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There will be security breach spoilers. This was intended to be a comic, but I wound up writing a fic longer than Equinox Peril (another long fic of mine) instead. My AU goes way out of line with cannon regarding the ending, but I still follow slightly.

Officer Vanessa Sylvia Blake had been threatened and manipulated by a benefactor, his contact, and his subordinate into making the Vanny suit, delivering it to Fazerblast, and locating lost children.

Gregory had lost his family many years ago and now getting in over his head with little more than a ghostly guardian and a robot to his aid.

Vanessa Diego had been put under the control of Glitchtrap and forced to kill and act as puppet master to the megaplex.

But Sylvia decides "fuck it, no more" as she breaks the one rule she had to follow and breaks a glitchy conspiracy.

And Gregory decides to try and find out more about the rabbit lady and the guard, and when push came to shove, he decided to do what a technician couldn't, and played the last arcade.

And Ness, now freed from Glitchtrap, takes Gregory in as a son.

But they all know there are still secrets to be found, and they aren't the only ones who want in on the investigation of the hellsite. Besides, the idea of going back with a large team to uncover the last secrets feels much more doable than trying to be a one kid army.

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Three figures ran out of the Pizzaplex. Running away and never looking back, coming to rest on the grass of a roundabout at the car parks exit. The morning sun cast a golden glow on the trio; a blonde woman, a bleached blonde whose roots were growing back brunette, and a brown haired child.

"Phew, that was a close call. Thanks for saving me, kid." The bleach blonde, Ness, said between heavy breaths.

"No problem." The brown haired child, Gregory, replied, "I just figured you didn't deserve to die. And I wasn't about to see what was under that raceway anyway."

"I see." Ness replied, melancholy yet grateful that she was alive.

"And how do you have the blaster and camera?" The natural blonde, Sylvia, asked shaking slightly, but not in regards to what she was asking, "With how scarce unused printed party passes are, I figured you'd only have found one."

"Freddy found a second one when I decided to stay to see what I could do to make a change." Gregory replied, looking at the camera he obtained, "I managed to give Freddy Monty's claws too. He just didn't get to use em for anything other than info gathering."

"Info gathering?! That's amazing!" Sylvia's eyes lit up at the prospect of more information, but her voice still wavered from a panic that had just come to rest.

"It is? Hu. Cool." Gregory nonchalantly replied, looking at the messages on his fazwatch, "Anyway, at least there'll be no more murders, and besides, it wasn't your fault."

Ness's face dropped and she begun to panic. "More? No more? As in, some have already happened?"

The panic was palpable and nobody seemed to know what to say.

"Yeah." Sylvia huffed, realising that this had to be said sooner or later, "Over the past ... Several weeks, Luis and I have been looking for you, and during that time, there have been a bunch of disappearances at this place. I was all down for blaming the robots, but that was too easy to be true. And, the day most of the night staff got sacked, well, we prevented one of those murders and kind of wound up having to face reality."

Ness stayed silent. She knew what had happened, despite lacking most of the memories, only recalling one or two bloody snippets.

After a few moments, it was Gregory who broke the silence.

"Hey, it's not your fault.That arcade game spelled it out pretty clearly; he's been controling you. That's why you can't remember."

"Usually, I do remember what he makes me do." Ness replied with shock and fear, "But this last few weeks, and today, there's been basically nothing. All I remember is arriving at this place, and that's about it."

"Odd. Surely, if that's the case, you should at least - Wait, I - I don't remember half of what happened tonight. All I remember was walking around the damn row, finding you in the prize counter, shooing the daycare attendant off Freddy, trash land, and trying to contact you at 6 AM to see if you wanted to be an intern, just for the airways to get hijacked half way through again." Sylvia listed most of what she could remembered in order to try and not forget it. "Everything else is getting blurry; why is this happening again? It makes no sense, I was never posessed. Is it the stress? Why am I forgetting stuff? Kid, you got any ideas?"

"Exceptions and stress respectively."

The kid replied with an all convenient answer way too fast.

"Seems way too thought out, but I'll take it." Sylvia felt that something was up, but was too exhausted to care. "I was like this after everyone else got laid off. It'll come back with some rest, I'm sure."

Ness, on the other hand, was quite preoccupied. "everything hurts ... I think I'm going to fall sleep."

Sylvia couldn't remember if Ness had been injured during her time as Vanny, and didn't want to run the risk of losing her sister so soon. "Try and stay awake, we don't know if anything else is wrong with your head, so if you sleep, you may not wake up. The police and a paramedic will be here soon. Then we should all be able to go home. Let's all try to stay awake, ok."

"Why a paramedic?" Ness asked, practically dozing off

"Because the kid went inside an animatronic." Sylvia was clearly panicked, but was trying to keep it cool, "I called one because I was scared he'd get crushed."

"Excuse me," Gregory spoke up, "About the going home bit... I don't have a home. Just my box."

After a slight silence, Ness piped up. "Well how about -"

Ness's words were cut off by an explosion that sounded like it came from under the Pizzaplex, and none of the three were able to stay awake.

***

"Wakey wakey, it's morning."

A voice rung out, but all the trio could register was the brightness of the sun and the grass underneath them, and none of them really wanted to open thier eyes, and as they stired awake, a second voice rang out that was familiar to two of them.

"They're breathing at least."

That was Cassey's voice.

Sylvia made an effort to open her eyes, and saw three figures looming above them. A slim brunet man with poofy hair, Cassey, and a tough looking blonde woman with hair far far shorter than hers. She connected the first voice to the lanky brunet, so even though the faces of the trio were in shadow, she knew the voice that came next was the blondes.

"Good thing, everyone was getting worried."

Sylvia felt like falling back to sleep, but knew she had to wake up. As she used her elbows to prop herself to a sitting position, she asked "What happened? Last I remember, we all left that ... Place... And rested here, and now everything hurts and..." As she looked around.

When her gaze shifted back to the Pizzaplex, she had a more important question.

"When did it set on fire?"

The blonde, who she now recognised as Danielle Schmidt, a police officer from Chicago, answered her. "Firefighters have it under control. It only seems to be the west wing, and the far west wing at that with minimal damage too, sadly. It's got it's week of maintenance that it'll be shut for anyway, but on top of that, that place will be closed for a few more days if were unlucky."

Sensing a hatred of Fazbear Entertainment that ran as deep as her own, she replied with another question. "And what if we're lucky?"

"Permanently."

The woman was definitely still an optimist. Even after all this time.

Ness seemed to have the next question.

"What's going to happen to us?"

A good question too. All of the Pizzaplex's main bots were destroyed, by a child no less, and Glitchtrap had turned Ness into a killer.

The brunet who Sylvia and Ness now recognised as Mike Schmidt, Danielle's husband and the head of the paranormal department over at the Chicago PD replied to thier concern. "Well, we'll ask you what happened, use that to help us solve this places puzzles."

It was now obvious why Danielle was here: to stop her husband from rushing off to try and solve all of this by himself. Sylvia recalled that Mike was ever the investigating martyr when it came to Freddy's, despite having zero real connection with the place other than working there in the 90's as a night guard. Then again, the lack of family relations to that hellhole probably made it easier to expose the place, and the man would have probably took the night shift at the Pizzaplex too if it wasn't for how well known he was to the higher ups.

Whilst Sylvia was mid scowl as she pinned name to motive to face, Ness piped up with what toed the line between a question and an answer.

"Like the murdered kids?"

"Yeah like the missing - wait." Mike stopped dead in his tracks and waited for a moment, seemingly processing this new information. "Why are you so sure that they're all dead? We know about that one who survived, but they've just been missing, we've been hoping in hiding? ... I don't want to believe this."

The silence was almost deafening untill Ness spoke again.

"Sylvia, you know the phone call you got at about 12? I only just had enough control over my own body to go up to the roof and call you and tell you what I wanted to say to help you stop me. I had to make it seem like tonight was my first night there, just so you wouldn't feel bad about how long he'd kept me hidden up there for."

With a concerned huff, Sylvia replied with "I'm sorry, but I already knew you were missing and gone long before you called. And what does that have to do with the missing kids?" She paused for a moment to think, and then it clicked. "Luis mentioned this when he was working here. You mustered up enough control to give him a fair fight and then leave him and the kid for dead instead of finishing them off. You must have done that when you called me, to try and get me to help the kid. Turns out, he's scared of me."

Ness tilted her head with a shrug, not in a 'no' kind of way but in a 'thats true, but a completely different point' kind of way.

An airy sigh rung out and Mike crouched down so he was eye level with Ness. It seemed that he was trying to make himself as non-threatening as possible. His face and voice were solemn and sympathetic. A sign that what was about to be said would be hard to stomach.

"It's both that, and that you had enough presence to remember what he made you do the other times too. Even though you couldn't do anything, he made you remember, but at some point, something made you forget and all that remains is the knowledge that they are dead, but none of the details."

Ness sat in stunned silence for a moment before squeaking out a reply.

"How did you guess?"

"I can tell these things."

Mike's reply seemed more like an excuse for a strange ability than an answer, but then again, Ness knew that Mike was one of her mum's friends, and all of them were posessed, so it probably had something to do with that.

She didn't want to being it up here.

Uncertainty had made its home, and silence followed. Ness seemed to sink into the ground, as if she wanted the world to swallow her, and Mike felt as if he wasn't the right person to bring her out of this slump, so with a quick "one moment," he dashed away to where a group of people and cars were, and brought back with him a person that he believed could help.

"Luis!"

Ness called out as she saw Luis. She tried to get up to go to him, but her legs felt like lead. She had waited oh so too long to reunite.

Properly, this time.

As Luis sat down beside her, she cried "I missed you so much!" Before pulling him into a hug. It had been too long since they had been able to share a real hug.

"I missed you too princess," Luis replied as he buried his face in her shoulder, crying tears of joy. Their last meeting he'd rather not remember, and now that she was here, alive and in control of her own body again, he could put that behind him at last.

Looking at the two reunite, Mike knew that Ness was definitely feeling a bit better, so he could now ask Sylvia and Gregory questions about what happened.

