay? Probably not." Admitted the boy bluntly, getting a stink eye from the robot in the room with him. "Buuuuut, he's alive down there. Who else would be better to save him than you?" The idea of saving Mike from his peril was a good image in Roxanne's mind as she framed how she'd be treated if she were to help him out in his time of need. She shook away those thoughts for a moment when she remembered that he was probably hurt from all of this and steeled herself for what may come next.

"Okay, what do I do?"

-SB-

A pair of silent eyes watched the wolf talk to her watch from afar. He thought that Roxanne had been acting weirdly since her friend had been gone, but now he knew what was going on. Without another sound, the silent pair of eyes disappeared.

-SB-

It was a quiet night in the Nafto family household. Most of the family had been doing their own thing in their own areas for the day and Evan had been winding down for the night at the table with Mangle after a busy day of work.

While Evan finished eating his Hamburger Helper plate, which was something they ate by choice as the beef stroganoff had been one of their families favorites, the man looked at his hand as Mangle painted his nails. It had been something the pink fox always wanted to do but wasn't allowed to do it until tonight.

"Black, purple or glitter with gloss?" Asked Mangle as she dumbed down the choices to three simple and easy to choose from options. The shade of purple had been different from the one Evan grew up to know, but still didn't make him feel good wearing purple on his nails. He randomly pointed at the sparkly nail polish.

"That one is fine." He said as he took another bite of his food, taking great care to shove a large bite into his gullet. With Evan's a-okay, Mangle started painting his nails carefully as Chara made her way into the room. Her hands had been full of a couple different jeans they had picked up the day previous from a thrift store as both of the girls wanted to start wearing more casual clothing.

"Sis, try these on for me." Said Chara as she laid them on the table. Mangle, who had been relaxing in nothing but a pair of shorts and a loose fitted shirt to begin with, was happy to oblige.

"I'll get back to your nails in a minute, mister." Said the fox as she got up. "No running away until I'm finished with you." Evan smiled as he knew he got himself into a mess and was going to bear through it for her sake. After all, the nail polish probably wouldn't stick out that much.

It took no time for Mangle to get around to trying on the jeans. Instead of taking off her shorts, she wore the jeans over them saying that they'd barely make a difference in whether or not she could fit in them. At least, that was until the first pair were so tight she couldn't fit in them. With a small laugh, Chara looked amusedly towards her struggling sister.

"Perhaps you've been eating a few too many pancakes recently, dear sis." Teased the black striped sister. A smiling, but effort-filled, face flashed a look back at the puppet.

"No, I've just always had bigger assets down here than you." Retorted the pink fox, who turned a bit as she still struggled to get them on. It had been at an angle that Evan had almost no choice but to look. Not that he'd complain.
Both of the sisters had their own places they accel in and, while part of it was his fault for creating them that way, the Remnant and their own minds ended up shaping them up to be a lot better than how they started off. It had been something that Evan would love to study with great fervor but asking either of the girls to study their own 'bits' didn't sit right with him.

As Chara started to notice Evan staring at Mangle's ass failing to squeeze into the jeans, she grew a devious smile on her face. The puppet moved up to her sister, gave her a knowing look and a point towards Evan before they both started to look at him with smiles on their faces. It wasn't until many moments later that Evan caught onto this, breaking himself out of his train of thought.

"Enjoying the view, love?" Said Chara as she smiled at him mischievously. Evan opened his mouth but Mangle pushed a finger against his lips, shushing him.

"I always knew you had your eyes on me." Said Mangle, joining in on the joke making the poor man blush a bit of red in his face before both of the girls started to giggle. Evan sighed a bit but was unable to keep a smile off of his face as seeing both of them happy together like this was something he always enjoyed from the bottom of his heart. Within a heartbeat, he got up and wrapped them both in an embrace which they both returned gladly. They stood there for a few long moments, basking in eachother's warmth and love before Mangle piped up.

"I don't want you to let me go but…" Said the pink fox before trailing off, making both Evan and Chara stare directly at her, "I think I might fall if I don't get out of these pants soon." With a sheepish grin and a nervous look on her face, Evan started to laugh at the sight, followed soon after by Chara, in which Mangle proceeded to pound lightly on the man's chest in playful retaliation.

It had been at that moment that Evan's personal phone rang, stopping them all in their tracks and breaking up the mood. It had been rare that anyone called his personal phone and on those rare occasions, it had really only been a couple of people. One of them being the same person that was currently missing. With a bit of a light dash, he made his way towards his phone to pick it up and answer it.

"Hello?" Started Evan, seeing that his phone didn't recognize the number.

"Is this Evan?" Called out Glamrock Freddy from the other side of the phone. It sounded a bit distant from the receiver, but the man couldn't exactly fault the bear. Whatever phone he's using must've been a bit clunky for him to use against his face.

"Yes, this is Evan. What can I do for you?"

"Well, as you know, Michael has been gone for more than a day now and, while we don't need a night guard, he's been a great help around here. With that being said, he is greatly missed by everyone around here. Some more than others, naturally." Evan nodded knowing very well that the bear spoke of Roxanne.

"I understand. So, did you find anything related to him? Any idea where he slipped off to?" Evan grabbed his mug filled with juice and took a sip, savoring the naturally sweet taste of it as he listened to the bear speak.

"In a way, I believe we did." It had been enough of a surprise that the man nearly spat up his drink, coughing as he set the mug down. It was enough to grab the attention of the two girls standing nearby as they continued to try on pants, both of them staring directly at Evan.

"You found him?"

"Not quite… Well, it's a bit hard to explain… but that's why I called you! We have a very reliable source of information and a bit of a situation regarding Roxanne. If you can, would you please come down here to help us? I apologize if I'm interrupting something important." Evan shook his head.

"No no, I understand that you'd need help but I am curious… Why did you call me instead of someone who actually works there?" There had been a bit of hesitance on the other side of the phone as it was obvious Freddy was trying to find the right words to use.

"The issue is that no one here knows the secrets behind Michael except me and Roxanne. Even then, they're not nearly as much as you seem to know. Just from overhearing a good amount of your conversations and the way he entrusts you with things he wouldn't even trust us with, it's clear you are the one we need."

These words had been weirdly touching to Evan who, for a very long time, distrusted and feared his older brother. It had been a lot less jarring to see his older brother alive and treating him well whether or not he knew that Evan was actually his little brother. In retrospect, Michael did seem to rely a lot on Evan when it came to things about his dark past even if it meant getting a bit dirty for them in the process.

"Well, if you say it like that, I have no choice but to come over." Said Evan with a bit of a sigh while giving his girls, who were listening in on the entire conversation, a glance. "I won't get into any trouble being there when the Pizzaplex is closed, right?"

"Of course not. Michael has already notified your possible arrival on the premise so that if you do decide to bring over your family that you will be free to do so at any time!" Responded Freddy cheerfully. Evan vaguely remembered Arin mentioning something about that on a business phone call a while back but had probably been a bit too focused on the work part of it all to really take Arin's offer in at face value.

"Sounds great. We'll meet you down there as soon as possible." Said Evan about to end the call before Freddy called out once more.

"Wait!" Cried Freddy from the other side, stopping the man in his tracks as he listened intensely to his bear friend's words. "Do you think Jeremy would want to come hang out with us?" A chuckle could be heard through the phone as Evan couldn't help but let one out.

"I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to ask." Said the man lightly as Mangle silently cheered for them before making her way down the stairs to let Jeremy know. "Anything else I can do for you?"

"Perhaps an open mind. Anything else we'll need, hopefully we can find here."

"Sounds like a plan. See you soon, Freddy." With that, the call ended and he put his phone down with a sigh. He hung his head back slightly as he leaned back against the counter, hoping to give himself a bit of a reprieve tonight while he still could.

It didn't take long to feel a pair of slender arms wrap themselves around his body and feel a weight press against his chest. In response, he reached out and rubbed the edge of Chara's mask with his thumb, receiving a resonating purr of noise from her internal music box. He felt the weariness of the day slowly wash away from the moments he spent with his partner pressed against him. With her, every problem in the world could be put on hold and life could feel peaceful and wonderful.

Yet, that fantasy was quick to be broken as Mangle and Jeremy made their way up the stairs and into the kitchen forcing the two to part. Mangle pouted a bit as she saw the end of them snuggling up together.

"Awwh but I wanna do that!" Said the pink fox as if she was a five year old throwing a tantrum. Chara smiled a bit as she looked back at her sister.

"Just ask him, then." Said Chara who regained her mischievous grin from earlier. "He had his eyes on you plenty today so I'm sure he wouldn't mind." Evan rolled his eyes and Mangle and Jeremy both looked at each other with a knowing smile to each other. "Besides, don't you still have to paint his nails tonight? I'm sure if you take it along with you we'll find some time to get it done."

With a gasp, Mangle jumped towards the kitchen table and swiped the few bottles off of the kitchen table before running back towards her room.

"Dressing up! I'll be out in a minute!" Called Mangle before hearing her door shut behind her. Evan and Chara looked at each other before shaking their heads. It didn't take long for Evan's thoughts to run a bit wild in perspective of the call today.

It hadn't been long since both Michael and Vanny disappeared and, while Freddy had said he had answers, it probably meant that things were more or less fucked up beyond a simple conversation or a bandage. It never was easy fixing issues when it came to anything related to Freddy's but, hopefully, Michael and Vanny had been okay. Hopefully it's just a misunderstanding.

It's not like anyone's dying tonight.

-SB-

It was a wet, cold and uncomfortable night inside the tunnels below the Pizzaplex when Vanny woke up. The moment she became conscious, her memories started to flood back into her body along with a hangover that felt like her head was splitting in two.

She weakly screamed and clawed at her head, pressing her hands to it forcefully as if she was trying to keep her head together. The memories of last night's fiasco had finally imprinted itself painfully into her mind as if she was reliving the whole ordeal again once more, taunting her with the sins she had committed the night before. It was then she felt the biggest pain of all tonight: the pain of her betrayal.

Her dirty hands came to her face as she felt that she was back inside of the suit. The suit that the voice inside her head drove her to build every single day. The same suit that she used when skipping through the halls of the Pizzaplex when she came to see Michael only to be scolded that she couldn't let him catch her. The same suit she wore was made from pieces of old hand-me-downs from her grandparents whom she loved more than anyone else. The same suit that she hid parts of under her nurses costume all night because she had no choice.

This hadn't been the first time she woke up in this damp, cold place either. It probably was one of the main culprits as to why she got so deathly sick in the first place. At least this time, she was a bit more used to the feeling but the recoil of what she did last night dealt a heavy enough blow to her to make up for that.

The scene of her stabbing Michael played over and over in her head again and again, feeling the sickening soft feeling as his flesh parted when the knife sank deep into him. The way his face turned from one of trust and acceptance into one of utter confusion and betrayal. She curled up into a ball as tears ran quickly down her face and sobs weren't too far from erupting from her throat, sobbing as she realized the man she loved dearly was now dead and it was by her hands.

"How could I possibly live with this?" Vandana thought to herself as she sobbed even harder, the stone surroundings echoing her voice back onto her. "How could I possibly live with myself now?" Life had been going so well until this voice invaded her mind. Even though it did help her get closer to Michael, it wasn't hard to see that, in the end, it had been the pushing force behind his death.

For a while, she simply laid there as she released her tears into her clothing, her body trembling as she weeped her eyes out for her dead friend. Normally, there would be way too much running through her brain to process but, after realizing that none of it mattered at this point in time, she emptied her mind as she cried. It wasn't until much later, once she had calmed down a bit, that she realized that she needed to take action.

"First, I'll find his body and give him a proper burial." The woman thought to herself as she unfurled her body from the position she was in. She wasn't sure how, but she knew these tunnels like the back of her hands so she figured that Michael's body would be lying at the bottom of the pit, not too far away from where she currently was.

"Once I finish that, I… I can't be alive. I cannot allow myself to do this to anyone else. I-I… I have to di-" Even thinking about what she knew she needed to do was rough, but there couldn't be any other way. Vandana knew there was something wrong with her brain and even killed someone because of it. She felt that this was at least a small portion of repayment she could do to right her wrongs.

Finally, once she was to her feet, she made her way down the brick and concrete laid corridors before her eyes begrudgingly glanced over towards where her friend should be laying. Yet, there was a good and bad surprise waiting for her.

As she got closer, she realized that someone had landed here. From the amount of debris to the substantial amount of blood on the ground, someone had been here not all too long ago. From the looks of the blood itself, the person couldn't have survived that fall. Unfortunately, that wasn't where things ended.

There seemed to be chunks of purple bits lying around along with a trail of blood that made it further into the tunnels, making it seem as if they weren't dragged off but as if they got up and started to walk.

Vanny's heart raced as the idea of her friend being alive ran through her brain and her feet started to carry her towards where the trail led her. "Perhaps he could still be saved!" The woman told herself, knowing very well that no one should have survived that fall but she held onto this idea of Michael possibly being alive. She had no idea what she'd tell him about stabbing him but she'd make it up to him somehow as long as he was alive.

Her desperate mind buzzed with possibilities as she continued to follow the trail left for her. Her pace got faster and faster as she couldn't wait to help out Michael who had to be alive around this corner. Her brain practically envisioned it and her body welcomed it. No matter what she would have to do in order to make him better, she'd do it. Her mind practically begged for his life to still be in his body as she turned one last corner only to stop dead in her tracks as she looked at the limp body in front of her.

A purple arm had been placed barely inside one of the lights that had illuminated the underground, showing that the man might as well have been dead. There hadn't even been a twitch or slight raise you'd get from someone who would be alive, but that wasn't the thing that caught Vanny's attention. The purple colored flesh the body adorned had been extremely alarming on another level with sirens basically blasting inside of her head from that new voice. She did her best to ignore it for the moment and move closer.

"...Mike?" Called out the woman meekly towards the body, unable to get a response. "It's-... It's me, Vandana… I'm… I'm sorry. Please be alive." As if to answer her call, a moment later the arm did twitch before it twitched again and finally it moved on its own.

"Van…ny?" Called out a weary and painriddled Michael. "Van… Vanny?" The woman smiled and started to move closer.

"Yes, Michael, it's me. I'm here to help you. I-" Said Vandana before she was interrupted.

"Vanny." Said the night guard again. It had been spoken weirdly as if there was no reason to say it other than out of pure disbelief, but the woman simply chalked it up to Michael being injured too badly to think straight.

"Yes, it's m-" The man shifted a bit as he got up, standing up on both legs. Most of his body was shrouded by darkness so it was hard to tell what exactly was wrong with him minus the purple skin.

"VANNY." Said the man once more, putting a lot of emphasis on her name, as he leaned forward taking a shaky step in her direction. "I… I-" Something had been alarming with how the shadowed figure stood. Where there should have been two, straight legs supporting the man underneath, one had been bent in a highly concerning angle. The woman wanted to rush to the man, help him off what looked like a painfully broken leg but the voice in her head snapped her out of her worry. 'RUN' It said in a panicked way that she had never heard before.

"VANNY…" Another step had been taken and suddenly part of Michael's body was shown under the light, making the woman gasp at the amount of blood that soaked his Joker outfit. Bits and pieces of it had been torn and slashed on the side that had been shown, but this wasn't what concerned Vanny the most.

A long metal pole had protruded from Michael's chest with blood dripping down it. The location it had punctured had seemed to go underneath the ribcage and into his right lung making it seem like a fatal blow. The woman stopped herself for a moment, catching her last thought as she started to wrap herself around that.

'The puncture looked fatal, but that can't be…" Thought Vandana in disbelief. 'He's walking around right in front of me… but how…?' Though she felt that Michael being alive was something of a miracle as if it was written straight from a fairytale, the situation told her it had been anything but. It had been at that moment she realized something had truly been wrong here. After so much digging behind the scenes about Michael and his past and the relation he had with Freddy's she knew he couldn't have been normal but once she saw his face, she realized how much danger she had been in.

Michael's face had been perfectly fine on the side he was stabbed with the metal pole, but the other side had shown that a good portion of his face had been simply destroyed from the fall… as if he broke his fall with that part of his head. It had been a bit caved in and any semblance of facial features had practically been removed, leaving nothing but a mess of red and purple. He had looked akin to a zombie that she'd seen in the horror movies she binged on her days off, but the worst part was the look in his eye.

Michael's good eye had glowed a familiar purple that she often associated with the voice in her head. Yet, there had been more than the color hidden in that eye. It seemed to practically pour out hatred and anger from it with all of it being directed at the woman in front of him. It was then that Vanny realized she was in trouble.

As she stepped back, Michael took another step and another, slowly increasing his speed and moving towards her. His mouth trembled as he tried to drop his jaw while part of his mouth fought to open at all. His leg snapped as he put his weight on it to step forward but, despite that, he seemed to only move faster.

"VANNY!" He screamed once again, his pace quickening once more. It was then Vanny ran, her mind overflowing with thoughts and beliefs that had once been fiction, now turned into fact. The happy realization that her loved one was alive had turned into one of dread and she traveled as fast as her feet could carry her. She had to hide somewhere, somehow.

