I watched as animatronics and people continued walking through the rifts, and I saw Freddy move the worktable and climb on top of the table. I leaned slightly towards Trap. "We really need to finalize the main floor of your base, specifically here, so we can get a better work table. I fear that that table will break if they keep using it to put the weight on it."

Trap stifled a laugh, likely since there is a bit of a joke about certain animatronics and their weights, specifically the bears and some of the chickens, though it's not to shame anyone particularly. It's just some guards got a bit creative with their insults, such as 'Freddy Fatbear' and such.

Freddy then started talking to the sea of animatronics and people crowding the main floor. "Alright, everyone, quiet down. I know you all have questions about why you're here, but all will be explained."

"Good thing we prioritized expanding the base, huh?" I said and subtly gestured to the massive crowd.

"Yeah," Trap replied.

Freddy subtly motioned for me to join him, making me sigh and climb up as Freddy stepped down and joined the other Original Main Four, who were to the left of the table.

"Alright, everyone." I clapped my hands to make sure everyone's attention was on me. "Settle down. I know you're all confused about what's happening here, but I'm afraid to tell you that many of the Original Animatronics have fallen prey to the enemy."

The crowd murmured to each other in fear.

"The enemy, known as the Drawkills, have recently awoken and plan to take over every dimension," I continued, looking around the fearful crowd. "But don't worry. The surviving Originals and I have a plan to fight them, but we need everyone's cooperation."

While some of the crowd is still panicked and scared, many start murmuring to each other again. Many of what I hear are agreements.

"For now, until we've secured a base for you in your home dimensions, you'll remain in the Original Dimension until further notice. There are, however, conditions to this, though. You all must follow our rules without question during your stay here." I gave them all a stern look. "First off, most of this floor is OFF LIMITS because this will be the Originals' Quarters. That means all your quarters will be on the floors below us. Secondly, and I'll only say this once, DON'T enter the Originals' Quarters whatsoever. The ONLY exception to this condition is if you HAVE special permission given to you by an Original. Thirdly, and most importantly. DON'T mess with anything that may seem important around the base because our gracious host and the remaining Originals won't like anyone snooping around their stuff." I looked around while thinking about how Trap would react if someone other than an Original messed with his stuff, which, frankly, the outcome is as good as a death sentence. "Now, since I've set down our important conditions, one of the remaining Originals will show you to your quarters on one of the lower levels. Oh, and another important rule. While you're here, DON'T go up to the surface or leave this dimension until we say so."

"Why not?" someone in the crowd asked worriedly.

I zoned in on the area where the voice came from. "Unless you want to end up like your friends, I'd suggest that you stay down here. If the Drawkills capture and chip you, they'll make you hunt down your friends that are still on our side and cause you to possibly hurt them severely. This will also force your friends that are still with us to possibly hurt you, too, in self-defense." I clapped my hands with a smile, probably whiplashing everyone with my mood change. "Now, if that's all, everyone. Please head to your quarters to settle down, and don't do anything to cause trouble. Remember, the consequences may be severe." I then watched as the Original Main Four started leading everyone down to the lower levels of the base until everyone was gone except me, Trap, and someone else, whose presence I still sensed.

Springtrap walked up to me. "Supply run?"

"Yeah," I agreed, climbing down and following Trap to one of the tunnels leading to the sewers.

"Springtrap?" I heard the person, a young male who still hadn't left, exclaim, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn his left arm into a blaster cannon and start shooting at Trap, whose ear twitched.

Trap looked over and started dodging the blasts before teleporting away to likely attack the boy when he least expected it, which was a tactic I learned we both favored. Though judging by his use of teleportation, Trap really wasn't in the mood to take his time or really care if someone saw, which I could sympathize with as today, even if it was still today, I wouldn't know since time tends to blur when you don't usually look at a clock or pass near windows, was hectic as all hell.

He's faster than I remember, and how did he just vanish into thin air? My powers allowed me to hear the boy's thoughts, which made me mentally groan since while I was aware of such powers, it's not like I dove into understanding it yet as I was focused on understanding elemental powers first, nor did I have control of when this particular aspect of my powers doing what they wanted happened, so I hoped I wouldn't hear anything I'd regret as the boy's voice sounded older than my 'technical' age. I turned towards the fight, watching Trap teleport in front of the boy and punch him in the stomach, sending him flying into the wall. The boy fell to the floor before standing up and shaking off the damage.

"Ok. Now you've done it." the boy growled as his blaster reached full power, causing Trap to get ready to block or deflect the attack.

