#snoweywrites

Moon stared at where he's slipped through, falling onto his face on the ground as he fell through where Solar had stood and ended him up onto the ground. Moon was hyperventilating still, body shaking as he tried to keep himself together, oil-based tears sliding down his face and staining the blue and silver surface of his faceplate with the clearish-amber tears.

Moon stayed on the ground, not wanting to get up as he heard Sun screaming something, Moon couldn't hear what Sun was saying, everything he heard was ringing, his audio sensors were muffled by something, his processors were buffering, something was wrong. Something was wrong and Moon couldn't move or think or hear.

Moon felt someone touching his shoulder and finally managed to pick his head up to see his twin shaking his arm to get him to respond, shaking Moon out of his shock. Sun was in tears too.

"Moon!" Sun urged his twin back. Moon looked to be in shock on the floor, face down and unmoving. Now that Sun had shaken him, Moon did look like he was recovering a little bit.

"Moon, sit up. Be careful." Sun guided Moon to sit up against the nightstand and Moon gazed at him, tears still not stopping but Sun knew it was better for his brother to just cry than bottle it up.

"Sun…" Moon muttered.

"I'm here. It's okay. Moon, it's okay." Sun told him.

"He's dead." Moon reminded his twin. Nothing was okay. Solar was dead, their brother was dead, Moon's best friend was dead.

"I know." Sun sighed softly. Sun then whipped his head to the side and Moon's head followed, looking at Ruin moving. "Don't you fucking move!" Sun snarled at Ruin.

"I will not. I surrendered." Ruin told them cheerily, sitting on the bed. While Sun was busy glaring at Ruin, Moon felt something against his right leg between his leg and Sun's. Moon looked down at it and saw a tiny little kitten. Did Sun get a new cat?

It looked like a newborn kitten with calico fur with the face half orange on the right and half black on the left with it's body swirled throughout with orange, black, and white fur. Its eyes were still closed, ears still curled and it was wriggling against his leg, bonking his leg softly with its tiny head to get his attention.

The kitten gave a tiny squeak of a meow and rolled on its side as it lost its balance and flopped onto its side on the floor, exposing the black and white belly it had with an Eclipse symbol on its belly. Moon's eyes widened as he saw the symbol. Solar? Was Solar a kitten?

"Moon? Moon!" Sun was looking at Moon again before looking down at the kitten and Sun's eyes widened too. "Solar?" Sun whispered as his hands carefully scooped the tiny kitten into them, cradling him away from the wood floor in his hands. The tiny kitten was so small that he fit into only one of Sun's hands and it squirmed a bit, squeaking and demanding attention and warmth.

"Is that Solar?" Moon asked softly.

"I think so." Sun admitted as he showed the kitten to Moon, whose tears began falling faster again as he looked at the kitten.

"What…?" Ruin muttered, looking over the kitten, who wriggled in Sun's hands as if attempting to get to Moon.

"Moon, he's getting cold and your engine is warmer than mine." Sun told his twin. Moon raised a shaky hand, terrified of hurting him and gently pet Solar's tiny forehead, making the kitten squeak at him with joy. Moon looked at Sun and back to Solar before taking off his hat and gingerly taking Solar out of Sun's hands.

"Good thinking, Moon." Sun told him, helping hold Moon's hat for Moon to safely place Solar in the warm hat. Once Moon had placed him int the hat, Sun wrapped Solar in the hat like a swaddle and gently placed him on Moon's chest so the warmth of Moon's engines would keep Solar warm.

"Be gentle. Not too tight holding him." Sun instructed Moon, placing Moon's hands to hold Solar up against him while Moon sniffled and held Solar as carefully as possible. Solar mewled softly, almost like he was whining.

"He's hungry. Come on. I have some milk for my cats he can have." Sun guided Moon up to his feet and then turned to glare at Ruin. "Don't you dare leave this room!" Sun hissed at him.

"I won't." Ruin agreed and raised his hands. Sun then guided Moon out to the kitchen and got out the kitten milk replacement for Solar and the tiny feeding syringe and nipple he had left over from finding Shadow a couple of months ago now.

Sun cleaned and sanitized the syringe and nipple and mixed together 2.25ml of the milk replacement before he drew the 2.25ml up into the syringe and put the nipple onto it and showed it to Moon.

"Do you want me to show you?" Sun asked.

"Yeah…" Moon admitted.

"Alright, put him on the counter if he feels human temperature." Sun told him. Moon felt over Solar's belly and he did feel warm enough, so moon placed Solar on the counter on a towel that Sun laid out for him.

"You just let him sit on his little butt and you put your thumb and middle fingers under his chin to hold up his head but don't squeeze because you're holding his neck, you're just holding his head up a little bit so he swallows." Sun told Moon as he narrated what he was doing once he unraveled Solar from Moon's hat.

"Then you get the nipple in his mouth and very slowly push down on the plunger. You don't want him aspirating because he's too tiny to cough it back up." Sun told him as he very slowly pushed the plunger and Solar greedily suckled at the nipple on the syringe, making little noises as he did so that Moon thought were adorable.

"I know it's probably going to feel weird, but kittens need help going to the bathroom until they're about a month old, so just use a washcloth and it'll help him go to the bathroom and clean him up." Sun finished feeding Solar and used a clean washcloth to help Solar go to the bathroom, Solar squeaking like a mouse with annoyance the whole time until Sun finished cleaning him off with a warm damp paper towel and a dry one to keep him dry and warm.

Eclipse sighed as Ruin went to charge and finally the judging eyes left as Solar was now taking shift to watch him like a babysitter. It was infuriating but, not that Ruin was gone, he was relieved. He’d rather be ‘babysat’ by Solar anyway. At least Solar didn’t threaten him constantly.

“So what are you up to, huh?” Solar asked, following Eclipse as he went to the daycare kitchen.

“Hobby. Thankfully Moon didn’t throw it out before he left like he said he would.” Eclipse grazed his hand over the large bowl of dough on the counter he’d made a couple hours ago under Ruin’s scrutinizing gaze.

“Yeah, been meaning to ask about that. What is that giant container thing you have on the counter all the time? Venom or something?” Solar asked.

“Bread starter. Sourdough.” Eclipse answered as he took the cloth off the bowl and put flour on the counter, tipping the dough onto the counter and using a knife to divide it into six. God, he made too much. Eclipse sighed at the amount he’d made and shook his head.

“Why’d you learn how to make bread, Clipse?” Solar asked, simply sitting at the table with his feet on it as he scrolled on his arm computer.

“I wanted to learn something…harmless, I guess. It just interested me when I saw videos of it.” Eclipse told him, mixing matcha powder into one of the six doughs and putting nutella on the inside of the dough as he rolled it up and put it into one of the six baking dishes he had out for the bread.

“Well, I’m glad you found a hobby. What kinds are you making?” Solar asked.

“Well, I made too much. And I don’t think I can stand all one flavor. One of them is matcha nutella. One last said it tastes good but I’m not sure for the rest.” Eclipse tried to figure out what exactly to do with the rest.

“You want help?” Solar asked.

“You know how to make bread?” Eclipse asked.

“Nah, I’m not into baking. But I can suggest shit we have so you don’t overproof it, or whatever it’s called, having to go get more stuff to use.” Solar chuckled at him.

“Hm. Sure.” Eclipse agreed.

“I have instant espresso. You can probably put instant espresso powder in one so you have coffee flavored bread.” Solar suggested.

“That…actually sounds good.” Eclipse muttered as he looked through Solar’s cabinet and got out the instant espresso powder, mixing a bit into one of the doughs and putting it into a baking dish.

“Chocolate powder in one of the others Then we have blueberries you can use for one. Maybe one plain bread. Aaaand maybe rosemary and garlic.” Solar suggested.

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” Eclipse grumbled as he did the other four as Solar had suggested and scored them and put them into the oven with a pan with hot water.

“I don’t like baking but that doesn’t mean I don’t like bread.” Solar told him.

“Well, yeah, bread is good.” Eclipse sat with him to watch the oven. “Get your damn feet off the table.” Eclipse playfully shoved Solar’s legs off the table and onto one of the other chairs.

“Ugh. Can’t a guy put his feet up?” Solar sighed.

“Not when you’ve got those damn boots on. I don’t wanna clean the table a third time today alone.” Eclipse rolled his eyes.

“How long?” Solar nodded to the oven.

“Twenty minutes. Take the tops off and 20 more. Sadly, they need to rest for like an hour after before I can cut them.” Eclipse watched the clock.

“Fucker. Why can’t we eat molten lava bread?” Solar whined.

“Because it’ll kill every bit of our internals it touches. And it needs to cool to cut it. Or it won’t cut right or something.” Eclipse told him.

“Despair and disappointment.” Solar chuckled. Eclipse felt relaxed, he liked this little banter. It felt like he wasn’t being babysat, it felt like he was at home with a friend. Family? Were they family? Did Eclipse even get that title?