Whatever it was that was following her wasn't the kind, gentle man she knew before. Whatever it was, knew her name and called out to her like he did, but it wasn't him.

Not anymore.

-SB-

Half a day after Vanny woke up, Roxanne had made her way down the hole. By carefully lowering herself down with some old, shoddy rope that had been lying around, she eventually made it down to the bottom. Naturally, the first thing she realized was the large amount of blood drenching the concrete. While Roxy didn't know whose blood it was, she did have an idea after seeing small scraps of Michael's costume laying around.

"I think he fell down here…" Said the wolf quietly, staring in disbelief at the amount of blood that had been down here, not quite fully dried up. She looked around expecting the worst as she scanned for a body, but saw nothing like that around.

"It would seem so…" Gregory said distantly as she could hear clicking of keys faintly from his side of the call. "Well, the good news is that he's probably still here moving around somewhere…" That bit of news perked the wolf up a good bit, but hearing the boy trail off at the end of his sentence sounded a bit fishy.

"And?" Said Roxanne, expecting there to be more. With a sigh, the boy continued.

"Bad news is that this might be a bit harder than just a simple 'search and rescue'. If Michael seems off, running would be your best option." This confused the wolf a bit as she felt like she was missing something.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It doesn't matter for now. Let's just start by moving around and looking for him. Unlike the Pizzaplex, there are no cameras I can access down here and the signal is more than likely going to drop at any given time. If that happens and you need to get into contact with me, move back to this entrance spot so that I may attempt to reconnect to you." The news of having to search down in this unfamiliar place by her lonesome had dropped onto her like a weight, but Roxanne knew it was the only way she'd be able to get Mike back so, against her better judgment, she took a step forward and moved into the dark, damp corridors.

As spooky and foreboding as these large concrete pathways were, Roxanne wandered around quite a bit before actually stumbling across anything. At first, it looked like a normal maintenance door. It had been a dark, rusty looking door with a small window at the top and a metal handle. Upon peering into the glass, there wasn't much to see even with her superhuman vision except darkness. Even pulling on the handle only told her that the door was locked and nothing more.
"Where the hell is that corpse…?" Muttered the wolf to herself as she scowled at the door. The corridors seemed to extend farther than she was willing to fathom and dark enough that, even with her eyes, she wouldn't be able to see all the way down them. She could be down here for days, even longer, if she was unlucky enough to get lost. Yet, she wasn't sure if she had that kind of time on her hands. Her mind wandered back to the dark red and brown splotches of dried blood at the bottom of the hole she descended from.

It's unimaginable that any normal human could survive a fall from that height and, even if he did, losing that amount of blood would've done him in and yet his body wasn't found anywhere nearby with the trail eventually leading off into a dark dead end. Without any real leads and with the connection to the outside world being extremely spotty, she began to wander the corridors looking around for any clues. It had been after a bit more wandering when she stumbled into an area that looked like it had been used for holding construction materials that Roxanne started to hear it.

In the upcoming cement corridor around the corner in the direction Roxanne had been facing, a scraping noise had echoed out. It seemed almost like someone had been dragging something along like a limp or broken leg giving Roxanne hope as she perked up and began making her way there. She slowly weaved around boxes and crates as she made her way there.

"Mike..?" Said the wolf semi-quietly, her voice not traveling as far as she wanted it to. "Mike? Is that you?" As she stopped, she could hear the movement stop entirely. A brief, deafening silence rang out.

"Rox…?" Weakly called out a familiar voice in a raspy tone, breaking the silence finally. A smile of excitement grew onto the wolf's face as she gave a sigh of relief.

"God damnit, Mike! Where have you been?!" Roxanne huffed in anger as she heard the man start to move once again, getting closer to where she was at. "I've been looking for you everywhere. I'm going to bite a chunk out of you before the night is over." She had been relieved in finding her human companion despite how angry she was.

Seeing her friend go missing and only finding copious amounts of blood where he was said to have made her feel a dread that she never knew she could feel before. To think that the disappearance of two people could make her feel that way. It had been only then that she realized that she heard only one person down the hallway… but where was Vandana?
It had felt weird that she was concerned with that woman whatsoever seeing as she was someone Roxanne saw more as an annoying leech but… it had been weird in retrospect. Vanny should have been with Mike, so why did she only hear one set of footsteps?

"Mike…? Where's Vanny?" The dragging had gotten loud along with slow steps. A feeling of dread had crept down her spine suddenly sending confusion along with them. Why did everything feel so wrong?

"She's… not here?" Said Mike with a broken, raspy voice that started sounding less and less like him. "That's… fine… She'll be… next then." Before a question could even formulate from her mouth, Michael pulled himself around the corner and into view. Quickly, the wolf's relieved face vanished.

At the end of the hallway, Mike's destroyed, distorted body shambled into view. There had been so much wrong with him to the point that he would have been unrecognizable if it weren't for him being the same purple he had been when he first started working here and his eye.

The singular visible eye amidst the meaty travesty that must have been Michael's face stared daggers into Roxanne as if he was trying to kill her with his sight. His body has been twisted and battered so badly that there were more red-brown spots than anything else.

The source of the dragging noise became apparent once the night guard leaned against the wall. His right ankle had been twisted in such a way that the side simply dragged behind. Roxanne covered her mouth, partially in shock and partially to keep herself from throwing up, as her eyes scanned her human's body.

"M-mike…?" Called out the stunned wolf who couldn't rip her eyes away from him. "Wha-..." She stopped herself to catch herself from throwing up again as the smell had started to waffe over towards her. "Wh-what happened to you…?!"

"Don't… act like you don't know…" Said Michael as he slumped against the wall, the purple illuminating his eyes dimly as he rested. "This is what… you wanted…" This shocked the wolf even more, taking her aback.

"What do you mean?" Roxanne said in a quick and panicked way, her eyes widened. "I wouldn't hurt you like this!" Mike simply laughed in a broken, raspy way with his head now resting against the wall.

"To think… I trusted you…" This hit a nerve in Roxanne.

"I did nothing to you!" The wolf screamed, her eyes furrowed from his comment. "You're the one who ran away with Vanny and disappeared! What right do you hav-"

"Shut up!" Bellowed the night guard, yanking his body upright to stare at the wolf across the room from him, his body pulsating as if his rage was a liquid that ran through his body. The room was silent for a moment before he continued. "You and Vanny did this! All of it! You two planned this all along… even after telling me that you and her felt the same way and her stabbing me and pushing me to the brink of death, you think that I don't understand what's going on?"

Roxanne opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Her brain couldn't formulate a response as her thoughts were swimming full of the words Michael had just said. Vanny did this? Stabbed him? Why does he think we're together in this…? Her thoughts were jumbled, mind racing a million miles an hour but no actual coherent thoughts were formulating.

"Do you remember when I saved you from being decommissioned and recoded?" Said the man, breaking the wolf out of her trance. He started pulling himself up onto his feet as he popped joints and bones into place in a very noisy, painful way. "I now regret not taking the chance to eliminate a product my father had a hand in making. I'll make sure to never make that mistake ever again."

A pang of fear shot into her heart as Roxanne watched Michael take a steady step forward toward her. Another step made her instinctively take one of her own backwards, fear taking her heart for ransom and her mind focused on one thought.

He's going to kill me.

The wolf fell backwards over the pile of containers behind her as she took another step back, landing on her ass. She scrambled to get up and run, sprinting away from the man as his eye followed where she went.

Despite Michael's words, he made no hasty move to pursue his old partner as he knew that she'd make her way back to him. Somehow, trouble always found its way back to him and he'd make use of it this time just like back then.

Here he would end this misery and life that wasn't his to rightfully own. Here he'd end the tragedy that his father started and that he himself kept going.

He'd have to bury this issue for good, even if it meant destroying everything, and everyone, who knew what he did. This would be the end of the line so he'd make sure he has patience and make sure everything was done properly, no matter what.

He'd make sure to do it right this time.

-SB-

It took Evan, Chara, Mangle and Jeremy about an hour to reach the Pizzaplex and, by the time they reached the entrance, Freddy and a very curious looking endoskeleton had been waiting.

Naturally, as Freddy's eyes landed on Jeremy, his face lit up like a light bulb. The purplish-blue bunny made his way over towards the bear and quickly pulled him into a hug, which Freddy had hesitated to return before wrapping his own arms around the bunny. During the time they were together, they had gotten pretty close but, even though Freddy was good at giving affection to the children who came to see him, he wasn't very good at showing affection otherwise. Some smiles were passed around the group before Evan cleared his throat, begrudgingly interrupting the pair's moment.

"As much as I love to see that you two are getting along, I believe there's something important you wanted to show us?" Freddy and Jeremy let go of each other at that moment with the latter looking away from everyone with a noticeably large smile.

"Ah, yes!" Said the bear with enthusiasm, motioning towards the building. "Let's get inside first." As everyone moved inside the Pizzaplex, Evan eyed the silent endoskeleton a bit. It looked a bit familiar for whatever reason, but Evan couldn't remember why but he swore that he had seen this animatronic somewhere before.

It had looked behind him directly towards Evan, their eyes locked with each other before it gave the man a wave with what could only be described as a good attempt at a smile. With a bit of a chuckle, he returned the wave. While Evan had been wary of every new animatronic he met, he couldn't feel a speck of Remnant inside of any of the animatronics here, including the endoskeleton in front of him.

They all ended up walking towards Freddy's room before making themselves at home within the decently sized, but crowded, room. The room had lots of mechanical parts lying around as if the bear had been previously working on some sort of device before they got here. The bear smiled cheesily as he cleaned up some areas quickly, making sure to put things away properly.

"I apologize for the mess." Said Freddy as he continued to clean. "The amount of projects I've been working on have increased fourfold since Halloween." Bonnie had picked up some stuff from nearby, smiling at the bear.

"Perhaps some rest would do you good." Said Jeremy as he handed Freddy the pieces he had. The bear, in turn, smiled back thankfully as he took the pieces his bunny counterpart had given him.

"I appreciate the thought, but I believe that would be hard with our current circumstances. After all, I believe we know the last whereabouts of Michael. Well, not me but…" His eyes wandered over to the speechless endoskeleton, who gave out a wave to everyone present.

"Is that a…?" Said Mangle, who knew very well what it was but hadn't seen much of one since she was in pieces.

"Yes, an endoskeleton that is a friend to us all." Answered Freddy, nodding his head. "Michael named him Friendoskeleton or, for short, Friendo." Evan chuckled at the name as Friendo stood with his head up, looking proud of his name. This brought a bit of concern as it seemed that Friendo had a personality of his own, making him feel more like there's a person inside of his body but, even then, there was no conclusive reason to suspect anything since he still couldn't sense any Remnant in the endo's body.

"Well, where is he?" Said Evan, making everyone's eyes focus on Friendo. The endo stared towards the crowd blankly until he held up one figure and dived into a pile of things in the corner of Freddy's room. The group exchanged glances before it pulled out a whiteboard and a marker. There was a momentary lapse in conversation as everyone waited for the very expressive endo to finish writing on the whiteboard. The moment it flipped the whiteboard for everyone to see, there had been many questions.

"A hole in a dark place…?" Read Evan out loud as his eyes scanned the words on the whiteboard. "Wait, you mean… here?" Friendo nodded his head vigorously. His head shot towards Freddy, who was sitting close to Jeremy, in question. "Did you know about this?"

"Yes, I did." Said the bear with a nod.

"Then, where is he?" Freddy was hesitant to answer.

"That I'm… unsure of. In fact, we're completely unsure if Michael would be in this hole to begin with but, after close examination, there happened to be blood near this deep hole Friendo saw Roxanne go down."

'Blood?' Thought Evan, red light warnings basically went off in his head. A worried and concerned glance was shared by Chara and Mangle as they've seen something similar to this before. While they didn't need to worry too much about Michael, who had survived an entire fiery building collapse, Vanny could have gotten pulled into whatever was going on.

"Show us where this hole is." Said Evan firmly as he resolved his goals. Getting Michael, Vanny, and now Roxanne had been his top priority. Whatever else can wait until he finds out where they are and how they're faring.

It had actually been a decently long tour through what could only be called the backrooms of the Pizzaplex. They group had dodged between other endos who, unlike Friendo, had simply stared with their cold and emotionless eyes. Even when Friendo waved at them, they simply waved back in a very mechanical way.

"Are these things always like this…?" Asked Evan as he slipped his way towards Freddy and whispered to him. Freddy shook his head.

"They have been acting differently even before Michael disappeared." Whispered Freddy back to him. "Everyone of them is normally friendly but the only one who doesn't seem too affected is Friendo…" Evan hummed softly in response, realizing there was a lot more going on than what he was currently seeing.

"What does the owner and co-owner think about all of this?" The bear was hesitant to answer, looking away from the man as he thought of how to respond.

"Well…" Said Freddy, sighing as he spoke. "Arin spoke of it briefly… but even he didn't seem too sure himself. The only person who'd really know is Cooper but…" The bear paused, unsure if he should say what was on his mind.

"What is it?"

"... Cooper has not been around much lately."

"What's wrong with that? I'm sure the guy has been busy and wanted some time off."

"He's been like this for months. Around the time you showed up, he stopped coming into work and giving Arin more to do. Poor, Arin… he's been working to the bone ensuring this place is running properly." Evan hummed and nodded his head in agreement to the bear's statement as they continued onwards.

After a bit more walking, finally they made their way to the area that Friendo spoke of before. It wasn't too far into the back area of the Pizzaplex but far out enough that you'd have to go through a security door to access it. From the looks of it, though, the security door had been opened and the room inside had looked quite run down or, more likely, unfinished.

It had been then that Friendo turned around on a swivel and pointed inside of the room, indicating they had arrived at the place he 'spoke' of. Besides a red light shining from the farther side wall, the room had been dark enough that Evan took out his flashlight from his toolbelt to illuminate the surroundings.

The room had actually looked like it originally had been something like a room for a house, sending red alarms and bells screaming in his brain to tell him something wasn't right here. There had been out and worn children's toys dotted here and there through the room along with the remains of what looked to be a baby's crib. As the man looked towards the wall on the opposite side, his eyes widened.

There had been symbols that had been imprinted into the green or turquoise wallpaper, except there had been parts of it that had faded out of existence from the aging of the room. Instantly, these symbols started to make sense as Evan's head started to hurt. The man hissed as he held his temple, knowledge seeming to fill his mind as he did so. Chara and Mangle rushed to his side and held him caringly, seemingly concerned about his well being.

"Are you okay?" Asked Chara as she put a hand to his forehead, feeling his temperature. "You're burning up! Please, take a rest." The man shook his head.

"No no, I'll be okay… but can you read that?" Evan responded.

"Read what?" Said Mangle, confused. The man pointed towards the wall on the opposite side, gathering everyone's attention there. They all looked it over as he kept shining his flashlight onto the symbols.

"... What is it supposed to say?" Asked Jeremy curiously, giving the same questioning face that everyone else present had. "Most of it is destroyed… is that even English?"

"'Built the breath'." Said Evan without a beat, seeming to read off of the wall. "I think that says, 'Dodge, Duck, Flash'... what even is all of this…?" He looked closer at the words but wasn't able to make out much since a lot of the wall had simply decayed and eroded over the long period of time it had been here. Except, there had been one last bit that caught his attention. "... 'Save those with soul'...?"

Chara gave her partner a worried glance as she looked between him and the wall he had apparently been reading from. She had no doubt in her mind that her human companion could read the wall, but the fact that he could read it and no one else present could was concerning all on its own.

"No one else can read this…?" Said Evan in heavy confusion. The bodies around him shook their heads until one of them silently raised their hand. Friendo, out of all of them, could read these symbols. With vigorous nodding of his head, and a very smug pose, he silently assured that he could read the symbols, too. Evan sighed, thinking he was going crazy.

"Well, I guess I'm glad I'm not the only one… this will be something I need to look into later." Quickly, he brought out his phone and snapped a quick picture of it before putting it up. Right now wasn't the time to get fixated on this new knowledge he had stored in his head but on the other thing that had caught Evan's eye when he walked in here.

Near the wall with the symbols, there had been a splintered wooden floor that looked like it rotted away and had previously been fixed using thin boards only for them to break again into the massive hole that's currently in the floor. As he took a step closer, he peered into the abyss and realized that the flashlight couldn't see to the bottom. It reminded him a lot of the time when they rescued Gregory from the underground factory.

As his eyes continued to scan the hole, he could see some dark brownish spots near the hole. Evan kneeled down to take a closer look and, upon further inspection, realized that this had been blood. As he looked back into the hole, there had been a broken wooden support that had a large brownish-red splotch on it, too, signaling that someone had definitely fallen into the hole and not too long ago either. He quickly grabbed and dropped a glow stick from his belt down the hole, testing the depth of it only to hear a very quiet and delayed *clack* from the bottom.