Ok, I think that's enough. I sighed, teleported a bucket of water over the boy's head, and dumped it on him. I heard his animatronic side short circuit as he fell to the ground. I then used my powers to pin him there so he wouldn't be able to get up, making him panic when he learned that.

Trap rolled his eyes. "Calm down, kid. I'm not going to kill you . . . yet." He said in a low tone but mumbled out the last part so the boy wouldn't hear, though I did, making me laugh silently.

"W̷-̷w̸h̵a̸t̶ ̴d̵-̴d̸i̴d̶ ̴y̶-̶y̶o̵u̵ ̸d̵-̵d̶o̴ ̵t̶-̴t̷o̴ ̴m̴-̷m̵e̴?̸ ̷W̶-̴w̸h̷y̶ ̵c̵-̴c̴a̶n̴'̸t̸ ̶I̴-̸I̵ ̷m̷-̵m̸o̶v̷e̵?̶" the boy asked angrily through his glitching voice as he struggled to get up.

Springtrap looked over at me. "I think that you glitched out his voice box."

I waved him off. "He'll be fine. It'll clear up in a minute."

"Tch. Remind me not to get on your bad side, kid." Trap turned to the boy. "Oh, and to answer your question. I didn't do anything to you. She did." He pointed at me while I crossed my arms and glared at the boy. "So, let me guess, you're from another dimension?" Trap asked, folding his arms behind his back.

The boy glared. "Why should I tell you?"

I mentally sighed and looked at his invisible profile in my mind as I frankly wasn't in the mood to play games with him. "He's from the Animatronicgedden Dimension; he's a half-animatronic named Mexo Katon. Mexo's the only survivor of his dimension thanks to his arch-nemesis Animatronicgedden Nightmare."

"What!" Mexo looked at me in shock. "How do you know that?"

"It's quite simple, but there's no way you'd understand it. You can't even tell that this isn't Animatronicgedden Springtrap. You've just attacked the Original Springtrap, and you're lucky he's too busy to deal with you." I decided to make my annoyance evident and looked at him mockingly. "No wonder Animatronicgedden Nightmare despises you; you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, kid."

"Seriously?" Mexo gave us a deadpan look.

I raised a brow at him. "What?"

"There's no way that a kid like you could have that much power. It makes no sense at all." Mexo scoffed in disbelief. Who is this girl, and why does she have so much power? Maybe if I scanned her threat level, I could understand it a bit more. I heard Mexo think before scanning my energy level, so I showed him less than a percent of my power to scare him. Soon, a scared yet surprised look appeared on his face when he read my energy level. N-no way. She's on a rank of her own, but she's just a child!

"He believes you now?" Trap asked, seeing the look on Mexo's face.

"Yep." I released him, and Mexo got up, reverting his arm to normal. "Now then. You might want to apologize to Springtrap before I dismantle you, personally." I suggested with a brief, closed-eyed smile and an aura of death behind me.

Mexo looked at Trap and lowered his head. "Yes, um, I'm sorry, Springtrap."

"Hmph," Trap acknowledged as we turned to leave.

"But, answer me this. How can you be on a level of your own? Who are you, and why did you help me?" Mexo questioned as we stopped in our tracks.

"What do you mean by 'why did I help you?'" I asked, but I didn't turn around to face him.

"You're the one who helped me save my friend and told me to trust Nightmare," Mexo claimed, trying to hint at something I do not recall doing.

"Kid, I haven't left the Original Dimension at all, and by the time frame you're thinking of, it wasn't me that helped you."

"But, it was your voice," Mexo argued as I realized who Mexo was talking about.

I clicked my tongue. "She must've used my voice," I growled to myself aloud.

"She?" Mexo questioned in confusion as Trap and I went to leave again. "Wait! Tell me more, please."

We stopped again, and I sighed. "If you want to know more, how about we make a deal, kid?" I turned to face him.

"Very well. What do you want?"

"Ok, here's the deal, kid." I put a hand on my chest. "I'll tell you what you want to know, but you'll have to follow our orders without question, no matter the task." I then gestured to Mexo. "But in turn, you'll have to teach me the basics of dimensional travel." I crossed my arms. "Though, as I stated earlier, I'll tell you about what's going on in more depth than what the others would know, but I'll keep the Originals' plans and my plans classified." I narrowed my eyes. "Don't tell a soul about this deal either. Other than that, do we have a deal, Mexo Katon?"

"Yes," Mexo agreed instantaneously.

Wow. He didn't even think things through or make his own conditions. I smiled as I felt my powers bind him. "Very well then; I'll tell you some of this information when we return."

"What do you mean 'when you get back?'"