"Hey kid. Gregory, was it? How did you figure out what to do to free her?"

"Why does everyone know my name?" Gregory asked, rather ticked off at this point.

"Sylvia told me when she called me at what, between 2 and 3?" Mike replied, "And before you ask, there was no way in. It really does seem as if even for staff, if you're in there after midnight, you're stuck until 6."

"I guess. Given that the fire escape was locked." Gregory huffed, "Well, I found these messages about the place that told me about a bunch of things that have been going on. They helped me figure out how to do most things really, like how to decommission Chica and the others. But there were like, five, that linked to the princess quest arcade machines. That's like, a tenth of all the messages!"

Gregory looked at his fazwatch for a moment before turning back to Mike and continuing. "There were also these messages about brownouts and something under Roxy Raceway. I found a hidden door in the maintenance tunnels and heard some creepy music from the other side, but I couldn't get through. There was also this old elevator in the raceway that went to under the foundations. I didn't want to see what was down there."

"I see," Mike replied, looking a little bit hyper, "can I just borrow your fazwatch for a moment? I'd like to back up the messages so where safer, but I promise I'll return it to you once I'm done, ok?"

Gregory agreed and handed over the fazwatch. Mike ran over to a petite ginger man who had a laptop with him, and in about two minutes, Mike was back with the fazwatch and handed it back to Gregory. All the messages and the obscenely high security clearance was all still there.

As he put the watch back on, Luis spoke up. "So, how did you glitch the other machines in order to get the princess quest 3 arcade to recognise you?"

Gregory recognised those words of getting an arcade machine to recognise you, and then it clicked. That puppy dog of a man had to be behind the message 'Arcade Conspiracy'. That must mean that Luis was also behind 'Red Flag', 'Out of Order', 'PQ1 maintenance log', and 'PQ2 maintenance log' as well.

That last message though. Arcade Conspiracy. Gregory didn't quite understand it. The only machine he was able to glitch was balloon world. The golf arcade machine had no glitches, but he did get under par, and that Chica one in the bakery didn't work at all.

There was only one truthful reply.

"I didn't."

Silence had once again found its home, looming over everyone.

But Luis broke the silence this time.

"Then how did it recognise you?"

Curiosity. That was the only thing in his voice; the pure curiosity of someone who was out of options finding that there may have been another way.

Now, equally curious, as it was clear that Luis played the same arcades that he did in his attempt to free Ness from being Vanny, Gregory begun to try and rationalise what happened. Gregory didn't know what he did differently, but he did know what he would have had to do if the arcade machine failed to work.

"Act of survival, probably." Gregory replied, not wanting to say whose survival the arcade working hinged on. "I already said, I only glitched one, and I don't think that mattered. It was probably the most hidden one too."

"The balloon world one?" Out of all the arcades that glitches have been reported in, the balloon world arcade machine was by far the most hidden, to the point where the concrete itself hides it's existence.

Gregory replied with a simple "Yeah."

Luis's face dropped. They each played the same arcades, yet it only let one of them access the finale. With a sigh, Luis said "I glitched that one too..."

As the two tried to think about what each of them did differently, Sylvia took a deep breath and spoke.

"I glitched them."

Both Luis and Gregory looked at Sylvia in shock, and the same word came out of both thier mouths.

"What?"

"I glitched them." Sylvia seemed distant, her eyes seemed glazed over, and she moved her hands as if she was solving an invisible puzzle that was far off in the distance, "I went around and glitched all three. Whilst you and Freddy were waltzing around, probably playing Fazerblast and shoving Chica into the trash compactor, I was running around, glitching the arcades."

Sylvia's voice became strained and she looked as if she was about to collapse, pass out, and cry, in that order.

"I'm just glad that the knight breaking the conspiracy let the squire in."

Luis and Gregory looked at Sylvia with concern. She did not seem well, both physically and now mentally.

"What was that last bit?" Gregory asked, feeling like the wording Sylvia had used was far too similar to the words used in the Arcade Conspiracy message. Did the arcades do this to her?

Sylvia sounded distant, yet less dazed as she replied. "I'm glad that me glitching the arcades let you in."

Gregory didn't want a rephrase; he wanted her to repeat what she said.

"No, about the knight."

Evasion was apparent in Sylvia's voice as she replied. "I must be getting dehydrated."

"Or going insane." Gregory replied, "Just like Mr Arcade Conspiracy over there."

He then pointed to Luis.

Sylvia raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. The words arcade and conspiracy have been used together quite frequently in the past few days in regards to how to get the final arcade machine to work, but something was different about how it was used now. The child said that he was gathering information, so what did he know?

"Read this." Gregory said as he showed Sylvia the message 'Arcade conspiracy' that was selected on his fazwatch. She saw other messages too, and it was apparent that this kid knew way more than he'd ever let on. "You're sounding just like him. And, you said you forgot a bunch of stuff, so how do you remember that?"

"That was Luis's exit interview," Sylvia replied, "and yeah, I forgot how the hell I got everywhere. It was like one minute I'm in a security office having the transmission to lost and found hijacked, and the next I'm beating off the daycare attendant with a broom in parts and services, and the next, I'm in Monty flipping golf!"

"Riiiight." Gregory spoke with a rather aloof air, and Sylvia could feel Gregory glaring daggers at her as the kid spoke. She wasn't surprised that he didn't trust her, but what reason did the kid have to not trust her still?

The silence made yet another unwelcome return, and as Sylvia felt the gaze of many fall upon her, she hoped that someone, anyone, would break the silence.

Ness cleared her throat, and it seemed as if she had something to say. She turned to Gregory and begun to speak.

"Umm... Excuse me, but, I remember a small thing. From before you entered the Pizzaplex." Ness's voice shook, and her hands were shaking too. Despite this, she managed to speak clearly. "You have no parents, right?"

"Yeah, so what?" Gregory's reply was quick and harsh. Not unusual for a kid like himself.

Ness took a deep breath before replying.

"I know this may sound suspicious, seeing as all I've tried to do all night is kill you, but I'm back in control of my own body now, and ..." Ness turned to Luis, and he nodded in reply to something unspoken, and then she continued talking, "Luis and I would like to adopt you."

"Ok."

Ness's eyes went wide and she froze in place as a smile creeped onto her face, but not the eerie smile of Vanny, but the genuine smile of a very happy woman.

Sylvia, despite not being a part of this conversation, turned around and stared at the kid. This is the first she knew that he was homeless. She then went back to minding her own business in wondering if she would have handled the situation differently if she knew then what she knew now. She probably wouldn't have, but a girl can wonder.

"Congratulations superstar! And ... Ness? Is it now?"

The voice of Glamrock Freddy was heard, but it was definitely not coming from Gregory's watch.

"Where did that come from? How does it know my name?" Ness asked, her question bred from innocent curiosity, yet it invited dark things.

Gregory only shushed his bag in reply and whispered to it "what did I tell you about talking?"

All this seemed to do was invite a second voice onto the scene that sounded as if it came from Sylvia's bag.

"Whoa? Freddy? I thought I'd never see him again! Never thought I'd see the day!"

Instead of trying to remedy the situation, Sylvia just screamed into her hands, clearly completely done and at her breaking point. This was the last thing she needed to happen.

Mike, who had been here the whole time, just watching this fiasco, looked around, and his face dropped as he locked eyes with someone who looked like a business man. With a sigh, he finally spoke. "I'm so sorry, but I have to ask what's in the bags now. I'm SO sorry, but," Mike clicked his tounge as he pointed back at a screeching Fazbear Entertainment executive who was being talked to by a short woman with brown hair, ghastly pale skin littered with stitches, blue headphones, and a striking blue streak in her hair, "he saw me hear them, and whilst he is currently being chewed out, it'll only be a matter of time before he storms over here."

Both Gregory and Sylvia opened their bags and they each pulled out an animatronic head. Gregory pulled out the brown, blue, and red head of Freddy, whilst Sylvia pulled out the purple, yellow, and pink head of Bonnie.

As she placed Bonnie's head on the grass, Sylvia said "He asked me to take him around the Pizzaplex to see if he could find a new body whilst I was running around glitching the arcades. Come 6 am, he spent about twenty minutes trying to decide weather he wanted to stay in that damn crate in monty golf or come with me. He decided to come with me."

Gregory had already placed down Freddy's head, and he wouldn't look away from it. Even as he spoke, he looked towards the head of the robotic bear, as if letting it out of his sight would be the end of the world. "He wanted to come with me, but couldn't because of his limited power, so I stayed. When we decided to take on Vanny, he got destroyed by staff bots. That ... bought me time to go up to the control room. I couldn't just leave him on the floor, he's my friend! He'd have been scrap if I left him!"

The executive that Mike pointed out earlier ran over as the petite woman in the trenchcoat strode after him, murder in her eyes. As the man begun to yell, she slapped her hand over his mouth. Her hand appeared to be made of metal.

With a huff, the woman spoke. "Hi. PI Fitzgerald couldn't make it - busy with another incident, so he sent me in his place. My name is Verity. Those robot heads seem sentient, and this bozo doesn't understand that if you make a sentient machine, you can't keep treating it like property. The line is somewhere in freedom of thought and the ability to disobey, but anywhere beyond is human level sentient, so, where do those two land."

Sylvia replied almost immediately, vouching for Freddy's sentience, saying "Well, Freddy lied to me about why he was out and about, and his links to the kid."

As Sylvia went quiet, Gregory continued with what he knew about Freddy. "He had an existential crisis when I went into the parts and service place with all the endos, and he sounded really sad about Bonnie being gone when I went to Bonnie Bowl. He must have been grieving still."

Verity then turned to Freddy and asked the bear a question herself. "Freddy, any words on the matter?"

Freddy was talking to Bonnie, not loud enough to interrupt the conversation between herself, Gregory, and Sylvia, but it was vaugely audible, and she heard phrases that she had learned were associated with friends who had not seen eachother in a long time.

Verity then turned back to Sylvia and Gregory "I'll take it he's busy reconnecting with a friend, I'll ask him later. And Bonnie?"

