Chapter Text
For a few weeks, Mike, Jeremy, Mark and Fritz helped with moving. They cleared out and throw out most of the papers and junk they found in the huge basement, leaving Jeremy with his workshop he wanted and giving Eggs room for his own office. And Mike’s only request was simple; he wanted the animatronics to be able to come over.
The basement proved to be the solution. It was linked to Baby’s, and had a long corridor that linked the two locations. Eggs would walk it at night when Jeremy was asleep since he no longer needed the rest and would visit the Funtime robots. So after buying the necessary parts, he left Jeremy to build the new animatronic bodies.
But then came a problem; the animatronics began arguing over who got to go first. Mike was beginning to get overwhelmed, trying to placate them all. Foxy thought he needed the most updates, but Freddy wanted to be first so he could ‘protect the homestead’, but the Toys wanted to see more of the world, but Baby and the others could actually come see them already without new bodies and that wasn’t fair.
Mike rubbed his forehead as Freddy and Foxy argued again. It had been going on all night. Chica looked just as done as he did, and Spring Bonnie and Fredbear were smart enough to keep their mouths shut. It was nearing six in the morning, and Mark would be here soon to take over as Manager.
“I could protect them too, ye ol’ daft!” Foxy snarled hotly.
“You never protect anything. Look at yourself, you can’t keep yourself together.” Freddy pointed at where Foxy had picked at himself with his clawed hand.
“He does need the upgrades.” Bonnie said, pointing it out for the fifth time that night.
“But he doesn’t take care of himself. He could never protect Mike.” Freddy argued.
Mike groaned. “I don’t need protecting! My roommate is immortal!”
“And his boyfriend suffers from insomnia. Jeremy would notice something wrong.” Chica added.
“Don’t ye go armchair psychoanalyzin’ again!” Foxy snapped at her.
“Okay, enough!” Mike shouted, getting their attention. “This is ridiculous. How about Jeremy picks first?”
“That cur plays favorites.” Foxy said.
Mike groaned again, feeling a headache coming on. “Guys...”
“Sorry Mike.” Chica apologized out of habit as she handed him a baked pizza. “We’ll get this sorted out.”
“I say we play Rock Paper Scissors.” Bonnie offered as Mike began leaving.
He was about to get into his car when he spotted someone waiting outside. She was nervously typing on a laptop, her black hair unkempt and everywhere despite its chinlength. She noticed him staring and quickly left her car.
“Can I help you?” Mike offered.
“You’re the guard aren’t you?” She asked softly, voice quiet. “My name is Vanessa. I’m working on a new game based on this location. Mind if I ask you some questions?”
A game? Eggs had mentioned before he wanted to spread the Freddy name. A video game made sense. So Mike smiled and nodded. Vanessa perked up and got out a pad of paper. He noticed her handwriting was very...skittish.
“So you ever encountered anything odd while you worked at night? Any maliciousness?” She asked in a hurry.
“Uh, yes?” Mike answered. “I mean, I used to.”
“Used to? What stopped?” She asked.
Mike smiled despite himself. “Well, we had a break in. And I ended up stopping them so the robots trusted me after that.”
Vanessa hummed, writing everything down. “How interesting. Your robots must be very advanced.”
“They are.”
“I hope we can capture that in the game then.” She gave him a bow. “Thank you, Mr. Schmidt.”
He watched her go. She took that all in stride but being someone who worked with video games surely she saw odd things in code. So he shrugged it off, wanting to ask Eggs about it later that night. Jeremy and Eggs were waiting for him in the kitchen, neither having slept that night.
“We’re making horror games now?” Jeremy looked surprised.
“Something fun. Tells our story without anyone knowing any better.” Eggs explained. “I asked the robots about it and they seemed to think the idea was good.”
“Freddy has a giant enough head.” Mike teased.
“Still, why go to you?” Eggs questioned aloud. “I mean, the games are supposed to be about the restaurants. I wonder why they were asking you questions.”
“I wanna play one.” Jeremy said. “It’ll be like old times!”
“I’d rather forget those old times.” Eggs laughed, and Ennard inside of him buzzed in his chest. Mike sipped his coffee in response. “We miss those old games.”
“You miss hunting me?” Eggs asked, annoyed.