"Well, with more humans and some animatronics that can eat, we'll need more food and supplies for the large number of guests we now have."

"But we're underground. Shouldn't you be heading to the surface?"

Trap huffed, having enough of Mexo. "Look, kid, we do things a certain way around here," he stated. "Most of the Original Animatronics have children's souls, so they wouldn't know what to get or look for in a store, supply-wise." Trap looked at him blankly, likely extremely annoyed at our delay. "Besides, to get most of the things we need, we'd need a valid ID or a permit to get it, and unfortunately, I've been dead to society for two decades. Not to mention, many would question the people buying a bulk of electronic and animatronic parts out of the blue. There's also the fact that we can't draw any attention to ourselves because we can't afford to get dismantled or burned down."

"So, you're just going to steal stuff from people?"

"Yes," I answered. At least until we can find another way, which won't be for a long while.

"But stealing is wrong!"

I sighed tiredly. "We're well aware of that, but it's either this or we starve. Also, I'd rather not deal with the bloodlust issue we have because if not quelled, it will grow until it's absolutely unstoppable and hazardous for everyone, whether a person or another animatronic. Hence, stealing supplies and getting some people fired and desperate enough to come here is a necessary evil." Trap and I head to the tunnel entrance. "Oh, and the name's Noelle," I said before we disappeared into the tunnel leading to the sewers.

.

Several minutes later, Trap and I walked through the tunnels to our first stop.

"He's a pesky runt. Isn't he?" Trap commented.

I hummed.

"Noelle, are you sure that making that deal with him was a good decision?"

As much as I may not be too fond of his brand of chaos, my powers and Shadow have deemed him an essential player in this war, so I frankly have no choice other than to minimize certain things. I turned my head. "Yes, I'm sure." I gave Trap a teasing smile. "Stop being an overprotective father, Trap."

Trap rolled his eyes. "Hah-hah. Very funny; just because I'm secretly your adoptive father doesn't mean I don't have the right not to worry about you." A sad smile appeared on his face. "I've already messed up once in life, and this seems to be my do-over for what I was supposed to be for Brandy. I know it'll never erase what I've done, what I've denied them all, but at least I can try and atone." Trap blinked, snapping out of his mood. "Anyway, how are you sure that you can trust him?"

"Well, Shadow seems to trust him, and I could always use some ears on the lower levels as well."

Trap hummed in understanding. "So . . . how are we going to pull this off?"

I shrugged, as while I had rough plans, I'd have to work on fine-tuning everything on the fly. "Well, we'll have to wait and see for the most part, but our main tactics should be lurking in the shadows and attacking when it seems right."

Trap laughed bitterly. "That's something I'm all too familiar with." He frowned. "While 'Wait and See' and 'Lurk then Attack' are our best tactics, you know the others won't agree to this or any other plans if they know the Original Springtrap is leading the charge."

Oh, I'm all too aware of that. I smiled. "Which is why we're using the other Originals as the face of the plan. Unfortunately, the other Originals will know as we will have to discuss some things with the other leaders once we get them back, but otherwise, no one will know that you're helping me direct the attacks or that I'm the one coming up with most of the plans. We'll be the only ones who truly know."

Trap hummed. "So, we're using the other Originals as pawns while orchestrating everything behind the scenes?"

"Kind of." I shrugged. "But for my plans to work, we need to fool the Drawkills into making them think they always have the upper hand and trick our allies too."

Trap pursed his lips. "That's a dangerous game."

"I'm aware, but it must be done."

"What about Mexo?"

I paused, recalling a snippet of my earlier conversation with Shadow several minutes before this one. "Shadow says that he might be of use, and I already know he has an important role in this war since Shadow helped him earlier, but as for my exact plan for him . . . We'll simply have to see what he does first."

Trap chuckled and patted my shoulder. "You're quite the evil mastermind, my dear."

I smiled and laughed. "Thanks, and I learned from the best."

We soon stopped in front of the nearby mall's security system, which was located in the sewers for some odd reason. Trap quickly disabled it so no one would catch us on the cameras before we climbed through the tunnel leading to a ladder that led into the men's bathroom on the first floor, though Trap had to help me a bit due to how sore I still was from my earlier fights.

"So, after this, we'll hit the other stores to stock up?" Trap asked.

"Yep." I nodded and smiled. "Let's just hope Mexo doesn't cause more trouble than he already has."

"Agreed. If he messes with my stuff, I'll gut him." Trap promised with a crazed glint in his eyes.

I laughed. "I'm sure that you will, Trap. I'm sure you will." Trap then climbed the ladder first to ensure the mall's night watch wasn't nearby before signaling for me to come up, which I did.