"He learned to swear." Sylvia said, rather bluntly as she tried to remember everything she could about Bonnie, "The only people he's been in contact with since he was decommissioned have been an exhausted technician, and me. That was after he tried to save a kid - damn I hope she's safe, but she still wound up missing in the papers and her parents were still calling up the next day... And what did he get for it? He was lured into a trap where he got hit by the bucket and then Monty tore him to shreds. Monty and Bonnie are usually friends, so, I don't know what happened, but I feel like someone or something forced him to do that."

Freddy ears perked up, and he looked up at Sylvia as he spoke. "Wait, Officer Van... no, would you rather me call you Sylvia? Did you just say that Monty... Hurt Bonnie?"

Sylvia sighed, realising that this was likely to be heavy hitting news for Freddy to hear. "Yes, please call me Sylvia, and Yes, I saw it on the cameras. By the time I got to Monty Golf myself, all that was left behind was the head. In retrospect, I assume the legs were taken to upgrade Monty, but the arms and torso were gone too. I went to get a technician, but by the time I got back, Bonnie's head was gone too. And I know how you feel about your friends, and that it must hurt to hear that one of your friends was forced to hurt another. I'm so sorry. There was nothing I could do."

"I see..." Freddy replied, "To think he's been this close this whole time... And there's no need to be sorry, Sylvia. We all know you've been feeling the same way in regards to someone else here today."

Bonnie piped up in reply, hoping that the situation would improve if he spoke too, "But hey, I'm here now! And I'm sorry for leaving ya. And everything Sylvia said is true. I booted up in safe mode that night and tried to save a kid, and the next day, I was decommissioned and my head was hidden in a box."

"That's why I was so concerned about your connection to Gregory, Freddy." Sylvia said, running her hands through the grass as she stared at the clump of green that was accumulating in her hand, "I had already accepted that I was probably going to wind up dead meat - I figured that if he had parents, that I'd be torn apart by them if the kid was dead, but if the kid was alive, I guessed there'd be an exec with a gun waiting for me. The constant threatening messages from my benefactors didn't help. But even with Bonnie going missing, I didn't think you understood what exactly was at stake for you."

"I see." Freddy replied, "I am sorry for suspecting you."

"It's fine. It all turned out well in the end I guess. An alive kid and no exec with a gun." Sylvia shut her eyes as she crushed the grass that was in her hands, staining them a yellowish green.

"So," Verity spoke up, seeming to have heard all she needed to hear, "would you two rather stay with Sylvia and the kid, or stay at the Pizzaplex."

Freddy was the first to reply. "I'd rather stay with Gregory. I don't think I could bear to face the others again... It'd be too painful of a reminder of... Previous nights."

Bonnie replied second. "You're asking me if I'd rather be free or spend forever as a head in a box. I'd rather be free, thanks."

Verity responded with a certain conviction and confidence in her voice, "I see... So that does it. They're sentient enough to make thier own choices."

After she finished talking, the executive prised her hand from his mouth and begun to yell.

"How can you say that? For all we know, they could have been hacked to say that!"

"Because I'M a robot too, ya prick." Verity yelled back, seething with rage, "A synthetic human, if you want to split hairs. I know what it feels like to go from being a tool to a person. I remember the day my creator gave me the ability to chose, and the ability to disobey. I remember being given a mission, and choosing to protect the person I was sent to kill. I remember being told who's stem cells were used to make my synthetic parts, and that my first target - someone who I had made the choice to protect - was one of them. And I remember the day my creator left me on the doorstep of that man, and I went from calling him a target to calling him dad. I can empathise with them."

The executive smirked as he looked Verity up and down. "I don't see how that makes you qualified to decide on someone's sentience."

He spoke with a tone that made Verity want to run away, as far as she could. The words themselves didn't hurt, but they told her everything she needed to know about the man: now he knew she was a machine, he didn't consider her human.

Backing away, Verity spat back in reply, "Neither are you. Besides, I'm not deciding anything. I just had to prove it in front of the law, and I did."

Verity could feel the executive looking at her as an investor would look at a product. She hoped that he didn't recognise the old tech that was use to create her.

The slimy executive spoke again, trying to grab at her arm, "and would you mind telling me who your creator is?"

Verity backed away and growled like a cornered dog. "No comment."

"And your dad?" The executive tried to grab her again as he spoke.

Verity was shaking as she backed away again and yelled "No fucking comment."

Mike turned around and noticed the struggle that was occurring. He had been rather preoccupied with talking to Freddy and Bonnie since the executive showed up, but now he noticed that Verity was having some issues.

After chastising himself for not noticing sooner, he turned on his heels and approached the executive, an unnerving glare spread across his face as his first measure of intimidating the executive into fleeing.

"Excuse me, but could you back off? She's clearly uncomfortable and does not want to tell some creepy executive of a corrupt company that she's investigating who created her and who her dad is."

The executive then sneered a defensive reply, "So? Where's the harm in a little small talk."

Mike didn't say anything as he turned to face the executive and only the executive. After a few seconds, the executive's face went pale and fear had etched itself into every feature of his face. As Mike had his back to everyone but the executive, nobody else, aside from Verity, who was standing off to the side, saw what he did to scare the executive so much.

As the executive fled, Mike and Verity stepped back to the small crowd at the roundabout.

"That was a super cool scary face." Verity said as she sat down, needing a minute to calm herself.

"Thanks!" Mike replied, not really wanting to talk about it, "anyway, it's decided, Freddy and Bonnie are free to chose if they want to stay or go. Talking about staying or going, there's something I wanted to bring up."

Mike cleared his throat before continuing.

"A team of electricians found an old location under this one. They have not returned. I also believe that I know WHAT they found." Mike's face was a sombre shadow of his usual sweet self as he turned to look at Gregory, "I think you made a good choice in freeing Ness rather than going to see what was down there. From the data from your watch, I know you've been through a lot, but even though you could probably tackle that thing alone, I have a feeling that it wouldn't go as planned."

Gregory noted Mike's solemn expression and nodded, figuring that he had dodged a bullet with the choices that he had made.

After a brief silence, Mike spoke up, sensing that Gregory, Sylvia, and Ness may feel safer talking elsewhere rather than just outside the Pizzaplex that the three had just escaped.

"So, now do we let you guys crash in the break room of the station, or hospital. Figures it'll be easier for you to speak freely there rather than here."

Gregory looked at Luis and Ness, as prior to them asking to adopt him, his home had been a cardboard box since his birth parents vanished.

Ness remained silent also.

Sylvia was the only one who spoke.

"I live in an apartment near the station? This place gives no usable insurance, and I wouldn't want to get in anyone's way... So, can we use my place instead?"

"You know what, that'll work." Mike replied with a smile that quickly became slightly nervous and nonchalant, "As long as you don't mind my sister doing surgeon things in your house if you need it. A-and don't worry, she's licensed to do that."

"That'll be fine." Sylvia replied with a shrug, not seeming to mind, "I'll probably fucken need it too."

A pain flared up in her ribs as she vaugely remembered how she had played the role of Alice in trashland when she went to check on the kitchen after glitching the Chica's Feeding Frenzy arcade. The adrenaline must have been finally worn off, saving the worst of her aches and pains for last.

"Is everyone else ok with that?" Mike asked looking to Gregory and Ness for there reactions. He figured a few other people would tag along too, but he figured that Sylvia had already assumed that, as Ness and Luis didn't look like they'd be letting go of one another any time soon.

The reply was a "yeah" from Gregory and a "Yep" from Ness.

"My place it is." Sylvia smiled, "just don't trash the place."

***

The car ride was rather quiet, but sometimes, silence was for the better.

Once at the apartment, Sylvia unlocked the door, and as she let her guests in, she figured that maybe she needed more mugs. Hopefully some of her guests were ok with a cold drink in a glass.

On top of Mike, Gregory, and Ness, Luis, Jeremy (the beta tester), and Verity had tagged along too.

"Sorry it's a mess." Sylvia sighed, "I don't normally have guests, and the place is not even mine, it's my dad's. He just made me use this place when I worked there."

"Honestly, it's fine." Mike replied before leading into a question, "And, how long do you have this place for now?"

"Probably until he finds out that I've ruined his plans." Sylvia then sighed. She had done so much to try and survive whilst still trying to save people from the clutches of the Pizzaplex, but her ruse against her father was going to come crashing down the moment the man heard of what happened last night. "Which will be tomorrow."

Mike wanted to look on the bright side, but he figured that Sylvia wanted facts and solutions; not pitty. "I guess you two don't see eye to eye. At all. But that should be enough time to arrange temporary accommodation around here."

Sylvia nodded and replied with her own solution to her issue of having a place to stay. "I was planning on moving back to my old place tomorrow. I've already packed. I also may have packed to make it easier to run, or for a friend to clear this place out if anything had happened to me. But I guess neither of those had to happen."

"So you won't be staying to see what's under the raceway?"

Sylvia was quiet for a moment as she considered what was said. Whilst she was planning on moving back home tomorrow, home was far away. She needed to see what had been causing her all this grief.

"On second thought, I can stick around if I can find somewhere."

Gregory scowled a little. "You changed your mind quick"

Sylvia was not surprised, but felt a little insulted by the little ankle breaker's remarks. "If I knew the plan was to go back and solve the rest of this in person instead of just being an info-bot, I'd have said yes from the get-go."

After hearing that there was a plan to go back, Ness felt a spark of hope. Even if she couldn't reverse what William made her do, perhaps she could help remedy the situation in other ways.

"I want to tag along too." She flinched at her own voice, worried that she seemed desperate, "I made a promise to Luis that the day I go to the Pizzaplex on my own terms, that I will end Williams plans then and there. It's just a shame that I was too far gone to keep that promise the first time."

"It's ok." Mike smiled, "He kind of told me about that promise you made when he was telling me that you disappeared. And if you're worried, we'll be going in with backup anyway, so it'll be safe for you to come along."

Ness nodded, happy about the fact that there would be more people about than she could wish for. Perhaps that way, there'd be someone to stop her if - 'No, stop thinking like that. He's gone'. Ness had to interrupt her own thoughts before worries and what if's consumed her. They'd be there to help thwart William. She was free of his control; they shouldn't need to stop her.

