Fritz Smith
Fritz and Jeremy had spent the next few hours pondering on what some of the mysterious components could do. Despite pouring over the question, they made little headway – the best theory they could come up with was that the metal grid was somehow related to Fritz possessing the animatronic. It wasn’t very enlightening, but it did make sense: everything else in Fritz’s body seemed “normal”, more or less – or at least as normal as something connected to Freddy’s could be.
Left with some answers – and a lot more questions – Fritz resolved himself to figure out what his new body could do. Somehow, his “soul” could control the animatronic’s movements, and he knew that he was able to force himself asleep. He let out a laugh – a strange thought manifesting in his mind: maybe he could use his soul to “feel” what was inside his body.
Had he still been human, he would have rejected the thought, but extenuating circumstances turned logic and reason on their heads. Fritz closed his eyes, letting out a shallow breath in the process. He sat in silence for a while, acclimating himself to his mind. The experience reminded him of the warehouse, but he quickly vanquished those thoughts – he had to stay focused.
He tried to move his arm through thought alone. He started by envisioning the movement, picturing what the action would look like, but it wasn’t enough. He dove deeper, imagining electrical impulses feeding into wires, traveling into the servos lining his elbow joint and emitting motion, accompanied by the barely audible click of precise movement. It wasn’t enough! He could feel it now. Taste it. In front of him – no, everywhere around him, inside of him – was an intricate lattice. It was completely colorless. In fact, as he soon noticed, he couldn’t see the lattice so much as he could feel it, every imperfection in its design made obvious to him. He could feel waves of energy roaring through it, slowly warping the lattice but ultimately leaving it unchanged.
He followed the energy, tracing its path as it moved through the lattice. As he moved forward, he noticed the lattice slowly rotating, its structure looking something like a spiral. As the lattice twisted, he watched as waves of energy crashed into its sides, and, with nowhere left to go, were violently ejected from the lattice. He once more followed one of those waves, gazing in astonishment as the energy took on a corporeal form, appearing somewhat like some of the particles in the lattice.
He followed the energy for a time, venturing out into empty space, before another lattice came into view. Strangely, this one appeared to be rotating. He watched closely as the particles of energy smashed into the lattice, no doubt the reason it was spinning. He gazed outwards, noting an expanse of similar particles, all crashing into the lattice.
Twitch.
Fritz’s eyes bolted opening, his vision immediately focusing on an arm that was slowly rising of its own accord. He swiftly regained control, wrenching the arm back down. To his relief, it complied.
Blinking back shock, Fritz took a moment to fully comprehend the implications of this. He realized, with elation, that he had managed to manually control his body. Sure, he could already move his arm normally, but this was just the first step.
Hours passed as Fritz became more and more comfortable with the process, the idea of interacting with the animatronic body directly becoming more and more intuitive. It still wasn’t quite as natural as walking, but after a bit of practice, it was nearly effortless.
Having mastered basic control, Fritz decided to up the ante. He knew there were motors to open his chest cavity and move his face plates – and while he had had some success with the chest cavity, he was completely unable to move the face plates. Applying his new new technique, he was astonished – and slightly repulsed – as he felt parts of his face lift up. This would take some getting used to. Haha, as if it was the only thing.
Moving on, he wanted to figure out what that strange disk did. He tried interacting with it… and was completely lost as to what its purpose could possibly be. He wanted to solve the mystery, but he’d be able to get to it later. For now, there was one thing he was certain he could interact with: the animatronic’s control board.
Fritz wasn’t exactly sure what he would be able to do with the board – after all, he could already use the animatronic to its full capabilities (or at least, what he thought its full capabilities were) – but William gave him access to it for a reason. It must do something.
He once again peered into himself, feeling the bits and pieces of metal that made up the strange grid and control board. He dove into it, feeling his thoughts meld with the electrical impulses that-
“Hey, there you are, night guard! Finally figured it out?”
Huh?
Fritz spun in a circle, eyes frantically darting across the room. He knew he had heard a voice, but from where?
“Over here, silly!”
He heard the high-pitched voice once more, searching fruitlessly for its owner. Someone was here, watching him. He felt his face plates lift up – he scoffed, clearly some instinct granted to him by the suit.
“Inside.”
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Inside. Inside the suit. The control board. Was this the animatronic that had previously inhabited the suit?
“Hey, are you Fu-Funtime Foxy?” He whispered.
“Oh my, you flatter me, night guard! Actually, my name’s Bon-Bon. I’m a hand puppet!”
Fritz stopped in his tracks. A hand puppet? Now that the thing mentioned it, he did recall seeing one during some of his performances. “You mean like what that Freddy animatronic had? I think he had a blue one on his left hand. Or maybe it was his right…”
The puppet interrupted his train of thought: “Yup! That’s me! Well, looks like I’m not much of a puppet anymore, but that’s no matter; I’m just glad to be away from Funtime Freddy.”
How was this thing inside him? It’d make a bit of sense if he was talking to the body’s original owner, but strangely, he wasn’t. Haha, it seems they were kindred spirits – neither inhabited a body they could call their own. Fritz shook his head. He’d ask Jeremy about this later; perhaps the mechanic could shed some light on this mystery. In the mean time, he needed to figure out who this puppet even was. “I take it you aren’t the biggest fan of Freddy?”
