Gregory's watch made a little beep, which Pat copied. I stared at the little bot suspiciously.

"Gregory! I'm so glad that you're okay!" Freddy appeared out of seemingly nowhere to sweep the boy up in a big hug. When he remembered that I was there, he carefully put Gregory back on his feet and wrapped me tightly in his arms.

"You don't know how happy I am to see you." He sighed happily as I hooked my own arms around his shoulders just as tightly.

"I think I do."

"What happened to you? Where did you go?" He pulled back to inspect me. "You're covered in bruises and marks!"

"Uh, yeah. This bunny lady was in Monty's room. I think she hypnotised him or something because he was weird. And I mean more than usual. He trapped me and the bunny knocked me out with this thing on a rag. Probably something like chloroform. She must have gotten a few hits in while I was unconscious. I woke up here in the dark."

"See! I told you there was a bunny lady!" Gregory pointed at Freddy accusingly.

"I'm so sorry, superstar. It's not that I didn't believe you."

"You saw her too?"

"Only in the distance. It gave me a headache."

"Weird..." I muttered. "What about you two? Why aren't you in Freddy's room anymore?"

"Me and Pat got bored while Freddy went to look for you because he thought he heard you yelling. Which, I suppose he did actually hear. I thought it was a rat."

"We have rats here?"

"Probably." The boy shrugged, much to Freddy's annoyance. "And then Chica tried to attack me so we decided to try and find out what was going on with the other animatronics."

"Something really strange is happening here, and I don't much care for it." I crossed my arms.

"We shouldn't be standing in the open." Freddy looked around, fidgeting nervously. "Let's go back to my room and make a plan." Much to my surprise, the bear opened his front and allowed Gregory to clamber in.

"Is that safe?"

"You're the mechanic. You tell us." Gregory shot back, his voice muffled. I'd seen Freddy make some pretty large cakes fit in there while I was working the day shift. If they were alright, he should be fine. Right?

We got back to Freddy's room with little resistance from the patrolling S.T.A.F.F Bots and animatronics, though I still felt uneasy every time one of them intensely looked me up and down before ambling off to find Gregory. Thank the gods above that I kept my security badge in my pocket today instead of throwing it in my toolbox like usual.

"Have you guys ever been rebooted?"

"No, I don't believe we have." I hummed thoughtfully.

"I remember reading something about a system restart in one of those manuals. Maybe we could try rebooting them and it might kick out whatever is causing them to act like that."

"Wouldn't rebooting them make them, like, a blank slate?" Gregory piped up from the sofa, Pat on his lap like a pet cat. "Would they still be them?" Freddy and I glanced at each other, making brief eye contact.

"I... I don't know. But they attacked you. It would be better to have to reprogramme them than let anyone come into any harm. Who knows what could happen during the day when the Plex opens."

"It's true. They're my friends, and I want no harm to come to them. But sometimes, needs must. They'll understand."

"Okay, cool. So how do we reboot them, miss mechanic?" The boy asked. Pat squeaked, wiggling his ears excitedly.

"Well... I don't actually remember. I didn't think I'd ever need to do a system reboot, so I just glossed over that part. I'll need to go to my office and find the manual." Freddy put a hand on my arm.

"That would be dangerous. You cannot go to your office from here alone. It'll take about five minutes to get there. That's at least ten minutes of being exposed and alone."

"Just go with her then." Gregory rolled his eyes.

"And leave you alone to wander off again? No way, mister." The bear wagged a finger at the boy, and I couldn't help but laugh at Freddy's fatherly voice.

"Seriously, I can go myself. The bunny caught me off guard once before, it won't happen again."

"You could take Pat!" Gregory held the little sign out to me and it chirruped.

"That is an oddly sentient wet floor sign." I pointed out, putting myself eye-to-eye with him. "Why do you have a personality? You shouldn't do that." His eyes squinted and his ears flapped. Was it smiling at me?

