Mike slammed the round animatronic into the metal desk. The sound echoed throughout the empty room making Jeremy put his fingers in his ears. The older night guard placed the grey tablet that controlled the cameras near Balloon Boy’s face. He kept a firm grip on the animatronic’s neck while speaking, “This is what you wanted isn’t it?”

When the bot didn’t reply, he slammed it against the table again. This time he yelled his question, “Isn’t it!?” BB nodded as much as his robotic frame could with his neck held in a vice grip. The nightguard chuckled darkly, “So you can understand me, eh? Good to know. Now then, why don’t you show me where your friends are?

Mike tapped the tablet with his left index finger. The device powered on with a staticky noise, revealing a slightly, static-filled picture. The room being observed was the Toy Room, where the box with the Puppet still lay smashed and broken. In the bottom left corner lay a simplified map of the restaurant with the names of the different main rooms in small boxes. The box with the office in it was symbolized by a blinking green light that never went out.

“Just tap on where your little buddies are, and I’ll let you go. Won’t even rip a limb off. Ok?” Mike stood there and waited for the animatronic to reveal his comrades’ whereabouts.

However, five minutes passed, and BB hadn’t moved an inch. Mike adjusted his hat with his left hand, then tapped on the tablet again, “Come on, now. We haven’t got all night.”

He was met with more silence. The only sound in the room was the monotone droning of the fan. Jeremy scratched the back of his neck as the tension in the room rose ever higher. His gaze kept flicking between his friend and one of the robots that had attacked them every night going on two months now. He kept fingering the flashlight at his side, wondering if he would even need to use it tonight.

As the silence dragged on for another five minutes, Jeremy spoke up, “Um, Mike? I don’t think he’s going to—”

He is cut off as BB is lifted from the table and crashes into the back wall. He starts to fall, before Mike slams into him with an elbow to the throat. The little bot struggles a bit, before Mike slams him into the wall again, this time cracking both it and some of the suit covering up BB’s gears. As the crack makes it way across BB’s eye, Mike growls in a feral voice, “This is your last chance you demented, balloon peddling, bastard. Tell me where they are, or I start ripping your circuitry out one by one.”

Once his initial shock wears off, Jeremy realizes what his friend is doing and rushes towards him. He starts to pull at Mike’s arm while yelling, “M-Mike! Calm down, calm down! You’re going too far! There’s no need to torture him!”

Mike sees his friend pulling at his arm and his features soften a bit. He shakes his head and sneers at the robot he has against the wall. He holds BB there for a few more moments, before sighing and throwing the robot back onto the desk.

The older Nightguard looks at the ground to avoid eye contact with his friend, “Sorry about that. But, what do you mean ‘too far’?” He looks over at his comrade, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

Jeremy, suddenly feeling very small underneath the scrutiny of his friend, starts to stammer out an answer, “W-w-well it’s just that, uh, I-I know they’ve done some…. bad things to us. B-but do you really have to be so…… aggressive?”

Mike sighs while placing an arm around Jeremy’s shoulders, “Jere, we’ve been—”

Before Mike could continue, the sound of a camera changing its viewpoint hit their ears. Quickly, they glanced at the desk, only to find it empty save for the tablet and fan on it. Mike dashed towards the left vent while Jeremy went to check on the tablet. The older Nightguard stared down the empty vent, cursing as he heard BB getting farther and farther away. He stood up and turned to look at his friend. His face turned from frustration to concern at the awestruck look on Jeremy’s face.

Mike looked over his friend’s shoulder…. only to snatch the tablet out his hands and stare at it with the same amount of awe.

The camera was set to Party Room 1, looking straight at the stage.

And standing on the stage, where almost all the animatronics. They stood side by side, with the only exceptions being the original Freddy and Foxy. Everyone else, even the repaired Mangle, original Bonnie, and original Chica were there. They stared straight into the camera with their cold, unblinking eyes and unmoving mouths. At the center of their formation was the black and white figure of the Marionette. Its elongated, clawed hands were holding up a large white piece of paper with three words written in black ink that ran all the way down the paper:

Come. Get. Us.