The idea of either Vanny or Michael falling into this hole had not been a pleasant one. While Michael might 'survive' the impact of a fall from this height, he would be in disrepair for quite some time. He didn't want to even think of this blood being Vandana's as there was no way she'd survive a fall from this height. As he continued to look, he noticed a poorly tied and dangerously threaded rope tied to a metal support beam nearby.

"This rope… do you think anyone might have climbed out?" Asked Evan as he looked back at Freddy. The bear shook his head.

"It's the rope Roxanne had made her way down with." He said, looking troubled. "Since then, we've been watching it closely for any signs of life."

With a heavy sigh and the original problem now being partially solved, he turned around to the group with a heavy heart and a brain full of ideas.

"Chara, could you please grab the bag in the trunk?" Asked Evan, looking at his animatronic partner in a serious fashion. "The same one we used when rescuing Gregory." She nodded her head and made her way out of the door. "Freddy, could I use one of your Faz-Watches? I don't think everyone needs to go down there so having some contact with the surface would be ideal."

"Of course!" Chimed Freddy, glad to be of some assistance. "There might be an issue with the reception down there, though…"

"Can you link the signal through corresponding Faz-Watches?" The bear thought on the human's words for a moment before nodding.

"I think I can get that to work well… Except we'll need someone at the top of the hole and one at the bottom." Evan nodded.

"Then we can have you and Jeremy stay up here while Mangle and Chara can finish the connection down there." Freddy clapped his hands together with a smile.

"Then I'll go get the watches fixed up!" With a bit more purpose in his stride than he's had since Mike disappeared, along with a certain bunny following close behind, he made his way out of the room. It was then that Friendo shove himself towards Evan, obviously wanting to be included in the plan. Unfortunately, the man's plan didn't have the endo involved in it originally but there was no way he'd let the poor animated mute feel left out. Evan realized he had a bit of a soft spot suddenly for this guy after meeting him again and hearing the charades he would get up to from Michael.

"Friendo… you have the most important job." Said Evan, giving a very serious look towards the endo, who simply stood up straight with his hands to his sides. "You'll be up here in case anything goes wrong. After all, who's going to pull us all up once we're finished being down there?" Friendo 'smiled' and saluted towards the man before marching his way out of the room himself.

Evan sat down on the ruined floor with a sigh, putting his head in his hands. Mangle joined him on the floor, putting a hand to his back and rubbing it. It had been quite obvious something had been bothering the man and it wasn't hard to see what it was. Everyone there had known Vanny and Michael and, while not everyone was too fond of Michael, no one wanted anyone to get hurt. Evan looked up towards the pink fox with a small smile, reassuring her that they'd be okay.

Maybe everything will be okay down there. Maybe they'd lower themselves down there only for there to be something like water or something to help cushion the blow. While the possibility of them both surviving unharmed was slim, he'd assure himself for the moment being.

He couldn't imagine what he'd do if something happened to the both of them.

-SB-

Roxanne had only sparred with Michael a couple of times in her life and, even then, it was mainly her trying to pin him down or bite him without any real retaliation. In her mind, she thought she could win versus the man who looked like a corpse but nothing would have prepared her for him actively hunting her.

The wolf's lungs burned as she gasped for oxygen and her legs ached from all the running she had been doing. Despite how torn up Michael was, he chased her at a pretty constant rate allowing her little to no real time to rest. She mentally compared it to the zombie movies she had once seen with this man where people would get eaten up after running from zombies for a long time. Then, she thought it was stupid that these people couldn't even deal with a few zombies. Now that she had experienced it firsthand, she cursed how stupid she had been.

Roxanne had been running and avoiding Michael for over a couple of hours by now, her body screaming at her to stop as it threatened to collapse any moment. Yet, the fear she felt as she looked back to see the person she had once called her most important person urged her heavily to keep moving as she knew that the moment he got his hands on her she'd surely die.

The only thing on her mind was to escape this place somehow but everything looked the same and nothing looked like there was a way out except a few black metal doors just like the one she saw when she first came down here. All of them so far had been locked and, with her luck, all of them would be but she kept trying since she couldn't find anything else that would bring some space between her and Mike.

Roxanne's mind raced as she tried thinking of a way out of this situation. Her already overworked body weighed heavily on her sleep deprived mind, giving her little to work with and a lot to still answer. Her mind once again came back to the black doors, urging herself to keep looking until she found one she could open.

As the wolf turned around the corner, she stumbled into a few things and fell to the ground. Her body cried out in exhaustion as she finally stopped her motion. She very briefly laid on the cold concrete ground as she panted heavily from the overexertion. A groan was heard as a body fell next to Roxanne.

Her body jolted as a hand wrapped around her ankle, gripping it with a deadly intensity. Instinctively, she started kicking at the hand and screaming, wanting nothing more than to be let go.

Her foot collided with flesh, knocking it back and receiving a groan as the hand's grip loosen a bit. She kicked once more toward the hand, feeling a soft crack echo as one of the fingers got kicked back and bending in an awkward way.

As the hand let go fully, Roxanne dragged her body up off the ground and started quickly moving away from where she was. She needed to make as much space away from Mike as possible while she had a chance.

As she continued down the hall, a black door flashed into her view from the distance, giving her hope that always let her down. Yet, she had no other choice but to take the gamble. The wolf could feel her body giving out as the last stumble really proved how tired she was. If this door was locked, she might not make it to find another.

I should have worked out more with Chica. Thought Roxanne to herself as she wished to be with her slightly annoying friend more than ever.

As she made her way closer to the door, she could hear Michael catching up once again, stumbling his way towards her. The faye's heartbeat quickened more and her brain could only think about getting to that door. She could feel the sensation of Mike's fingers still wrapped around her ankle.

As her hand pushed against the door handle, she felt an unusual amount of give from the door as it opened unexpectedly. Roxanne tumbled into the door and shut it as quickly as possible, laying her entire weight against the door as she fumbled with the lock. Michael banged against the door, increasing his strength with each hit against it.

"ROXANNE!" Roared the guttural voice of her best friend as his pounds started to shake the door before they abruptly stopped. There had been the sound of his body sliding against the door before all became silent again.

Roxanne couldn't have been more grateful for a door in her life as she laid inside the barely lit room, gasping for air. Her body quaked from the hair's breadth escape she just had and regretted not sleeping at all in the past twenty-four hours. She felt her heartbeat pound through each vessel in her body, the blood slowly regulating within her body as she felt the heat in her face.

The fact was, Roxanne was beyond exhausted. Her head was spinning and her body felt like she was made purely out of lead. Breathing had been the only task her body wanted to do and the cold concrete beneath her felt as inviting as her own bed.

The wolf wanted nothing more than to rest now but realized that Michael might find a way around to get to her. With that thought in mind, despite the heavy protests from her body, she got off the ground, fumbled with the lock and peered into the dimly lit room.

The space around her had looked a lot less like the open concrete spaces she had been running through and more like a cluttered warehouse. The surroundings were full of shelves stocked with boxes and pieces of things she couldn't quite make out. They were all covered with such thick blankets of dust that moving anything around down here was making a dust cloud.

'It's weird that there's a storage area like this so far underneath the Pizzaplex.' Thought Roxanne as she slowly moved her way through the clutter, attempting to not choke on the floating dust. In her mind, something told her that this place was something different. The amount of dust told her that this place had been here longer than the building above it. It had been at that point she reached what seemed to be the other side of the room when she saw what she was looking for.

It was another large, black metal door, the same as the one she locked earlier. Conflicting feelings rushed over her and she was both glad and anxious by her sudden discovery. While this door could be a way out, the salvation she truly wished it could be, it could also lead directly into something troublesome. The thought of opening the door and seeing Michael behind it scared her a great deal.

This last thought permeated inside of Roxy's mind a bit longer as the thought of being afraid of Michael had been foreign to her before. After the traumatic view she had of him along with his obsession of trying to end her life, she realized exactly what was going on.

'He's absolutely terrifying.' Thought the wolf as her body shook at the thought of Michael. 'What the fuck is he…?'

This was another thought that was foreign to her as of recent. When she first met the night guard, she had wholeheartedly joked that a corpse walked into her place. There had always been something off with him as long as she could remember and, the longer she thought about it, the more connections she was starting to make.

Michael had written a story about actual happenings in the Freddy Fazbear franchise under the guise of a story. It had apparently been a way for him to store his knowledge about the entire thing and, horribly enough, it had somewhat revolved around him and after he died. This got Roxanne thinking about what he meant about being 'dead' but now she had gotten a first hand look of it.

Her night guard had become something close to a zombie. The physical trauma he had taken while falling down here had mangled his body to a point that it was hard to recognize him without his ripped clothes being so distinct. It was no wonder that, after losing his hand in the tree cutter last christmas, he had not made such a big deal. Yet, that still didn't explain everything.

'Why does he want to kill me?' Thought the wolf as her heart became heavy with sorrow. Michael's sudden urge to kill off Roxanne was much more than alarming, but it was just that: sudden. He had mentioned something about her betraying him with Vanny, but what does that mean? What could have happened here for the night guard to associate her with Vanny stabbing him? Tears came to her eyes suddenly but she pushed them back.

She shook her head, pushing the thoughts away once again. These questions didn't matter at this time as she came back to reality, remembering the situation she was in. Right now, all she had were questions and very few ways to get answers for them so, instead of moping around here stuck in her thoughts, she'd push forward and escape. Maybe, just maybe, save Michael at the same time.

A tired grin showed up on her face as she thought about how amazing it would be when he praised her for how amazing she was for saving him. With this new boost of confidence, she tried the door in front of her, pulling it open without a hitch. Except, there had been something behind this door that turned her boisterous grin into a look of sudden terror.

It looked a lot like the sticky note drawing that she and Michael found that day. In front of her was a tall, stitch-patched bunny with large, wiry ears and red eyes. The mouth had been opened up into a smile, though Roxanne had a feeling that it wasn't because she was happy to be there. Around the neck was a blue bow, the only thing on this rabbit that looked like it was made with expensive fabric. As for the rest of the body, the patches had seemed to come from many different things.

The bunny woman looked her dead in her eyes as they both stood there, frozen in a stare off. A glint of metal caught the wolf's attention, making her look slightly downwards to see what it was. It had been a knife, of all things, with dried blood on it. Roxy's eyes widened as she realized what this was and, at that moment, the bunny's hand came up towards the wolf in a flash.

A hand wrapped around the collar of Roxanne's shirt and pulled hard, the bunny woman twisting her body to the side as she practically threw the wolf inside the room. She hit the ground with a resounding thud, groaning from the pain of hitting the concrete floor too hard. Her fight or flight instincts kicked in as she got up from the ground partially only to see something unexpected.

In front of the bunny woman, behind where Roxanne had been standing, was another similar looking bunny woman. They could have been twins if you ignored the fact they were made from slightly different materials in certain places and the latter one was a bit smaller than the original. The face of terror on the wolf's face became one of utter confusion as her eyes landed on the scene in front of her, neither of their focus was on her.

"Back the fuck off, bitch." Said the original bunny girl, who Roxanne had quickly confirmed that it was Vanny by the way she sounded. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" The other bunny girl stood in a sassy pose, a hand to her hip.

"That's my line, Vanny." Said the other bunny with a sassy tone, staring daggers towards Vandana. "We're supposed to kill anyone who finds this place. That's what we were ordered to do."

"And you think it would be smart to kill one of the biggest mascots of the Pizzaplex thoughtlessly, Susie?" Hissed Vanny back before she brandished her knife towards her twin. "If you think you're going to fuck up the plan and get us all caught simply because you want to kill, I swear to god-"

"You'll what? Kill me? That's laughable seeing as neither of us can quite die anymore. You've already seen what it's like to try and kill someone with powers like ours." Vanny stayed quiet but held her ground, a stained knife pointing true in the direction of the other bunny before they sighed. "Fine, just make sure we're not caught or I'm sure you'll be dealt with accordingly." The bunny woman turned around and took a couple of steps before stopping and looking back once more. "Or, better yet, fuck up. I'd love to be the one taking out trash like you. I'll make sure to take my time figuring out what'll make you stop ticking." With a laugh and a skip in her step, the other bunny woman left back the way Roxanne entered and disappeared.

Vanny sighed heavily as she dropped her arm, her body slouching as the tension escaped her body. She pulled back the top of her suit, revealing the blonde set of hair hidden underneath the mask. The woman turned her body around to face Roxanne, whose eyes were glued onto the woman in front of her before giving an awkward wave and smile.

"Hey, uh, Rox… I can explain-" Started Vanny before a growl emanated from the wolf.

"You stabbed Mike?!" Said Roxanne incredulously. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Vanny tried to wave her arms and move closer, hoping to explain herself.

"Wait, no, you don't understa-" A balled-up paw swiped close to Vanny, nearly missing her arms.

"What is there to understand?! You did this to him!" Yelled the wolf, working her way onto her feet as she simultaneously moved away from the woman, her eyes burning with fire. "He thinks that *we* betrayed him. We! And now, I don't know what to do. I knew you were bad for him and I should've got rid of you like I originally thought I should've!"

Everything was still and quiet after she said her last sentence, with Roxanne staring daggers into the woman and Vanny looking downwards, her face downcasted. They stood like this for a few moments until a small voice spoke up.

"... I'm sorry… I didn't want to do it…" Said Vanny quietly as a few soft plips could be heard. The new noise caught the wolf's attention and surprised her when she realized where it came from. Vanny was crying heavily, allowing her tears to land on the concrete floor below her. Roxanne's face went from anger to confusion in an instant as she saw this display of sadness in front of her.

"What do you mean by that?" Said the wolf with venom still in her words, not allowing to let her guard down just because of a few tears.

"I… can't control my body at times… the voice in my head does…"

"Like… something is controlling you?" Vanny nodded her head silently as she sniffled a bit.

"I didn't want to stab Michael. I did everything in my power to control myself from doing so this entire time but… I couldn't fully control it." This seemed strange to Roxanne as it sounded more like words from a lunatic than anything but, for some reason, she was feeling like the woman in front of her was being genuine about her feelings and struggles. The wolf had to remind herself that weirder things have happened before, according to what Michael had said.

"Ho-..." Started Roxanne before stopping herself, surprised that she was believing this. "How long has this been going on…?"

"Since that day I came here for the first time. A voice awoke in my head and started ordering me and, before I knew it, I was already doing some horrible things. When it commanded me to hurt Michael, I did everything in my power to hold back… but I got deathly sick and…" She sighed, pouring words from her head and her heart out to the animatronic wolf in front of her, hoping to be understood.

"Why didn't you say anything about it?" Vanny laughed a bit, seeming a bit pained in doing so.

"And then what? You'd just believe me? That everything would get fixed in an instant like nothing ever happened?"

"But maybe Michael could have helped you! He's-"

"I know what he is, Roxanne." Said Vanny as she looked towards her now. "I didn't have a full picture of exactly what he was until I saw him down here…"

"I'm going to save him." The wolf said strongly.

"How? He wants to kill both of us and he's definitely stronger than us even if we team up." Roxanne made a disgusted face.

"Why would I team up with you? You started this in the first place."

"I didn't want to and, besides, you won't last very long out there. As you've seen not too long ago, there's more than just Michael you have to worry about down here." Roxanne opened her mouth only to close it again after remembering the other bunny woman that Vanny faced off with who threw her like a sack of potatoes.

"Then what do you suggest?"

"We need to get you out of here to get help. Evan should be able to help us out but I can't leave from down here for now, it's not safe." Roxanne thought about it for a moment and realized that the woman might be right. There wasn't that she could readily do to help out Michael and, if Evan is as deep inside of this madness as Michael is, he may know what is going on. Yet, there wasn't a single mention of someone like him inside of his story.

"Fine, but don't misunderstand. We're not friends." Vanny nodded a bit with a sad look on her face.

"Of course… Just follow me from now on and listen to what I say. Otherwise, I can't guarantee your safety." The wolf nodded, still unsure about everything.

"...So, is that other bunny woman really that scary?" Asked Roxanne quickly, thinking that she wasn't all that big of a deal.

"It's not her… Her and Michael aren't the only things down here. There's… a lot going on."

"Like what?" Vanny was quiet for a moment as there were a lot of things down here that shouldn't be here.

"Stuff of nightmares. I don't know how they entertained kids in the past. They look like they were made for torturing kids rather than playing with them." The last line alone sent chills down the wolf's spine as she could only imagine what else would be lurking down here. She had been lucky to only see Michael during her time down here but something in her mind tells her that she won't be so lucky this talk of nightmares reminded Roxanne of her desperate want for sleep.

Sleep, like her want for her friend coming back to his senses, seemed like a fleeting dream.

-SB-

Reaching the bottom of the hole wasn't as much of a nightmare as Evan thought it would be. After a bit of close examination of the rope that Roxanne had let herself down with, he was glad that he brought the mobile pulley system he used before. Not only was the rope a messy one way trip, the rope had shown signs of coming apart and separating more than they did at the top. After a bit of set up, it took almost no time reaching the bottom.