Jeremy snickered. “I bet Foxy misses it. Hunting my ass at least.”
Mike was still curious though so he ended up looking around online during the day. Eggs hadn’t been kidding when he said Freddy’s was at the height of popularity; people loved the animal characters. Smiling proudly, the guard stumbled upon a job listing.
“Oh hey. They want beta testers for the game.” Mike called out towards the living room.
Jeremy perked up. “Really? Paid to play a game? I’m in.”
Mike chuckled. “Something you could do in your new free time.”
The blond man came over, looking the job listing over curiously with his good eye. Mike couldn’t help the urge to pull him into a hug so he did. Entangled in limbs, Mike watched Jeremy read over the small print and waited patiently.
“I can break most things, I can break a video game.” Jeremy offered helpfully.
“Is that a yes?” Mike teased.
“It’s a fuck yes.”
Xxxxxx
Vanessa paused, curiously chipping away at the backlog of new parts and pieces she was recreating into 3D. Most of them they scanned in a special 3D Printer that recreated anything it scanned, her own special creation. But the pieces Fazbear Entertainment had sent kept getting pinged by...something.
“Not this again...” She grumbled and went to see what piece it was this time. “Spring Bonnie again??”
Something inside the golden robot kept throwing off her sensors. Curious, she went over to her 3D Printer and opened it. Spring Bonnie’s old chest piece was inside, and she quickly saw what the problem was. Inside, she found scraps of cloth and...something else. Something degradable.
“Ew...” She mused, pulling some of the purple cloth out.
Not paying any attention to her computer screen, she missed a new file being pinged. It downloaded itself onto her computer and into the game code. Inside her 3D program, a rabbit began forming. It rubbed its hands together gleefully.
Not seeing anything, Vanessa went back to her computer and grabbed her phone. “...Mr. Afton, it’s me again. Sorry, but the Spring Bonnie model is having some problems.”
“What kind of problems?” Eggs asked her.
“Well the old model is full of something old. It’s throwing off my sensors. Can we get something more updated for his model?”
Eggs thought for a moment. “You could come in and scan Spring Bonnie after hours if that would work.”
Vanessa paused, the thought of entering the restaurant foreign to her. She chuckled nervously. “Oh no, that’s not necessary.”
“Well we need him in the game he’s important.” Eggs mused. “Actually I have all their blue prints. Would that help you?”
“Oh, perfect!” She said.
“Great I’ll email them.”
Vanessa let him hang up on her then, feeling relieved. She sat down and picked up her VR headset, about to test the game again so far to make sure the new files were holding up. But she paused, hearing a noise that she hadn’t programmed into the game herself.
“Dale, are you leaving your files around??” She grumbled to herself.
“... You’ll do.”
She paused, looking around, only for the bunny to sneak up on her.
Xxxxx
“Her name was Charlotte.” Fredbear began telling them that night. Eggs, Mark, Fritz, Jeremy and Mike all sat around the huge golden bear, listening intently as Jeremy smoked. “She was the daughter to our father. He created me to entertain her.”
“Her own personal teddy bear?” Mark asked.
“ Yes. I was to look after her and her brother. I watched them grow. Sammy went missing however, one fateful halloween night, and that started it all.”
Jeremy grimaced, glancing over at Mike. The brown haired man was pursing his lips, face pale. Seeing this, the blond reached out and took his hand. Mike nearly jumped, caught off guard, but intertwined their fingers after a moment.
“When Charlotte was killed, right outside our walls, she latched on to me.” The bear went on. “I’ve kept her soul safe for decades now. Henry thought to look for her here, but never inside. Not inside us. And then more children went missing. So Charlotte gathered them all together and gave them the Joy of Creation. Gave them life once more inside these old machines.”
“And you attacked us because?” Jeremy asked.
“ We only knew that our killer worked here. Not who he was. I often wondered if perhaps it was him, but...”
“So that’s why you went after us? Because of Vin-I mean William?” Fritz asked, looking amazed. “Wow. Now I feel bad for setting them to twenty for fun.”
“Fritz, you’re a moron.” Jeremy said without any heat.
“Didn’t you only set the girls after you?” Mike teased the red head.
“S-shut up, Mike!”