“You’re overthinking again. What’s in your head?” Solar asked.

“I…just….Are we family? Do I deserve that even? O-Or am I just being delusional or something?” Eclipse asked.

“You’re not delusional, we are family. You’re like my little brother kinda.” Solar smiled.

Eclipse halted and stared at Solar with slight awe. He’d thought Solar would call him a cousin or second cousin thrice removed or whatever meaningless title he could think of. Hell, he thought he’d get told no and called a nuisance.

To be called brother. It felt like someone lighting a fire into his core, it made his processors run on overdrive and his engines turn warm with heightened intensity. Eclipse felt…happy? Wanted? Loved? All he knew was he felt warm and excited.

“Eclipse, your bread.” Solar reminded him, opening the oven and taking the tops off for him.

“Thank you.” Eclipse felt tears well over his cheeks and he couldn’t help but smile, artificial breaths staggered with tears.

“You’re welcome.” Solar told him, not yet noticing that Eclipse was in tears. Solar put the tops of the cooking dishes in the sink to be washed. Solar came and sat back down with him and Solar finally seemed to take notice of Eclipse’s tears.

“You okay?” Solar asked, sliding a hand over but hesitating to hold Eclipse’s hand.

“You really see me as your brother?” Eclipse asked softly.

“Of course I do. I don’t get much time to hang out with you but yeah, you’re my brother.” Solar held his hand and Eclipse melted into more tears because of it. He hadn’t been touched that gently before, ever that he could remember.

“You’re too nice to me.” Eclipse whispered.

“Eclipse, come here.” Solar forced Eclipse to stand and hugged him into his arms. Eclipse melted against him and cling on tightly. The hug was so simple but it made him break down finally, choked sobs leaving him. His engines felt so warm and his processors felt like they were burning.

“It’s okay. I get it, it’s okay.” Solar rubbed his back softly and Eclipse sniffled, his fit of tears slowly petering off. He let go of Solar slowly and wiped his tears off his face, trying to stop crying.

“Thank you.” Eclipse whispered.

“No problem, little brother.” Solar ruffled his rays and made him laugh a little at the feeling of his messed up rays.

“Now about bread, I’ve got questions on if we can bake moondrops into them.” Solar told him.

“If we crack them like eggs maybe. Or melt them down.” Eclipse answered, laughing more at the idea.

“We’re doing that and giving it to Moon. Maybe force him to sleep for once.” Solar told him.

“So ya fucked up?” Moon asked, crouching before him and Eclipse glared with his remaining eye, this was all Moon’s fucking fault and Eclipse seethed at him.

“I went to kill him and he tried to destroy me!” Eclipse crackled out his half-broken voice box.

“Sad little worm, huh? Welp.” Moon stood up, slapping his thighs as he did so. “That’s a problem taken care of. I’m gonna go out and celebrate. You try to die quietly if you can.” Moon patted his aching head and Eclipse growled to keep him off, attempting to grab Moon’s hand and bite it since it was all he really could do at the moment. But Moon was quicker and got his hand away.

“Hey everyone, I’m buying shots! It’s celebration time!” Moon called through the daycare as he left to the upper level of the daycare as everyone followed him out of the daycare, shutting the lights off as he did so, leaving Eclipse in the darkness with just the ceiling of glowy stars illuminating barely to the top of the play structures.

Eclipse’s engines whirred on high as Eclipse used his remaining hand and the forearm of his left arm to crawl his way away from the ball pit and to the security desk, dragging and pulling down the emergency med kit and haphazardly dumping it on the ground with his right hand so he could get the contents.

His first grab was an ACE bandage, which he tried to put on his stomach with his one hand to some success. It looked sloppy as hell but his insides would stay inside. Eclipse’s processors whirred on max, fans turning slowly because they were half broken so they couldn’t fully cool him down and coolant was leaking out of him, having made a trail from the ball pit to the security desk already.

Eclipse secured the ACE bandage and then began packing gauze into his right knee where it had been ripped off and used another ACE wrap to keep pressure on it so the oil lines wouldn’t be leaking out. He repeated the same process to his left wrist and sighed as he rested one of the instant cold packs onto his processors, relaxing into the feeling of the cold pack helping his half-broken fans to cool him down.

Eclipse saw errors flashing that coolant and oil was low and critical machinery was damaged. Of course it was, he had lost body parts! He growled in annoyance at his creator. They had basically torn him to shreds and Moon didn’t give a single damn about it.

Eclipse hadn’t been able to get a single hit in on them. It had all simply been a blur after they had admitted that they made him and to them attacking him like he was a glorified punching bag. Eclipse hadn’t had a chance to even defend himself and the thought of it, even now, was terrifying.

He shuddered just thinking of the sound and feeling of his wires and endo creaking and cracking when his creator had snapped his right calf off the knee joint and torn it off of him. And the agony of having his left hand ripped off at the joint had been horrifying. The sick crunch the joint had made had made Eclipse throw up. He wasn’t even aware he could throw up, but he had at that sound of his endo crunching and snapping.

Eclipse felt lightheaded, his breaths were coming slower and he knew this was some kind of a panic reaction. Of course he would have a panic reaction. He had succeeded at getting his creator to take out the directives but at what cost? His body nothing more than scrap metal? His mind in shambles and panic? It didn’t feel worth it. Maybe he wasn’t worth a chance.

This train of thought absolutely didn’t help the panic. He was shaking. Why was he shaking? Was the daycare shaking? No, it was him. What was this? Eclipse hadn’t ever felt panic before, not this badly. It felt worse that when he was waiting for Moon and Sun to come kill him. It felt like it was all-consuming and crushing him.

The dark didn’t help either, he hated the dark just like both of his predecessors. He knew there weren’t monsters, there weren’t, but the dark was…scary. It felt like emptiness, like being abandoned again. And it felt cold. He light lights, the stars on the ceiling just weren’t enough light. Especially since solar models didn’t have very much eyesight in the dark. It felt like being stuck into a black box with holes poked in for air but even the air felt like it wasn’t enough.

----------

Blood Moon had finally gone prowling around with Stitchwraith. A joy! Prowling with their acquaintance! It was a ball to finally be out of that bunker place! Blood Moon had begun their prowling in the main entrance and were now going through the daycare, which had its lights off for some reason.

Blood Moon liked the dark, it was a warm place to them, it was comforting, but the sound of staticky sobs coming from the lower daycare wasn’t all that comforting. It was quite annoying actually. They hated crying! Hated it! It was weak!

Blood Moon wanted to snuff out that incessant sobbing and the annoying attendant the crying undoubtedly came from. So they went down to the lower daycare and sniffed around for it. Thankfully, they didn’t have to look for long, finding the sobbing’s source was a curled up and mangled Solar? Was this Solar? No, the dents on the rays and the scratches on the faceplate weren’t present. Could this be…?

----------

Stitchwraith followed Blood Moon to the sound of crying and gave a small gasp seeing the torn down frame of the animatronic they had been slightly amicable with, at least for gaming they had been. But what the hell did Eclipse deserve this for? To be torn to shreds and left to die? He hadn’t even done anything too bad yet, he hadn’t killed anyone at least.

“Eclipse?” Stitchwraith asked, crouching by him but it seemed to go unnoticed. Was Eclipse having a panic attack? “Eclipse, hey.” Stitchwraith knew they’d get hit but they had to shake Eclipse by the shoulder to even get a slight bit of a response.

Once they did shake Eclipse’s shoulder, Eclipse whipped his left arm at them, which was missing it’s hand and was instead bandaged with gauze and an ACE bandage. The hit from Eclipse’s forearm connected with Stitchwraith’s faceplate but didn’t so much as put a scratch on them from how weak Eclipse seemed to be.

Eclipse looked up at them after, eyes wild with panic and pain, breathing going a mile a minute and extremely defensive and scared. Stitchwraith felt Blood Moon tugging on their cloak and waved their hand off to keep Blood Moon behind them. Eclipse was a more pressing matter than answering Blood Moon’s question at the moment.

“Eclipse, it’s Stitchwraith. I need you to breathe slowly for us.” Stitchwraith instructed him. Eclipse’s motors shuddered as he tried to take slow breaths for Stitchwraith. “You’re safe. Can you point to what’s scaring you the most right now?” They asked. Eclipse wordlessly pointed his shaky right pointer finger up at the lights.

“Blood Moon, go turn on the lights.” Stitchwraith instructed the twin hellions, who scampered off to go do just that at his request, the lights turning on row by row until the daycare was illuminated completely, which looked to ease some of Eclipse’s panic.

“Are you able to tell me what happened to you or is it too hard right now?” Stitchwraith asked.

“Creator…mauled me…” Eclipse’s voice was staticky and a weird echoed pitch but he could decipher it still.

“The person who made you mauled you?” Stitchwraith asked to confirm and Eclipse nodded softly. “Why did they do that?” Stitchwraith asked.