Gregory then interjected with "I'll be going back too. Maybe I could rebuild Freddy."

As Mike turned to respond to Gregory, he froze up for a moment and appeared to be rather confused. He crouched down to the kid's level and his eyes widened in shock, as if he saw something that nobody else could see.

"Right. I bet that even if I said no, you'd find a way to tag along anyway."

After seeing the kid repspond with a nod, Mike stood up and asked Ness to come with him for a moment so that they could speak out of earshot of everyone else.

"Is Gregory ok?" Ness whispered, her concern apparent with the lines that had etched that feeling into her face.

"Yeah. He's just a bit posessed." Mike whispered back.

And then he looked at Ness.

Her face was stricken with what he could only assume was fear, grief, and guilt. Mike knew that Ness was worried that Glitchtrap had hopped from her to the kid.

"Like I am, not like you were."

This seemed to come as a relief to Ness. It wasn't a leecher; it was a helpful ghost and a normal possession. Her face switched from fear to curiosity as she wondered who this mystery spirit was.

"Do you know who he's posessed by?"

"Some soldier." Mike replied, "I recognise the uniform, and I swear I know the face. I met him at the shooting range once - I work there on Thursdays and do the pre-range usage gun safety instruction talks for office parties. One week, a military squad booked the place out as an office party, and he was the only one not seething about having to sit through my talk and demonstration. I think his name was Evan."

"Does he know this?"

"Probably." Mike replied, shuffling a bit in place, "I think he does. He at least seems to acknowledge that something is haunting him."

"Ok." Ness still seemed concerned, yet appreciative of the fact, and she wondered if the kids choices would have been the same if he didn't have a spectral guide.

The two then gave a mutual nod before returning to the living room, where everyone was mostly quiet and discussing things amongst themselves.

Whilst Ness sat down, Mike approached Gregory.

"Is it ok if I test something?" Mike asked, "I just need to show you a series of photographs, and I'll guage your reaction. I think I know your identity, and I just need to double check something."

"As long as it doesn't wind up with me being back on the street, sure."

Gregory seemed a bit antsy, but the kid had just gone through hell and probably hasn't slept in over twenty four hours.

Mike nodded and assure that no matter what the test showed, that Gregory would not be forced out of his new home. Then, he pulled out a series of photographs from his bag and spread them on the floor. They were labeled 'F_001', 'F_003', and 'F_RDRT2'.

Mike first flipped over the photograph labeled F_001. It was a photograph of a woman in her mid forties, dressed in clothes that were in fashion about two years ago.

Whilst Gregory's face showed no visible change, Mike noted something down.

Mike then flipped over the second photograph, labeled F_003. It was a man who looked similar to Gregory, yet older. As if the man was Gregory's father.

The changes in Gregory's face were subtle, yet telling. Mike took notes and then moved to the third photograph.

F_RDRT2 was a photo of a brown dog. A real dog. It had been given a blue collar, and by the looks of the scene, it's photo had been taken in a studio. There was a note on the bottom of the photograph reading "best fit. Use for resemblance tests."

Gregory's reaction was instant. His face froze and he begun to shake before clambering onto the back of the sofa. The usually stoic and sassy child had been reduced to a shivering mess in seconds.

"I see," Mike flipped over the photograph and then took notes, "I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd react this way to the third photograph. The second test will have to wait. Again, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd react this way to the dog photo."

"I - it's ok. It's not like you could have known." Gregory replied as he climbed down off the back of the sofa.

Mike just gave a solemn nod in reply before walking over to Luis.

"Hey, can I ask a favour?"

Luis tilted his head. "What is it?"

"I want you to see if you can ask Anna to contact her mother." Mike replied, a little anxious about his request. "Bonibelle Kewemto. The former operator of the nightmare Bonnie animatronic. I think that Gregory here may be the son of 'the comatose man with the dog bites'."

Luis nodded, acknowledging both Mike's request and the slight apprehension that the man seemed to hold in regards to talking about Anna's mother. "On it." He said before going into the other room, where it was quieter, and making a phone call.

"So he's not the electricians kid then." Sylvia piped up, "figured."

Ness shuffled about and had placed her glass of water on the table.

Mike tentatively approached Ness and asked "Are you ok?"

Ness was quiet for a few seconds before taking a gulp of air. "First he's posessed by a US army soldier, now he's also the kid of some guy in a coma, I-" she had to take a deep breath as she realised that her hands had grabbed fistfuls of her own hair in her stress, "this is too much too soon I - I don't know how to process any of this. What does it all mean?"

Mike didn't know how to reply, but he had to say something. "Well," he started, "perhaps we can make sense of it if I go over the comatose man situation from the top. Then we might both understand."

Ness nodded, and Mike took a deep breath. Which turned into two. Then three.

Then finally, Mike begun to explain the situation, from the top. "There was an incident some years ago. A man, who when he was a teen, came into the unfortunate possession of an animatronic dog. He tried to live a normal life, yet whenever he "wanted" something, the dog would bring it, no matter what damage fetching what he wanted entailed. He had learned to live with the situation, and eventually managed to settle down. However, one bland day at work, the man forgot about the dog and his need to never want, and he wanted to see his family. So, the dog delivered. His wife was killed in transit by the dog, yet the child survived, having been shielded by his mother. On arrival, the man fought to get the child out of the dogs grasp, causing the man to take a lot of damage to the head and torso. Whilst the child did survive, he ran away after only receiving first aid and was never found."

Gregory had winced and clutched at a phantom pain at the exact moment the dog had been introduced in Mike's quick retelling. The kid thought nobody noticed, but unfortunately, everyone had noticed.

Mike paused for a moment to see if Gregory was ok, but as the kid mouthed 'go on', Mike realised that he should probably continue talking. He took a deep breath before continuing with "We've managed to get a pretty full picture from the texts on the man's phone and the scene we were called to. Doctors doubt that he'll ever fully recover, and even if he did, they're keeping him in Norway to investigate the robotic dog further. And hey, they have bears in Norway, so it's not all that bad."

"I was on that scene. I was on first aid duty. And why bring up bears?" Sylvia interjected, confused as to the sudden change of topic.

"Well, it just reminded me about the bear situation. Bears were almost hunted to extinction over here in the states with targeted traffic accidents, but everywhere else in the world, the bear population is fine." Mike replied, his entire train of thought derailed now, "They're actually reintroducing some bears from Canada to the Northern areas of the states soon to mingle with the current population which'll hopefully let the population become stable, so that'll be fun!"

"For a guy who was almost killed by the original Freddy Fazbear, you seem awfully fond of bears." Sylvia remarked with a huff

"Real bears don't play Votre toast from act 2 of the opera Carmen."

"Fair game."

"Anyway," Mike replied, "back on topic. This kid is Gregory junior, am I correct? If he does return to his father, then he'll have to live in a small village in Norway. Due to the nature of how he became an orphan, we're contacting Bonibelle to give her a note for if and when Gregory scenior does wake up. The note is just seeing if she can ask him about if he's ok with Ness and Luis becoming Gregory's legal guardians if the kid choses to stay over here."

"Oh. Thank you." Ness replied, her smile and voice genuine.

"Yeah." Mike begun writing things down as he replied, "This is a special case, and until we have closure on the comatose man situation, I'll do the necessary paperwork to give you two guardianship of the child. The guys at CPS won't mind, as the last time I told them that thier systems needed to be bypassed for a special case and they IGNORED me, one of them lost an arm and an eye to the 'orphan' Cassey had taken in."

"They tried to put it through the childcare system when it was a rabbit goblin!" Sylvia practically yelled. During her time as a part time paranormal responder prior to her employment at the megaplex, she had seen many things that nobody should have to see, and 'that' scene was one of the calls she would never forget.

"Sylvia we aren't supposed to talk about this stuff here. What if the benefactors bugged the place! They'll kill you!" Jeremy, who had been minding his own business up until now, interjected, concerned for Sylvia's safety. Jeremy, whilst not a paranormal responder, was good enough friends with Sylvia for her to have told him everything that she had been through. That investigation included.

"Pft, I'll be fine. Fuck em. They already have enough reason to blow my brains out, what's one more," Sylvia huffed, "and besides, I de-bug this place each morning. Can we get back to talking about the rabbit child?"

"Yeah. Back to the rabbit child. Since Cass took him in, he looks a lot more human now, and seems to have adjusted to being human too. Given that thier first meeting was Cass screeching obscenities over overflow errors at a dead man's computer - that dead man being the 'parent' of the rabbit child - I'm actually pleasantly surprised that the two get along."

"Don't remind me. That rant is etched into my MIND!" Sylvia leaned back as she spoke, "and are there any part time paranormal responder spots open?"

"Yeah. We can talk about that later, and you can pull me up on it if I forget. Now, back on topic regarding Gregory," Mike turned from talking to Sylvia to to talking to the child, "do you want to stay here with Ness and Luis, or do you want to go to Norway and be with your biological father."

"I'd rather stay here." Gregory replied, "I don't like the cold, and I can always visit him if and when he wakes up now that I've got a mom and a dad and don't need to dumpster dive for meals."

"So, that's a 'you're staying with Ness and Luis' then?" Mike asked in order to confirm what Gregory had said.

"Do I need to repeat myself? Of course it's a yes. What part of I'd rather stay here don't you get!" Whilst Gregory seemed almost insulted by Mike asking for confirmation, the boy's confidence said everything.

"Ok, so that's settled." Mike stood up and clapped. "Everyone get some rest, I'll sort out temporary accommodation for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I call in backup and we start planning on how we'll return to the Pizzaplex and end that nightmare."

As if everyone was on the same wavelength, they raised thier glasses in a cheer.

"To ending the nightmare!"

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Link to my amino blogs:
aminoapps.com/p/tjxv2uo
aminoapps.com/p/4bsqnz

FNAF (c) Scott Cawthon.
Artwork and interpretation of the characters belong to me.

