Chapter Text
"Okay, everything is ready... now just to download your code and you will be brought back to the real world master," Vanny said, inserting the disk which her master resided, at least for the moment.
Normally they'd use emails or the like to let him access restricted sites or the like, but this wouldn't work tonight. Too much was on the line, she'd already struggled to manage to get the resources to put together an humanoid animatronic, she couldn't risk someone noticing her master trying to enter it in the middle of things and cut off the internet or block him, not if she wanted to avoid potentially losing him.
Sliding the disk into the drive bay of the computer, she clicked on the pop-ups as they appeared, designed to hopefully seem as normal as possible to slide under the radar even despite the coding it had hidden beneath it. With one last click the download of Glitchtrap into the Animatronic started, the lights in the Animatronic's eyes glowing red, overtaking the actual eye color. The progress bar slowly filling up, the text popping up barely making any sense. As the code was not designed by anyone or anything besides the remnant and agony of William, and further obfuscated by Glitchtrap himself to make destroying him harder.
Though, at a certain point during the download, a portion of the code was deemed corrupted by the computer. As both her and her master had assumed that parts of the code, namely those which gave him a virtual form, would be deprecated or corrupted having been removed from it's original environment, she clicked to skip it and any other corrupted files. The only thing neither of them expected however was that it wasn't just the virtual form was considered corrupted. Memories of Glitchtrap's existence in the game were also deemed corrupted, the memories of Springtrap were deemed corrupted as well, along with the memories of the two decades before. Though, whether due to a stroke of luck or the remnant of William having managed to encode them into the data, the memories of William's early life had manged to survive.
As the download finished, far earlier than either Vanny or Glitchtrap had expected, the animatronic started to boot up. The red gleam in the eyes decreasing as the system decreased the brightness of the lights, revealing the bright blue eyes. Then the chest started to lift up and down, mimicking breathing of an actual human. Then, the entire body of the animatronic tightened up before relaxing once again, though this time in a natural manner compared to the lifeless manner it had been laid down before.
After the systems in charge of maintaining the animatronic's body such as thermo-regulation, energy management, gyroscopic input, and the like were booted the software which brought the animatronics to life was started.
"Ugh," William said, sitting up and holding his head, "where am I?"
"Master," Vanny asked him, "do you not remember the plan?"
"What 'plan'?" he asked her, "the last thing I remember was going to bed before the grand opening of Fredbear's Family Diner. Plus, where the bloody hell am I, did you kidnap me?"
"That... something must've went wrong," she said, looking back at the computer.
"Well something obviously went wrong because I have some woman dressed up like a patchwork rabbit calling me master," he said, trying to stand up, "I need to get back."
"No!" she said, grabbing his arm, "you... you can't go back to your old home."
"What do you mean 'old home'? And why can't I go back? Did you actually kidnap me?" he asked her, pulling his arm away from her grasp.
"I don't know what went wrong but you've been nothing but code for... a long time master. It's... 2031 master," she says.
"Are you serious, there's no bloody way it could be 2031 wo-" William said, before his mind was flooded with information.
It was the year 2031, he had been gone for 'a long time' years 37 in fact, presumed dead. His franchise was apparently one that had managed to not only take off, but become a full on company. With a variety of 'generations' of the animatronics. With, to him, a personally disturbing number of them having had to be decommissioned earlier than he thought they should of. Though one thing that sticks out is that the company has a 'rumor' to deal with children...
And... the children of the rumors were those who had went 'missing' suspected dead.
"What is this plan," William said, trying to hide the concern in his voice.
"Well, the main part was to return you back to a physical form... but also to further research remnant, which you said was best taken from-" Vanny said before being cut off.
"Children," William said.
"Yes sir, perhaps it was that the booting up wasn't finished!" Vanny said, excited at the prospect it was simply a delay in processing.
Though her excitement was cut short as William leaped across the table he had just been on, consumed in rage at the thought that he had used children as a means to the end. Wrapping his hands around her throat.
"I don't know who you are, and I don't care. If you harm any child I will kill you, and destroy this 'master' of yours. I know you say I am him, but it seems that whatever code we both stem from, we are different. I am William Afton, a business man who would never dare hurt a child," he said, not letting go of her.
"I, I understand," she said, struggling to get the words out, "but do know that my master, Glitchtrap won't sit idly by."
"Let him try," he said, letting go of her throat, "it seems I have deprived him of the thing he desired most, and I doubt you'll be able to gather the materials again any time soon."
William turned to leave before he realized that even if he was now an A.I. apparently, he would still need to pass as a human... and he was unlikely to do so without help. Calming himself down William turned around and faced the mysterious woman again.
"I would leave, but I assume there were plans you and him had to hide the fact this body is that of an Animatronic. As much as I hate it, I need your help sadly for the time being," he said, barely able to hold back his anger.
"You are right, we had planned for me to work as a nightguard while he would act as the Fazbear Sleepover Attendant. He would identify the ones to take while I would kidnap them and take them to our hideout," she said, "which I am not telling you."
"That's good to know, so what is my name?" he asked her.
"Jeremy Schmidt," she said.
"I'll remember that," he said, glaring at her, "and I will keep my eye out for you, if I find anything is going on I will figure out who you are and report you to authorities... and if that doesn't work I will make sure you are never seen of again."
With that he turned once again and left, though not before looking at a calendar noticing that it apparently was a Weekend, and apparently one it was closed for due to 'maintenance'. Though he wasn't sure what that meant, it obviously wasn't for the Animatronics with him having literally just left there unless she was doing it before or after they were scheduled for maintenance. If not that then he guessed it might be plumbing, electrical, or something similar with the fact that if they had this big of an Parts and Services room.