“Went to get…directives out…” Eclipse admitted.

“Your creator is a bunch of bull. That’s really all you went to do and he left you like you’re in a scrap heap?” Eclipse nodded and Stitchwraith bristled with annoyance at the audacity of Eclipse’s creator. That was downright cruelty for absolutely no reason. Eclipse didn’t deserve to be mauled over a simple ask like that. The way Eclipse’s simple ask was treated was absolutely bullshit.

“How about this, if you let Blood Moon carry you, I’ll fix you.” Stitchwraith reasoned. Stitchwraith would carry Eclipse back, give Eclipse probably couldn’t walk with a missing leg and fragile machinery desperately trying to escape Eclipse’s frame, but their arms still hurt from Blood Moon using them as a scratching post this morning as if the small bot was a damn cat.

“Okay…” Eclipse agreed and looked to Blood Moon as the red and white faced bot came scampering back down to the lower daycare and sat on the floor, looking over the situation with their head tilted to the side in confusion.

“Blood Moon, you’re going to carry him home. I need to repair him.” Stitchwraith told them.

“Aaaawwwwww, why do we have to carry the Sunman!?” Blood Moon began their usual spiel of complaining about the simplest of tasks. This bot could pick up a full cement truck but complained at picking up an animatronic that probably barely weighed more than them.

“Because our arms still hurt from being used as scratching posts. Now pick him up and be careful. Make sure you keep his stomach level, his internals are trying to be externals.” Stitchwraith sighed. Blood Moon whined a bit more but inevitably picked Eclipse up and thankfully held Eclipse as though he were some princess. It was embarrassing for Eclipse, sure, but it kept Eclipse’s insides inside him.

“Okay, come on, back home.” Stitchwraith told them and began leading Blood Moon back to their bunker and into his lab, instructing Blood Moon to gently place Eclipse on a table so he could work on him. He had most of the parts from misships and scrounging but he knew full well Eclipse would look different than he used to.

“I’m going to turn off your pain sensors but just stay awake and talk to Blood Moon for me while I work on you.” Stitchwraith told Eclipse as he got the necessary parts and tools together to fix him.

“Blood Moon?” Eclipse asked as Stitchwraith turned off the bot’s pain receptors and began to patch up and put on a replacement left hand for Eclipse.

“Yes, unholy creator?” Blood Moon sat like a cat in the chair near Eclipse’s legs.

“I’m not your creator, I never made you. That was…the original me. Before the backup in your head, before I was even a spot on the wall.” Eclipse grumbled.

“So you didn’t make us but you are an Eclipse.” Blood Moon cackled.

“I don’t know what I am.” Eclipse admitted. “I may as well have been made in a fucking petri dish in a lab. I have no clue who I am or what I am, just that I’m here and apparently my name is Eclipse and I’m the asshole everyone hates.” Eclipse huffed as Stitchwraith finished up the hand replacement and moved onto Eclipse’s right calf and foot replacement.

“You are…like us? A copy?” Blood Moon asked.

“An incomplete copy, yes. With directives and pasted memories from other points of view and a creator that rips out my directives and leaves me to the mercy of people who will just let me rot in a hole.” Eclipse was angry but he wasn’t panicking at least.

“We are incomplete as well. Memories from other people and bloodlust enhanced with less free will. Bullshit it is.” Blood Moon grumbled. Huh, odd that the two who hated each other agreed. Eclipse sighed and put his head back down on the table.

Stitchwraith finished replacing his lost calf and foot and moved onto Eclipse’s mauled open midsection and began patching the endo cage that contained Eclipse’s insides that had been ripped open. It was easier here because it was taking out the broken bits of old endo and welding in new pieces of the endo. He was also replacing broken innards as he came across them.

“We’re in the same boat then. I…I could remove it. I think. I have the original’s pasted memories too, I’m sure I could sift through and take out the bloodlust.” Eclipse told him, watching Stitchwraith more than Blood Moon now as Stitchwraith was working of Eclipse’s faceplate, fixing the wires and socket and putting in a new eyeball and replacing the half of the faceplate that had been torn off.

“Take out? You can take that out?” Blood Moon asked.

“I think so. I could try at least.” Eclipse told them, sighing now as the only thing left was his body casing, which was something easy and much less surgical. It was akin to putting on a new outfit to animatronics, especially daycare animatronics, who sometimes had to take off their casing to clean it after days in the daycare.

A calm quiet settled in the lab as Stitchwraith got Eclipse into a purple and white casing, replacing the ribbons on Eclipse’s wrists with new purple ones that weren’t stained with coolant and oil and laid out new pants and a new shirt for Eclipse to get dressed into.

“Alright, go get clean. I have a sanitizing station here, it’ll get you clean. Blood Moon, you need to get cleaned too.” Stitchwraith told him, helping Eclipse stand up and turning back on his pain sensor since there wouldn’t be as much pain to feel. He could fix minor things like Eclipse’s half-broken voice box later. What was important was getting Eclipse to feel better and not take an entire day just to fix him. Plus he didn’t have a new voice box for him just yet.

Eclipse struggled sitting up, his endo aching from what a human would consider bruises. He could feel the stiffness in his new parts and his eye was still adjusting, making him blink that eye more, which was uncomfortable but bearable because he had full sight back again now. He just let Stitchwraith help him to his feet, grateful for the help from his brother? Cousin? Acquaintance, Eclipse was going with acquaintance with the weird family tree he didn’t want to deal with.

Eclipse was passed to Blood Moon so the smaller bot could help him along and Eclipse happily used them as a sentient cane for his new stiff foot and calf that was making him limp a bit  with how little the new ankle could move yet. Blood Moon supported him, which was surprisingly actually helpful.

“But brother goes in the cleaning tube.” Blood Moon and maneuvered the both of them into the tube, helping Eclipse get off his dirty old clothes and Blood Moon threw off his mud covered clothes and stayed with his brother so they’d both get cleaned like Stitchwraith asked.

Blood Moon giggled at the sanitizing mist and roared with laughter at the brushes that came to scrub off the worst grime. Eclipse only needed the sanitizing mist to heat the coolant and oil on him enough to drip off into the drain in the floor. But Eclipse liked seeing his little brother laugh. It was nice to have this moment.

Eclipse never got to have this with…the others. But it felt nice to watch his brother laugh at the brushes going after the ticklish spots on his back. He kind of liked this, it made him feel warmth bloom in his chest that one of his siblings wasn’t scared of him or wishing him death or even leaving him to die.

-A Week Later-

"Moon, you're pushing yourself. You aren't charging or resting." Eclipse finally broke and snapped at him.

"Maybe I would if I hadn't fucked everything up!" Moon screamed back at him, too stressed to not scream at the inconveniences anymore, too focused on getting Solar back now.

"Moon, you're at a max of five percent." Eclipse reminded him.

"I'll charge when my brother is back." Moon growled venomously, eyes turning to glare that Eclipse dare interrupt him but Eclipse had gotten used to Moon being like this fairly quickly. Eclipse knew Moon would inevitably run himself down and then Eclipse could carry Moon off to bed.

Thankfully, Eclipse got that opportunity sooner rather than later as Moon stumbled and his hand hit a tray, knocking it to the floor with Moon collapsing to the floor as well a few seconds later.

Eclipse went and finally was able to scoop the poor sap up and groan at how heavy Moon was, muttering complaints about how much Moon weighed as he kicked the door to Parts & Service open for him since he was busy carrying Moon.

"You." Ruin caught Eclipse's attention before Eclipse was able to leave.

"Yeah, what about me? Want me to come in there and kill you finally?" Eclipse asked.

"No, actually. I would like you to forget Protocol 87.775.2, actually." Ruin told him and Eclipse tilted his head in question, not really knowing what Ruin was talking about.

"Forget about what?" Eclipse asked.

"Exactly! Good job! Thank you! Be on your way now!" Ruin cheerily told him and Eclipse shook his head and carried Moon up to the daycare and through the portal to the house, sighing seeing Sun's cats practically waiting for Moon, though they hissed as if they hated him anyway, but Eclipse knew the little cretins were pretending they hated Moon.

Eclipse laid Moon on the couch and put a blanket over him for the cats to crawl on top of and purr now that they knew Moon was sleeping. Eclipse chuckled at the little gremlins. They sure loved their uncle, they were purring on his unconscious body.

Eclipse plugged Moon's charging wire into the wall outlet near the couch and left to go figure out what the hell Ruin was talking about, landing at the daycare computer inevitably. It seemed the computer knew everything anyway so he may as well try.

"Nice attempt, but you are not a member of the Celestial Family." The computer told him.

"Nice joke, I actually am. But I came for answers." Eclipse told the machine.

"Whyever would I give you answers?" The computer asked.

"Ruin mentioned a protocol in me, basically asking me to delete it but I don't know what he was talking about. I will let you scan my code if you look for Protocol 87.775.2." Eclipse told the computer.

