Interversal Outpost

“You know, I think you underestimate my ability to learn skills on the fly. Anyone else learning would have died I’m guessing.”

“You are very powerful, really, we all saw you taking on all those Roboenza infected robots without taking a single break from the fight. But please, don't just go about doing things so recklessly, you could have very well died!"

“I’m not even saying this because I don’t want Wily killing me or something, I really thought you had just obliterated yourself getting in this desert!“

“You either tell me what you did or your legs are going off.”

“O-Okay! You see, you were so pissed off that I managed to outmanoeuvred you that you, “insisted”, I showed you how to do it by letting you copy my power.”

“I tried to warn you messing with the Cyberspace wasn’t for beginners, that you’d be better off testing the waters first, not like, trying to teleport to the other side of the city on first try!”

She seemed relieved that he wasn’t going to stuff her into a suit.. At least for now. She had heard the horror stories of this place but had chalked it up to rumors. Boy had that been a mistake. “Oh uh.. Sure I don’t mind.” She glanced at the entrances nervously. “Will they try to attack while you’re here?” She asked.

To that a (somewhat-of-a) disregarding tilt of head was one of the two answers;

“I won’t worry much, even if I haven’t heard a single word out of them, they still have some politeness; I’ve never seen two of them in this room at the same time!”

Worries dismissed...for now. With that out of the way, however;

“With that sorted out, I first wanted to ask, well, where I am? I know this is a...Freddy’s Place? But what is this actually, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be here if you ask me.”

*     old  timers     /     doctaskull     :

   it  shouldn't  be  able  to  feel  dejection  ,  or  the  void  feeling  that  came  with  knowing  this  is  it  ,  this  is  your  reality  now  ,  and  yet  it  does  ───  and  the  springsuit  shudders  with  it  ,  or  spasms  from  a  misdirected  current  of  electricity  ,  who  could  be  certain ?     (     those  things  from  the  old  freddy's  location  ,  they  always  did  seem  a  little  too  lifelike  ,  huh ?     )

   ❝     n─nnngh  ,     ❞     the  springsuit  ,  slouched  too  far  over  in  a  corner  ,  stutters  .  its  voice  box  too  clogged  by  dust  and  muck  .  but  it  still  turns  an  eye  to  watch  the  machine  left  to  the  floor  ,  with  what  could  be  curiosity  ,  or  a  steadily  building  apathy  ─ ──  mainly  confusion  .  this  wasn't  the  first  time  it  had  been  in  storage  with  another  ,  but  its  memory  fails  to  recall  a  cat  among  fredbear's  mascots  .

   ❝     nn─n─n─no  ,     ❞     it  finally  wheezes  out  ,  slumping  further  forward  ,  over  its  knees  .     ❝     ii'hm──  i'm  n─not──  s'pposed  t’be  here   .   .   .     ❞     right ?

“NEITHER of us should be!”

As abrupt as the (long-ago-it-was) yellow rabbit slumping himself forwards, it was the cat’s snapping it’s neck into facing the other (it threating to break themselves) and the aggressive change of tone - as if an insult was throw in the room.

“Those...those bastards! After everything we’ve done for them...we are throw away like scrap!”

He protested, his rusted jaw opening to spill his resentments.

“Ohhhh, what I won’t do to get my hand on their necks! They fear us, I won’t be without any legs otherwise, nor would you be missing parts of yours.”

He somewhat finished his ranting, eyes darting at the faint light that came under the fake wall.

He was surprised to find that his stomach dropped a bit. He’d grown up around animatronics such as this; he didn’t find them as off-putting as most people, and had never really understood the horror stories people wove around them. Sure, he’d participated in passing them on – don’t stay overnight at Freddy’s, something will get you! was an oft-repeated tease at his school when he was younger, until it became true – but he’d never bought them. If there was an issue at Freddy’s ( or Candy’s ), it was with the humans working there. He was certain of it. ( A robot had killed a child, once, and that had been a human’s fault. That had been– )

      “I’m Michael!” Best to greet it with a smile, and not to think of the old restaurant, and what had happened there. “I’m repairing you. You’re in a bit of a state.”

Luckily for him was the fact the cat animatronic was...less than able to notice anything beyond a partially blurred smiling face. At the very least, he could make out most of the words directed at him;

“Oh DeaR! SooorrY for the troubl-e yoUng spoRT. HoPE I ai’Nt much of BOTher.”

He apologised for his current state, even if it wasn’t his fault. Old Candy just felt bad for having to give so much work to the staff; if anything he tried to give them a break at times.

“Just, LeMMMMe sit a biait.”

He didn’t need further prompting. He took off running, hearing the thing thudding behind him, feeling it shake the walls, filth and chips of paint falling from the ceiling. Where the fuck could he go?! There were no doors in this place ( there weren’t any in the late-‘80s location, bruh! ), and it would see him going into the office to hide under the desk. The vents? No air in there; he’d suffocate, and then revive, and then suffocate again. No, they weren’t an option. Stay and be caught? He’d ‘live’, but he’d be in pieces. He didn’t know if he could reassemble himself, and he didn’t want to be half a head or two fingers for the rest of eternity. Panic prompted an absurd thought: run to his father, hide behind him; maybe William would be so offended that someone else was trying to kill him that he would intervene. Definitely not an option.

      His time staring at the monitor last night had at least taught him the layout of the place, and years of working night shifts had made it a simple task to translate an overhead view to practical knowledge of how the halls connected to one another. He swerved and sprinted past the arcade machines, stopping only to rip one from its socket and tip it over, hoping that it would slow the robot down.

      “S-stay a-a-a–way! Don’t f–ucking t-touch me!” As he took off again, an observation wormed its way to the front of his brain. That wasn’t a Freddy’s animatronic.

For an animatronic made nearly 70 years ago (at least 10 with it left to roam in the outside), it still was a towering metal beast to not be underestimated; 

“COME BACK HERE YOU FILTHY MOTHERFUCKER!”

He roared in his erratic charge, even among unfamiliar walls, the enraged mechanical quickly started to close the distance with its target. However, if his legs still held enough power to propel him to great speeds, his eyes weren’t of much use; the windowless rooms and his natural inability to see in the dark, all made the obstacle put by the terrified man all the easy to thwart his run-

THUMP

“YOU SON OF A BITCH, I’LL GET YOU!”

Blank? That was interesting. Had someone left placeholder text in the text-to-speech program? But that– didn’t sound like text-to-speech. As a matter of fact, it sounded like a prerecorded line. A test, then, maybe? But ‘blank’ was such an odd choice! Was it to see how the machine would handle a human voice track? Blank as in boy, as in balloon, as in ball, but why not those words? Why ‘blank’?

      “Hullo!” Animatronics were heavy, and one that was still processing its surroundings and getting a feel for its legs ( so to speak ) was dangerous, so Michael made sure to hug the wall and give it a wide berth. He’d seen people lose eyes to swinging robots, and he didn’t fancy wearing a patch for the rest of his life ( as cool as that may have been for a character like Foxy ). “I’m just running some tests.” Did it have any sort of aural recognition? Would it understand ‘test’ as part of its programming?a

Wonky steps taken forward, feet threatening to give in, the dark blue cat eventually found a table to support himself. God, his EVERYTHING hurt (somehow)...all was blurry and his joints were almost ungodly dry of any lubrication, how long had he been deactivated? 

His audio devices (his ears, in simpler terms) barely registered the man’s words, at best he understood “yellow(?)” and “test”.

“W-Where am I? WHO-ho are yaaa??”