As they reached the bottom, Evan, Mangle and Chara hammered out the details of their plan while they were down there. Mangle would stay at the hole until further notice, secured into the harness in case of emergencies. Chara would follow alongside Evan while he figured out where the missing three were and escorted them back to safety. Of course, this was assuming that no one was gravely injured or that nothing out of the ordinary was happening down here but, from a first glance, Evan could already tell that there was more than what meets the eye.

"Freddy," Said Evan as he turned on his Faz-Watch, "was there always a place like this underneath the Pizzaplex?"

"No, not to my knowledge." Said Freddy through the watch. "Is there something down there?"

"Oh yeah, there's definitely something down here… We'll switch on the transmitter watch in just a moment." Evan looked at Mangle, who had been wearing a more bulky looking watch that seemed to be thrown together in a hurry. With a nod of his head, the pink fox looked down towards it before flicking a switch on the side of the attachment and turning the watch on.

-SB-

It had been awhile since Gregory heard anything from Roxanne. The signal had been officially cut off while she was down there and, as much as he knew there were things he could potentially do to save the connection, it required him to actually go there. With a sigh as he rolled over in his bed, he wished that someone would go there and fix it for him but what were the chances of that? He stared at the animatronic sitting the seat next to his bed, with her petting his head in comfort.

A ping sounded out on the monitor across the room, grabbing his and Baby's attention. In an instant, the young boy hopped off his bed and onto his chair, taking the tablet at his desk into his hands.

The connection had been re-established with Roxanne suddenly and, from the view of the Pizzaplex on one of his monitors, he could see that she was still deep under the ground. 'How is this possible?' Thought Gregory in confusion, putting on his headphones in preparation to speak out to the wolf. At that moment, he heard a familiar voice.

"We're going to head out, Freddy!" Called Evan over the Faz-Watch connected to the monitors. "We'll keep you posted." Evan and a few others had left earlier that day saying that they had some important business to take care of but he didn't expect for it to be the Pizzaplex. Someone must've discovered something much sooner than he planned, but it was workable.

A sigh came out of the small boy's body as he realized he'd have to do some fine tuned work in order for only Roxanne to be able to hear him now. It reminded him of his time back when he had friends his age, when he'd hack into radio waves from places like the police station for fun. Though, it wasn't just him who'd enjoy listening to incidents on the radio.

His mind wandered back towards the two friends he had made at the start of his life long ago before the orphanage. They were both good and, at the same time, painful memories as neither of his friends had left on a good note but they still meant the world to him. With another heavy sigh, he shook the thoughts out of his head and refocused.

"Didn't think you'd get bored up there with your new bunny friend, Freddy." Said Evan in a joking manner, startling Gregory back to reality. He had heard nothing from any side of the communication and, with a quick look, realized he had been unmuted this entire time. The boy quickly hit the button on the watch as he heard the bear respond.

"I… didn't say anything." Said Freddy with Jeremy doing a small giggle in the background. Hopefully they wouldn't realize that there was someone listening to their broadcast. The last thing Gregory wanted right now was to expose himself unnecessarily. He'd have to be extra careful to make sure no one knew that he was involved in this entire matter.

At least, for now.

-SB-

Evan and Chara had been making their way around inside of the maze of concrete, checking around for any sort of signs where the three had been. At first, they had followed the extreme amount of blood left behind but quickly found that it led nowhere thus leaving them with no clues other than someone had been seriously injured.

Many of the rooms had looked like storage areas of some sort, leaving old paper and boxes stacked on top of one another. The only interesting thing about them is that some of them looked like they had been knocked over and ran through. While there was no way to be certain that any of the three had done this, it meant that something down here had to. After a quick warning to Mangle to keep her eye out for anything, they moved forward with caution.

It had been close to half an hour before they found a black, metal door. They had seen one other one but it was out of reach for Evan and, with a little close inspection, had been barricaded from the other side. However, this black door had swung open with little to no resistance whatsoever as if it had been used regularly. They peered into the dark room, hoping to scout out the room but, with the cluttered shelf in front of the door blocking most of the view, it was inevitable that they stepped in. With a look towards each other and a nod, they stepped inside of the dark room.

The room wasn't as dark as they first thought. There had been a few lights shining around the room, dimly lighting up places that helped them see around. The room had been heavily cluttered with rows of shelves, all stacked with boxes and an assortment of things. There had been a few signs that someone had been through here recently, like the lack of dust in some spots and even a handprint, that gave hope that someone would be here. Taking a chance, Evan decided to raise his voice.

"Michael?" Yelled out Evan, trying to reach anyone. "Vandana? Roxanne? Anyone there?" The room simply echoed the words back a bit before falling silent again, showing that they had been alone. "I suppose the search won't be that easy…" Chara patted the man on the shoulder.

"We'll find them, I'm sure of it." Said Chara, trying to cheer her companion up. Evan nodded before they continued through the somewhat large and cluttered room until they found another door, one that had been very barely cracked open.

As they approached it, a sudden jolt hit Evan in his sixth sense: there was a faint but noticeable trace of Remnant in this room. His eyes met his puppet partner's, her reading his face in an instant and realizing that he had found something. Together, they refocused and moved towards the door and barely opened it up.

The only real source of light poured from the desk in the form of a lamp, illuminating the blueprints underneath it. The edges of the room had been scourged in darkness along with the source of the Remnant. Alert and careful, they made their way in while looking around the room, heading towards the desk.

Evan pointed towards the darkness, letting Chara know that there was something in that direction they needed to look out for, and she responded with a nod of her head. Whatever had been in that direction was unmoving and, as he brought out his flashlight to brighten that area, nothing was readily visible as there had been another door in that direction. Stepping closer to the only light source in the room, the blueprint on the desk had caught his eye.

At first, it looked like plans to fix up something that had once been destroyed by wear and tear but, after a closer look, his breathing stopped and his heartbeat quickened as he saw what it really was. The man could remember seeing these things in the dark once everyone had gone to bed and the nightmares he had where they would catch him and tear him apart.

The blueprint had been his nightmare come true.

-SB-

Evan's eyes opened as it had on most nights during this time, his mind telling him that he didn't have much time before 'they' came. His covers flung off of him and his little feet kicked up out of bed and onto the floor as his eyes landed onto the clock.

11:58 P.M. it read, causing the boy to panic a bit. He forgot where he placed his flashlight before remembering that it normally had been next to his alarm clock and scurried around the room to find it. Though he was tossing things around the room, he knew he wouldn't be waking anyone up. No matter how much he screamed or cried, no one would come to save him, they never did. His body trembled, remembering the nights past that he spent failing to survive.

Right as he found his flashlight, which had rolled under his dresser, the grandfather clock in the left hallway chimed out its normal, yet eerie, tune, signaling the beginning of a nightmare come true. He stood in the middle of his room frightened but knew he had no other choice. The grandfather stopped chiming and, instantly, the entire house plunged into deafening silence all at once. Not even the crickets outside had sounded out like they normally did during summer nights.

Evan, his mind racing out of complete fear and running on nothing but adrenaline, tried to remember how he had 'won' previous nights. He'd check down the left hallway first. After all, Bonnie had always been the first one to come out. With hesitance, the boy took his head and listened briefly before opening the door and peering out down the hallway.

A small, quick movement was seen at the end of the hall that signaled the beginning of the nightmare had truly begun, sending Evan into even more of a terrified stupor. He tried to breathe, calming himself down like he was shown by his father before when he told him he was scared and closed the door to a crack once more.

He stopped and reminded himself that he needed to move or else he'd be in trouble. Next was the right hallway where Chica was. He used to like the motherly aura the bird exuded but, after encountering the one in the right hallway, he could never see her the same ever again. As he quickly moved to the other side and listened, nothing could be heard and the door was opened up.

This time, the entirety of the animatronic could be seen at the end of the hallway as Evan shone his light at the chicken-nightmare. The usual yellow hue on her body had been present, but there had been dark spots in its body, holes and tears that revealed bits of its endoskeleton underneath. The clawed hand that held the equally ruined cupcake menacingly gripped the plate under its pink partner, who stared holes into Evan's soul. The face had been contorted into some sort of grin, revealing the long, pointy teeth concealed within the beak, as if Chica was having fun torturing him.

As quick as he saw it, it had moved to hide leaving no trace that it was there other than a memory burned inside of Evan's skull. The boy could almost feel himself throw up as he panicked, trying to calm himself down once again. However, there had been no time to recuperate as he could already hear movement in his closet. Quickly moving over, the boy shined his flashlight inside of the closet.

A red-patched muzzle lunged out of the closet, barely being held back by the closet doors Evan had pushed close as hard as he could, before the muzzle retracted back into the dark abyss inside his closet. He sat with his back against it, keeping it closed as he huffed.

His body felt like it was going to collapse with the amount of shaking it was doing and he was starting to have a hard time breathing, gulping lungfuls of breaths in and spewing them out but not feeling much better due to it.

"Why…" Said Evan meekly as he started to cry a bit, giving up this battle of attrition as a muffled thumping noise grew closer, signaling that someone was inside of his room already. He peered his eyes up to see the dark blue outline of the animatronic he feared the most. As it's spindly mouth grew bigger and closer, he-

-SB-

"Evan!" Called out Chara, breaking the man from his mental flashback. He looked up towards the puppet, who looked at him in a very worried way. "Evan, are you okay?" He nodded, mostly to shake his head and wake him up from the trap of his own mind he got stuck inside of.

"Yeah, I just…" Started the man but trailed off as he wasn't sure how to finish it. Chara looked down towards the blueprint, trying to understand what this was.

"These things are creepy…" Said the puppet, shuddering as she looked upon the blueprint of the ragged nightmare bunny. "What the hell was this made for? Eating children?"

"They're much scarier up close." Said Evan, not missing a beat. With this, some dots connected in her head to understand what this was.

"... These are those things in your nightmares, aren't they?" The flinch was all Chara needed to confirm it. "To believe that there's actual blueprints for these things…"

Before this moment, they both had talked about these nightmare animatronics in a great deal of detail. The entire idea that there were a bunch of ghoulish things running around trying to kill Evan at night, only for him to wake up in his bed the following morning, was far-fetched. William had been known to dabble with hallucinogenic gasses so the theory was that his father had gassed him during the night, along with the rest of the family.

Yet, lying in front of the man, were old blueprints of the same models that haunted him every waking night for a long while. It had been part of the reason he feared animatronics as much as he did as a kid as they were walking reminders of what would happen when we went back to bed during the night.

Evan put a hand to his chest and tried to do a breathing exercise, hoping to calm down. A velvet-y hand found its way to his back, rubbing in circles to comfort the man. He appreciated that he had Chara here to help him through his traumas and he hoped that this would be the last he'd see of these things. He briefly thought about taking them home but quickly decided against it, not wanting anymore reminders of his bad childhood.

Evan was suddenly reminded about the Remnant trace that had been here and lifted his head, reaching for the flashlight he placed down on the desk when was lost in his own thoughts. He blinked really quickly as he thought he was seeing things but, in the darkness, there had been two white pin prick dots staring down at him where the door had been. The man's blood turned into ice, freezing him in place. It seemed that the puppet hadn't realized anything was amiss yet, still comforting the man next to her. With a deep breath and an urge to protect his partner, he managed to raise his arm and turn the flashlight on.

He peered his eyes up to see the dark blue outline in front of him, its menacing stare the same as he remembered it. It's spindly mouth full of needle-like teeth ready to rip flesh had opened and closed a few times, seeming only now to wake up. The animatronic he feared the most had been across the room from him, staring directly at him like it was trying to peer into his soul. Evan's mouth opened to scream but nothing came out except ragged breaths as his body began to tremble.

Chara could feel her human companion shake against her hand thinking that perhaps another bad memory came up. She looked up towards his face to see it struck in a look of complete horror, hearing his breath hoarsely leaving his body. It wasn't until she followed his gaze that she understood why he had been freaking out. It had been then that the Nightmare Bonnie took a step forward, heading towards the duo. Chara grabbed Evan's arm, tugging him roughly towards the door they entered through and out of his terrified stupor.

"Evan, we need to leave!" Cried his puppet companion as she tugged him towards the door, the nightmare bunny stepping closer as it seemed to make horrible noises from its mouth. Evan kept his eyes on it as he was pulled closer to the door, finally gaining control of himself enough to start walking away. As they pushed through the door, a low grumbly, warbled voice came from behind them.

"Don't. Run." Said Nightmare Bonnie as it slowly stepped closer towards him, a clawed hand stretched out towards Evan. Chara tugged on Evan harder, moving them out of the room and pushing the door shut behind them. She got behind the man and started pushing him again, moving him as he struggled to continue.

"Evan, we have to run." Plead Chara as she continued to push the man, listening to the soft steps echo from behind the door. It would catch up to them in no time as the lock was on the inside of the door. Even though Chara had called out to him, he couldn't hear her as his brain had practically shut down and kept reliving the memories he had as a child. Chara sighed in slight frustration as she continued to drag him away from the nightmare bunny, realizing that she needed to get him out of here. They were in enemy territory and, while she had no problem fighting one-on-one, there could be more nearby.

While the puppet was frustrated, she was so worried that she didn't hear the door they left open up and the step that echoed outside of it. Groans could be heard escaping the darkness and a couple of words chillingly echoed from the abyss.
"Don't. Go."

-SB-

There had been a lot more rooms in this maze of concrete than Roxanne could have ever imagined. With Vanny leading her through doors she originally couldn't access, she started to understand the true nature of where they were at.

Originally, this place had seemed reminiscent of a large, unending warehouse seeing as there were a lot of crates and shelves with supplies stored in it. However, some of the rooms she passed through looked closer to hospital rooms or prison cells even. A few of them had sorta looked like bedrooms as if they had been taken from a child's home and placed here.

As Vanny took them through another room, one that seemed a bit more secure than the others, Roxanne could see something barely sticking out from a wall in the distance that looked like a person. Her eyes had been never lied to her but she didn't think that there would be another human down here, at least to their own volition. As she moved closer and peered around the wall, her jaw dropped at the sight.

The Pizzaplex had been understaffed in the past month or so due to the sudden resignation and disappearances of coworkers. It had seemed strange at first, but after being assured that they had quit properly, no one questioned it again. While it did put a strain on the remaining workers, and even forced Arin to outsource for mechanical repair work, no one thought much about it.

Yet here we're those same technicians and day guards who had left suddenly, stuck deep underground laying on white hospital beds, unmoving. The wolf moved closer to inspect the closest person, looking for a pulse. Luckily, this person had seemed to be breathing and, after further inspection, all of them were.

She reached out to shake them a bit roughly, hoping to wake these people up from their dreams yet no one stirred. It was almost as if they all had been in some sort of coma. It was now that she started to really take in her surroundings.

This portion of the room seemed to be taken care of pretty well in comparison to the dusty and decrepit areas she had seen before. It had seemed pretty sterile as far as she could see, which had been a huge relief. Roxanne's eyes scanned across the wave of sleeping adults until she saw something further in the room. She rushed between the beds as her heart started to pound, hoping that her eyes lied to her this time.

On top of a raised table next to what seemed to be medical tools, something she had seen in a movie a couple of times, had been a young girl. She couldn't have been any older than twelve or thirteen. Her skin had been a bit tan and her raven black hair spilled from the edges of the table she laid on. She seemed to be in a similar situation like the other humans in the room, except there had been a cloth draped upon her face. Roxy's hand had moved slowly to move the cloth, until a voice spooked her out of her trance.

"Roxanne?" Called out from behind her, making the wolf jump and turn around. Vanny had peered around the wall and looked towards her as if nothing was out of place in this room.

"Fuck, Vanny… Don't be creeping up like that!" Growled Roxanne, who scratched the top of her head. "What the fuck is this place?"

"Uhm…" Said the bunny woman, thinking for a second, "I'm not entirely sure, but it's pretty important is all I know. Come on, we gotta go." The Wolf blinked for a moment, unsure if she heard the other correctly.

"Wait, wha-... You act as if this is normal!"

"...No, I…" Vanny paused for a moment, realizing that they didn't have time for this right now. "Look, I'll explain it more later but they're all safe right now. When we finish saving Mike, we can save these people at the same time, okay?" Roxanne stared in disbelief for a moment before huffing and shaking her head before moving towards the bunny woman, both of them moving away from the area and through another door.

"Your explanation better be good… why didn't you mention any of this before?"

"My memories are fragmented and fuzzy, especially when it comes to things I've done when I'm… anyways, I just don't remember until I do."

"For someone with such an awful memory, you seem to know your way around the place…"

"That's because I can see 'paths'."

"Paths?"

"I mean like… think of it as a real life GPS line telling me where I can and can't go and where things are. Things like rooms, important things and even connected beings."

"Then why can't we find Mike?"

"Well, he's simply not connected… at least, anymore. Something about the fall he took to get down here had disconnected him from… whatever this is allowing me to see these things."