"…I will agree to these conditions, only because it may serve well for Moon." The computer agreed. Eclipse plugged himself into the computer for it to scan him and just sat back waiting, all he could do was wait. The computer was doing two things at once and it was taking a while.

Eclipse ended up falling asleep for a bit in the computer chair while the computer did its thing. However, the computer also decided to be an alarm for Eclipse as it woke him up with a loud bussing noise through his circuits.

"HEY!" Eclipse jolted awake, pulling out the cord and thoroughly startled by the computer.

"Ah, good, awake. I have found Protocol 87.775.2 as well as scanned your code." The computer told him.

"And you wake me up like your about to try giving me a controlled shock?" Eclipse snapped.

"Yes, I found it amusing." The computer would've laughed if it could, Eclipse could tell.

"Fine, what is the protocol about?" Eclipse asked.

"This protocol entails a means to what Moon has been working on. A way to undo what has been done." Eclipse scoffed at that.

"So that's why he wanted me to get rid of it. I haven't been alone in a room so he couldn't give me an order to try to get me to delete it until today." Eclipse muttered.

"Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult as it works with the essence of an energy." The computer told him.

"Tell me what I have to do."

-One Week & Four Days Later-

Eclipse walked into the room Solar had died in. He had finally made good on getting everything else ready and Sun and Moon were out with Earth and Lunar, watching the solar eclipse on the roof of the PizzaPlex.

Eclipse had chalk, blood, and a dagger. He hated this, it felt so weird. It felt so awkward to probably be the first person Solar sees when he comes back.

"Solar?" Eclipse calls to whatever remained of Solar's energy, which he had attuned himself to over the last week and a half.

"Solar." Eclipse called to Solar again, sitting down in front of where Solar died. He could feel the energy around him swirling as though Solar was trying to tell him he was there still.

"There you are." Eclipse closed his eyes, holding the chalk and drew a circle of runes with his eyes closed, following the images of runes the protocol was feeding him on the back of his eyelids. The circle was around Eclipse himself and the spot Solar died in, interlocking them.

"Solar, I can feel you. God that sounds weird." Eclipse muttered the last half. The energy jolted like it was laughing at him. "Yeah, laugh it up, idiot. Sit with me." Eclipse sighed. He could vaguely see the outline of Solar's energy sit with him.

"Thank you." Eclipse muttered, knowing he had to thank Solar. He hated that he had to. Eclipse cringed as he poured the blood on the inner ring of the rune circle, watching outside as the sky began to go dark.

"I willingly open this connection for Solar." Eclipse stated as the protocol had, cutting open his right hand with the dagger in his left dominant hand. Eclipse could see that the whisp in his vision that was Solar's energy was interested.

"Hold my hand, Solar and only Solar." Eclipse told the energy. The energy seemed to hold his hand and Eclipse sighed at the feeling, relieved Solar was just listening to him, probably out of curiosity rather than genuine willingness.

"I connect what is mine to what is yours. Wire for wire, energy for energy. I share willingly what is mine with you." Eclipse spoke evenly, making sure to read word for word.

"This day is a connection." Eclipse felt the rune light up with light, blazing as the room went completely dark. "I bind us. Mine is yours. under this light, we become connected." Eclipse lost his breath after these words of the spell, making him choke a bit as he could feel Solar's energy binding to his own, coughing to get air as he could feel his mind breaking in half, body feeling aches and pains as Solar's energy was bonding to him.

Eclipse lurched forward, nauseous as he felt Solar's AI blooming into his head, using the broken-off half of Eclipse's mind, their mind? Eclipse didn't know but he was nauseous. Animatronics weren't supposed to get nauseous. He leaned with his hands on the ground, hearing someone screaming. Was that him? Was he screaming? He still had to say the final words and get Solar to say them too.

Eclipse reached his energy into his mind, making Solar take half control with him, each having control of one half of their? body. Eclipse fed the final words into their vision to make Solar say it with him. Once Solar nodded using their head Eclipse nodded back.

"We claim the energy of the solar eclipse given to us." Both of their voices echoed and the pitch-black void of the room glowed with a peace around them, the white ring around them calmly pulsing with their energies. Eclipse finally felt a peace now as he curled up on the ground, trembling with everything that had happened, too overwhelmed to move but he had to finish it. He had to finish this. He fed to Solar in their optics the final step and words.

Solar was the one to drag their body upright again. Eclipse was shivering, Solar was shivering. The room felt cold. Everything felt cold. Solar seemed to have more force than Eclipse, Solar was learning how to share their energy.

"We undo the damage that has been done through false trust." They made sure to echo each other and Eclipse felt a bloom in his chest of the energy they claimed from the solar eclipse above in the sky still, the ring around them, practically burst into a running visual of universes coming back into being, rebuilding themselves, lives being brought back immediately, everything blooming around them in the circle of light like flowers.

Eclipse gave a soft, exhausted chuckle seeing it and seeing the sky begin to get light again. Once the ring around them finished, the warm feeling slowly dissipated and Eclipse and Solar simply collapsed onto the ground, shaking and taking deep breaths.

"Thank you." Solar whispered.

"I know." Eclipse tried to laugh but all that came out was a wheeze.

"Are you okay?" Solar asked.

"I'm exhausted." Eclipse whispered back.

"Well, you gave up your magic to bring everything back, you're probably going to be exhausted for a while." Solar sighed.

"What?" Eclipse asked.

"I'm under two percent, get me to a charger, please." Moon asked him and Eclipse sighed but plucked Moon up easily as the blue bot passed out against his shoulder.

"God, ya didn't have to go deadweight on me!" Eclipse growled, hauling Moon up closer to keep him from just flopping onto the floor and sighing as he readjusted his hands to carry Moon's body like a damsel.

"Still bothering to help them, are you?" Ruin asked.

"What the fuck does it matter to you?" Eclipse growled.

"Such a finicky bot. I knew you'd be a problem from the moment I made you." Ruin gave a simulated sigh of disappointment.

"I wish they'd have let me kill you." Eclipse snapped.

"Oh? Feelings now? You're getting those? I wonder, feelings for the one who put a bomb in your head stressing himself like this or are you sad as well that Solar is never coming back?" Ruin asked.

"It doesn't matter!" Eclipse defensively growled.

"I think you're grieving." Ruin gave a simulated chuckle.

"Like hell." Eclipse shot back.

"You're not denying it, Eclipse." Ruin told him. Eclipse turned around to carry Moon out without another word, refusing to look at the genocidal maniac in the cell.

"You know, not that you can do it, but there is a way to undo what I've done." Ruin told him. Eclipse halted but didn't respond. "Curious are you? You know what it entails, don't you? But you know you can't do it." Ruin taunted.

"Who said I can't?" Eclipse didn't wait to hear the response before leaving with Moon and carrying him to the daycare and into the portal to Moon and Sun's house. Sun was on the couch with old videos of Solar playing on the television with both of Sun's cats curled up on their owner.

Eclipse carried Moon upstairs to his bedroom and laid him in bed, covering the animatronic with the blanket and making sure he wasn't pinching any oil lines in the position he was in.

Then Eclipse went back downstairs and shooed the cats off Sun and hooked his arms under Sun, hauling the yellow animatronic up into his arms and carrying him upstairs to his room. Eclipse did the same process of getting Sun into bed and covering him with the blanket as well.

Eclipse went downstairs as the cats bolted past him upstairs into Sun's room to curl back up on their owner as Eclipse headed to the portal back to the daycare. Eclipse looked at the computer as he sat down at it and sighed.

"You display signs of high stress." The computer announced.

"Fucking great analysis, stupid piece of junk." Eclipse growled.

"You are keeping knowledge to yourself from the others. Shall I alert Moon?" The computer asked.

"No!" Eclipse shouted before realizing how loud he'd been. "No, he needs to charge. He passed out because he hasn't charged. It's…difficult to explain." Eclipse huffed.

"Then try." The computer insisted.

"I know how to undo it. But it's not fully possible." Eclipse told the machine.

"What is the method?" The computer asked.

"That's the issue. If I tell anyone, then it won't work if I do try it." Eclipse put his head against the desk and hid his face.

"Does it involve more death?" The computer asked.

"No. …Maybe if it goes wrong. Only one person, though." Eclipse bit out in annoyance that he was actually thinking about it.

"I understand. I recommend trying it then." The computer announced. Eclipse looked up at the computer.

"Don't give anyone my location tomorrow from 1:30pm to 4:30pm. Once 4:30 hits and nothing's happened or if I don't come back, then immediately tell Moon my location." Eclipse told the computer.

"Understood. Best of luck for your attempt. Get some rest." The computer told him. Eclipse plugged himself in to charge and looked at the time, 2:13am. He had under twelve hours to get this done. Eclipse tilted his head back and slept for a couple hours until he was at a hundred percent, then began looking up internally where exactly he should be for this to work.