Fredbear cleared his throat. The men quickly settled down. “When Charlotte was told about you Mike, at first, she wanted us to kill you.”
Mike stared. “Why??”
“ Because you weren’t meant to connect with them. No adults were. We were so angry, so afraid, we lashed out. I fear you are familiar with this.”
Mike’s hand went to his side, where he still had scars from Freddy forcing him through a door. He remembered it very well. So he nodded, understanding what Fredbear meant.
“Sometimes I forget how scary you guys are.” Mark mused to the rest of them.
Mike grinned at that. “I don’t.”
“When she learned you had connected with the children inside of us, she wanted you dead. But over time, she saw what a kind heart you had. How much you cared for the robots, even after everything we had put you through.” Fredbear explained.
“Explains a lot.” Mike said.
Spring Bonnie, holding Plushtrap, wandered over. “She’s always cared about others feelings. Even after she died. It’s not surprising that she’d find a way to keep the others here.”
“Is she okay that they passed on without her?” Mike asked.
“Oh yes. She has regretted returning their souls here since she gave them the gift.” Fredbear answered honestly. “That’s why we never use the creation anymore.”
Mike nodded, taking it all in. Holding Jeremy’s hand, he stared off at nothing as he thought. So Charlotte had been the first dead child. Killed by William. But the man was dead, so maybe now she’d finally return to the afterlife?
“What would it take to soothe her?” he asked. “She said his eternal torment. But we’ve killed him.”
“We need to know he will not come back. But he always does.” Fredbear said.
“He always comes back.” Spring Bonnie spat.
“Then we’ll make sure he can’t.” Mike said, getting to his feet. “We’re cleaning out the basement and that whole facility underneath Baby’s. We’ll get rid of his Remnant and we’ll make sure he stays dead.”
Jeremy nodded. “With Eggs being immortal now he’s made a lot of progress.”
“Thank you, both of you.” Fredbear mused. “We know you’ll keep them safe.”
Fritz watched Kyle as the younger man began working on Toy Chica, their new Engineer having received word from Eggs that he was the new official Engineer for the Toy Box. They had also hired on a new guard named Lukas, who tended to be more laid back than any of them and took the advanced AI in stride.
“Robots are gonna totally take over the world one day.” Lukas said to them once, his long hair pulled into a low ponytail and stuffing his face full of cake that the day shift had left over. “I’ve made my peace with it.”
“He’s smarter than he looks.” Bonblu mumbled to the others.
Chirp laughed, even as Fritz said something about being nicer to unwell people. “I like him. He seems fun.”
“I bet he’d be fun to chase.” Fredrick added, and the three toys chuckled fondly at the memories.
Fritz shook his head. “You guys are nuts.”
“They be lackin’ certain screws.” Maria agreed with him as they joined in on the group, wanting to see what the fuss was about. “Gossiping about our new guard?”
“We wanna test him is all.” Bonblu said.
“It’s only fair to Mike.” Fredrick solemnly nodded.
Maria perked up. “Ohhh, count me in!”
Fritz sighed, making a note to warn Lukas that night before the others could. Jeremy had protected Kyle from any nonsense from the robots but Lukas had no one since he was newer. So the red haired guard just rolled his eyes at their antics and moved on.
“Hey I got the initiation it’s only fair he does!” Mark argued with Fritz at lunch.
Mike elbowed him firmly in the side, making Mark wheeze slightly. “We’re not hunting people anymore. Tell the toys they’ll have to have their fun somewhere else.”
“Maybe they can play the new horror game.” Jeremy offered.
Fritz laughed at that. “I’ll bet they’d love it.”
The four of them ate their lunch together, Jeremy texting Kyle about joining them with Lukas, when Eggs arrived. He was paler than usual but he seemed happier as well. He joined them at the table and dropped a bunch of boxed donuts on the surface.
“A gift.” he offered them.
“Thanks, Over Easy.” Jeremy said as he took one.
Mike took a donut as well, pausing when his phone went off. He had a notification from Lolbit; the fox was letting him know that Freddy and the others were requesting a certain movie for the night and would like him to grab it for them. He smiled to himself.
Glancing at his friends, he felt at peace for the first time, knowing that the future was bright.