After leaving the room William walked around the place, trying to find a place to hide out during the day. Since he didn't actually have a place to stay outside the place he would need to be able to disappear to unless he wanted to stick out like a sore thumb being present in this place every moment. Though of course it would have to be outside of the camera's vision, nor a place an Animatronic could just walk up to. As he wasn't sure the company would accept people squatting in the place, and he quite literally didn't exist outside of this place in the eyes of the world. Of course his pondering was cut short when he suddenly heard a voice come from behind him.
"Apologies but what exactly are you doing here?" he heard a male voice say, though it was a bit... artifical?
Turning around he was greeted with a rather tall animatronic, only two inches shorter than them. But what caught him off guard was that it was very similar to his own favorite animatnroic, Bonnie. Simply slimmed down, his paint being a combo of baby blue and red. Baby blue supposed to be his fur, while the red was meant to be a... jumpsuit? What was the theme of this place exactly?
"Oh I'm the new Fazbear Sleepover Attendant and I was given permission to get accustomed to here," he said, "Jeremy Schmidt is my name, and it was only approved today."
At that the animatronic pauses, seemingly checking if he was actually able to check what was said to be true. Which causes William to hold his breath, hoping that they had bothered to plan this far ahead.
"Ah, yeah it seems to have been approved only before the place closed down... freaking management," the bunny groaned, "anyways I'm Glamrock Bonnie, but I assume you could've guessed that from my looks."
"Yeah I admittedly assumed you were a Bonnie," William said with a panicked chuckle, "though do you perhaps know of any locations that the children shouldn't be that they might accidentally access? I know it probably sounds weird but I only had access to the map of the place everyone else has and I don't want a child to go 'missing' just because they entered a room I wasn't aware existed."
"I can only think of a handful of places," Bonnie said, "but most of them are deliberately designed to be hidden behind staff or animatronic-only spaces. The only ones I would say you should keep an eye out for are the ones out in the open."
"Animatronic-Only?" he asked the bunny, "why is that?"
"It's really only the Daycare Attendant's Room, their room's entrance is hidden and only they are allowed into it unless they break down, reason being that it's dangerous with the ledge," Bonnie said.
"Thank you for letting me know," he said.
"Oh, before you run off you should probably meet the others with me," Bonnie said, "some of them might be a bit... reactive to say the least if they just see someone they don't recognize after-hours."
"I guess that would be true," William replied, "might be a bit overkill for protection, but at the same time it makes sense to protect children."
Admittedly he had wanted to try and avoid any of the animatronics in case they recognized he wasn't human, or well no longer human. But Bonnie had made a good point, there is a chance that with him being an adult they'd assume the worst and try to 'handle' a situation. Even if he wasn't exactly sure of their capabilities, it was better to use Bonnie as a way to handle any potential reactions to him than to just hope that they wouldn't jump to conclusions.
Following Bonnie the first other Animatronic they visit isn't the Daycare Attendant to William's surprise, but instead the Glamrock version of Freddy. Who had an orange that kind of looked like a light-brown paint-coat covering most of his body, somewhat surprising William. Having expected all of them to be 'dressed' by the paint so was he meant to be nude? Or did being the main character of the buisness mean the rules didn't apply to him?
"Hello there," Freddy said, "so you are the new Fazbear Sleepover Attendant?"
"I am," William said, "name is Jeremy Schmidt."
"Well then, it's nice to meet you, I hope you enjoy working here," Freddy said, "have you met the others? Well, other than Bonnie?"
"Not yet," William said, "Bonnie is showing me around."
"Well, would you mind if I joined?" Freddy asked, which caught William off guard, "I-I ask because some of the others can be harder to find at times so if they're hiding then it's less likely you'll be alone when you meet them."
"Uh, sure," William said, though now utterly confused.
Were the animatronics dangerous? Or are they just extremely cautious around adults who are present during after-hours? If so how in the world does this building get cleaned? How exactly did Vanny plan to kidnap kids if these animatronics would jump them if they even breathed wrong?
With the new addition they went and started to visit the other areas in the Pizzaplex, which William found to honestly be kind of a ridiculous name for a building. Though he didn't voice it, instead following them to whoever they decided to take him to, which turned out to be Chica who was at the Food Court of the Pizzaplex.
"Oh hello there," she said, "I assume you're a new staff member?"
"I am, Jeremy Schmidt is my name," William said, "what you doing around here?"
"Oh not much, just... making sure that the food and everything is being stored properly and the like," she said, a nervous chuckle accompanying it.
William doubted it, there was something off with everything going on here, and looking at the two other animatronics who gave her a look that they knew she wasn't telling the truth. He didn't want to push, not right now at least when he has yet to meet even the full cast. Though, he did make a note to check here out regularly when not busy, or at least keep an eye on the chicken. After all it seemed more like she was either caught before or after the act, not during.
"Oh, have you met Roxy yet?" Chica asked him.
"Not yet, you, Bonnie, and Freddy are the only three I've met," William said to her.
"Kinda weird... but okay! Though, now you might want to meet her last. The whole 'save the best for last' deal?" she said.
"That is true," Freddy said, "perhaps the Daycare attendants next then?"
"I was kinda hoping to delay them," Bonnie said, "y'know how they can be with the people assigned to work with them. Though, perhaps we could pretend we had just went to get you something to eat before arriving if we can't wait to introduce them any longer. That way we can explain how he ran into who he did, and won't have Sun or Moon panicking."
"Uh... how bad are the daycare attendants? You're making them out to be really... unfriendly," William asked the animatronics.