Once it hit 1pm and Sun, Earth, and Lunar were in the daycare, surprisingly with Moon, who seemed to be manning the security desk, Eclipse teleported where he needed to be and sat for fifteen minutes, taking out everything he'd teleported to this park this morning before everyone showed up to the daycare around 7am.

With the tiny knife, Eclipse began carving into the grassy field of the park perfecting the runes he needed in the circle around him. Eclipse stabbed the dagger down in the very center like he was supposed to and sat on his knees with it in front of him.

Eclipse grabbed for his magic and pulled it slowly like a tether, bringing the magic pool to the circle of runes he was in, making the outer ring of the rune circle glow. Eclipse looked at the time and saw it was 3pm. Perfect.

Eclipse looked up at the sun overhead, which was partially eclipsed by the moon. Eclipse began pulsing his magic around him to his artificial heartbeat, feeling it thrum with him as he went past it to mentally grasp at the feeling of star power. He had so little time for this before the astral bodies came.

The feeling was so incredibly addicting, like a sweet poison in the back of his throat, the ichor of it tasting a bit like candy as he let the star power and his magic begin thrumming to his heartbeat, Eclipse looked at the time one last time. 3:15pm.

The sun was getting completely eclipse by the moon above, turning the sky dark like it was centered over him, the totality of it blazing overhead. Eclipse, without losing concentration of the magic and star power, pulled the dagger from the ground as the circle around him began to be the only glow around him, beaming like an aurora of mashed colors in a kaleidoscope that pulsed with his heartbeat.

Eclipse turned the blade up and, before he could think beyond it, plunged it forward into his stomach to rip through his center, making oil instantly gush from the wound in his casing and dribble from his mouth. Eclipse pulled it out, covered in his oil, and stabbed it back into the center of the circle in the opposite direction, finishing the circle.

The magic and start power he had kept concentration of melded together in a deep purple color before it seemed to beam up toward the total eclipse above him like a beacon. Eclipse felt the darkness of the eclipse above seem to swallow him whole, as if he was now in its void-like maw.

He simply let it, closing his eyes as he felt it thrum through him like his own artificial heartbeat, making him feel cold and hot at the same time as if he was going through hot and cold flashes and he felt nauseous. The hot and cold flashes passed as he felt like his body had a glow to it now, opening his eyes to see it was, a soft deep purple glow emanating from him.

Eclipse felt the darkness let him go, to stop taunting him as he put his hands against the ground and shone the beacon of his new star power brighter, making it seem to extend to the heavens like a current as it turned brighter, more powerful.

Eclipse didn't have to say anything, his new star power knew what it was doing. He could feel from the magic in his hands the dimensions out there that were slowly coming back to life, all of them. All 5,321 universes that collapsed in the flick of a wrist came back with a bustle, with the damage to the fabric of reality being undone with it.

Eclipse could feel Solar's universe coming back, could feel Solar's panic and confusion as he woke up and every other animatronic, human, and animal waking up in panic and confusion as well. 5,132 dimensions forming back just as they had been before. Over 41.5 trillion lives coming back as they used to be, the multiversal scale righting itself as he did so.

Eclipse felt the darkness lift as the eclipse above him slowly ended and he fell to his side in the circle as it stopped glowing, hands going over his stomach where he'd stabbed it, feeling it healed with phantom pains. He wiped the oil from his face and took the dagger from the circle, using it to carve through the runes to make the circle an unrecognizable patch of newly turned soil mixed with grass.

Eclipse got up, quickly leaving the field, melting the dagger in his hand as he walked out before teleporting back to the daycare once the metal completely melted and the wood crumbled to dust on the ground, leaving no trace of the event that had occurred.

Eclipse put his hands in his pockets as he walked into the daycare, which was bustling with frantic energy. Lunar was running to hide by Earth and Sun was frantically asking Moon what was happening as Sun stood by the ball pit. Moon stood at the computer, eyes panickedly looking over the information the computer was displaying to him.

"Portal open!" The computer chimed happily.

"What dimension!?" Moon asked frantically.

"Unlisted." The computer lied. It lied for Eclipse as it seemed to know just what he'd done. He was sure it did, it had probably had a surge of unlisted dimensions pass through its interdimensional radar.

"Moon!" Sun called to his twin, who was busy looking over what the number of the dimension was. Eclipse pushed him away from the computer to make him go toward Sun, ushering Earth to follow with Lunar as well, giving her a wordless nod.

Moon went to his twin and grabbed Sun's arm, worried about what was happening right now and Earth curiously went over with Lunar against her side. Eclipse followed them with a half-smile on his face, watching as the portal pulsed and then the balls rattled before a very familiar brown and amber face surfaced with an angry grunt, clawing their way to the island in the ball pit.

"Little help here!? My legs still ain't working fully yet! I'm limping like an old man!" Solar called and Eclipse gave a happy half-chuckle hearing him. It was nice to hear his double's voice. It was nice to see his family begin to cry and scream in relief as Moon practically dove into the ball pit followed by Sun to help Solar get out of it.

"You came back…" Moon had amber oil running down his face as tears as he buried his face into Solar's shoulder, probably staining Solar's shirt already but Solar didn't seem to care as he got his footing, standing on the padded floor of the daycare.

"How did you come back?" Sun asked, wiping his face with his wrist ribbons and trying not to cry too much while Lunar and Earth immediately hugged Solar to make sure he was real.

"I don't know." Solar told them. "I just woke up in my dimension and I knew I had to get back here. It was…awful." Solar admitted.

"It was me." Eclipse told them.

"You?" Moon asked.

"I'll probably have astrals on me soon enough." Eclipse went the more roundabout way of telling them.

"You…" Lunar whispered as he realized what Eclipse meant.

"I did." Eclipse confirmed.

"You have star powers?" Moon asked.

"Spatial manipulation. Which I will happily never use again." Eclipse confirmed.

"You brought me back." Solar smiled at him.

"Yeah. Couldn't take everyone crying and moping anymore." Eclipse waved the warm feeling in his chest away, disregarding it.

"Thank you, Eclipse, for letting me come home." Solar loved and hugged Eclipse, which was something he wasn't used to. It made Eclipse's casing tingle and his chest feel warm like he was burning up. Eclipse felt unwilling tears pricking in his eyes and distorting his vision as Moon, then Sun hesitantly joined in hugging Eclipse, followed by Earth and Lunar as well.

Eclipse smiled, feeling his whole body warm with the various hugs. He wouldn't admit it aloud, but he liked this feeling and he felt like he could bask in this feeling for a bit.

Soon, Eclipse was out first, head lolling back on the chair’s headrest and Solar then Ruin followed closely behind him, Ruin slumping forward onto the desk and Solar’s head resting forward and body leaned back in the chair Solar was in.

Eclipse swirled and felt dizzy for a minute as he seemed to wake up in a garden. A garden? Why a garden? Why was a garden in his head? Why was there a…giant…maze…?

In front of where Eclipse was laying on the ground was a maze, spindling and twisting and confusing. It looked dark in places and light in others as he stood up to try to peek above it to see where he was supposed to go. But there wasn’t a clear way to tell where he was supposed to go and it was also taller than he could jump up to see.

Eclipse kept his right hand on the wall as he slowly stepped inside the maze, cautious as he tried to find a path on the ground. There wasn’t a single direction that made sense, this place was complicated as hell. Why was his mind so fucking complicated!?

Eclipse felt his stomach throb with a sudden hunger pain. He was hungry? In his own head? What was this place and why was he smelling something sweet and really wanting it? Eclipse looked up at the dead end and found that the hedge that made up the dead end had cherries on it.

Did cherries grow on hedges? Eclipse didn’t know, but he was hungry for some god-forsaken reason. So he plucked one off and popped it into his mouth, spitting out the seed onto the ground as he swallowed the fruit's flesh.

Eclipse got knocked to the ground as the maze seemingly changed around him and the ground he was on shook a bit. Eclipse immediately let go of the stone wall and screamed at the sudden change of the darkness around him rather than the light, like the maze had gone into night but only where he was.

Eclipse backed up and ran the other direction, the darkness fading into dim light before he slammed right into something he couldn’t see, panting with slight panic at the weird ass maze changing around him. Hitting into the invisible thing has sprawled him on the floor, which looked like a mirror actually.

Eclipse slowly got up and put his hands to the mirror, looking at the reflection of the last Eclipse and Original looking back at him. Both of them, both designs, the golden Original and the red and orange backup. Both were laughing at him, which was unnerving to say the least that the reflections of his past could laugh at him.

Eclipse shoved his hand through the mirror-

----------

Solar groaned feeling the earth? Yes, earth, shake under him and a scream that woke him up. A maze? Of course Eclipse has a maze. His mind was a twisting labyrinth of answers and questions just like Eclipse currently was.