Description
There will be security breach spoilers. This was intended to be a comic, but I wound up writing a fic longer than Equinox Peril (another long fic of mine) instead. My AU goes way out of line with cannon regarding the ending, but I still follow slightly.

Officer Vanessa Sylvia Blake had been threatened and manipulated by a benefactor, his contact, and his subordinate into making the Vanny suit, delivering it to Fazerblast, and locating lost children.

Gregory had lost his family many years ago and now getting in over his head with little more than a ghostly guardian and a robot to his aid.

Vanessa Diego had been put under the control of Glitchtrap and forced to kill and act as puppet master to the megaplex.

But Sylvia decides "fuck it, no more" as she breaks the one rule she had to follow and breaks a glitchy conspiracy.

And Gregory decides to try and find out more about the rabbit lady and the guard, and when push came to shove, he decided to do what a technician couldn't, and played the last arcade.

And Ness, now freed from Glitchtrap, takes Gregory in as a son.

But they all know there are still secrets to be found, and they aren't the only ones who want in on the investigation of the hellsite. Besides, the idea of going back with a large team to uncover the last secrets feels much more doable than trying to be a one kid army.

[BC]=°•.🌹 Story 🌹.•°=

[C]°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•🌹•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°

Three figures ran out of the Pizzaplex. Running away and never looking back, coming to rest on the grass of a roundabout at the car parks exit. The morning sun cast a golden glow on the trio; a blonde woman, a bleached blonde whose roots were growing back brunette, and a brown haired child.

"Phew, that was a close call. Thanks for saving me, kid." The bleach blonde, Ness, said between heavy breaths.

"No problem." The brown haired child, Gregory, replied, "I just figured you didn't deserve to die. And I wasn't about to see what was under that raceway anyway."

"I see." Ness replied, melancholy yet grateful that she was alive.

"And how do you have the blaster and camera?" The natural blonde, Sylvia, asked shaking slightly, but not in regards to what she was asking, "With how scarce unused printed party passes are, I figured you'd only have found one."

"Freddy found a second one when I decided to stay to see what I could do to make a change." Gregory replied, looking at the camera he obtained, "I managed to give Freddy Monty's claws too. He just didn't get to use em for anything other than info gathering."

"Info gathering?! That's amazing!" Sylvia's eyes lit up at the prospect of more information, but her voice still wavered from a panic that had just come to rest.

"It is? Hu. Cool." Gregory nonchalantly replied, looking at the messages on his fazwatch, "Anyway, at least there'll be no more murders, and besides, it wasn't your fault."

Ness's face dropped and she begun to panic. "More? No more? As in, some have already happened?"

The panic was palpable and nobody seemed to know what to say.

"Yeah." Sylvia huffed, realising that this had to be said sooner or later, "Over the past ... Several weeks, Luis and I have been looking for you, and during that time, there have been a bunch of disappearances at this place. I was all down for blaming the robots, but that was too easy to be true. And, the day most of the night staff got sacked, well, we prevented one of those murders and kind of wound up having to face reality."

Ness stayed silent. She knew what had happened, despite lacking most of the memories, only recalling one or two bloody snippets.

After a few moments, it was Gregory who broke the silence.

"Hey, it's not your fault.That arcade game spelled it out pretty clearly; he's been controling you. That's why you can't remember."

"Usually, I do remember what he makes me do." Ness replied with shock and fear, "But this last few weeks, and today, there's been basically nothing. All I remember is arriving at this place, and that's about it."

"Odd. Surely, if that's the case, you should at least - Wait, I - I don't remember half of what happened tonight. All I remember was walking around the damn row, finding you in the prize counter, shooing the daycare attendant off Freddy, trash land, and trying to contact you at 6 AM to see if you wanted to be an intern, just for the airways to get hijacked half way through again." Sylvia listed most of what she could remembered in order to try and not forget it. "Everything else is getting blurry; why is this happening again? It makes no sense, I was never posessed. Is it the stress? Why am I forgetting stuff? Kid, you got any ideas?"

"Exceptions and stress respectively."

The kid replied with an all convenient answer way too fast.

"Seems way too thought out, but I'll take it." Sylvia felt that something was up, but was too exhausted to care. "I was like this after everyone else got laid off. It'll come back with some rest, I'm sure."

Ness, on the other hand, was quite preoccupied. "everything hurts ... I think I'm going to fall sleep."

Sylvia couldn't remember if Ness had been injured during her time as Vanny, and didn't want to run the risk of losing her sister so soon. "Try and stay awake, we don't know if anything else is wrong with your head, so if you sleep, you may not wake up. The police and a paramedic will be here soon. Then we should all be able to go home. Let's all try to stay awake, ok."

"Why a paramedic?" Ness asked, practically dozing off

"Because the kid went inside an animatronic." Sylvia was clearly panicked, but was trying to keep it cool, "I called one because I was scared he'd get crushed."

"Excuse me," Gregory spoke up, "About the going home bit... I don't have a home. Just my box."

After a slight silence, Ness piped up. "Well how about -"

Ness's words were cut off by an explosion that sounded like it came from under the Pizzaplex, and none of the three were able to stay awake.

***

"Wakey wakey, it's morning."

A voice rung out, but all the trio could register was the brightness of the sun and the grass underneath them, and none of them really wanted to open thier eyes, and as they stired awake, a second voice rang out that was familiar to two of them.

"They're breathing at least."

That was Cassey's voice.

Sylvia made an effort to open her eyes, and saw three figures looming above them. A slim brunet man with poofy hair, Cassey, and a tough looking blonde woman with hair far far shorter than hers. She connected the first voice to the lanky brunet, so even though the faces of the trio were in shadow, she knew the voice that came next was the blondes.

"Good thing, everyone was getting worried."

Sylvia felt like falling back to sleep, but knew she had to wake up. As she used her elbows to prop herself to a sitting position, she asked "What happened? Last I remember, we all left that ... Place... And rested here, and now everything hurts and..." As she looked around.

When her gaze shifted back to the Pizzaplex, she had a more important question.

"When did it set on fire?"

The blonde, who she now recognised as Danielle Schmidt, a police officer from Chicago, answered her. "Firefighters have it under control. It only seems to be the west wing, and the far west wing at that with minimal damage too, sadly. It's got it's week of maintenance that it'll be shut for anyway, but on top of that, that place will be closed for a few more days if were unlucky."

Sensing a hatred of Fazbear Entertainment that ran as deep as her own, she replied with another question. "And what if we're lucky?"

"Permanently."

The woman was definitely still an optimist. Even after all this time.

Ness seemed to have the next question.

"What's going to happen to us?"

A good question too. All of the Pizzaplex's main bots were destroyed, by a child no less, and Glitchtrap had turned Ness into a killer.

The brunet who Sylvia and Ness now recognised as Mike Schmidt, Danielle's husband and the head of the paranormal department over at the Chicago PD replied to thier concern. "Well, we'll ask you what happened, use that to help us solve this places puzzles."

It was now obvious why Danielle was here: to stop her husband from rushing off to try and solve all of this by himself. Sylvia recalled that Mike was ever the investigating martyr when it came to Freddy's, despite having zero real connection with the place other than working there in the 90's as a night guard. Then again, the lack of family relations to that hellhole probably made it easier to expose the place, and the man would have probably took the night shift at the Pizzaplex too if it wasn't for how well known he was to the higher ups.

Whilst Sylvia was mid scowl as she pinned name to motive to face, Ness piped up with what toed the line between a question and an answer.

"Like the murdered kids?"

"Yeah like the missing - wait." Mike stopped dead in his tracks and waited for a moment, seemingly processing this new information. "Why are you so sure that they're all dead? We know about that one who survived, but they've just been missing, we've been hoping in hiding? ... I don't want to believe this."

The silence was almost deafening untill Ness spoke again.

"Sylvia, you know the phone call you got at about 12? I only just had enough control over my own body to go up to the roof and call you and tell you what I wanted to say to help you stop me. I had to make it seem like tonight was my first night there, just so you wouldn't feel bad about how long he'd kept me hidden up there for."

With a concerned huff, Sylvia replied with "I'm sorry, but I already knew you were missing and gone long before you called. And what does that have to do with the missing kids?" She paused for a moment to think, and then it clicked. "Luis mentioned this when he was working here. You mustered up enough control to give him a fair fight and then leave him and the kid for dead instead of finishing them off. You must have done that when you called me, to try and get me to help the kid. Turns out, he's scared of me."

Ness tilted her head with a shrug, not in a 'no' kind of way but in a 'thats true, but a completely different point' kind of way.

An airy sigh rung out and Mike crouched down so he was eye level with Ness. It seemed that he was trying to make himself as non-threatening as possible. His face and voice were solemn and sympathetic. A sign that what was about to be said would be hard to stomach.

"It's both that, and that you had enough presence to remember what he made you do the other times too. Even though you couldn't do anything, he made you remember, but at some point, something made you forget and all that remains is the knowledge that they are dead, but none of the details."

Ness sat in stunned silence for a moment before squeaking out a reply.

"How did you guess?"

"I can tell these things."

Mike's reply seemed more like an excuse for a strange ability than an answer, but then again, Ness knew that Mike was one of her mum's friends, and all of them were posessed, so it probably had something to do with that.

She didn't want to being it up here.

Uncertainty had made its home, and silence followed. Ness seemed to sink into the ground, as if she wanted the world to swallow her, and Mike felt as if he wasn't the right person to bring her out of this slump, so with a quick "one moment," he dashed away to where a group of people and cars were, and brought back with him a person that he believed could help.

"Luis!"

Ness called out as she saw Luis. She tried to get up to go to him, but her legs felt like lead. She had waited oh so too long to reunite.

Properly, this time.

As Luis sat down beside her, she cried "I missed you so much!" Before pulling him into a hug. It had been too long since they had been able to share a real hug.

"I missed you too princess," Luis replied as he buried his face in her shoulder, crying tears of joy. Their last meeting he'd rather not remember, and now that she was here, alive and in control of her own body again, he could put that behind him at last.

Looking at the two reunite, Mike knew that Ness was definitely feeling a bit better, so he could now ask Sylvia and Gregory questions about what happened.