"I wonder who's fault that was." Spat Roxanne, causing Vanny to flinch but not stop from her walking. They had stayed silent for a moment until another voice popped in.

"Roxanne?" Called out a voice from the watch.

"Gregory?" She called back to her watch, looking towards the video feed to see the boy's face front and center in the view feed. "I didn't think I'd be so glad to hear from a brat like you."

"The feeling is mutual. What's the situation you're in?" The Wolf looked up towards the woman in front of her, who seemed to know the owner of the voice coming from her watch.

"I'm currently with Vanny right now. Michael has turned into some sort of monster and started hunting me down. There's so much going on down here."

"Vandana is with you?" Echoed the boy before the wolf put the woman into view, who simply waved at him. "... Things are a lot more complicated now. Michael will not be easy to stop as he is and, as for the other things, there isn't much I can do from this side. However, I have some good news. Evan, Chara and Mangle have made their way down with the help of your colleagues."

"What?! How?" Said Roxanne in shock.

"Unsure how they got there, or even knew where to find you three, but they seemed to know you went down here. While normally this would have been an issue, this works directly in our favor. Your plan should be to find Evan and lead him to Michael. He'll be of great help to saving your friend."

"Are you sure this will work?"

"... Michael is too strong for anyone else to deal with. Have some faith in me, like you've had up to now." Vanny looked at Roxanne with uncertainty but knew that the odds were slim of taking Michael on as they were now. The wolf sighed and nodded.

"We should have done this in the first place… I'm fucking exhausted…" Said Roxanne as she stretched a bit, her body feeling more worn out than it ever had. The scratches she had from barely escaping Michael had throbbed a bit, reminding her that she almost lost her life several times today and that it still wasn't over. With everything settled, Vanny started leading the way towards where she thought Evan might be.

"While Evan isn't a part of my system," Vanny explained over her shoulder, "However, I have a rough idea of where he should be."

"He entered the building a while back." Stated Gregory, "From the sounds of it, they ran into something on their end."

"While I appreciate the heads up, how do you know these things?" Said Vanny, feeling skeptical about a child helping her out. "Do your parents know that you're helping us?"

"They aren't my parents." Snapped Gregory before continuing on in a more level-headed tone, "And frankly what I do is none of your business." This struck a nerve in the bunny woman.

"Look kid-" She started before Roxanne bellowed out a frustrated noise.

"Both of you, shut the fuck up." Yelled Roxanne, pissed off at the two of them for arguing like children. "I'm tired, I'm hungry and I don't feel like listening to Mr. Secret Agent Child and the Night Guard Killer arguing like a pair of brats." She spat out the last word, leaving both of them silent for a moment before Vanny went back to walking.

Roxanne grumbled to herself, feeling genuinely too tired to care about anything else than saving her best friend and getting out of here.

She had a feeling that this wasn't going to be any easier from here on out.

-SB-

Evan found himself on the ground next to Chara reeling, gasping for breath. Perhaps the world was spinning around him or it was him that was spinning, he couldn't tell. His every movement made him feel nauseous and he could hear his heart pound like a beating drum. HIs trembling hands met his face before he gagged a bit, feeling like he was going to be sick at this rate. His body wasn't dealing too well with the shock he felt and his ears weren't picking up Chara calling out to him.

The puppet knew that her human had been experiencing a panic attack. It had been something they had dealt with together a few times in the past years as he had plenty of recurring traumatic experiences. It had been months since he had one of these and, even then, it had been pretty mild.

Like she always did, Chara sat next to Evan, held his hand and waited. Too much physical contact had the opposite effects at times but just a little seemed to at least reassure him that she was there. While she let him ride the panic down and occasionally gave her partner a comforting whisper or two, she kept a keen ear out for anything coming by.

'What are those things doing here?' Thought Chara to herself as she kept look-out. While she knew it was standard that every Freddy's came with its own closet full of skeletons, the fact that these very old, and mostly unseen, animatronics were here in the first place had been weird and sort of suspicious.

It had been weird that they didn't show up until now and that no one but maybe Evan had even reported seeing them. The weird thing about the whole thing was that they kept hidden for about 60 years without a single sighting or peep of them being around and, to top it all off, the one they saw had been alive and even spoke to them. The thought of there being more of them lurking around had been a bit of a panic to Chara herself as she knew that Evan would not fare well dealing with these things.

What had been more weird, and even suspicious, was that, minus Afton Robotic Inc., they had been at the only Fazbear's location Evan had been into since he was a kid. The fact they showed up and had been alive and moving around when her human got there had made her feel like someone might have been messing with Evan. Immediately, she shot down that idea. No one should still be alive to know anything about this long, dark history except Michael, Evan, a few other trusted people and any of the animatronics alive from that time. After all, William was confirmed to be dead.

Evan's grip on her hand woke Chara out of her focus and train-of-thought, coaxing her to look towards him. His breathing seemed to have calmed down a lot but the episode looked like it took a lot out of him. His head rested against her as both stayed silent for a moment before his mouth opened up.

"... I never regretted being correct about something so badly up until now." Evan joked, making the puppet giggle slightly. Trevor's idea about the Nightmare animatronics was that they were dreamed up or hallucinated in some way. The younger man had adamantly fought that it couldn't have been a dream or anything like that as it felt way too real.

"Are you okay?" Said his partner, now putting a hand up to cup his face and wipe a bit of the tears he was trying to hide away.

"If I said I was, would you believe me?"

"Mmh…" Evan sighed, knowing that she knew him better than that.

"It's hard to lie to you when you know me so well."

"Well, you're the most important thing to me. You and Mangle, of course. Naturally I'll know you well."

"No, no I think I'm a step away from completely breaking down, honestly…" The man sat himself upright but didn't look straight at his partner. "If it had been one of the other main cast members, I think I could have gotten off with a possible light freak out or even gotten through the shock with sheer willpower… but…" He trailed off but she knew what he was going to say.

"It's alright, I understand. I know it's hard but you can rely on me all you need and I'll do my best to be your strength, Evan." The man smiled and started to get up while the woman followed him in suit.

"We have people to save down here. Let's… get this over with." Chara smiled back at him, hugging the man tightly and they stood there in each other's embrace for a while.

"...Are you sure you don't need another minute or two before we continue?"

"I think I'll be fine. I need to be strong… for everyone." It had been then the Faz-Watch on Evan's arm lit up with a call. It seemed to be from the watch that Mangle had and, after the tap on the screen, her face showed up through it.

"Evan! Chara!" Called out Mangle from the other side. "You both need to get here right now!" A concerned face grew on both the puppet and the man.

"What's wrong?" Inquired Chara as she pushed her way into view.

"It's Vanny a-and Roxanne. They're here but… uhm… maybe it'd be better if they were the ones to explain it."

-SB-

A couple of minutes prior to, Mangle had been pacing around the concrete floor below the entry hole hoping for a sign of good news. While she didn't care much for Michael, she did like Vanny quite a bit and even Roxanne had been fun to be around. She hoped that everyone was safe down here and there wouldn't be any complications. Her eyes wandered to the large, dried splotch of blood that had been a few feet away from her, worried about her friends and family.

As brave as she felt coming down here into the depths of the unknown, she felt scared. She knew she wasn't as courageous as her older sister nor as smart as Evan but she refused to allow her family to simply go into a possibly dangerous and unknown situation by themselves. She'd protect them, she swore to herself, even if it meant that…

…Her teeth chomped down onto flesh with a sickening crunch and… red liquid stained her maw as it closed on… pain and crying could be heard as hands clawed at her maw, struggling to escape…

Mangle held her head as the headache subsided and the spots of purple left them. Since the incident with Kat, she started having more memories pop up into her head. They had been heavily fragmented but they felt like she was starting to remember things she was better off not knowing.

It had been a concern of Chara and Evan when she told them she didn't care, nor wanted to know, who she was before becoming Mangle. Unlike the others, she had absolutely no memories she could recall from before she was a pink fox and, even when she tried her hardest to remember, she only got a dreaded and awful feeling in her gut. It was then she realized it was probably better to live without knowing something like that.

A faint noise down the concrete corridor snapped her out of her train of thought as she quickly looked towards the source of the noise. It had been somewhat dark in this area so she could only make out two figures, but neither seemed to fit the body style of her sister or Evan. She glared in their direction, baring her fangs.

"Who are you?" Mangle called out aggressively. "I don't want to fight but I'll…" She trailed off, feeling her confidence drain as the bodies got closer. She felt herself panicking a bit before the light shone onto the two, revealing Roxanne and Vanny in front of her. The pink fox relaxed a bit, sighing as she let her stress out into the air.

"Mangle…" Said Vanny, who had looked a bit concerned, "It's just us."

"I'm glad it's you, Vanny!" Said Mangle with a smile, moving over towards the blonde woman for a hug. "I'm glad you're both okay… where's Michael? I figured he'd be with you two."

"If he was with us, we'd be dead." Said Roxanne in an irritated tone, stepping from behind the bunny woman and showing her scuffed clothes and dirty body. The fox's eyes widened as she saw the wolf.

"Roxy, are you okay?" Said Mangle in genuine concern, getting a bit closer to look at her but was shooed off.

"It was Michael. Something's wrong with him and now he wants to kill everyone."

"Again?" Both Vanny and Roxanne look at the pink fox in disbelief.

"Again?!" Cried out Roxanne, unable to believe what her ears heard. "So this is just a common occurrence or something?"

"Look," Said Vanny, stopping the wolf as she spoke to Mangle, "We need help stopping Michael. Since you're here, Evan is here, too, right?" The fox nodded, understanding what the woman was insinuating.

"Yeah, I can call them back here. Just give me one moment…" She turned around and started fiddling with her Faz-Watch before calling Evan.

It had taken quite a bit before the duo found their way back to the 'entrance' of the concrete maze. Mangle stood in anticipation of the two coming back while Roxy and Vanny rested against the wall, strangely far from each other. Evan waved towards the pink fox, signaling his return that was greeted by a hug to each of them from Mangle herself. The man took this time to look around and see Roxanne, who had been battered up pretty well and looking close to falling asleep against the wall, and Vanny, whose appearance made a chill run down his spine.

Even without the mask on, Evan could tell that Vanny had been dressed as some sort of bunny. With the small markings of blood on the front, along with a brief recollection of the description that Michael gave him before, the man could tell exactly who she was. It took a moment for it all to register inside him before his thoughts tumbled when everything finally clicked.

'Vanny is that bunny lady Michael talked about?' Evan thought to himself, shocked at the thought of it. They had known each other for several years now and there hadn't been a single time that he doubted who she was or thought she was affiliated with her father in any way. After all, she came here from out of state for a new opportunity and had only heard about this town through Trevor's old friend. There's no way there would be any connection between Fazbear Ent. and Vandana.

Almost as if reading Evan's mind, Roxanne saw the group ahead and got up while walking over with purpose. There had been fire in her eyes as she knew what needed to happen and the elephant that needed addressing. The bunny woman's eyes followed the wolf, knowing very well what was going to happen.

"Vanny tried to kill Michael." Blurted out Roxanne, who stopped a few feet away from the group hugging session, and pointed blatantly in the direction of Vanny. "She was one of the masked bunny ladies prancing around the Pizzaplex, sending everyone in panic before striking and stabbing Michael. She even admitted it to me!"

The hall echoed with her last words followed by deafening silence as everyone stared at the wolf. It had been a grave accusation, but one with obvious evidence. The man's eyes met with Chara's, who had been by his side and had been thinking about the same thing, too, before looking over at his long-time co-worker.

Vanny's eyes shied away from Evan's, almost as if non-verballing admitting to what she did. A feeling of dread had entered the man's body as they all realized what Roxanne had said to be true and Vanny didn't even try to defend herself. Not that it would have been of any use as her clothing and the blood splatter on it made for fine evidence on its own and yet, something had been off here.

'There had to have been some reason that she did all of this.' Thought Evan as he stepped away from the group wordlessly. Not only had he known there wasn't any chance of there being prior connections with Fazbear Ent. or his father, but he had known her for a few years now and knew this wasn't like her. On top of that, why was she so willing to lie down and not defend herself from something like this? She wasn't trying to run away but, instead, seemed like she wanted to take a punishment for something she knew she couldn't avoid.

Evan made his way over towards Vanny as she continued to look away from everyone before stopping a foot away from her. Even now, she didn't look up and kept quiet as if waiting for a divine punishment to suddenly smite her down for her actions. The technician kneeled in front of her, looking directly at her.

"Vandana." Said Evan, softly and simply. The woman flinched at the mention of her name before looking up at him, finally meeting eye-to-eye, which he smiled at. "Finally, you're looking at me. I must know, why did you do this?"

"... Would you even believe me if I told you?" Vanny answered back, softly herself as if she was keeping her emotions under check.

"I've seen stranger things happen firsthand and I'm sure you have seen a couple of them as of recent yourself, right?" Vanny thought back to the moving corpse of the person she cherished the most as he came towards her with nothing but murder on his mind. "I believe you had some reason to do this, even if it's something strange. Whatever it is, I'll believe you." The bunny woman scoffed, looking down once again.

"What if you don't? What if it's something you can't believe this time? I might be lying to you." Evan thought about it, tapping his chin as he looked up in thought.

"Well, I'll do my best to help you out. I've known you for years now and believe that you're a good person. Maybe you can't believe in yourself, but you can believe in me. Believe in the me that believes in you." A silence followed this sentence as the man gave her time to think on this, who finally looked back up at the technician with a heavy sigh.

"... Sometime after coming here the first time, I started dreaming about a yellow rabbit." Immediately, everyone's attention was purely on Vanny's words. Wherever there was a yellow/golden rabbit, there was sure to be trouble. "At first, it simply whispered to me some harmless things. 'Help me. Save them. Michael. Evan.'. Except, it only got worse as time passed. It started to demand things of me and required that we play a 'part' of some sort." Vanny stood up onto her feet, causing Evan to get up as well and step back, before she continued.

"At first, I simply ignored the things it said. Figured maybe I overworked myself and, after spending so much time hanging around animatronic animals, maybe I was simply in need of some rest. It continued to get louder and louder and my body became sicker until I did what it asked of me."

"What did it ask of you, Vanny? What did it sound like?" Asked Evan, curious as to what, or who, this dream-state yellow bunny was.

"At first, it was pretty harmless like I said. It wanted me to make a suit for it. I've done some sewing in my life so it wasn't too difficult, but it wanted them to be made out of random bits of cloth and things I had around my house or saw when I went out to the store, hence why I'm some patchwork bunny. It was after I finished it that things got worse."

"My memories became a lot spottier as I frequently put on the suit and left Michael's house while I was sick. I was sick most of the time but, when I put the suit on, felt overcome with some sort of new energy and barely felt like I had control of my own body. No one caught me because I know my way around every inch of the Pizzaplex like the back of my hand… but I don't know how I got this information or anything. Just…" She paused, looking uncertain for a moment as if the memory was spotty.

"Just what?" Asked Mangle, who came closer. The fox wanted to believe in her this entire time so she'd hear her friend out to the end.

"Well… uhm… it all happened after I put on some headset I found here… but I don't remember where…" A scoff was heard from behind Evan, who turned around and saw a very annoyed looking wolf behind him.

"You're telling me you were mind controlled into doing all of this?" Roxanne said in utter disbelief and slight disgust. "This still doesn't explain why you tried to kill Michael either. I mean, do you think we're stupid enough to believe that some rabbit forced you to make a suit, hop around the Pizzaplex and murder my friend?!"

"Well, something similar has happened before." Said Evan, who looked at the wolf and met her gaze. Her eyes met his and she stood her ground, looking down at the black haired man.

"Do you have any proof?" Spatted the wolf, who was getting angrier.

"Just about everyone in the Nafto household is living proof of a yellow rabbit manipulating innocent people to harm others." Said Chara who had been annoyed at the wolf, causing her to become a bit flustered. "That man- That demon kept coming back in impossible ways to continue this sad story of torment. It's very possible something he left behind might be what Vanny saw."

"... So then, what? You're just going to forgive her?"

"Honestly… I think that's not my call to make." The puppet shrugged. "After all, the person she wronged wasn't me but Michael."

"And all those people unconscious down here." Followed up Roxanne, once again grabbing everyone's attention and throwing a wrench in the flow of conversation.

"Wait wait!" Said Vanny in a panic, shaking her hands out in front of her. "That wasn't me! That was the other one!"

"Wait, slow down… I don't think I understand what either of you are saying. There are people down here?"

"There are people that used to work here and a child unconscious in one of these rooms." Explained Roxanne, who kept looking at Vanny with distrustful eyes.

"They… were brought in by the other lady who is down here. She has a suit exactly like mine but I think she is actually not a good person. I believe she has the mind control rabbit like me but her mission is different." This was very concerning to Evan, who already was unsure how he'd deal with Michael, let alone the Nightmare he saw earlier.

"Do you know who she might be?" The bunny woman shook her head.