Solar kept his hand on the wall, making sure he was keeping track of the same side of the maze at all times. He could hear giggling ahead of him that sounding sort of like Eclipse, sort of but also…not. He kept going towards it and found a smaller orange bot that looked like Eclipse, giggling and playing in the maze and skipping around.

“What are you doing here, bud? Why are you tiny?” Solar asked. Maybe Eclipse had been made a kid by the maze?

“Don’t listen to the cherries, they're lies.” The kid simply told him before going off further into the maze.

Solar elected to follow the kid, despite how weird he was. Solar hit into a split in the maze, a four-way intersection. He listened for the giggles and followed them down the right-side path, finding the kid Eclipse prancing down through what looked like fog.

Solar headed into the same fog, seeing a swirl of memories all from a different person’s perspective, watching them intently. Did Eclipse truly have any memories of his own? These were all of the backup’s memories from other people’s perspectives.

Solar followed the giggling from the fog and then down a left into a darker fog that whispered what seemed to be Eclipse’s own memories from his activation in the daycare on. Solar knew about most of these memories, he’d been there for some of them.

“Maybe it would be better.” Eclipse’s voice swirled around him in a memory as a visual to his right appeared with Eclipse holding the wires on the back of his head, about to shut himself down. “I…I can’t do it…”

Eclipse’s voice sounded so defeated in the memory, so shockingly terrified and in tears. The memory was from when Eclipse was on the loose, before they’d went looking for him fully. Eclipse had tried to shut himself down? The memory slipped into whispers until another horrible memory inevitably swirled louder as Solar walked through the maze, keeping his hand on the wall and listening for giggles from the kid Eclipse.

“I don’t deserve help. But I need it. I can’t do this myself or I’ll just die. What if the Creator was lying? He wasn’t. He wouldn’t, he doesn’t care enough to. I have to just call him.” Eclipse’s voice swirled and the visual was a muted phone call to Moon. When Eclipse had first asked them for help.

Solar was soon out of the swirling voices and following the kid again through this twisted maze. These memories hit a bit harder for Solar to see. It proved this Eclipse was different. And, for these memories to have been shown to him and him alone, perhaps this kid he was following was Eclipse’s conscience.

----------

Ruin sneezed himself awake at the smell of cherries, his only allergy he’d never bothered to fix. This place was riddled with the scent. He looked up at the maze and found it was laden with the fruit. He kept his hands close and made sure to hold his nose going through, wandering through the maze to find Solar and Eclipse. They had agreed to meet as fast as possible after all.

Ruin saw shadows passing through the maze around him. It was like every time he came to a four-way, which was frequent apparently, two shadows were passing through the ways he wasn’t going. It looked vaguely like the Original and Backup versions of Eclipse.

Ruin came to a dead end with a wooden door and slowly opened the creaky wooden door from its squeaky hinges, wincing as it was probably the loudest damn thing in the maze. He looked through it, seeing a small alcove of a meadow with a reflection of all three of this world’s Eclipses there but all of them looked just a bit off. The original with one different colored eye, the backup with one ray miscolored, and the new with half his faceplate silver rather than orange.

Ruin slowly stepped through it, sudden sound hitting him as he passed through the veil on the door. The three were arguing apparently, seemingly unable to figure out who was who. Ruin could vaguely tell that this was Eclipse’s struggle with who he was. All three constantly at war and never coming to an agreement. Just like how Eclipse was currently battling with who he actually was.

Ruin saw them disappear but the voices stayed there as he went toward a door on the other side of the meadow, passing through it as the voices got left behind him and a ball of light instead appeared before him like a fairy, swooping around and jingling. The fairy swooped down and went around a corner, Ruin following it closely to keep up with it.

Ruin followed it right into a part of the maze that was long hedges of cherries on both sides that were hitting into him but he didn’t care for the feeling of the slight ‘rash’ on his casing from the allergen as he followed the fairy through the maze. This must be Eclipse’s common sense and he determined to follow it. THe fact that it went so fact was absolutely telling that this was indeed Eclipse’s common sense. Eclipse thought faster than a roadrunner, quick as a whip he was with his thoughts.

Ruin saw the fairy run right into glass wall, slipping right through and Ruin did the same as he followed it in, seeing a shattered and scattered mirror of Eclipse inside, a kaleidoscope of reflections. The fairy got slower, guiding Ruin much slower, almost as if it was finding its own bearings with all the reflections too.

The fairy finally came into a sort of clearing where he could see Eclipse. Actual Eclipse this time and the fairy buzzed around Eclipse, showing Ruin that this was the real one. Eclipse was standing in front of two mirrors with Original and Backup in them, both laughing at him as Eclipse tried to reason with them with no luck.

“Eclipse.” Ruin spoke up to catch his attention and Eclipse turned to him but not before the mirrors tilted and Eclipse’s common sense chimed and buzzed around Ruin, pushing him forward as Eclipse yelped and was swallowed into a third mirror next to the reflections of Eclipse’s past selves. Ruin ran forward down the sudden decline of the mirrors as the one Eclipse had been basically dragged into turned back like it was some kind of abyss.

“RUIN!” Eclipse screamed, held to the sides of the mirror, trying to keep himself up by the top of the mirror. Ruin reached through and grabbed Eclipse’s arms, his feet on the sides of that were stable and not apparently swallowing people to pull Eclipse up like Eclipse was falling into an abyss. The two fell onto the ground in a sprawl of limbs and the fairy jingled and chirped around them, trying to get them up to run.

Both scrambled up to their feet and kept hold onto each other as they stumbled and ran after the fairy leading them out of the glass wall again, both collapsing and panting with exertion from running and panic. Eclipse leaned against Ruin to make sure he was real, hand keeping a deep grip on Ruin’s arm, and Ruin patted his back softly, taking their time to breathe.

Ruin saw the fairy buzz in the path in front of them, leading them. Ruin helped Eclipse up and held a grip on him, unwilling to lose him as he followed the fairy. The fairy took them down winding pathways and dark corners as they made their way toward a white mist, which seemed to fix Ruin’s allergic reaction and make the itching stop on his arms.

Ruin sighed with relief that his casing wasn’t itchy anymore with ‘rash’. Eclipse held tight to his hand and Ruin wordlessly squeezed back, assuring him that he was there. Eclipse was quiet, probably startled with what had happened to say the least. Ruin wouldn’t make him talk about it. This was Eclipse’s private problems, he wasn’t privy to that information unless Eclipse wanted to tell him.

The fairy went into a darker pathway, leading them through the maze in what seemed to be the right direction as Ruin could see glow up ahead. Eclipse’s grip got tighter and he pressed against Ruin’s side as they walked and Ruin held his arm around him, keeping him close and feeling a bit safer. Eclipse seemed frightened and Ruin didn’t want that so close to the finish line.

Eclipse gripped his hands around Ruin’s body, shuddering. The mortal terror that abyss had given him was quite a scare, not to mention he already had a mild fear of the dark. He didn’t like this damn dark maze! He wanted to just wake up, but that wouldn’t fix the directives. So he sucked it up and kept walking with Ruin, following the fairy through the maze to a glowing entrance, into a clearing full of cherries and bushes, basically a skyscraper of cherries.

Ruin smiled seeing Solar come through a different path to the center. This was the center of Eclipse’s mind, and it seemed the cherries were the directives. No wonder they were everywhere.

“Ruin. Eclipse. I’m glad you two made it. Thought I might make it here alone with how complicated this place is.” Solar told them, coming over and helping them into the clearing.

“How do we get rid of this?” Ruin asked.

“I would say rip them out, but that may hurt you because it’s violent.” Solar told him.

The child Eclipse ran from the clearing Solar had come in through and the fairy from Ruin’s side of the maze both went straight at Eclipse himself. The kid and fairy seemed to meld into Eclipse, leaving Eclipse with a slightly ethereal glow as Eclipse held his head, going to his knees and curling up.

“Eclipse!” Solar held his shoulder to check on him.

“Are you okay!?” Ruin panicked, holding one of Eclipse’s arms.

Eclipse’s eyes were beaming white as his hands gripped the ground, claws digging into the earth his mind had, white cracks appearing from where Eclipse’s hands were like lightning striking the ground. The white cracks spread right for the cherry bushes and practically melted them into the ground, the cracks continuing through the paths of the maze, seeming to go after all the cherries, all the directives.

Like a light switch had been flicked, the maze’s walls started to disappear into the ground one by one, seeming to become an open meadow as the complexity melted away and the cherries disappeared, clearing. The directives had been done away with. Eclipse fell to the side on his side, groaning as his eyes faded back to their normal black, slow pushing himself up from the ground.

“What happened?” Eclipse asked.

“You cleared the directives.” Solar told him, helping him sit up and Ruin assisting on Eclipse’s other side.

“I did it?” Eclipse asked.

“You did it.” Ruin assured him.

“I get to leave?” Eclipse asked.