"This is a tricky situation." Freddy sighed. "What about the air vents? There's one here, and one goes to your office. Do you think that you could fit in them and get to your office that way?" It wasn't necessarily a bad idea. I put my hands on either side of the vent, trying to judge if I'd fit. Something small pushed me out of the way and scurried in.

"I fit! I can do it!"

"Gregory! Get out of there."

"Pat won't fit, so look after him for me."

"You don't even know where you're going."

"I'm not letting you crawl through some vents all the way to my office." I tried to grab him and pull him out, but he shuffled back, just out of my reach. "Come here, you little shit."

"Woah! Don't swear at the child!" He smirked.

"You swear more than I do!"

"Fuck yeah, I do." Freddy gasped beside me. "See you later!" Gregory turned and crawled through the space, his little torch lighting the way.

"Gregory!" I called angrily. Freddy closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. Then, he pressed a few buttons on his Fazwatch.

"I can see your location for the moment, but the signal will be almost gone once you get a little further. Ollie's office is on this floor on the far East corner of the Staff Only area. Do you think you can find it?"

"Of course I can!" Came Gregory's smug reply. A sigh escaped my lips.

"That kid's gonna make me go grey..."

"He's young, but he has proved himself to be very smart and capable." He sat on the sofa, his hands absently fiddling with a purple rabbit toy. "He can handle it, and we both have our watches. If anything does happen, which it won't, he can contact us." I raised my eyebrow.

"If you're not worried, stop bouncing your leg." He paused, looking down at his leg, which was indeed bouncing anxiously. Unable to think of a good comeback, he simply patted the space beside him. Once I was seated, two weights pressed against me. One was Pat against my shin, upset at the disappearance of his new friend. The other was Freddy, leaning onto my shoulder, a troubled expression on his face as he continued to fondle the bunny's ears. I asked gently.

"Is that Bonnie?"

"Yes..."

"I never got to meet him. I was so scared of you all when I started working here. Up until I became a mechanic, actually. So I never got the chance to speak to him. He actually tried to say hello to me a few times, y'know? It was when I was waitressing. If we passed each other, he'd nod and say 'howdy' or 'how's it?' but I'd just look away and speed off every time. I hope I didn't offend him too much..." Freddy's sapphire eyes flicked up to my face.

"I don't think you did. He never took offence to anything, not really."

"I'm glad to hear it. I wish I'd just said hello back. Even just once. But next thing I knew, he was... Well, I lost my chance. At least I didn't miss my chance with you guys too." I placed a tentative hand over one of Freddy's, testing the waters. After a brief moment of hesitation, he turned his hand over, lacing his fingers with mine.

"It is a shame. The two of you would get along very well, I'm sure. He was quite similar to Monty, but more goofy. He always knew how to put a smile on everyone's faces. On my face... I miss him... He was my best friend, in a way that was different to my connection with the others. I just- I just miss him." His voice cracked slightly as he stared down at the magenta eyes of his late friend. Not knowing what to say, I just pulled him onto my chest, hugging him tight as I rested my chin on his head. He allowed the action, but didn't make an effort to say anything else, and the glum expression didn't budge from his face.

Not until there was a clanging from the vents and alarmed shouts.

~

"Ahh! What the fuck what the fuck- Leave me alone you creepy spider bastard! Fuck! Fu-" The vent cover smashed open, and a bundle of brown hair and curses tumbled out and onto the ground. Ollie and I both shot up out of our seats, all of my previous grief being quickly replaced with concern. I bundled Gregory into my arms, inspecting him for any damage while Ollie jumped halfway into the vent, her legs kicking out as she grappled with whatever had caused the young boy such distress. When she slid back out, her hands gripped a smaller, much dirtier version of DJMM.

"What the fuck are you?" She asked it, her nose scrunched in disdain. "Some sort of mini music man?" Instead of replying, it squirmed and writhed, trying to get back to the comfort of the vents.