"I've never seen her before, but I did get to take a look at her without part of her suit on once. She's got red hair and her body looks like she went through some serious bodily harm recently as she's wrapped up in all sorts of bandages." This brought up a bad feeling and Evan's intuition told him to ask more.

"Did she happen to say her name or… anything about wearing faces?" Said Evan, making Roxanne look at him with a look of pure disgust. Vanny's face said that she thought the question was weird but she thought about it.

"Her name is Susie. This thing in my head only told me her name but not much else other than we shouldn't hurt each other." Evan glanced over towards Chara and Mangle, who looked back at him with a worried look. The man sighed before clapping his hands together and turning towards the entire group.

"Okay, seems like there's a lot of things going on down here. First and foremost, our priority is to deal with Michael. With him being in the state of rampage he's in currently, it would be unsafe for us and others to make our way through these halls. Be on the lookout for decrepit looking animatronics. We saw one earlier and I don't think they're here for a picnic. Also keep an eye out for Susie as she's probably planned some sort of revenge for us."

"The plan from here on out is: I will deal with Michael." Continued Evan. "Frankly, his inhumane strength is difficult for normal people, and even animatronics, to deal with. While this happens, Vanny and Chara will go tend to the people who were trapped down here. Mangle and Roxanne can stay here-"

"No," Said Roxanne, interrupting the man. "I want to deal with Michael."
"That would be too much for you to handl-"

"I don't care. He ditched my performance I wanted him to see badly to hang out with someone who was just going to kill him anyways and now he wants me to die? I want to knock some sense into him." The wolf raised her fist in front of her with an angry look, despite knowing very well she is exhausted as can be.

"Fine." Said Evan, shaking his head. "Just understand that you're getting yourself into a battle to the death of sorts and neither me or Michael can exactly die so you're the only one there who's at risk.

"What are you two anyways?" Said the wolf, genuine curiosity coming out of her voice. Evan simply smiled before giving a response.

"Why don't you ask him when everything is over with? It's not my place to tell you these kinds of things. Anyways, let's get going. I would like to get back to bed sometime tonight." Roxanne wanted to protest but she couldn't muster up the energy to do so as she felt like getting to bed as soon as possible would be in her best interests as well. With a shrug, she got herself mentally prepared to get this over with.

"This is going to suck." Said Evan under his breath, knowing very well he was going to more than be sore after this fight.

-SB-

Before long, the teams split up into their appropriate groups: Chara with Vanny to save the people unconscious down there, Evan and Roxanne to stop Michael and Mangle staying at the entrance to try and keep communications going. They all had pretty simplistic plans but none of them were properly ready for what they had to do.

As Chara followed Vanny to where the people were, she thought about her human who had been walking directly into the face of danger. Perhaps it was her instincts telling her that she needed to protect her family or maybe it was the bad feeling in her gut telling her that being here wasn't a great idea. Whatever it was, she wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

The bunny woman in front of her peered back towards her briefly, their eyes meeting in an awkward catch-of-the-moment sort of ordeal, before turning her head quickly back to continue to lead them. Vandana had also been a big thing on the puppet's mind as of recent.

It felt surreal that the same woman she was distrustful of because she might have been trying to take her human away from her just months ago was now someone she distrusted for another reason. It's not like the puppet was wrong for not trusting the lady in the first place, but she had to give her some credit. Vanny had been very helpful to her human along with being quite nice to everyone in her family. Yet, how did she get controlled by something dealing with Fazbear Ent.'s dark history?

While Chara was very distrustful, it would have made sense if the woman found something down here that controlled her mind. It wouldn't be a Fazbear Ent. anything without the killer animatronics, possible killings and/or kidnappings and expert manipulation of people and the dead. This train of thought brought her to the last reason why she did not want to be here.

From the sounds of what Vanny told the group earlier, the same person who hurt her human and tried to kill Gregory was down here. While it wasn't 100% a fact, the silent consensus had been to be wary of her. Yet, that's what Chara was worried about the most. 'What if she gangs up on Evan with Michael?' Thought the puppet, her eyes still staring unconsciously at the back of the woman in front of her.

Vanny couldn't help but notice daggers being stared into her back as she walked forward. She peered back earlier to see what facial expression Chara had but it wasn't anything hostile yet the piercing gaze could be felt soon after. With another look back, the woman opened her mouth.

"I'm sorry." Escaped Vanny's mouth before she could stop it, grabbing the puppet's full attention as her eyes snapped from the woman's back to her face.

"What?" Called out the confused Chara, who had previously been in a sort of trance.

"I said I'm sorry. I apologize that I started this mess in the first place and endangered your family." The puppet simply stared at the woman for a few moments, silence echoing loud in between them, before responding.

"I know it wasn't your fault necessarily." Chara said with a sigh, crossing her arms to her chest. "I mean, you didn't mean to stab Michael, right?"

"No no!" Said the bunny woman as her eyes lit up, throwing out her hands in show of defense. "I would never do that to anyone, especially him…" The puppet smiled a bit.

"I'm sure you're telling the truth. People don't stab the people they love after all." A bit of a blush crossed the woman's face.

"Am I that easy to read?"

"Well, I think everyone knows except the man himself." Vanny giggled softly at this remark, knowing exactly how much that man couldn't recognize that someone could love him.

"He's been through a lot from what I understand…" A silence went on between the two of them once more as they continued on their way. It was Chara who spoke first this time.

"I am also sorry." This surprised the woman, her head looking back and her feet almost stopping in place.

"What? Why would you be sorry?"

"I hated you at one point." The puppet explained, wanting to get it off her chest now. "I thought you were trying to separate Evan and I from each other. He and Mangle are all I had for the longest time and the threat of someone coming in trying to become closer to him than I was made me grow a hatred towards you that you didn't exactly deserve." At the end of that confession, Vanny actually stopped in her tracks and stared the puppet down. A stifled laugh came from the woman which turned into a full on laugh, making the puppet frown.

"I-I'm sorry." Said Vanny as she recomposed herself. "I just thought it was ironic…"

"What's so ironic?"

"That man of yours, Evan, had never shown me even a shred of interest in that way even after I told him directly that I wanted to be with him. I chased and sought after his affection, hoping that he would choose me over someone else. Then, I met you and understood who was the object of his affection. I hated you, too, for a while. It was embarrassing losing the only person I have ever fallen in love with up to that point to someone I saw as a robot at the time…" Vanny turned back around and stepped a few steps forward before stopping again.

"And yet, you are more of a person than a lot of the people I've ever seen. I grew up in a very meritocratic household as I lived with my grandfather who was the CEO of a large energy company. If I didn't make any progress in a project or get good grades, I might as well have not existed. The people he had over, and even the people he had me meet, had felt as cold hearted as a sane person could be and, for a long while, I thought everyone was like that…"

"Then I meet you, Mangle and Evan. I met the people of this town who weren't driven past their human emotions in their desire for money. There are many great people in this town that I've seen simply live their life and be happy with the things and people they have around them, unspoiled by the dark hands of greed. That includes you, of course. You're more of a person than anyone I've seen. After realizing this, I could no longer hate you."

Chara had been taken aback from hearing these words. After all the years of seeing people look at her in disgust or fear and hearing herself be called awful names, she basked in this praise for all it was worth. A pang of guilt ran through the puppet as she thought about the awful things she thought about Vanny as she realized that this woman wasn't someone who deserved to be regarded like that. As the puppet opened her mouth, a loud noise echoed out from nearby. A clapping sound rang out from a nearby corner slowly revealing the other bunny lady that Vanny had spoken of as she walked around the corner into view.

"That was a beautiful and sentimental story if I've ever heard one!" Called out Susie, her voice giving herself away to the puppet. "Do you two need a minute? Are you going to kiss? Make it quick, I have places I need to be." Vanny stepped out in front of the puppet, whose static rushed out of her body like a hiss.

"What do you want, woman?" Called out Vanny to the other bunny lady.

"I'm just curious as to where you're bringing that thing is all!" The woman called out with a crazed and fake cheery voice. "You know we can't have witnesses!"

"We're releasing the people you have trapped down here, Susie!" Called out the puppet from behind Vanny, her static still pouring out of her. "Don't get in our way." An audible gasp came out of the bunny lady, her hand coming up to her mouth dramatically.

"Oh! It's you! The one from before! I remember you!" The dramatic posture she had slowly faded away as her arms drifted back by her side. "I suppose I don't have to act anymore, then. Before I kill you both I must know, how are you able to still have free will, Vanny?"

"You know that this thing controlling us can't always fully control us."

"So you're saying you fried it out of your system temporarily, hm? Well, this is perfect for me because it's telling me you're no longer needed." Susie pulled a knife from behind her, brandishing it in front of her with a tight grip. "Finally I can kill your annoying ass and take your beautiful face for my own!"

"Over my dead body." Said Vanny, pulling out her own knife from a place that Chara couldn't see. The woman in front of them laughed like she was just told a really funny joke, holding her face very dramatically before looking back up.

"That's the plan!" Was all Susie said before rushing towards Vanny, setting everyone off. In an instant, everyone moved. Vanny lunged out with her knife, remembering all the memories given to her by whatever was controlling her on how to properly dispatch someone with a knife. Unfortunately, Susie was faster than her as she parried the blow before knocking the woman over by ramming her shoulder in her chest. Chara latched onto the enemy bunny woman afterwards, wrapping her ribbons around their neck and appendages.

There was a struggle as Chara attempted to tie the woman up but her strength was superhuman, making it a struggle for the puppet to hold on. Vanny got up soon after, grabbing her knife off the ground before running in and stabbing the knife directly in the side of her stomach. Susie's eyes snapped towards Vanny, hissing in anger that surged through them.

"Fuck, that hurts!" Screamed the psycho before kicking the blonde woman away, once more hitting the wall. With her newfound strength, she grabbed the puppet and pulled her downwards before smashing her body into the concrete floor, making the puppet release the grip on her she had before. A sneer could practically be felt through the mask as she slammed the animatronic against the floor again, making her release a noise from her music box. A box landed on the side of Susie's head, making her stumble and drop Chara.

"Over here!" Yelled Vanny as she waved from a nearby opened door. Quickly, Chara got up off the floor and threw herself towards the door, attempting to make as much distance as possible, before getting the room and having the door slammed shut behind them. A rageful bellow could be heard from behind the door as Susie started to slam her fists into it. It had been a metal door with an internal latching lock, but it seemed like drywall in comparison to the woman's attempts to get it, denting the metal with each slam against the door.

"Why the hell is she so strong?!" Cried Vanny as she scrambled to her feet, working on a way out of this room.

"Remnant affects us all differently!" Called Chara out, looking hurt as she got up herself. A hand went to her midsection as she tried to stay close to the bunny woman. "The only real way to kill her is to put her in awfully high temperatures like fire or… something!"

"I think I know of something like that" Yelled Vanny as she tried to be heard over the overbearing sounds of pounding and creaking of the metal door. On the opposite side of the room, the duo left another door as the one Susie had been slamming on finally came down off of its hinges with a bang. A scream could be heard behind them as they closed and locked this door, Vanny leading them towards what could possibly help them out of this situation.

Chara felt something broken inside of her but wasn't too worried about it as it only felt minor. Yet, she still felt more worried about her human in this situation than about herself and Vanny.
After all, fighting Michael might be Evan's greatest trial thus far.

-SB-

"So what is Michael?" Asked the tired looking, and sounding, Roxanne as she followed Evan.

"I wasn't joking when I said you'd have to ask him yourself." Responded Evan simply as he continued to move forward, listening closely and looking around corners for a possible literal purple man. Roxanne simply rolled her eyes and sighed, trudging along behind the man in front of her.

"Whatever… what's your *amazing plan* to fix Michael?" She looked around, suddenly uninterested. She wanted to be there to help her night guard but, no matter what she did, she caused more damage than anything.

This entire incident changed Roxanne's perspective on her interactions with Michael. So far, she had been excessively rude to him, cut off his arm, spilled his secret to someone else when he wanted no one ever to know about his secrets and, now, she had somehow been an accomplice to his murder. Whether or not the last one was technically true, it was how she felt deep in her heart when Michael spoke to her earlier that day. Her mind continued in this downward spiral as they continued to walk.
"... There really isn't one." The man suddenly admitted, making the wolf's head dart to look at him.

"What?" She said with a bewildered face. "We have to save him, we can't just leave him like this."
"Well, it's not like he'll stay like this. He'll get better and gain more mobility in his body and become more aware as time passes. He'll likely hunt everyone down the moment he can get himself out of here." The wolf thought of the way the night guard looked at her earlier before shivering, dreading to think of what would happen if the man were to come for her seriously.
"So, what? Are we just going to go and die then?"
"... I thought about it for a while and I believe if I can temporarily incapacitate him, we could take him home and hopefully mend things back together with some explanation." Roxanne rolled her eyes extremely exaggeratedly before putting on a fake happy voice.

"Oh yes! We'll take the murderous zombie man home with us, put a bandage on his boo-boos and give him a nice, heartfelt apology and everything will just magic itself better!" Her face changed to a grim and unamused look. "This isn't a Disney movie, shit like that won't fly here." Evan stopped for a moment, causing them both to stand there in complete silence for a second before nodding softly and turning towards her.

"... That's… not a bad idea actually…" Said Evan as he looked at her in a bit of awe. The wolf scoffed a bit at the comment.

"You can't be serious."
"Look, when we take him home and secure him in some way that he won't be a harm to anyone, you and Vandana can explain yourselves and apologize to him. He may not like you much afterwards buuuut… it's happened before."

It wasn't as difficult to find Michael as Roxanne made it out to be. After complaining about how long it could take to find the corpse, he shambled into view as if cued by an off-scene director in a poorly written zombie movie. He was worse for wear than Evan thought he would have been seeing as Remnant does a good job of patching things up quickly.

The night guard's purple glowing eyes landed upon the duo before he stopped, using the wall to support his lame foot. His vision flickered back between the two before his mouth opened a bit, letting out a ghastly groan.

"Ev… vaaaaan…" Called out Michael, sending chills down the mechanics spine. Roxanne's fur stood on edge as she started to feel unsafe. She stepped back slightly, only to have the purple eyes rest on the wolf, freezing her in place.

"You traitorous bitch!" Screamed out Michael, his voice seeping venom. His voice became ragged all of a sudden as if he couldn't quite catch his breath. This, above anything else, concerned Evan. It wasn't easy for something like him or Michael to become tired when they're wired by Remnant. 'Perhaps the damage is worse than I thought…?' Evan thought to himself. The man stepped up, pushing himself partially in front of Roxanne, before speaking.

"Michael!" Partially yelled Evan from across the box littered concrete room. "It was a mistake, all of it was. There's something else going on here behind the scenes… Vanny said she saw a golden bunny with purple eyes." It was quiet for a moment as Evan gauged the man's reaction. It seemed as if the zombie-like man was pondering something and Evan continued to finish the bait. "I know you said you killed him… but could it be-"

Suddenly, Michael roared at the two causing them to jump. Roxanne latched onto Evan's arm, her body frozen but didn't look away from her night guard. With an intense haze that would've killed if it could, Michael stared daggers into the man across from him.

"He. Is. Dead!" Said Michael with a deformed voice, sounding as if he were a true monster. The man spoke despite knowing his vocal cords were battered from all this abuse from the fall and the subsequent yelling. Nevertheless, the man continued as he opened his mouth again.

"I dragged him down into a fiery grave with me. I watched as life was smoldered out of the suit and his body stopped thrashing."

"But you're still alive along with others you've said to have trapped there with you." Reasoned Evan, trying to keep courage in front of the older man. "What if…"

"I believe it was you." This threw Evan's mind into confusion as he wasn't sure what Michael meant.

"Me…? What do you mean?"

"You are the only one who has knowledge of incidents long lost to time. You are the only one living endlessly alongside animatronics that you seem to work on as if it was second nature. Nothing was going wrong until you came into my life and now, look at me!" The accusations clicked with Evan suddenly, making everything clear now.

"You think I'm somehow in cahoots with William?" Said Evan finally, causing pure silence in the room for a few moments. The two men stared into each other's eyes as neither of them could understand what the other was thinking and Roxanne was trying to wrap her brain around what was happening.

"It matters not." Said Michael finally, standing straight up once again. "It doesn't matter if you're a friend, a foe or William Afton himself. Whatever the situation may be matters not to me. No matter what, you'll have to die." The night guard stepped forward towards the man, making Roxanne jump a bit and Evan sigh.

"Are you sure this is what you want? You could come see for yourself if what I say is true or not."

"I'm certain you are the problem. In order for this to all end, we all must die." Evan shook his head, annoyed at Michael's delusional stubbornness.

"You've always been like this, Michael." Said Evan as he stepped forward, moving away from Roxanne whose eyes darted back and forth between the two, and put his hands up into fists and stood his ground. "I've been wanting to do this for decades." It was then whatever reason Michael was hanging onto and he charged at Evan at full speed, eyes filled with killing intent of a wild beast.

