Fritz Smith

“This is getting nowhere”, Jeremy exclaimed, his exasperation diminishing ever-so-slightly after arriving home. They (Jeremy, really, as Fritz couldn’t quite leave the house) had been searching for clues that might lead them toward William. Jeremy had asked around William’s whereabouts, hoping that some of the day staff at Freddy’s could yield answers, but all he found were shrugs and looks of confusion. It seemed no one was so much as acquaintances with William.

Fritz was no better off, his present condition leaving him an involuntary shut-in. It wasn’t as though there was nothing to occupy himself with in Jeremy’s house, but it all felt like busy work. The boredom was dreadful, and it put a sour taste in his mouth every time it brought back memories of the warehouse. He needed to do something. If he had to spend even a few more days stuck inside, he’d go crazy.

Whenever he could, Fritz occupied himself with cooking, the one thing he could do that was actually helpful. If there were any benefits to his animatronic form, it was that he had no need for oven mitts, but that small silver lining was far outweighed by the fact that he couldn’t actually eat any of the food he made.

He was in the middle of searing a chicken breast, which he swiftly learned to handle with paper towels after a particularly slimy encounter, when Jeremy arrived. Fritz shared his plight – it’d only been a day, but he was dying to get their investigation underway.

“Hey Fritz, what’s that smell?” Jeremy asked, stepping into the kitchen and visually flinching at the sight of an animatronic manning his stove before composing himself, thankful that Fritz was facing away.

“I figured I’d make something. I’m going a bit crazy with boredom.” Fritz replied, scooping the chicken onto a plate and setting it down on a small table. “Enjoy!”

“Uh, thanks”, Jeremy replied, looking down at the moderately-charred chicken. “You sure this isn’t poison?”

Fritz gave no reply, and Jeremy went on share his attempts at information gathering, picking-at but not eating his food.

“I asked pretty much everyone that worked there during my shift, but not a goddamn person had any idea about- OH FUCK ME, Fritz! The heat kills the germs in the chicken, you didn’t have to dehydrate it as well!”

Fritz gave him a wry smile. “I never claimed to a be chef.”

“Oh whatever,” Jeremy continued, still eating the chicken, “the point is that unless we manage a miracle, we’re basically shit out of luck. No one seems to really know who William is, which I guess makes sense since I haven’t seen a news report on haunted animatronics. The dude definitely kept to himself and kept a tight wrap on info surrounding him.”

Fritz considered this, letting out a sigh in the process. If Jeremy had no ideas, he definitely didn’t. He wracked his brain for everything he knew about the animatronics piloting William’s body, but was interrupted by a voice he hadn’t heard all day.

[Let me talk!]

Fritz relented, giving the rabbit control over his voice box.

“The pizzeria, dummies!” Bon-Bon exclaimed. “That’s the only place they know. Freddy always dreamt of ‘doing real performances’ in the outside world, and William will want to get more souls for his experiments there.”

Jeremy frowned, looking at Fritz with confusion. Fritz felt the same way, although he wasn’t quite sure where to look.

“What do you mean ‘get more souls’?” Jeremy inquired.

“You think William is still alive, even with those animatronics inside of him?” Fritz asked at the same time.

“Of course not, silly! His body’s probably rotting away, but his soul’s still in there. He definitely won’t be too happy about that though, so he’ll probably grab a few kids from the pizzeria again to try to fix himself.”

Dread filled the room at Bon-Bon’s words, Fritz and Jeremy making eye contact.

“Wha- What do you mean, Bon-Bon? William saved my life, he’d never do something like that!” Fritz exclaimed, horror filling his face. This gave him pause, his mind lingering back to his time with William, before realization dawned on him. “Wait, that’s not really true, is it? All he did was stick me into this shitty suit and lock me underground. Fuck, it’s better than that warehouse, but that’s no comparison.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I’m not sure why you guys are so surprised. How do you think he learned so much about souls?” Bon-Bon asked, his usually-upbeat demeanor breaking away into bewilderment.

Fritz felt the puzzle pieces locking together in his head. His time in the warehouse had clearly clouded his judgment. Just as he began to realize the implications of what Bon-Bon was saying, Jeremy put all of his concerns into words.

“Shit, Fritz, I don’t know if we can do this. We can rough up a couple machines no problem, but we have no idea what that guy’s capable of.” He let out a sigh, before continuing. “But, I’m not quitting. If Bon’s telling the truth, then this is much, much worse than we thought, and I really don’t like the idea of William being free.”

“Fuck it,” Jeremy continued, “let’s check it out tomorrow night. Not quite how I envisioned my Friday going, and my boss won’t be too happy, but it’s not like we have anything to lose!”

“Besides”, he added, “I never noticed anything weird during the day, so it’s probably safe.”