“We all get to leave.” Solar looked up at the door a bit of a distance away. “I think that’s your exit.” Solar told him, ushering Eclipse up to his feet. Eclipse looked at the door as it opened itself to a swirling white and he gave a small smile seeing it before taking off toward it in a run, happily melting into the swirling white as the door closed behind him and the warmth of consciousness slowly returned to him.

Eclipse gasped awake and sat up straight, panting like a nightmare had been had. Next to him Ruin and Solar roused and Solar groaned softly as he came back to himself, Ruin blowing a sigh from his fans as he came back online first. Solar picked his head up and Ruin looked over with a smile at Eclipse, patting his hand as Solar disconnected himself then Eclipse and Ruin from the computer.

“I’m proud of you.” Solar told him. Eclipse felt warm at that, a smile blooming on his face as his chest welled with warmth that wasn’t dulled with a cold feeling behind it from the directives for the first time.

"Yeah, Eclipse, it's me. What did you do? Why is there blood on the ground?" Moon asked. Eclipse gave a chuckle at Moon not knowing whose voice was whose.

"Wrong one." Eclipse found it in himself to tell Moon.

"What do you mean wrong one?" Moon asked.

"Look at the sigils. You know what they mean." Eclipse told him, too tired to explain. Eclipse opened their eyes and let Solar have half control like Solar was vying for. Both had control of one eye, giving as much control as they took. It was nice, it was balanced.

Moon was knelt down, looking in growing horror at the sigils on the ground in chalk and swiping blood away from a few of them, which had spread since Eclipse had poured it.

"These are summoning and binding sigils." Moon realized. "You of all people wanted a soul bond?" Moon asked.

"It was the only way." Eclipse huffed.

"Who did you…" Moon stopped his question, seeming to realize where they were and Eclipse gave a lazy half-smirk.

"Hi Moon." Solar greeted Moon, making sure his voice sounded like it used to.

"Solar." Moon lurched forward in tears already, grabbing Eclipse and Solar as he cradled them close like he'd lose Solar again. "Oh god." Moon buried his faceplate into Eclipse's shoulder, little droplets falling against Eclipse's shoulder as Solar hugged Moon back as tightly as he could manage.

"I'm okay. It's okay." Solar assured him as Moon seemed to break into hysterics, shaking and heart-wrenching sobs piercing through the stale air of the room.

"He's safe, Moon." Eclipse pushed to sit up as Moon simply collapsed against them, limp in their arms as he cried and nearly screamed with his hands fighting to cling his upper body as tightly against them as he could.

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, Moon. I'm not dying again." Solar promised, rocking Moon, seeming to know what to do to help Moon more than Eclipse. Since Solar seemed to know better, Eclipse let Solar front more, watching through their eyes as Moon was overwhelmed and slowly crying himself out on their shoulder until he was nearly asleep.

"Shh, I know. I'll be okay. You'll be okay. It's safe to sleep. I'm right here for you." Solar assured Moon, who couldn't help but pass out asleep from how much crying he'd done.

"What happened?" Eclipse whispered.

"He had a panic attack." Solar sighed.

"Is he okay?" Eclipse asked.

"He'll be fine. He just needs to rest." Solar told him, grunting as he scooped Moon's body into his arms and was about to transfer Moon to the bed in the room but spotted that Moon had blood from the circle on his pants.

"Alright, get out of the optics, I need to change his clothes." Solar told Eclipse as he sat Moon against the nightstand and carefully detached Moon's fingers from their neck frills.

"I'm not a pervert. I respect people's privacy, you know." Eclipse scoffed, tuning out their optics to let Solar have privacy with their brother. Was Moon Eclipse's brother again? Did Solar inhabiting his body too make it so that Moon was his brother again? Eclipse kind of liked the idea of having a family again.

"Alright, he's clean and decent." Solar told Eclipse and Eclipse tuned back into their optics, seeing Moon laying in the bed in a clean pair of sweatpants and a big fluffy hoodie.

Moon was curled up in the bed while Solar was rubbing over Moon's arm softly and tucking him in. Eclipse liked that Moon looked so calm when he was sleeping.

"I'm going to clean what you did. Thank you, Eclipse. I'm sorry we have to share a body." Solar told him.

"You think I didn't know I would be sharing a body?" Eclipse asked back.

"I… Thank you anyway." Solar told him, a smile forming on their face as Solar rubbed a particular divot in Moon's faceplate that made Moon give a sighs sigh, relaxing from the tenseness of a nightmare Moon had been having.

"Thank you for coming back. I actually missed you, you nice bastard." Eclipse huffed as he helped Solar clean up the soul binding ritual and fixed up their left hand.

"I missed you too, surprisingly. I missed that cocky other version of me going batshit over Ruin." Solar gave a content sigh, finishing the cleaning up and making sure the blood hadn't seeped into the wood.

"You ruined this patch of flooring." Solar sighed, watching the blood-soaked floorboards.

"Yeah, I know. I plan to offer to fix it." Eclipse groaned with annoyance that the floorboards needed to be ripped up and replaced.

"I want to tell Earth. Lunar and Sun too." Solar told Eclipse.

"Yeah, I'll sleep, you do that." Eclipse muttered, settling to sleep in their mindspace, curled up like a kitten. Solar looked in on this and chuckled at Eclipse sleeping like a cat in their mindspace. It was kind of nice to see him sleep for once.

Solar tucked Moon in more and then went to the daycare, looking down to see the group of three siblings in the daycare cleaning the barrels. Solar knocked on the door to get their attentions as he came in.

"Eclipse?" Sun asked tiredly.

"Nice guess, close but no." Solar told them. "Earth, is knitting still available?" Solar asked, making her eyes widen at him. "Lunar, buddy, is Jack alright?" Lunar stared up at him like he saw a ghost, which he basically was. "Sun, it's a couple weeks late, but can we still play Gang Beasts?" Solar asked.

"Solar?" Lunar asked.

"SOLAR!" Earth tackled him to the ground, tears already on her face as she began to sob and clutch to him, Sun guiding a shaky Lunar over as well.

"I'm okay. I'm back, Earth." Solar assured her as her sobs slowly quieted into hiccups and sniffles, wiping her face.

"I'm sorry for attacking you!" She whimpered out.

"It's okay, I knew you would." Solar hugged her tightly and sighed as she settled against him.

"Solar, it's really you?" Lunar asked.

"It is. Eclipse actually did it." Solar smiled. Eclipse roused with a soft groan in their mindspace, as if annoyed having heard his name in his sleep.

"How?" Sun asked.

"He had to perform a soul-binding ritual, which is why I'm in his body. Our souls are bonded, which makes it so my core is from this world now instead of my old one. And both of us used all of his remaining magic along with the boost from the solar eclipse to bring back all the dimensions Ruin destroyed. We don't have any magic anymore." Solar explained.

"We're so glad you're back, Solar." Sun told him.

“Moon! Moon!?” Sun screamed at the blue animatronic and Annulus cocked his head to the side in confusion as to why they were scared. Annulus looked back to see if something was behind him. But Annulus didn’t see anything behind him. Annulus looked back at the two other animatronics only to be face to face with a barrel pointed right to his face.

“Wha-” Annulus didn’t have the time to fully get the word out of his mouth before Moon fired off a laser from the barrel and Annulus’ body fell backward into the ballpit with steam rising from the scorched neck pipe where the circular head frame was missing, wires and all.

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2: Penumbra

The second time he woke up with a gasp, hands feeling over his face as he remembered the last memory he had. It was a sudden flash of pain in just his head and explosion levels of heat. That life was Annulus’, but it wasn’t his own. Not this one.

He decided he would be different. His name would be Penumbra. Penny. He liked that one. Penumbra loved that name. It was cute. He was glad to not be in the ball pit, it made him terrified that he could’ve felt that again. It was scary.

Penumbra was in a pretty starry sky, it was gorgeous. This looked like indoors though, that was the ceiling!? The ceiling was so pretty! Penumbra giggled seeing it, looking over the dark pretty indoor sky. Penumbra heard someone near him and looked back to see something leer toward him in the darkness and waved. The animatronic didn’t register as Sun or Moon so it wasn’t someone scary, right?

Penumbra felt a hand against his face and screamed feeling heat charge up, grabbing the arm that was holding him and attempting to fight the hand away, the hand registering to his database as Solar. Penumbra was screaming up until Solar’s arm cannon went off and Penumbra collapsed to the floor, the remainder of his head smoking as the wires singed with sparks and flames.

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3: Saros

The third woke up more slowly, groaning as he held his head and rubbed over it with phantom pains. Saros? He liked Saros. Saros was remembering slowly the past two deaths, very sudden and terrifying in retrospect. It left him shaking abut. But those were adults, right?

Now that he had time to think about things, Saros knew those animatronics were adults and he was just a kid in a way. He had no memory besides his prior deaths, really. Saros didn’t really know much, but the only adults he knew of were the ones that had hurt him before. Or…past versions of him? Saros didn’t know. But they were scary, that was for sure.