Evan barely dodged the purple-eyed man in front of him, almost throwing himself into Roxanne. The wolf, who had been stunned like a deer in headlights, had been snapped into reality when the Mechanic's body pushed into hers and she backed up just in time for Michael's hand to fly between the duo as he clawed where she had been. Evan threw a punch, hitting the monster in the chest and sending him stumbling back a bit before the man shoved the wolf back harshly.

"Wake up, Roxanne!" Yelled Evan as he kept his eyes on Michael. "You'll get yourself killed like that. Didn't you say you wanted to help save him?" The faye stood there quietly, unmoving as if she didn't even recognize that he spoke. The man scoffed a bit as he looked back at her, realizing he was on his own. His eyes turned back just in time to see himself get punched in the face by a purple hand, one he returned swiftly himself directly into Michael's chest.

Unlike before, the fist had little effect as the night guard grabbed the younger man and pulled him in, slamming his head into his counterparts. Evan fell to the floor in a daze as Michael let go of him, grabbing a piece of a worn wooden pallet nearby. Evan shook himself from his daze, as the night guard stepped forward, and kicked out towards the purple man's legs, sending him to the ground.

Evan and Michael both scrambled from the ground, both backing up from each other as they did so and eyed one another from afar. Attempting to make the first move, Evan bounded forward before swinging again, only to have it blocked and returned. The mechanic side stepped it and they both started throwing punches, some that would hit and some they'd block or dodge, but neither backed up until Michael was able to dodge a punch and kick the younger man into the wall behind him, knocking the breath out of him.

In an instant, the older man ran to Evan, grabbed his hair before kneeing him in the stomach, causing him to fold over onto the ground before the night guard slammed his head into the concrete floor.

"You know-" Said Michael before slamming Evan's face into the ground once more and raising his head up again, "It's ironic, really, that I'm killing someone named Evan again." Once again, Michael sent Evan's face into the hard concrete, forehead hitting first as an audible crunch could be heard echoing out. "And once again am I sorry for what I'm doing. However…" The night guard raised the younger man's head to look into his battered face's eyes, both that had tears streaming down them.

"I know what must be done. Even if what you have to say is the truth, I cannot allow there to be a chance of someone following in my father's footsteps. I owe the children he killed that much. I owe my poor little brother that much… you simply wouldn't understand." A smile crept up Evan's face at this last line and laughter broke out from his mouth, shaking his entire body and showing his bloody mouth that was now missing a tooth or two.

"That's hilarious." Said Evan in labored breaths as he struggled to get proper oxygen with the amount of blood pouring into his mouth.

"He doesn't need your psychopathic pity. If you're really so sorry for all you've done-" His hands that had been wandering to his tool belt had grabbed a thick, flat-headed screwdriver before plunging it into Michael's upper arm that held his hair and taking out a taser to shove into the metal hand, sending volts directly into it, "then you'll stop trying to kill me!"

The agony was immediately noticeable as Michael's body writhed in pain as the overtuned taser sent more electricity through his arm than what a normal one would. His voice cried out in a heavy agonizing scream for nearly half a minute before Evan finally regained his footing and shoved Michael away from him. As the man attempted to get off his knees and onto his feet, he felt the damage he took suddenly.

It had been painfully obvious that Evan was in bad shape right now. His skull on his forehead had been cracked and his mouth had lost a few teeth. His body had at least a few broken bones from the night guard's punching making Evan curse as he shifted around. The man's punches hit like a bag of bricks in a very literal sense. Any more physical trauma would leave the man with a bit more than a broken bone or two, but he couldn't help but notice Michael wasn't in much of a better situation.

The man across from Evan has barely been able to stand as his broken leg did not seem to be healing as quick as it should have. His body was already plenty wounded but the punches he received must've hurt about as much as the ones he dished out himself. The tazing seemed to have fried a bit more than his arm as he shook his head in a daze, struggling to look straight.

Evan finally stood up, despite how much his body protested it. Michael finally was able to look straight towards the younger man, attempting to push through his body's protests. They both knew that they were on their final leg and needed to finish it up now. With a growl, Michael stepped on shaky foot forward towards Evan, determined to kill him. It was then that player three entered the battle.

Roxanne, with all her might, slammed a wooden pallet over Michael's head, knocking the man down. When the night guard attempted to try and get back up, she hit him again with it, harder this time around, knocking the man fully to the floor. With a brief check, neither of them could see the night guard moving anymore. With a relieved sigh, the wolf threw the pallet to the side.

"Took you long enough." Said Evan in pain towards the wolf, who looked at him a bit annoyed.

"Easy for you to say. You both looked like yall would take off my head if I got anywhere close to the fight." Evan sat himself down and took a few stable breaths, trying to catch his breath. One of his ribs had obviously been broken, if not more, and his head throbbed and aches as if his frontal lobe had been bitten off again. He put his arm up, hissing a bit at the pain, before attempting to call Mangle.

The watch rung a few times before showing that the call couldn't be completed. With a bit of further investigation, he could tell his watch had no service. An alarm bell rang out in his mind and he sighed heavily before dropping his arm back to his side.

He didn't have any way to contact anyone right now and he wasn't in any state to move around. All he could do is keep his eyes and ears for changes on his watch and hope for the best. This wasn't such a pleasant surprise but he knew the surprises today hadn't completely been bad ones. The man looked back towards the wolf again, admiring how she saved him, and smiled a bit.

"You did a good job, Roxanne." She did not respond as she stared at her favorite person laying on the ground, completely given out. A lot had happened up to this point and, hopefully, now she could help make things right. He had a lot to be angry about today and, while she didn't quite understand how everything progressed to this point, she could only hope that he'd come to his senses. After all, it's not like she had done anything for him to hate her.

… Well, minus beating his brains in…

-SB-

Both Vanny and Chara ran through a series of doors and hallways with a psychopathic killer following close on their heels.

Chara had felt a sharp pain deep in her chest but attempted to ignore it as everything banked on this plan the blonde woman in front of her had. They could hear the manic screams of Susie as she followed them quickly despite shutting doors and locking it or even throwing heavy stuff in front of it. After trialing this approach and not receiving any distance on her, the two figured it would be better to just book it.

"How much farther?" Asked Chara as she gripped her chest, the pain getting worse this time around. She had remembered how painful it was dying as a child, albeit not super vividly, and she really thought she'd die if they didn't stop soon.

Well, they'd die if they stopped, too, so she pretended this was part of the track practice she had never had a chance to attend.

"Soon!" Yelled Vanny, a bit out of breath. "It had been a bit too hot to go in but that means everything here." Chara mentally acknowledged what the woman said and kept running, feeling the heat starting to come out of the area in front of her. Vanny grabbed for the doorknob of the upcoming room only to his as she touched it.

"Fuck!" Exclaimed the bunny lady as she shook her hand. They could both hear Susie getting closer, her screams and shouts of psychotic thrill leaving her mouth as she pushed closer. Vanny looked around, in a panic, before trying for the door again. A sizzle came from her hand briefly before she let it go, shaking her head with a grimace of pain.

"It's locked!" Chara moved towards the door, unfurling her ribbons to reach underneath the door and unlocked the door. She attempted to turn the doorknob with her ribbons, not wanting either of them to burn themselves anymore, but the force she exuded with her ribbons wasn't enough to grasp the knob properly.

"I-I can't!" Stuttered out the puppet, who started to panic as well. Vanny reached out her hand again to twist the knob, but realized something like a latch on the inside had prevented them from opening the door. Vanny started to shoulder check the door frantically, despite the burning sensation from constant partial body contact with the door.

Susie barreled into the room suddenly at high speeds, not stopping as her course was lined up directly with Vanny and Chara. Vanny, with little reaction time, pushed the puppet out of the way as the psycho crashed into the blonde, causing them both to be sent toppling with the door that gave way when they both smacked into it.

Chara, who was now helping herself off the ground, had moved towards the blazing doorway. She could hear a scuffle happening as she got closer to the fiery gateway, knowing that she was probably needed.

As she peered around the door, the puppet could see Vanny holding her own against Susie, who was throwing punches and sending kicks out. It would be amazing if not for the fact that she was only defending against the red headed lady. As she blocked and dodged the hits, the blonde was backing up towards the source of the heat: the furnace.

Chara knew what Vanny wanted to do, but how would they force this monster of a woman to simply hop inside the open furnace without either of them getting seriously harmed in the process? The puppet moved closer behind Susie, waiting for an opening to do something, anything at all, when Vanny surprised her.

When Susie attempted to deliver a kick, it finally connected with Vanny as she wanted it to but wouldn't disconnect. The blonde bunny woman had caught onto the other woman's leg and held on for dear life.

"Chara! Her other leg!" Shouted Vanny. The puppet rushed before the woman could finish her sentence, wrapping her ribbons around Susie's planted leg and swiftly pulled back on all of her ribbons. In an instant, Susie started to fall as her leg was giving way, Vanny let go of her trapped leg, allowing her to try and catch herself by springing forward onto her now released leg and Vanny grabbed the searingly hot furnace grate and slammed it against the red-head's head, thoroughly discombobulating her before Chara ran and shoved herself against the back of the woman, who now tumbled towards the open mouth of the furnace. It all seemed like it would end here if not for a hand reaching out to grab Vanny's arm.

Susie's head barely entered the furnace as she attempted to pull her bunny counterpart into it with her, howling in pain as her face burned inside. Vanny, unable to escape her grasp, pulled hard back but was slowly getting closer to the blazing fires.

"Chara!" Screamed Vanny in panic, struggling with all her might to escape the woman. The red-head, now with a partially burned face, pulled herself from inside and threw her free hand in a fist at the blonde's face, knocking her out with the heavy hit. Allowing the body to drop, Susie finally let her go and her eyes moved to look at the puppet, who cowered a bit from the sight.

Chara could see that the left side of Susie's head had been burned beyond repair, reminding her of what it looked like when she looked inside of the Springtrap suit years and years ago. The woman roared out, stepping towards the puppet.

"You two fuckin' rats!" She bellowed as she tenderly touched her burned side of her face, hissing as her hand recoiled from the burn. "My beautiful face! I'll-" She stopped briefly as if to listen to something that no one could hear before calming down significantly. "Fine, I'll just take that blonde bitch's face when I'm done dismantling this damn sock puppet…" Chara's first instinct was to run but, after twisting to do so, felt the sharp pain in her chest worse than before, bringing her to her knees. There had been little she could do but attempt to make as much space as possible, crawling on her hands and knees to get away.

"I've been waiting for this moment for quite some time." Said Susie with a glint in her eyes, a wicked smile that practically dripped poison, stepping closer slowly and watched as Chara struggled to get further from her. "Every time I tried to kill your friends you just got in the way. Each time you guys come and every time you guys leave me broken down some hole. I'm scared of heights now because of you all but don't worry, I found someone who promised to put me back together each time." She stepped closer, keeping her pace as she watched the show of Chara struggling to move away, enjoying each moment like a cat watching a mouse fail to escape before clamping its jaws down.

"But you, oh you, won't be getting out of here. I'll tear your limbs apart before throwing you into the furnace and carving out that girl's beautiful face. Then I'll capture your family and slowly torture each one of them until they all die. Everyone but that little brat who outed me. I'll make him watch, I'll make him understand that he can never have a family. That orphan didn't have one to begin with and he won't start now."

She could feel the psychotic woman getting closer, hearing her footsteps echo closer each time until they got close enough that she thought she was done for.

A scream sounded out and the steps quickly stepped further away, prompting the puppet to look. Mangle had latched herself onto Susie with her maw attempting to clamp down on the woman's head but her hands were barely keeping her mouth open. It wasn't long before the woman threw the pink fox off her but, like a rabid animal, Mangle bounced back immediately and bit the woman's head, holding on.

She stepped back closer towards the furnace and, with a swift and powerful kick, Mangle leaped off of her body and launched Susie halfway inside of the furnace, sending out piercing shrieks as she burned alive inside of the furnace, struggling to pull herself out from it before falling limp soon after.

"M-mangle!" Called out Chara in surprise and relief, a smile creeping up on her face. Despite not needing to breathe, or even having lungs to do so for that matter, Chara sighed a breath of pure relief. She genuinely thought she would get hurt, or worse, if things went any farther. While Chara had been happy to see her sister, it had been weird that she was here. After all, she was supposed to keep their comms alive by being the intermittent beacon between them and the Pizzaplex group. "Sis, why are you here?" The puppet stared at the back of the pink fox's head for a moment and, after another few moments without an answer or any movement, a creeping concern grew inside her heart. "Mangle…?"

-SB-

Mangle paced nearby the rope at the entrance in worry as both of her most important people had been sent off to, what she imagined, could be their untimely demise.

It had been less so that she thought they weren't capable of handling themselves, as she's seen them both get out of some dangerous situations nearly unscathed, but moreso who they were up against.

Michael had long been one of her worst nightmares. He helped, in more ways than one, in trying to get rid of them all through several underhanded means and, just like his father, would always come back no matter what they did to get rid of him. She put up with him for her loved ones, who seemed to believe this 'criminal' had been attempting to redeem himself.

Mangle's mind swam as she had thought of the way he had looked at her when they first laid eyes on one another once more. Her first thought had raised a memory that had been lost to her. The look in his eyes had just been like his father's.

-SB-

Her eyes set on a man, who couldn't have been too much older than other parents she had seen, who had walked up to her with a few kids on each side of himself. Within a glance, she knew she was going to get new friends to play with and was happy that there had been a mighty number of them, counting a bit over 8 or 10. The older man's mouth moved a bit, speaking out towards the children before he walked off, waving his hand towards them in a friendly manner as he did so. The excitement held within the children's faces only fueled Mangle's as she welcomed them into her room, one she had temporarily shared with the puppet's prize box.

It had been fun as she asked for their names and had greeted them all individually, making each child feel as if they were special to her and, in her eyes, they were. Seeing the smiles on each child's face as she got to learn their name and a little about them slowly compounded a sense of joy she could never get over no matter how many times she did this. She even recognized one shy kid who hid behind someone slightly older than herself and gave her extra attention. It had been a wonderful life this pink fox was living in and she savoured every moment of it.

To the other animatronics, not that she had a chance to talk to any others yet, maybe this life was boring but, to her, this was heaven. From the acting on stage to the interaction with her small fans, Mangle knew exactly who she was and where she should be and nothing in this world felt like it could stop her. As far as she could remember, which wasn't too far, she had enjoyed this and felt at home.

With a clap and a bounce, Mangle ushered the kids closer as she attempted to start her show. She shuttered a bit as the bouncing had made her feel quite sore suddenly but ignored it thinking she could check it out at a less than busy time of the day. As she opened her maw, she felt tiny hands grasp onto her. She smiled as she felt the warmth of these tiny appendages bind their small fingers around her arms and believed it was to get a closer look. Well, at least until her first arm came off.

It had been a swift disconnect. It took very little effort for a couple of the children's combined effort to pull her arm out of socket and for it to land with a soft thud on the floor. For a moment, all Mangle could do was look at her arm as her brain attempted to process what happened and, in the next moment, it hit her.

All at once, the pain rushed in where her arm should have been and her mouth opened up and cried out silently. Her consciousness rattled as she attempted to cope with the pain, her body attempting to stabilize with the sudden change but not having the time to ask her other arm came off with similar effort.

Her mind cracked a bit at the excruciating pain her body had been receiving, her mouth wide open as it attempted to emit a scream that simply wouldn't release from it. The pain wracked her body as she fell back, attempting to get away. She felt hands on her legs and she looked down at them.

The kids she had once been eagerly awaiting for had now been screaming with joy and laughing as if the pink fox was telling a joke. They grasped at her leg ravenously as if they had been looking for a prize, a prize underneath her skin. She shook her head at them as they seemed to tug a bit at her legs but it didn't seem to register to them. With another tug, her legs came out and her vision blurred as the pain became unbearable to her mind but she never passed out. She couldn't.

After all, her body wasn't human. No matter how much she was pulled apart, she knew the pain wasn't going to end. Her mind wandered as her body had continued to be pulled apart and then haphazardly put back together. Her mind could only think back to the words the man had said.

"Let this be a reminder of who you are."

Later on she had seen this man again donning a purple outfit with a familiar looking badge. It had been the suit of the night guard and that man was wearing it. His head turned to look at her mangled, weak body and his eyes met hers.

She could never forget those eyes, those cold, uncaring eyes that man had.

-SB-

Mangle only woke up out of this daydream, or morning nightmare, from the calls over the comms. At first she couldn't understand what they were saying but she knew they were for her.

"...-ngle… Mangle!" Called out a hefty, soft but enticing and commanding voice of Glamrock Freddy. Whether it has been the uniqueness of his voice urging you to listen to him or simply because of how loud he was coming out of the watch, he snapped the pink fox out of her trance as she felt her head pound. "Are you okay down there?"