Jeremy brought a hand to his mouth at the sight of the message. He fell back into one of the chairs, trying to make sense of what was happening. The animatronics were calling Mike out? Why would they do that? Jeremy knew there was something more to them after what happened with the Puppet last night, but to do this? Don’t they know what Mike can do? Why would they openly call him out—unless they have a plan.

A sudden, terrifying realization hit Jeremy just as he looked over at Mike. A pit formed in his stomach as he saw the manic grin on his best friend’s face.

Before Jeremy could even speak, Mike was already fast walking towards the hallway. With speed he didn’t think he had, Jeremy vaulted over the desk and grabbed Mike’s right arm to stop his friend in his tracks. He shouted, “Don’t Mike! It’s obviously a trap!”

Mike firmly, but gently removed his friend’s hands from his arm. He turned around and said, “Then what should I do, Jere? Just sit here and do nothing while they taunt us like this!?”

Jeremy was so nervous he could feel his legs shaking, but he couldn’t stand by while his friend walked into such as obvious trap, “Well, eh, yes!” At Mike’s incredulous look, he quickly continued, “Think about it, do we really need to fight them? All the animatronics are in the Party Room. It’s almost 2:50. If we can just survive for three more hours we can go home. There’s no reason to fight them.”

“No reason to—have you forgotten!?” Mike’s voice was barely low enough to not register as a scream, “Everything they’ve done! How many times have we been forced to huddle in a corner while they start closing in on us? How many times have we had to put on that stupid, Freddy hat to fool them? And worse still, how many Nightguards do you think they’ve killed up to this point? How many more they will kill if they finally get lucky one day and stuff us in a fucking suit?!

Mike grabbed hold of Jeremy’s shoulders, “This isn’t about survival anymore, Jeremy! This is more than that! This is about retribution! And I won’t stand here doing nothing while they taunt us! And if it is a trap, so what? I’ll fucking break out of it, no problem, and get back here before 6:00!”

With that, the oldest Nightguard patted his friend on the shoulders and turned to head down the hallway. Before he left, he looked back and nodded at his friend saying, “Trust me.”

With that, he was gone.

Unable to find any words to dissuade his friend, Jeremy could do nothing but sit back down in his chair. He stared down the long, dark corridor after the golden glow of his comrade. Then it disappeared around a corner into the restaurant. Jeremy sighed while picking up the tablet and started switching through all the rooms in the Pizzeria. At the very least, he could keep an eye out and try to warn Mike if the animatronics had set something up in advance.

As the younger Nightguard tapped away on the device in his hand, the door to the Parts and Service area slid open. A hook reached out of the darkness, followed by a large, brown foot paw.

It didn’t take long for Mike the reach Party Room 1. It was quite literally just around the left corner of the hallway to his right. He adjusted his hat before bursting into the open doors of the room. It was still the same, boring grey that it had always been, but this time the tables and chairs had been pushed up against the wall. The floors were covered in confetti and popped balloons that were almost invisible in the darkness. The lights were on, but they were so dim that Mike could hardly make out anything in the room…at least until he stepped inside.

The glow around his body lit up enough of the room to see all the way to the stage. There stood the Puppet, flanked on all sides by its entourage. To its left stood the newer Toy animatronics, their shiny, plastic bodies reflecting Mike’s glow into all corners of the room.

At their center was Toy Freddy, his mike constantly being beaten against his palm in anticipation of what was to come. Toy Chica was to the left, cupcake gone with her hands crossed over her chest. Her beak was gone along with the plastic eyes that normally resided inside her head. Instead, her eyes were black pits with small white dots shining through them. To the right was Toy Bonnie, the blue rabbit holding his electric guitar like a bat. He gave it a few test swings while staring at the Nightguard as he walked into the room. And right above them all was the newly repaired Mangle, still as…well mangled as it always was. It hung from the rafters while making that same, static-filled noise that sounded like a corrupted phone line.