"That must be how DJMM knows so much about what goes on in the Plex."

"That thing chased me through the vents! I thought it was going to murder me!" Gregory panted, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. While Ollie flipped the thing upside down, trying to discover how to switch it off for the time being, I grabbed the first aid kit from my vanity draw and began wiping up some blood on Gregory's cheek.

"That stings!"

"I'm sorry, superstar, but I'm not sure what you cut your cheek on. There could be all sorts of germs trying to get into your system."

"Let them try. I'll fight them all."

"What, personally?" Ollie hummed in amusement, still examining the upset spider. Pat bumped into Gregory a few times, seemingly trying to give some comfort.

"Yeah. I'll brawl those germs." He punched the air a few times, narrowly avoiding me.

"Maybe we'll save the brawling for another day." I gently smoothed a plaster over the small cut, feeling bad when he winced. "How does that feel?"

"I've had worse." He responded bravely with a shrug. I noticed Ollie stopping to regard the boy with narrowed eyes for a moment before eventually turning the animatronic in her hands off.

"It's off. Do you know what this thing is?"

"Not at all. I've never seen such a thing."

"First we have a sentient wet floor sign," Pat beeped at being referred to. "And now a weird little spider thing in the vents..."

"This place is freaky as fu-" Gregory paused as we glared at him. "As hell. Freaky as hell."

"Did you get that manual?"

"Oh! Right..." He stuck his tongue out and rooted around his pockets for a moment before pulling out a folded manual.

"Great job, kiddo." She ruffled his hair, taking the manual from him and flicking through it. He flinched slightly, but quickly smiled at the action. He seemed to be quite skittish when we got close to him, but was fine with climbing into my chest hatch. A whirring noise caught my attention. The spider was sitting on my vanity, wiggling its legs experimentally. It seemed much happier now.

"Look, he's a little sweetheart now." She patted its head. "I'll put you back in the vents, if you're happy there." It nodded, crawling onto Ollie's outstretched hands and letting her place it carefully back into the opening of the air vent.

"Good thing it's friendly again." I shuddered.

"It's still weird though." Gregory mimicked me.

"But it brings good news! This means that the reboot works!" Ollie's eyes shone with hope. "It's easy. All we have to do is press the power button on the back of your neck, then press a little button in the right lower leg hatch."

"How are we going to get close enough? They might try to attack you if you start touching buttons on them." Gregory frowned.

"I'd be able to get close enough, but my hands are too big to press the power buttons. Roxanne and Bonnie would do it to me and Chica often as a prank, so our buttons were made less accessible." A sad smile briefly passed over my face as I recalled Bonnie's contagious laughter whenever he'd managed to sneak up on one of us.

"Maybe we could distract them with something?" Ollie put a thoughtful hand to her chin. "It just needs to be long enough that I can press the off button. They should pretend to power off for long enough that I can get to the reboot button."

"Pretend?" Gregory leant forward curiously.

"The animatronics don't actually turn off, but they pretend to so that certain situations are easier, like when they're being fixed. I discovered it by accident, so now they don't bother pretending. But when Monty let that bunny attack me, he didn't seem to remember who I was. And none of them showed any recognition when we passed them coming back to the room. If they don't remember who I am, they'll forget that they don't need to pretend to power off in front of me!"

"That seems risky..." I frowned. I'd already allowed harm to come to her once today, I didn't want it to happen again. But one look at the determined look on her face told me that nothing I could say would change her mind. When I glanced over at Gregory, I couldn't help but smile. He had the exact same face that Ollie did. "But I know that we can do it." They high-fived before Gregory gripped onto my leg in a hug. I gestured to Ollie, who put one arm on Gregory's shoulder and the other around my waist. Something warm and content settled in my stomach. I pressed both of them a little closer to me, resting my cheek on Ollie's soft hair. She grinned.

"Let's get our friends back!"