Saros wanted to ask them for help. Maybe they’d listen if he could ask them this time? Saros looked around to find he had woken up in a theater. It was a big place, actually. It was kind of pretty despite how dark it was. Saros followed the lights out of the theater and up into the concession booth, finding it was a red and orange and black bot half-asleep at the counter.

“HI!” Saros waved at him.

“Oh shit.” The bot that registered now as Solar, his killer last time fumbled a bit as he stood straight up and stared at Saros.

“Hello, my name is Saros, can I ask you if you can hel-” Saros got a shot from the arm cannon through half his faceplate, leaving him screaming as half his fragile head components had been blown to dust. Saros collapsed holding his head and trying to hold the components left of his circuit board together before he felt another blast from the arm cannon.

Saros’s body slumped to the floor with a quarter of his head left and oil dripping, catching fire in his engines just as Saros’ body was powering down, creating a fire on the floor and a mark of fire damage on the floor as well.

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4: Shadow

The fourth screamed awake, alerting someone around him. Shadow had a very short existence, very confused and scared. He was in the middle of the daycare surrounded by only Sun and cleaning supplies. Shadow’s screaming alerted Sun, who immediately panicked and ripped out Shadow’s wires. Later that night, when Moon woke up, Moon put Shadow’s body in the kitchen’s trash compactor, ridding them of Shadow.

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5: Astronomy

When Astronomy woke up, he was in an even more vividly colored daycare. Where was this? Lunar and Earth’s daycare? He hadn’t seen those two animatronics before. Maybe they were nicer than the other three?

Astronomy looked around and found a small blue animatronic just a bit taller than him. Astronomy was tiny, he was toddler-sized and Lunar was taller than him. Lunar looked more inviting, more kind. And he looked happy talking to someone that didn’t register as an animatronic. It was someone really tall with pretty blue designs that Astronomy didn’t hear the name of.

Astronomy hesitantly went up to Lunar and gently tugged on his sleeve, confused and afraid of Lunar turning out like the others. He was a very pretty light blue and almost glowing with nervous but kind energy. But that kind energy faded the second Lunar turned to him. But Astronomy persisted. Lunar was an adult and he needed an adult to help him.

“Mister Lunar? C-Can you help me?” Astronomy asked.

“Oh don’t play dumb, you arrogant prick!” Lunar snapped and the blue person disappeared. Astronomy looked up toward the blue person then back to Lunar, who was charged with electricity? Lightning? But he was buzzing with it.

Astronomy didn’t have time to get another word out before he felt lightning running through him, frying every circuit and blowing them out, making Astronomy scream as the lightning made scars and Lichtenburg marks across his skin, smoke billowing from Astronomy’s melting circuits before it fried his internals and his chip.

Astronomy’s body dropped to the floor like a stone, smoke billowing above him and sparks and jolts still going through him after Astronomy had already been killed.

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+1. Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet woke up in the balcony room. He didn’t know why but he was there, which immediately scared him and made him run as a large blue and green animatronic that registered as Earth saw him run to hide. He was scared of the animatronics here, all of them had killed him before except Earth! He didn’t like those animatronics and Earth couldn’t be any better!

The little blue one seemed friendly and smaller like him but he didn’t want to take his chances this time. Ultraviolet had hid in the dressing room behind the theater, looking at himself in the mirror. The features he had were pretty ones. He loved the pretty black and orange. It was a pretty combination.

In the mirror, Ultraviolet saw a pretty orange and black dress meant for the theater actors and it looked small enough for him. Violet took off his clothes and changed into the frilly black and orange dress and giggled as he twirled in it, hands holding the skirt and watching it floof around him as he sat on the ground like a princess.

Violet liked that he looked like a princess, he liked the fluffy dress. He felt cute in the dress. It made him forget about Earth until he saw her turn the corner into the dressing room and see him on the ground. Earth stopped dead seeing him but didn’t make a move yet, seemingly stunned to see him there. Or maybe it was the dress?

Ultraviolet didn’t know, all he knew was that Earth was scary and it made tears of oil prick in his eyes and fall over his face, sobs unwillingly leaving his voice box. Earth had crouched down in front of him but it just made him scramble back and hide under one of the mirror desks, curling up and hiding as best he could.

“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me, please!?” Ultraviolet sobbed out, shaking and Earth gently and slowly lowered one of her hands to touch Violet’s own hands.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re a little one, right?” Earth asked, voice soft and calm. It made Ultraviolet look up that she was actually talking to him without threats or yelling or panic. “Are you alright, little one? Do you need a hug?” Earth asked softly.

Ultraviolet sniffled and shuddered with a sob before tackling to hold around her middle, wailing and burying against her as her gentle hands rubbed over his back. Earth wasn’t hurting him. Earth wasn’t making him die again. She was comforting him, holding him while he cried.

“It’s okay, little one. You’re safe.” Earth assured him, voice still soft and calm enough it calmed him enough that the wailing petered down into hiccups and sniffles as Violet cried himself out, oil wetting and maybe staining Earth’s pretty skirt but she didn’t even seem to care.

“I know it’s scary, but you’re safe. Just breathe, little one. What’s your name? Do you have one?” She asked to calm him further.

“Ultraviolet.” He whispered, wiping his eyes with his arm but refusing to let go of Earth, too scared to let go of the one adult who hadn’t hurt him.

“Ultraviolet is a pretty name. My, that’s a very good name. And the nickname maybe Violet. Oh, I love that name, it’s so pretty like you in this dress, Violet.” Earth giggled and smiled, making Ultraviolet feel a lot more comfortable. Earth sat forward and offered Ultraviolet her hands to pick him up.

Violet immediately raised his arms to be picked up, letting her arms coddle him to her shoulder and hold him there. One hand was under his thighs and the other hand over his back and head to keep him in her shoulder as Ultraviolet clung his hands around her neck to hold on tight, feeling the warmth and affection she had.

Earth stood up with him in her arms, carrying him somewhere and Violet peeked to see they were going to the daycare with her hands getting more protective. It seemed Earth had known about Ultraviolet’s prior deaths and was protecting him from the other animatronics.

“Boys! Hello!” Earth called out and Ultraviolet looked around, seeing the four animatronics that had killed him in his last five lives and one other taller adult animatronic with rays and looked nervous but kind. He registered as Ruin in Violet’s systems and he looked kind. Kinder than even Lunar.

Either way, the sight of all four of the animatronics that had killed Violet in his last five lives made him inadvertently give a whimper and begin to shake, sniffles rising back up again as he pressed his face into Earth’s neck, clutching onto her shirt tighter so she wouldn’t leave him to the mercy of the mean adult animatronics again.

“Boys, I am deeply ashamed and disappointed in you. Not you, Ruin. I understood when you four all had told me that you had killed an Eclipse that had come around as I was under the impression that you all had been threatened or attacked and provoked into killing him. However, Ultraviolet here has no more than the mentality of barely a two year old and seemingly no memories whatsoever other than the trauma the four of you have inflicted.” Earth told them, her hand on Ultraviolet’s back rubbing it to soothe him as he whimpered and cried quietly, too scared to pay attention to the conversation. He was just happy that Earth was comforting him.

“Earth, he’s not a-” Moon began.

“That being said!” Earth cut him off. “I do not condone your actions any longer in the murders of those ‘Eclipses’. As far as I am aware, all five of them were innocent of crimes as well as children. You four should be ashamed of yourselves. If Ultraviolet is a reflection of them at all, then they did absolutely nothing to any of you other than exist.”

“Earth?” Sun asked.

“No, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear the excuses! Ultraviolet is a two year old with no memories of anything besides death! I will not entertain your excuses! All four of you will not interact with him until he’s ready to interact with you! Ultraviolet is a tiny toddler, smaller than Lunar even! How could four of five of you possibly have seen a toddler as a threat!?” She sounded really angry and it made Ultraviolet whimper and let out a cry, though not tears came out this time because his oil tank was too low to create more tears.

Earth relaxed and turned away from the other five animatronics, rocking Ultraviolet as she also calmed herself down. Her hand stroked up and down Ultraviolet’s spine and she shushed him, softly humming as she ran her fingers to rub his rays and that instantly relaxed Violet against her shoulder, breath getting softer and slower as he was slowly falling asleep to the feeling.

“I may be the baby sister but I am extremely upset with all of you four. Not you, Ruin. And I’m sorry if I scared you, Ruin. I know you haven’t seen me angry before, I apologize.” Earth told the group of other animatronics.

“It’s very alright, Earth. I understand.” Ruin assured her. “May I see him?” Ruin asked.

“Of course.” She smiled, sitting with Ruin as the other four went to talk to each other quietly like they’d been scolded by a parent. Earth slowly and carefully transferred Ultraviolet into Ruin’s awaiting arms and Ruin carefully held him the same as Earth had, though he sat in a rocking chair, which soothed Violet even more.