"Hey kid. Gregory, was it? How did you figure out what to do to free her?"

"Why does everyone know my name?" Gregory asked, rather ticked off at this point.

"Sylvia told me when she called me at what, between 2 and 3?" Mike replied, "And before you ask, there was no way in. It really does seem as if even for staff, if you're in there after midnight, you're stuck until 6."

"I guess. Given that the fire escape was locked." Gregory huffed, "Well, I found these messages about the place that told me about a bunch of things that have been going on. They helped me figure out how to do most things really, like how to decommission Chica and the others. But there were like, five, that linked to the princess quest arcade machines. That's like, a tenth of all the messages!"

Gregory looked at his fazwatch for a moment before turning back to Mike and continuing. "There were also these messages about brownouts and something under Roxy Raceway. I found a hidden door in the maintenance tunnels and heard some creepy music from the other side, but I couldn't get through. There was also this old elevator in the raceway that went to under the foundations. I didn't want to see what was down there."

"I see," Mike replied, looking a little bit hyper, "can I just borrow your fazwatch for a moment? I'd like to back up the messages so where safer, but I promise I'll return it to you once I'm done, ok?"

Gregory agreed and handed over the fazwatch. Mike ran over to a petite ginger man who had a laptop with him, and in about two minutes, Mike was back with the fazwatch and handed it back to Gregory. All the messages and the obscenely high security clearance was all still there.

As he put the watch back on, Luis spoke up. "So, how did you glitch the other machines in order to get the princess quest 3 arcade to recognise you?"

Gregory recognised those words of getting an arcade machine to recognise you, and then it clicked. That puppy dog of a man had to be behind the message 'Arcade Conspiracy'. That must mean that Luis was also behind 'Red Flag', 'Out of Order', 'PQ1 maintenance log', and 'PQ2 maintenance log' as well.

That last message though. Arcade Conspiracy. Gregory didn't quite understand it. The only machine he was able to glitch was balloon world. The golf arcade machine had no glitches, but he did get under par, and that Chica one in the bakery didn't work at all.

There was only one truthful reply.

"I didn't."

Silence had once again found its home, looming over everyone.

But Luis broke the silence this time.

"Then how did it recognise you?"

Curiosity. That was the only thing in his voice; the pure curiosity of someone who was out of options finding that there may have been another way.

Now, equally curious, as it was clear that Luis played the same arcades that he did in his attempt to free Ness from being Vanny, Gregory begun to try and rationalise what happened. Gregory didn't know what he did differently, but he did know what he would have had to do if the arcade machine failed to work.

"Act of survival, probably." Gregory replied, not wanting to say whose survival the arcade working hinged on. "I already said, I only glitched one, and I don't think that mattered. It was probably the most hidden one too."

"The balloon world one?" Out of all the arcades that glitches have been reported in, the balloon world arcade machine was by far the most hidden, to the point where the concrete itself hides it's existence.

Gregory replied with a simple "Yeah."

Luis's face dropped. They each played the same arcades, yet it only let one of them access the finale. With a sigh, Luis said "I glitched that one too..."

As the two tried to think about what each of them did differently, Sylvia took a deep breath and spoke.

"I glitched them."

Both Luis and Gregory looked at Sylvia in shock, and the same word came out of both thier mouths.

"What?"

"I glitched them." Sylvia seemed distant, her eyes seemed glazed over, and she moved her hands as if she was solving an invisible puzzle that was far off in the distance, "I went around and glitched all three. Whilst you and Freddy were waltzing around, probably playing Fazerblast and shoving Chica into the trash compactor, I was running around, glitching the arcades."

Sylvia's voice became strained and she looked as if she was about to collapse, pass out, and cry, in that order.

"I'm just glad that the knight breaking the conspiracy let the squire in."

Luis and Gregory looked at Sylvia with concern. She did not seem well, both physically and now mentally.

"What was that last bit?" Gregory asked, feeling like the wording Sylvia had used was far too similar to the words used in the Arcade Conspiracy message. Did the arcades do this to her?

Sylvia sounded distant, yet less dazed as she replied. "I'm glad that me glitching the arcades let you in."

Gregory didn't want a rephrase; he wanted her to repeat what she said.

"No, about the knight."

Evasion was apparent in Sylvia's voice as she replied. "I must be getting dehydrated."

"Or going insane." Gregory replied, "Just like Mr Arcade Conspiracy over there."

He then pointed to Luis.

Sylvia raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. The words arcade and conspiracy have been used together quite frequently in the past few days in regards to how to get the final arcade machine to work, but something was different about how it was used now. The child said that he was gathering information, so what did he know?

"Read this." Gregory said as he showed Sylvia the message 'Arcade conspiracy' that was selected on his fazwatch. She saw other messages too, and it was apparent that this kid knew way more than he'd ever let on. "You're sounding just like him. And, you said you forgot a bunch of stuff, so how do you remember that?"

"That was Luis's exit interview," Sylvia replied, "and yeah, I forgot how the hell I got everywhere. It was like one minute I'm in a security office having the transmission to lost and found hijacked, and the next I'm beating off the daycare attendant with a broom in parts and services, and the next, I'm in Monty flipping golf!"

"Riiiight." Gregory spoke with a rather aloof air, and Sylvia could feel Gregory glaring daggers at her as the kid spoke. She wasn't surprised that he didn't trust her, but what reason did the kid have to not trust her still?

The silence made yet another unwelcome return, and as Sylvia felt the gaze of many fall upon her, she hoped that someone, anyone, would break the silence.

Ness cleared her throat, and it seemed as if she had something to say. She turned to Gregory and begun to speak.

"Umm... Excuse me, but, I remember a small thing. From before you entered the Pizzaplex." Ness's voice shook, and her hands were shaking too. Despite this, she managed to speak clearly. "You have no parents, right?"

"Yeah, so what?" Gregory's reply was quick and harsh. Not unusual for a kid like himself.

Ness took a deep breath before replying.

"I know this may sound suspicious, seeing as all I've tried to do all night is kill you, but I'm back in control of my own body now, and ..." Ness turned to Luis, and he nodded in reply to something unspoken, and then she continued talking, "Luis and I would like to adopt you."

"Ok."

Ness's eyes went wide and she froze in place as a smile creeped onto her face, but not the eerie smile of Vanny, but the genuine smile of a very happy woman.

Sylvia, despite not being a part of this conversation, turned around and stared at the kid. This is the first she knew that he was homeless. She then went back to minding her own business in wondering if she would have handled the situation differently if she knew then what she knew now. She probably wouldn't have, but a girl can wonder.

"Congratulations superstar! And ... Ness? Is it now?"

The voice of Glamrock Freddy was heard, but it was definitely not coming from Gregory's watch.

"Where did that come from? How does it know my name?" Ness asked, her question bred from innocent curiosity, yet it invited dark things.

Gregory only shushed his bag in reply and whispered to it "what did I tell you about talking?"

All this seemed to do was invite a second voice onto the scene that sounded as if it came from Sylvia's bag.

"Whoa? Freddy? I thought I'd never see him again! Never thought I'd see the day!"

Instead of trying to remedy the situation, Sylvia just screamed into her hands, clearly completely done and at her breaking point. This was the last thing she needed to happen.

Mike, who had been here the whole time, just watching this fiasco, looked around, and his face dropped as he locked eyes with someone who looked like a business man. With a sigh, he finally spoke. "I'm so sorry, but I have to ask what's in the bags now. I'm SO sorry, but," Mike clicked his tounge as he pointed back at a screeching Fazbear Entertainment executive who was being talked to by a short woman with brown hair, ghastly pale skin littered with stitches, blue headphones, and a striking blue streak in her hair, "he saw me hear them, and whilst he is currently being chewed out, it'll only be a matter of time before he storms over here."

Both Gregory and Sylvia opened their bags and they each pulled out an animatronic head. Gregory pulled out the brown, blue, and red head of Freddy, whilst Sylvia pulled out the purple, yellow, and pink head of Bonnie.

As she placed Bonnie's head on the grass, Sylvia said "He asked me to take him around the Pizzaplex to see if he could find a new body whilst I was running around glitching the arcades. Come 6 am, he spent about twenty minutes trying to decide weather he wanted to stay in that damn crate in monty golf or come with me. He decided to come with me."

Gregory had already placed down Freddy's head, and he wouldn't look away from it. Even as he spoke, he looked towards the head of the robotic bear, as if letting it out of his sight would be the end of the world. "He wanted to come with me, but couldn't because of his limited power, so I stayed. When we decided to take on Vanny, he got destroyed by staff bots. That ... bought me time to go up to the control room. I couldn't just leave him on the floor, he's my friend! He'd have been scrap if I left him!"

The executive that Mike pointed out earlier ran over as the petite woman in the trenchcoat strode after him, murder in her eyes. As the man begun to yell, she slapped her hand over his mouth. Her hand appeared to be made of metal.

With a huff, the woman spoke. "Hi. PI Fitzgerald couldn't make it - busy with another incident, so he sent me in his place. My name is Verity. Those robot heads seem sentient, and this bozo doesn't understand that if you make a sentient machine, you can't keep treating it like property. The line is somewhere in freedom of thought and the ability to disobey, but anywhere beyond is human level sentient, so, where do those two land."

Sylvia replied almost immediately, vouching for Freddy's sentience, saying "Well, Freddy lied to me about why he was out and about, and his links to the kid."

As Sylvia went quiet, Gregory continued with what he knew about Freddy. "He had an existential crisis when I went into the parts and service place with all the endos, and he sounded really sad about Bonnie being gone when I went to Bonnie Bowl. He must have been grieving still."

Verity then turned to Freddy and asked the bear a question herself. "Freddy, any words on the matter?"

Freddy was talking to Bonnie, not loud enough to interrupt the conversation between herself, Gregory, and Sylvia, but it was vaugely audible, and she heard phrases that she had learned were associated with friends who had not seen eachother in a long time.

Verity then turned back to Sylvia and Gregory "I'll take it he's busy reconnecting with a friend, I'll ask him later. And Bonnie?"