On the Puppet’s right were the repaired Chica and Bonnie. Well, “repaired” was subjective. They looked the exact same from last night, but they were back to working order. Bonnie even had his arm back, something it demonstrated by miming crushing Mike’s skull in his hand. Chica just rocked from side to side, her opened jaw attempting to close itself with each movement.

Mike raised an eyebrow at the fact that Freddy and Foxy weren’t anywhere to be seen. He’d thought that after what he did to the duo, they’d get the first shot on him. Didn’t matter much, but it was something he kept in the back of his mind.

Instead, he focused his attention on the only robot looking at him with any sort of real intelligence: The Puppet. It had placed the piece of paper with the challenge written on it at its feet. Its eyes never left Mike as it rose to its full height. Every one of the robotic monstrosities towered over the Nightguard and this one was no exception. It floated into the air as the strings on its back pulled it upwards using some invisible force. Its smile mask was curled downward in a frown along with its eyes. Its head moved back and forth like a clock until Mike stepped into the middle of the room. Then it stopped and raised up a clawed hand.

The entire room fell silent.

Mike scanned the animatronics that stood before him. He counted all of them and took out one of his cigarettes. He placed it in his mouth, took out his lighter with his right hand, and lit it up. He kept the lighter in the palm of his hand while he curled it into a fist. He took a single, long drag on the cigarette in his mouth. Then he let it all out with one puff.

As the smoke cleared away, Mike smiled at the creatures before him, “Only seven of you? Heh. I might actually have to break a sweat this time. But, before we start, I got something to ask you, Puppet Fucker.” Mike pointed at the floating Marionette with his left index finger.

The Marionette tilted its head to the side to indicate it had heard him.

“Tell me this, how many guards have died before Jere and I got here?”

The Puppet didn’t move for a few seconds as it looked through its memory banks to find the answer. Mike stood waiting, his eyes never leaving the robot.

Finally, it held up five long fingers as its face changed into a smile.

Mike looked at the bot’s hand, then laughed out loud. He looked at the ground and shook his head, “Always thought it’d be a single digit number. Thought it’d be like three or two or something like that. Was hoping it’d only be one. Not that it matters much, after all….”

Mike let the cigarette fall from his mouth onto the floor. Then he stomped it out immediately.

His cutting, angry gaze lifted up to the seven soon to be broken robots in front of him, “Even that, would’ve been one too many.”

With the thunderous sounds of heavy metal feet hitting tiled floors, six animatronics rushed the lone nightguard in the middle of the room. The Puppet remained floating in place, both of its hands at his sides as it observed what the Nightguard would do.

Mike stood stock still with both his hands by his sides and his foot still on the spot where he crushed the lighter. He didn’t give away anything about his current condition, even as the herd of metal robots closed in on him. He stood there and waited with his eyes on the Puppet the whole time. His gaze was firm and unmoving for the few seconds remaining until the animatronics reached him.

It was when Toy Bonnie’s shadow passed over him did his eyes move away from the black and white ringleader.

He grabbed the neck of the instrument with his left hand and kicked out at the robot’s knee with his right foot. The sound of metal creaking and shattering under intense pressure was heard, as Mike ripped the guitar from Toy Bonnie’s hands. He brought it back until it was over his shoulder then swung with enough might to knock Toy Bonnie’s head off.

As the blue bunny’s head fell to the ground in slow motion, Mike ducked underneath a swipe from his predecessor’s right arm. From below he saw a yellow, pointed foot coming for his eye from his right side. He fell to the floor and rolled away from the group to get some distance. The foot continued to follow him, soon joined by a brown paw that crashed near the left side of his head. With little room to maneuver, Mike swung out with the guitar that was now an improvised baseball bat.

He felt two legs give way and saw the falling forms of Toy Chia and Toy Freddy. Mike leaped to his feet just as Mangle dropped from the sky. A chill breeze made Mike feel the top of his head where his hat used to be. He looked back and a bluish streak flies into the air along with the amalgamation of parts.