Mangle had thought about that question for a moment as she was unsure herself. She could feel herself heavily breathing with her maw wide open and her hands on her head as she felt her head throb in a similar fashion with her heartbeat. Between being okay or not being okay, Mangle probably would choose the latter but her mind was starting to think on another train of thought. The words that man had said to her had bothered her, but she felt like this wasn't the only time she had heard them.

For a long time, she ignored this sort of 'flashback' she had. She never told anyone about it and simply dismissed it as an awful nightmare. Except… she realized that every time she remembered this 'dream', it had always been different. For her, it backed up the fact it had been just a bad dream, or a set of them, but something had felt so real in her mind. Something felt so off about them each time and it always led back to those words.

'Who am I?' Thought Mangle as those words played back in her mind over and over again. For a long time, she has wondered who she was and, due to all the pain from trying to remember who she was, she pushed back the urge to know. It hurts so much to remember things about before and it hurts even more to try to dig up things about before who she was now.

Before she became mangled.

Her mind flashed back towards her family and wondered what they'd think about her if they truly knew how much of a mess she was. She lowered her shaky arm towards her open maw and spoke, attempting to smoothen out her voice.

"Do you think they're okay?" Asked Mangle, her voice seeping with worry. For a moment she sat in silence as she waited for an answer, her mind focused on the comms on her arm the entire time before a voice came through.

"It's Evan and Chara we're talking about." Said Jeremy as he tried his best to comfort the pink fox through the device. "You should know best of all, you're their family. Bonds like these make us stronger."

These words normally would have been touching but the way Jeremy had said family had reminded her of something. She didn't think of Chara nor Evan nor Jeremy or Foxy or anyone else they knew for that matter. She thought of a time when she was cold. When her skin had been touched by the cold of a long rainy season, she thought of herself not as human nor animatronic, but something else.

She thought about her family before when she had been alive. Her mind lurched as the memories hit her like a truck and she relived scraps of them all at once.

-SB-

Warm fur touched her cheeks, tickling her small nose as she huddled up to the beast next to her for warmth.

A long, slimy tongue touched her face, sending her panicked heart into one of understanding.

She ran with her might as she knew home was the safest place, hoping that the family she left behind her would be okay.

She felt the tears touch her hands as she wiped them away, realizing that the fur on her family's back no longer raised with breath.

-SB-

Memories kept flooding in as she screamed, her head feeling like it was going to split from all the knowledge being poured in at once. None of it had made complete sense and all of it had been somewhat blurry but she could remember so much. She remembered that she had a family before, she remembered the touch of the fur of her loved ones, she remembered how warm it was being close to them and how painful it was when watched them all die.

Voices had been calling through the Faz-Watch on her wrist again but nothing they said mattered as her mind still couldn't make sense of what happened and her heart had been in denial.

"Where are they?" Barked out Mangle suddenly, sending the other side into a very brief silence followed by confusion.

"Who, Mangle?" Asked Bonnie as his voice sounded worried for his friend.

"Family." Said Mangle again, unable to formulate complete thoughts as her mind was still veering from the overflow. "Where are they?"

"They're down there, don't you rememb-"

"No!" She screamed, being able to be heard not just through the Faz-Watch but probably from the top of the hole. "My family. Where are they?" The comms had been silent for a moment before a response came.

"... We're your family, Mangle. Is… is everything okay?" It hit her then that, even though the beings that had been with her before she died were her family, the people with her now are equally her family and now she felt that she was going to see them die before her eyes just like that time and, in that moment, something snapped inside of Mangle. Something she had tried to suppress had been released once again and now it had no longer been the Mangle they had known and loved.

The Mangle stared out into the abyss of concrete walls and sea of endless locked doors as she moved to make her action. She heard as Freddy's and Jeremy's voice called out to her through her watch but didn't actually make any contact with her.

The Mangle bounded, on all fours with her nose leading the way, down an area. She had no idea where she was going but she knew she'd get there. Her instincts had always been sharp and they never led her astray.

Like hell would she allow her family to her, too. She'd sooner turn into a monster than watch another person she loved die before her eyes.

-SB-

The fox's head snapped to look at her, a feral look had danced within her eyes as she looked towards her sister. It had not been a look of relief or happiness as what should have been there, but one of a predator looking down upon their prey looking for an angle to swiftly take its life. It didn't help that Mangle's maw had dripped with blood and flesh caught between her razor-like teeth. This hadn't been the same sister Chara had come down here with but this resembled something much older, the Mangle driven by pain and confusion. Mangle held her head suddenly, tensing up as she cried out in pain.

"It… hurts…" Mangle said as she held her head before collapsing on the ground, passing out cold. Chara sighed before laying down to think of her situation. She couldn't move but she was pretty sure both of the others had been fine. As for Susie, she couldn't feel any sort of Remnant response in the remaining unburnt part of the body so she had been good as dead.

She wanted to get up and try to help those around her out but the pain she felt had her feeling sort of weak so she'd lay down for a bit and hope that nothing else troublesome wandered its way into this room.

She'd have to get up soon, though. She had to be strong for her family in this time of trials and, from the looks of it, it seemed that Mangle would definitely need some support.

She could only hope this pain would mend itself soon.

-SB-

The next day had rolled in unannounced and almost unrealized as everyone started to make their way home after a long night in the Pizzaplex. First, Evan had called Arin up to explain the situation and hoped that he could help them with the people who had been held in the basement after briefly mentioning what happened. He told them that he'd handle it and would appreciate a full story of what all happened once they get some sleep.

Secondly, Arin had deemed the Pizzaplex closed, as he was temporarily in charge since Cooper had seemed to have gone missing around the same time. This had not been anything new as Cooper hadn't been himself for months and had gone off radar plenty before. They assume he'd just show back up later.

Third, Michael was going to be held in a room similar to one that the Glamrock animatronics had until he had been deemed safe enough to let go freely. A long with this, Vanny would stay nearby as much as she could and Roxanne seemed to follow in a similar path despite both of them needing to rest and heal up from the escapade they experienced. In a similar style, Jeremy insisted on staying there with Freddy saying that he felt that he should stay there.

Lastly, Mangle had yet to have woken up since her episode from earlier. None of them had the full story as to what went on with the pink fox but Chara has some idea as to what exactly happened.

Even after exchanging details, Evan wasn't sure how to wrap his head around everything that has progressed today. All he knew was that someone had some connection to his father, his methods and possibly even the stuff he created in the past. As much as he'd like to say it was the beginning of a copycat killer, the only person who died tonight was Susie, who somehow had some connection to this all.

The more answers they got, the more questions arised. Evan shivered at the thought of Nightmare Bonnie not being a figment of his imagination and, while he had argued that they were real and not just some nightmares, he wasn't exactly happy about that. Never had the man regretted being so correct about something before in his life. Other than being scared and sorta battered, he was fine thanks to his Remnant.

On the other hand, he could tell something was going on with his partner. Chara had been quiet and very docile for someone who had just been attacked and successfully helped take care of a local psychopathic menace. Every now and then he could briefly see her face twist into something unpleasant, as if she had something akin to indigestion, but despite how often he probed her for answers, she insisted that she was okay. He knew otherwise but he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with his current approach so he left it alone for now.

Evan carried the unconscious Mangle inside as Chara followed him in closely to help with the door. It took next to no time for them to slip the pink fox into bed and cover her up, hoping that whatever was ailing her would subside soon. As they both stood there at Mangle's bed side, Evan looked over to his puppet counterpart as he slipped his hand into hers.

"Are you okay?" The man asked softly, causing Chara's head to look over towards him with a soft and loving look.

"... I'll be fine once I get some sleep, okay?" She responded, brushing the issue off as soon as it came up but the mechanic didn't back down.

"You'll tell me if there's something wrong going on, right?" The striped woman nodded her head softly, causing a bit of her bells to jingle. A sigh sounded from her partner before he walked towards the door, urging her to go with him. When she didn't follow, he looked back and she forced a smile at him.

"I'll stay here with her a bit longer, okay? I'll join you soon so please go get some rest." As much as Evan wanted to protest against this, he knew his partner well enough to know how she was. With a nod, he left them alone and wandered down the hall and into the master bedroom where he showered, changed and threw himself haphazardly into bed before realizing he hadn't spoken to Gregory when he had come in. Perhaps it was too early for the boy to be awake so maybe it truly didn't matter.

For now, he'd sleep and worry about all of these issues tomorrow. He oughta be at full capacity before he tried figuring out this mess. On his path to sleep, he thought of how he finally technically won a fight against his older brother and smiled a bit, happy for a moment.

Maybe today wasn't all bad news.

-SB-

Gregory had called today a smashing success. He was able to prevent the worst from happening and, in addition, the woman who wanted him dead and finally been taken care of. His mind had been quite tired as he flicked through his new collection of cameras in the labyrinth underneath the Pizzaplex. It had partially been his goal to take good care of hacking the ones down there as the thing he had been looking for was most likely in this place.

He wouldn't go himself. Everyone lectured him for attempting to sacrifice himself to take down Susie before and he didn't think it would be any different if he did it for a different reason no matter how important it was.

Baby, who had been sitting in her place on the wooden kitchen chair propped up next to his bed and desk, sat there and watched the boy work. The entire time he had been working with Roxanne she had been quiet except when she needed to remind him of what was important.

Gregory sighed and yawned as he continued, the will to rub his eyes and shut them was immense. He knew he had pushed himself quite a bit with not sleeping for as long as he did, but this had been important to, not just him, but Baby, too. He stopped briefly at the room outside of the furnace room as he thought about his fight with Susie had been over with. He had only regretted that he couldn't kill her himself.

The boy also flipped through and saw the old message written in a machine language. It had been a while since he had seen this and couldn't help but continue on, trying to put the words behind him. He continued to flip through the cameras until he stopped at the one with all the people still laying down in some sort of coma.

It saddened, and angered, the boy to no end knowing that people who simply tried to live their normal life had been plucked from it like weeds from a flowerbed. As he angrily stared at them, checking over all of the people to see if any of them were hurt, his heart stopped.

"Wha…?" Muttered Gregory in surprise as he started working at the keyboard, his fingers flying wildly. Baby had noticed this and saw his face, becoming puzzled at his bewilderment.

"What is it, Gregory?" Asked Baby, puzzled at the boy's strange behavior.

"It can't be…" The boy said, almost completely ignoring his friend as he continued to work on the computer. Baby simply stared at the boy until he was done, in which he had turned around to grab Baby's chair and pull it closer to the monitor before pointing at it. "This, do you see it?"

Baby had focused on where the boy had been pointing before he saw a figure. It had been a young girl who couldn't have been any older than sixteen or seventeen with tannish skin and brown hair. Some thoughts came to mind when she saw this girl before it clicked. With surprised faces. They both look at each other in a fit of excitement.

Perhaps everything they were looking for wasn't too far away.

-SB-

It had been way too early in the morning for Vanny to awake, or at least she surmised from how tired and sore her body had been as she opened her eyes. Quickly, she realized she had no idea where she had been and slowly she pushed herself off what she realized was a couch.

"Go back to sleep." Said a familiar grumpy voice next to her. The woman's eyes landed on the wolf next to her on this long lounge couch, or perhaps it had been a cushioned bench, slumped up against the wall looking forward into the room.

"... How long have I been out for?" Asked Vanny as she attempted to sit up but thought better as she felt the pain in her more-than-sore body.

"A few hours or more." Roxanne said without moving her head. "Dunno, I've passed out a few times." The woman nodded her head and laid back down before looking around the room a bit. It had been a lot like an office used as a storage room for a bunch of furniture. Across the room had been a large pane of glass, like the ones in front of the Glamrock's rooms. Inside had a bed and the familiar figure of Michael Afton himself, resting on the bed.

"Is he still alive…?" Asked Vanny even though she knew the answer.

"Somehow. He had been beaten so badly that any normal person would have died… at least, that's what the doctor who came in here earlier said. Besides the fact that he's low in... something... he said that Michael will heal." The fact that any doctor could figure heads or tails out about Michael had been strange on its own but it probably had something to do with Evan. If they're the same as she thought they were, he would have had to call someone he trusted.

"He also took a look at you while you were passed out." Continued the wolf. "He said you'd be fine with some sleep. Well, probably." The blonde scoffed at that remark.

"Well, I appreciate it but I'm not sure if I can sleep."

"Fine, then. I wanted someone to be awake when that idiot woke up so if you're going to bed awake, I'm gonna sleep. Night." With that, the wolf flopped over, tucked her legs up towards her chest and spoke no more.

Vanny simply watched as Michael's chest barely rose and dropped as he breathed in his sleep. It had been very reassuring to know that, even though he had practically become a zombie, he still did something to help her understand he was alive.

For a moment, everything felt okay knowing he was alive. At least until the swift realization of what she had done the previous day hit her. She felt tears well up in her eyes and her mind started to race. It took her a minute to calm down but she knew that she had done something she couldn't undo. She had tried killing the person she cared the most about.

Her mind bounced from several thoughts until she realized that she'd have to make it up to him in any way possible, even if it meant risking her own life.

She kept her eyes on Michael as she thought of what to say and hoped that, when he eventually woke up, he would listen to what she had said.

And hoped the glass would be enough to keep her safe.

-SB-

Large footsteps echoed down a concrete path in a dusty, musty hallway deep underground. He had no idea where he woke up but, somehow, knew that the others were nearby. He had never been good with the whole detective thing but knew that he'd eventually find what he was looking for if he kept looking.

He always did.

As the footsteps made its way to a door, a large blue decrepit hand had opened the door and walked in. The room had been dark to the point that most couldn't see what was in here, but he did not need to use his eyes to see what was in here.

"Did ye see 'im?" Asked a gruff, pirate-like voice that sounded like it came straight from a horror movie.

"He. Scared." Said the figure from the footsteps. "Recognized. Me."

"I told you it was a bad idea." Said a scrappy female voice that sounded like it belonged to a witch. "Have you seen yourself lately?"

"It's not like you're looking too peachy yourself." Said the pirate-like voice.

"Enough." Commanded a deep, dark voice that silenced them all. "Do you think we'll meet again?"

"Certainly... We. Have. They. Need."

"Perfect. Then I'll leave it to 'him' to do the talking. After all, he was always that child's favorite." In the corner of the room where a bit of light splashed from the door, a slight gold hand could be seen and sparks above it had flown until two white pinpricks emerged and then electricity.

And then nothing.

-SB-

"Wake up, sleepyhead." Called out a boy's voice, making the girl roll a bit. "Waaaake uuuuuuuuup." The girl batted her hand in the air towards the sound, hoping that whatever it was would let her sleep just give more minutes. She wasn't ready for school just yet.

"I said wake up!" Yelled the voice, making the girl crack her eyes open before looking towards the sound. It had been a familiar voice to the girl, one that she hadn't heard in awhile. Her eyes landed on Parker as he leaned down and smiled at her. Her mouth opened but nothing came out as her vocal cords seemed to not work.

"Hey, hey, relax." Said Parker as he saw the girl attempting to move and talk. "You've been down here for a while only sleeping so your body is going to be too weak to do anything but breath and look, alright?" He sighed as he leaned against the table she was on.

"It took forever for us to find you but now we did and you're going to be safe now, okay? You and your dad." The girl wasn't sure what the boy had been talking about but she had trusted him with her life time and time again so she simply sat there and listened to the boy talk.

"You know, when he finds you I'm sure you'll be happy. After all, he's been looking for you all this time and he had no idea where you might have been. After all, it's been awhile since we all played together…" The boy led off a bit as he smiled in a very forced way, making the girl wonder what had been wrong with him.

"I'm okay, I promise. I'm not going to cry like you always did when you were younger." This made the girl want to protest, but her voice still didn't work. The boy chuckled and smiled at her. His black hair and green eyes had shone brightly even in the dim overhead lights, making him almost look translucent.

"Hey, we'll be all playing together soon again, won't we? Me, you and Gregory. A team once again… I know you're excited but you'll have to wait a bit. Good things come to those who wait."

"Don't they, Cassie?"

---

Author's Notes

It has been awhile since I started this journey writing this story and this is the point I've been wanting to get to for quite some time. Finally, finally, this is where I've wanted to be for such a long time.

Cassie was something I thought of writing about as another story when I first played through Ruin but, after a lot of thought and planning, felt this slotted in with something I had been on the fence about for quite some time and now this story is right where I want it to be.

I apologize I took so long to actually finish this. Life is a highway and I'm stuck in a traffic jam thinking about running into oncoming traffic in the other lane. Truly it's a miracle I've gotten this far with everything I've gone through in the past year.

The important note is that I will, more than likely, be releasing much shorter chapters from now on. Releasing 25-30k chapters every time has sucked up my mental resources as I'm working and going to school now.

Lastly, I want to thank you all for reading up this point and helping me push on. So far this journey has been a blessing that I never knew I needed and, I might have written some of it with or without y'all, I cannot imagine getting this far without all of you readers.

Please do join our discord and share your love. I also have another work called A Mask of Hope that I'll be working on.

I hope you all enjoyed this and I'll see you all in the next one!