“I’m sour at Funtime Freddy because he made a habit of throwing me. But I’m not really the biggest fan of any of the Funtime gang. They’re always scheming, plotting new ways to escape. Of course, I’ll just be along for the ride regardless. Oh! Night guard, that reminds me: they’re planning on killing William and using his body as a disguise to make it into the outside world with. It’s a silly idea, but they’ll do it and I’m afraid they’ll succeed.”
Huh? They planned to- oh, he got it. Fritz had once suggested that a night guard should play dead if they were discovered by an animatronic, but quickly took it back after realizing that the animatronics would probably view them as an empty suit and try to shove an endoskeleton inside of them. This sounded vaguely similar, although he couldn’t imagine how the animatronics would pass off as a person. It’d be a hilarious sight to behold, that’s for sure – well, not William’s corpse being piloted by an endoskeleton, just the endoskeleton trying to act like a person. Fritz shook his head. It might be helpful to discuss this with Jeremy, barring endoskeleton jokes.
Fritz carefully rose to his feet and leisurely moved towards the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” The rabbit puppet inquired.
“I’d like to talk to Jeremy about this.”
He hadn’t ventured into the house yet, so it took a bit of time to find Jeremy. The garage lead into a kitchen, which itself lead into a hallway. After only a bit of backtracking, Fritz spotted Jeremy in the living room.
“Jeremy!” Fritz called out.
Jeremy’s head shot towards him, wide eyed. “HOLY- Fritz. Something up?” Jeremy asked, quickly shaking off the startle.
“Uh, yeah, there’s… an animatronic inside me.”
Hearing that, said animatronic spoke in Fritz’s head: “Let me talk!”
Seemingly, Bon-Bon was just silicon and electricity. The control board was in fact connected to his motors and voice box, but somehow Fritz’s “soul energy” seemed to override it, rendering the bunny completely unable to control Fritz’s body. He began to lift this restriction but hesitated, not completely willing to turn over his autonomy. But he reasoned he could simply place the restriction back if things turned hairy.
As soon as the animatronic could speak, its high-pitched voice startling Jeremy once more: “Hi! I’m Bon-Bon!”
“The HELL?”
Bon-Bon briefly recounted what he had said to Fritz. Jeremy seemed somewhat intrigued but not nearly as shocked as he was when Bon-Bon was introduced. Fritz figured he should add a bit of context, explaining the events leading up to him discovering Bon-Bon.
After his explanation was over, Jeremy took only a few seconds to formulate a response: “That’s insane, Fritz, but not nearly as crazy as this whole thing.” He said, while motioning towards Fritz. “I’m pretty sure I know why he’s in you though. When I was repairing th- you, I noticed a data device wedged inside your face. It was undamaged, and I assumed it came from your control board – somehow – so I put it back there.”
Fritz pondered this, his thoughts abruptly cut short when his mouth began to move of its own accord. “Oh! I remember now. Part of the plan needed all the animatronics to merge together, and I was still on board when that happened. I remember we fought you, night guard, and then I woke up here.”
Hearing this, Jeremy smirked. “And by some crazy chance of fate, you ended up on Fritz here. You’re one lucky motherfucker, Bon.”
Fritz too had his own revelation. “So that… thing that attacked me is made up of the other animatronics. That’s the endoskeleton that wants to walk around in William’s body. You know, uh, that happened at least two days ago. If that thing’s plan was to escape, I’m pretty sure it’s long gone by now.”
Into the outside world, wreaking who knows how much damage. “We-maybe we can track it down? No one else knows what it really is. Hell, neither do we, but if we don’t do something, it’ll just keep killing people.”
Bon-Bon swiftly agreed with the suggestion, eager to get rid of Funtime Freddy, while Jeremy pondered it, reluctantly agreeing but only after they made sure the thing was really out and in the wild.
“Also”, Jeremy added, “I’m a bit curious if that thing’s haunted like you, Fritz. Can’t hurt to learn more about how all this bullshit works. Probably.”
With that, they resolved themselves to tracking down the dangerous amalgamation that was probably piloting William’s body.
……
Notes
Michael still got scooped, but it seems everyone has mistaken him for his father. Oh well!
In this story’s timeline, William is still alive before Sister Location starts (so he can tell Michael to work there), and it is chronologically the fourth game (after #4, #2, and #1). William finds himself stuck in his own suit at around the same time Michael gets scooped.
Oh, and now that Bon-Bon can talk, I need some way to differentiate between him talking through Fritz’s mouth or sending thoughts directly to Fritz (which isn’t so much telepathy as it is Fritz’s “brain” interpreting electrical impulses from the control board as sound). So, Bon-Bon’s dialogue will look “Like this.” and things he says just to Fritz will look [Like this]. It’s similar to how stories sometimes format thoughts/inner monologues, but these messages are still things Bon-Bon is saying as opposed his thoughts. If we want to know those, we’ll have to read something from his PoV.