Mike scowled up at the ceiling before something that felt like two metal rods fall against his outstretched arms. He crooked his head around to see the older Chica rearing her head back. The sound of mechanical footsteps made him jerk his head forward to see the older Bonnie rushing at him with a wound-up right arm. The lone red eye in the bot’s head made trails in the darkness as it ran at Mike. Behind it, Mike could see the headless body of Toy Bonnie crawling its way towards its detached head, while the other Toy’s were heading towards him too.

The Nightguard looked at the four robots surrounding him, felt how much give and resistance Chica’s “wings” afforded him, and prepared his plan. Taking a deep breath, he pushed his back up against Chica’s chest until she took three steps backward. This gave him the leverage he needed to pull his legs up into the air. As he expected, Bonnie’s claw missed him by mere inches. Before the purple fuck could move away, Mike let his feet slam down on the robot’s paw, hard. The force was enough to slacken Chica’s grip, let Mike elbow her hard enough to send her flying back a few feet. The purple bunny’s arm acted as a fine, metal bar that Toy Freddy and Toy Chica tripped over before they could stop their running.

Bonnie kept pulling at his arm to no avail. With a smile, Mike kissed the fist holding his lighter and turned to the animatronic in front of him, “Hey, Bunny Fucker. You feel a trip down memory lane?”

Bonnie’s shriek was cut off as Mike punched his entire torso clear of his lower half. His arm and legs were the only things left while his body crashed against one of the tables set up in the corner. Mocking shaking his fist, Mike stepped backward and aimed the guitar in his hands like a javelin. The headstock acted as the point as he took aim at the light blue form of Toy Bonnie who had just gotten close to his head. Then, Mike chucked the instrument, impaling the Toy’s torso into the floor. It fell silent as the eyes in its head looked towards the Nightguard with a blank stare.

The Nightguard smiled, before turning around and kicking the older Chica in the side. She let her wing fall to grip Mike’s outstretched leg, but that just gave him the chance to jump up and kick her in the head with his other one. As she tumbled to the ground, Mike lifted his foot up in preparation. But just before he could bring it down on the bird’s head, the felt something try and bite into his shoulder.

Emphasis on try.

Rather than pain, Mike only felt a slight pinch on his right shoulder. He turned and stared at the face of the Mangle, now wearing his Nightguard hat. Their eyes met for a moment. Mike reached up and took his hat back. Then he punched the robot so hard that it almost hit the Puppet as it floated above the stage. The Marionette caught Mangle in its arms before they crashed together.

Mike scowled at the floating bastard, before dashing over to where Toy Freddy and Toy Chica were picking themselves off the floor. They were next to some of the tables that had been set up against the walls and Mike took full advantage. He grabbed one and slammed it down hard enough to crack it in twain. The two animatronics found themselves smacked back into the ground by the force. Before they could stand, Mike, did the same thing with three more tables to be sure they wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.

Confident that most of his opposition was either out of commission or in pieces, Mike turned his gaze to the Puppet. He pointed towards it with his right index finger and shouted, “It’s just you and me now! Let’s see what ya got, ya ugly bastard!” Mike’s golden glow had been kept at a low light this whole time. It hardly illuminated more than the area below his feet. But now, as he jumped into the air towards the floating ringleader, it began to shine intensely. A mark that symbolized the sun as it shined in the sky at the peak of dawn shone brilliantly on his forehead.

Yet, even in the face of this glorious, golden demi-god flying towards it with a fist of fury, the Puppet’s smile stayed on its face.

It wasn’t until he heard the familiar scream did Mike understand why.

“MIIIKKKEEE!!!!”

Mike stopped in mid-air, his fist mere millimeters away from the Marionette’s smug mask. As he fell to the ground his head swiveled to the entrance to the Party Room….and he felt his heart sink.

Jeremy was held in the grip of Freddy Fazbear, as Foxy held his hook up to the human’s neck.