"He learned to swear." Sylvia said, rather bluntly as she tried to remember everything she could about Bonnie, "The only people he's been in contact with since he was decommissioned have been an exhausted technician, and me. That was after he tried to save a kid - damn I hope she's safe, but she still wound up missing in the papers and her parents were still calling up the next day... And what did he get for it? He was lured into a trap where he got hit by the bucket and then Monty tore him to shreds. Monty and Bonnie are usually friends, so, I don't know what happened, but I feel like someone or something forced him to do that."

Freddy ears perked up, and he looked up at Sylvia as he spoke. "Wait, Officer Van... no, would you rather me call you Sylvia? Did you just say that Monty... Hurt Bonnie?"

Sylvia sighed, realising that this was likely to be heavy hitting news for Freddy to hear. "Yes, please call me Sylvia, and Yes, I saw it on the cameras. By the time I got to Monty Golf myself, all that was left behind was the head. In retrospect, I assume the legs were taken to upgrade Monty, but the arms and torso were gone too. I went to get a technician, but by the time I got back, Bonnie's head was gone too. And I know how you feel about your friends, and that it must hurt to hear that one of your friends was forced to hurt another. I'm so sorry. There was nothing I could do."

"I see..." Freddy replied, "To think he's been this close this whole time... And there's no need to be sorry, Sylvia. We all know you've been feeling the same way in regards to someone else here today."

Bonnie piped up in reply, hoping that the situation would improve if he spoke too, "But hey, I'm here now! And I'm sorry for leaving ya. And everything Sylvia said is true. I booted up in safe mode that night and tried to save a kid, and the next day, I was decommissioned and my head was hidden in a box."

"That's why I was so concerned about your connection to Gregory, Freddy." Sylvia said, running her hands through the grass as she stared at the clump of green that was accumulating in her hand, "I had already accepted that I was probably going to wind up dead meat - I figured that if he had parents, that I'd be torn apart by them if the kid was dead, but if the kid was alive, I guessed there'd be an exec with a gun waiting for me. The constant threatening messages from my benefactors didn't help. But even with Bonnie going missing, I didn't think you understood what exactly was at stake for you."

"I see." Freddy replied, "I am sorry for suspecting you."

"It's fine. It all turned out well in the end I guess. An alive kid and no exec with a gun." Sylvia shut her eyes as she crushed the grass that was in her hands, staining them a yellowish green.

"So," Verity spoke up, seeming to have heard all she needed to hear, "would you two rather stay with Sylvia and the kid, or stay at the Pizzaplex."

Freddy was the first to reply. "I'd rather stay with Gregory. I don't think I could bear to face the others again... It'd be too painful of a reminder of... Previous nights."

Bonnie replied second. "You're asking me if I'd rather be free or spend forever as a head in a box. I'd rather be free, thanks."

Verity responded with a certain conviction and confidence in her voice, "I see... So that does it. They're sentient enough to make thier own choices."

After she finished talking, the executive prised her hand from his mouth and begun to yell.

"How can you say that? For all we know, they could have been hacked to say that!"

"Because I'M a robot too, ya prick." Verity yelled back, seething with rage, "A synthetic human, if you want to split hairs. I know what it feels like to go from being a tool to a person. I remember the day my creator gave me the ability to chose, and the ability to disobey. I remember being given a mission, and choosing to protect the person I was sent to kill. I remember being told who's stem cells were used to make my synthetic parts, and that my first target - someone who I had made the choice to protect - was one of them. And I remember the day my creator left me on the doorstep of that man, and I went from calling him a target to calling him dad. I can empathise with them."

The executive smirked as he looked Verity up and down. "I don't see how that makes you qualified to decide on someone's sentience."

He spoke with a tone that made Verity want to run away, as far as she could. The words themselves didn't hurt, but they told her everything she needed to know about the man: now he knew she was a machine, he didn't consider her human.

Backing away, Verity spat back in reply, "Neither are you. Besides, I'm not deciding anything. I just had to prove it in front of the law, and I did."

Verity could feel the executive looking at her as an investor would look at a product. She hoped that he didn't recognise the old tech that was use to create her.

The slimy executive spoke again, trying to grab at her arm, "and would you mind telling me who your creator is?"

Verity backed away and growled like a cornered dog. "No comment."

"And your dad?" The executive tried to grab her again as he spoke.

Verity was shaking as she backed away again and yelled "No fucking comment."

Mike turned around and noticed the struggle that was occurring. He had been rather preoccupied with talking to Freddy and Bonnie since the executive showed up, but now he noticed that Verity was having some issues.

After chastising himself for not noticing sooner, he turned on his heels and approached the executive, an unnerving glare spread across his face as his first measure of intimidating the executive into fleeing.

"Excuse me, but could you back off? She's clearly uncomfortable and does not want to tell some creepy executive of a corrupt company that she's investigating who created her and who her dad is."

The executive then sneered a defensive reply, "So? Where's the harm in a little small talk."

Mike didn't say anything as he turned to face the executive and only the executive. After a few seconds, the executive's face went pale and fear had etched itself into every feature of his face. As Mike had his back to everyone but the executive, nobody else, aside from Verity, who was standing off to the side, saw what he did to scare the executive so much.

As the executive fled, Mike and Verity stepped back to the small crowd at the roundabout.

"That was a super cool scary face." Verity said as she sat down, needing a minute to calm herself.

"Thanks!" Mike replied, not really wanting to talk about it, "anyway, it's decided, Freddy and Bonnie are free to chose if they want to stay or go. Talking about staying or going, there's something I wanted to bring up."

Mike cleared his throat before continuing.

"A team of electricians found an old location under this one. They have not returned. I also believe that I know WHAT they found." Mike's face was a sombre shadow of his usual sweet self as he turned to look at Gregory, "I think you made a good choice in freeing Ness rather than going to see what was down there. From the data from your watch, I know you've been through a lot, but even though you could probably tackle that thing alone, I have a feeling that it wouldn't go as planned."

Gregory noted Mike's solemn expression and nodded, figuring that he had dodged a bullet with the choices that he had made.

After a brief silence, Mike spoke up, sensing that Gregory, Sylvia, and Ness may feel safer talking elsewhere rather than just outside the Pizzaplex that the three had just escaped.

"So, now do we let you guys crash in the break room of the station, or hospital. Figures it'll be easier for you to speak freely there rather than here."

Gregory looked at Luis and Ness, as prior to them asking to adopt him, his home had been a cardboard box since his birth parents vanished.

Ness remained silent also.

Sylvia was the only one who spoke.

"I live in an apartment near the station? This place gives no usable insurance, and I wouldn't want to get in anyone's way... So, can we use my place instead?"

"You know what, that'll work." Mike replied with a smile that quickly became slightly nervous and nonchalant, "As long as you don't mind my sister doing surgeon things in your house if you need it. A-and don't worry, she's licensed to do that."

"That'll be fine." Sylvia replied with a shrug, not seeming to mind, "I'll probably fucken need it too."

A pain flared up in her ribs as she vaugely remembered how she had played the role of Alice in trashland when she went to check on the kitchen after glitching the Chica's Feeding Frenzy arcade. The adrenaline must have been finally worn off, saving the worst of her aches and pains for last.

"Is everyone else ok with that?" Mike asked looking to Gregory and Ness for there reactions. He figured a few other people would tag along too, but he figured that Sylvia had already assumed that, as Ness and Luis didn't look like they'd be letting go of one another any time soon.

The reply was a "yeah" from Gregory and a "Yep" from Ness.

"My place it is." Sylvia smiled, "just don't trash the place."

***

The car ride was rather quiet, but sometimes, silence was for the better.

Once at the apartment, Sylvia unlocked the door, and as she let her guests in, she figured that maybe she needed more mugs. Hopefully some of her guests were ok with a cold drink in a glass.

On top of Mike, Gregory, and Ness, Luis, Jeremy (the beta tester), and Verity had tagged along too.

"Sorry it's a mess." Sylvia sighed, "I don't normally have guests, and the place is not even mine, it's my dad's. He just made me use this place when I worked there."

"Honestly, it's fine." Mike replied before leading into a question, "And, how long do you have this place for now?"

"Probably until he finds out that I've ruined his plans." Sylvia then sighed. She had done so much to try and survive whilst still trying to save people from the clutches of the Pizzaplex, but her ruse against her father was going to come crashing down the moment the man heard of what happened last night. "Which will be tomorrow."

Mike wanted to look on the bright side, but he figured that Sylvia wanted facts and solutions; not pitty. "I guess you two don't see eye to eye. At all. But that should be enough time to arrange temporary accommodation around here."

Sylvia nodded and replied with her own solution to her issue of having a place to stay. "I was planning on moving back to my old place tomorrow. I've already packed. I also may have packed to make it easier to run, or for a friend to clear this place out if anything had happened to me. But I guess neither of those had to happen."

"So you won't be staying to see what's under the raceway?"

Sylvia was quiet for a moment as she considered what was said. Whilst she was planning on moving back home tomorrow, home was far away. She needed to see what had been causing her all this grief.

"On second thought, I can stick around if I can find somewhere."

Gregory scowled a little. "You changed your mind quick"

Sylvia was not surprised, but felt a little insulted by the little ankle breaker's remarks. "If I knew the plan was to go back and solve the rest of this in person instead of just being an info-bot, I'd have said yes from the get-go."

After hearing that there was a plan to go back, Ness felt a spark of hope. Even if she couldn't reverse what William made her do, perhaps she could help remedy the situation in other ways.

"I want to tag along too." She flinched at her own voice, worried that she seemed desperate, "I made a promise to Luis that the day I go to the Pizzaplex on my own terms, that I will end Williams plans then and there. It's just a shame that I was too far gone to keep that promise the first time."

"It's ok." Mike smiled, "He kind of told me about that promise you made when he was telling me that you disappeared. And if you're worried, we'll be going in with backup anyway, so it'll be safe for you to come along."

Ness nodded, happy about the fact that there would be more people about than she could wish for. Perhaps that way, there'd be someone to stop her if - 'No, stop thinking like that. He's gone'. Ness had to interrupt her own thoughts before worries and what if's consumed her. They'd be there to help thwart William. She was free of his control; they shouldn't need to stop her.