Jeremy stood up to put his plate away, while Fritz was still processing his words.

“NO!” Fritz exclaimed suddenly. He’d been distracted by what Bon-Bon brought up, but he realized the idea of returning made him sick.

“I died in that place, Jeremy! Half my bones shattered when they shoved me in that damn suit. I’m not going back!”

Jeremy grimaced, the previous excitement quickly draining out of his face. “Well, I suppose I could go alone.”

“No, those things will tear you to shreds! Look Jeremy, I can come. My body’s made of metal,” he punched his arm for added effect, “and I- I shouldn’t be afraid of some damn building. I’m- it’s just-”

“It’s alright Fritz, we don’t have to go inside. Let’s just scope the place out, look through the windows, and see if anything’s wrong, alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

“Right, well I’m off to bed. See if you can figure some of that soul magic out.” Jeremy waved, walking over to his bedroom. “Oh, and please don’t make breakfast!” He shouted, before closing the door.

……

Fritz sat in silence, trying to figure out any clues to his current predicament. It wasn’t as though he could leave the suit – he was dead, after all, and as much as he despised being a robotic fox, he didn’t want to die. Even so, there must be something that could help him now, right?

Bon-Bon had been no help either, as the bunny’s knowledge didn’t seem to include how souls worked, just that they existed and could be shoved into animatronic suits, which really wasn’t helpful to him right now.

He thought back to what Bon-Bon had said about William. He really didn’t want to believe the rabbit – William really had rescued him – but he couldn’t discount the fact that William undoubtedly experimented with human souls, and it made him sick imagining where those souls had come from. Fritz let out a chuckle, realizing that all signs pointed to him being another experiment. Despite that, their goals were unchanged. They’d still track William down, alive or not, perhaps with a bit more urgency with the knowledge of what he might do given the option.

The thought of finding some way to improve his condition still nagged at him, and Fritz decided to take Jeremy up on his suggestion and learn more about his “soul magic”. Like before, he focused inward, seeing-without-seeing everything that his soul touched. Before, he focused on the minute details, but after all his training he understood it well enough to focus on the big picture.

Fritz gazed out, and what he saw astonished him. He’d seen his insides with Jeremy’s camcorder, but the ‘soul bits’ and the ‘machine bits’ were nearly indistinguishable on film. This was something completely different.

He could see everything his soul was bound to in perfect clarity. It looked like a raging fire, or a highway, or a waterfall. Fritz found it nearly impossible to think about, much less describe. He recognized the familiar metal maze, highlighted by torrents that felt like color but different, the sight before him exhibiting an infinite array of different hues that he somehow perfectly understood. The not-colors seemed to race down the tracks of the grid, stopping at every intersection to avoid a collision, although he couldn’t find any discernible pattern to how the “traffic” organized itself – the waves of colors seemed to simply know what to do. Strangely, each time one of these waves stopped at one of these intersection, little drops of color seemed to bleed off of it and form clouds in the surrounding air. Fritz felt incredibly overwhelmed, yet he couldn’t look away.

The first thing he tried was to control one of the color waves. Fritz imagined it stopping, which, as expected, did absolutely nothing. He tried speeding them up and slowing them down, to no avail. In a burst of enlightenment, he focused on changing the color of a wave, and stood transfixed as it slowed to a stop, simultaneously cycling through every hue that ever was from then until the end of time, all compressed down to a single moment.

Fritz shook his head, the confusion dissipating but suddenly replaced by a fiery pain as another wave smashed into the one he had stopped, both exploding into a massive cloud of shifting hues. He only caught a glimpse before being rocketed back into the real-world, the pain making itself known through a series of growls and snarls.

When the pain finally dissipated, Fritz felt a buzzing at the edge of his mind and realized that a familiar hand puppet was trying to reach him.

[Are you okay, night guard?] Bon-Bon asked, a tinge of worry in his voice.

“Haha, yeah. I uh, learned how to give myself a nasty headache on-demand. I know a bit more about my soul now. I think.”

[Oh?]

“I was able to create this weird sort of energy, but it hurt like hell and I don’t know if it’s useful for anything.”

[Energy? I remember William rambled about that once or twice. He wanted to make his robots blend in, “the perfect killing machine” or something like that. I don’t really care about it, but maybe that’s something you can do.]

Fritz pondered the rabbit’s words, a little taken aback. If he could blend in, that would solve all his problems! Heh, well, the biggest one, at least. He didn’t like the idea of a “perfect killing machine”, but that was probably more of a William thing than a soul energy thing. Hopefully.

“Thanks Bon-Bon. Maybe this is worth looking into after all.”

With that, he took another plunge into his soul. This night would be painful, but if he was lucky, it might just bear fruit.

……

Notes

William is officially the bad guy. Yay!