Gregory then interjected with "I'll be going back too. Maybe I could rebuild Freddy."

As Mike turned to respond to Gregory, he froze up for a moment and appeared to be rather confused. He crouched down to the kid's level and his eyes widened in shock, as if he saw something that nobody else could see.

"Right. I bet that even if I said no, you'd find a way to tag along anyway."

After seeing the kid repspond with a nod, Mike stood up and asked Ness to come with him for a moment so that they could speak out of earshot of everyone else.

"Is Gregory ok?" Ness whispered, her concern apparent with the lines that had etched that feeling into her face.

"Yeah. He's just a bit posessed." Mike whispered back.

And then he looked at Ness.

Her face was stricken with what he could only assume was fear, grief, and guilt. Mike knew that Ness was worried that Glitchtrap had hopped from her to the kid.

"Like I am, not like you were."

This seemed to come as a relief to Ness. It wasn't a leecher; it was a helpful ghost and a normal possession. Her face switched from fear to curiosity as she wondered who this mystery spirit was.

"Do you know who he's posessed by?"

"Some soldier." Mike replied, "I recognise the uniform, and I swear I know the face. I met him at the shooting range once - I work there on Thursdays and do the pre-range usage gun safety instruction talks for office parties. One week, a military squad booked the place out as an office party, and he was the only one not seething about having to sit through my talk and demonstration. I think his name was Evan."

"Does he know this?"

"Probably." Mike replied, shuffling a bit in place, "I think he does. He at least seems to acknowledge that something is haunting him."

"Ok." Ness still seemed concerned, yet appreciative of the fact, and she wondered if the kids choices would have been the same if he didn't have a spectral guide.

The two then gave a mutual nod before returning to the living room, where everyone was mostly quiet and discussing things amongst themselves.

Whilst Ness sat down, Mike approached Gregory.

"Is it ok if I test something?" Mike asked, "I just need to show you a series of photographs, and I'll guage your reaction. I think I know your identity, and I just need to double check something."

"As long as it doesn't wind up with me being back on the street, sure."

Gregory seemed a bit antsy, but the kid had just gone through hell and probably hasn't slept in over twenty four hours.

Mike nodded and assure that no matter what the test showed, that Gregory would not be forced out of his new home. Then, he pulled out a series of photographs from his bag and spread them on the floor. They were labeled 'F_001', 'F_003', and 'F_RDRT2'.

Mike first flipped over the photograph labeled F_001. It was a photograph of a woman in her mid forties, dressed in clothes that were in fashion about two years ago.

Whilst Gregory's face showed no visible change, Mike noted something down.

Mike then flipped over the second photograph, labeled F_003. It was a man who looked similar to Gregory, yet older. As if the man was Gregory's father.

The changes in Gregory's face were subtle, yet telling. Mike took notes and then moved to the third photograph.

F_RDRT2 was a photo of a brown dog. A real dog. It had been given a blue collar, and by the looks of the scene, it's photo had been taken in a studio. There was a note on the bottom of the photograph reading "best fit. Use for resemblance tests."

Gregory's reaction was instant. His face froze and he begun to shake before clambering onto the back of the sofa. The usually stoic and sassy child had been reduced to a shivering mess in seconds.

"I see," Mike flipped over the photograph and then took notes, "I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd react this way to the third photograph. The second test will have to wait. Again, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd react this way to the dog photo."

"I - it's ok. It's not like you could have known." Gregory replied as he climbed down off the back of the sofa.

Mike just gave a solemn nod in reply before walking over to Luis.

"Hey, can I ask a favour?"

Luis tilted his head. "What is it?"

"I want you to see if you can ask Anna to contact her mother." Mike replied, a little anxious about his request. "Bonibelle Kewemto. The former operator of the nightmare Bonnie animatronic. I think that Gregory here may be the son of 'the comatose man with the dog bites'."

Luis nodded, acknowledging both Mike's request and the slight apprehension that the man seemed to hold in regards to talking about Anna's mother. "On it." He said before going into the other room, where it was quieter, and making a phone call.

"So he's not the electricians kid then." Sylvia piped up, "figured."

Ness shuffled about and had placed her glass of water on the table.

Mike tentatively approached Ness and asked "Are you ok?"

Ness was quiet for a few seconds before taking a gulp of air. "First he's posessed by a US army soldier, now he's also the kid of some guy in a coma, I-" she had to take a deep breath as she realised that her hands had grabbed fistfuls of her own hair in her stress, "this is too much too soon I - I don't know how to process any of this. What does it all mean?"

Mike didn't know how to reply, but he had to say something. "Well," he started, "perhaps we can make sense of it if I go over the comatose man situation from the top. Then we might both understand."

Ness nodded, and Mike took a deep breath. Which turned into two. Then three.

Then finally, Mike begun to explain the situation, from the top. "There was an incident some years ago. A man, who when he was a teen, came into the unfortunate possession of an animatronic dog. He tried to live a normal life, yet whenever he "wanted" something, the dog would bring it, no matter what damage fetching what he wanted entailed. He had learned to live with the situation, and eventually managed to settle down. However, one bland day at work, the man forgot about the dog and his need to never want, and he wanted to see his family. So, the dog delivered. His wife was killed in transit by the dog, yet the child survived, having been shielded by his mother. On arrival, the man fought to get the child out of the dogs grasp, causing the man to take a lot of damage to the head and torso. Whilst the child did survive, he ran away after only receiving first aid and was never found."

Gregory had winced and clutched at a phantom pain at the exact moment the dog had been introduced in Mike's quick retelling. The kid thought nobody noticed, but unfortunately, everyone had noticed.

Mike paused for a moment to see if Gregory was ok, but as the kid mouthed 'go on', Mike realised that he should probably continue talking. He took a deep breath before continuing with "We've managed to get a pretty full picture from the texts on the man's phone and the scene we were called to. Doctors doubt that he'll ever fully recover, and even if he did, they're keeping him in Norway to investigate the robotic dog further. And hey, they have bears in Norway, so it's not all that bad."

"I was on that scene. I was on first aid duty. And why bring up bears?" Sylvia interjected, confused as to the sudden change of topic.

"Well, it just reminded me about the bear situation. Bears were almost hunted to extinction over here in the states with targeted traffic accidents, but everywhere else in the world, the bear population is fine." Mike replied, his entire train of thought derailed now, "They're actually reintroducing some bears from Canada to the Northern areas of the states soon to mingle with the current population which'll hopefully let the population become stable, so that'll be fun!"

"For a guy who was almost killed by the original Freddy Fazbear, you seem awfully fond of bears." Sylvia remarked with a huff

"Real bears don't play Votre toast from act 2 of the opera Carmen."

"Fair game."

"Anyway," Mike replied, "back on topic. This kid is Gregory junior, am I correct? If he does return to his father, then he'll have to live in a small village in Norway. Due to the nature of how he became an orphan, we're contacting Bonibelle to give her a note for if and when Gregory scenior does wake up. The note is just seeing if she can ask him about if he's ok with Ness and Luis becoming Gregory's legal guardians if the kid choses to stay over here."

"Oh. Thank you." Ness replied, her smile and voice genuine.

"Yeah." Mike begun writing things down as he replied, "This is a special case, and until we have closure on the comatose man situation, I'll do the necessary paperwork to give you two guardianship of the child. The guys at CPS won't mind, as the last time I told them that thier systems needed to be bypassed for a special case and they IGNORED me, one of them lost an arm and an eye to the 'orphan' Cassey had taken in."

"They tried to put it through the childcare system when it was a rabbit goblin!" Sylvia practically yelled. During her time as a part time paranormal responder prior to her employment at the megaplex, she had seen many things that nobody should have to see, and 'that' scene was one of the calls she would never forget.

"Sylvia we aren't supposed to talk about this stuff here. What if the benefactors bugged the place! They'll kill you!" Jeremy, who had been minding his own business up until now, interjected, concerned for Sylvia's safety. Jeremy, whilst not a paranormal responder, was good enough friends with Sylvia for her to have told him everything that she had been through. That investigation included.

"Pft, I'll be fine. Fuck em. They already have enough reason to blow my brains out, what's one more," Sylvia huffed, "and besides, I de-bug this place each morning. Can we get back to talking about the rabbit child?"

"Yeah. Back to the rabbit child. Since Cass took him in, he looks a lot more human now, and seems to have adjusted to being human too. Given that thier first meeting was Cass screeching obscenities over overflow errors at a dead man's computer - that dead man being the 'parent' of the rabbit child - I'm actually pleasantly surprised that the two get along."

"Don't remind me. That rant is etched into my MIND!" Sylvia leaned back as she spoke, "and are there any part time paranormal responder spots open?"

"Yeah. We can talk about that later, and you can pull me up on it if I forget. Now, back on topic regarding Gregory," Mike turned from talking to Sylvia to to talking to the child, "do you want to stay here with Ness and Luis, or do you want to go to Norway and be with your biological father."

"I'd rather stay here." Gregory replied, "I don't like the cold, and I can always visit him if and when he wakes up now that I've got a mom and a dad and don't need to dumpster dive for meals."

"So, that's a 'you're staying with Ness and Luis' then?" Mike asked in order to confirm what Gregory had said.

"Do I need to repeat myself? Of course it's a yes. What part of I'd rather stay here don't you get!" Whilst Gregory seemed almost insulted by Mike asking for confirmation, the boy's confidence said everything.

"Ok, so that's settled." Mike stood up and clapped. "Everyone get some rest, I'll sort out temporary accommodation for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I call in backup and we start planning on how we'll return to the Pizzaplex and end that nightmare."

As if everyone was on the same wavelength, they raised thier glasses in a cheer.

"To ending the nightmare!"

[C]°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•🌹•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°•°*°

Link to my amino blogs:
aminoapps.com/p/tjxv2uo
aminoapps.com/p/4bsqnz

FNAF (c) Scott Cawthon.
Artwork and interpretation of the characters belong to me.