The silence remained tense and suffocating. For a few moments, everyone just stared at each other, hands twitching and teeth grinding against each other, eyes flicking in all directions. But suddenly, Monty the Gator bursted out in laughter, like he was just watching some sort of comedic scene.

"What even is this?!" He roared out in laughter. His rough, robotic hand shoved the girl even closer behind him as he sneered at all the opponents in the room. "All of-  all of this! For a useless, little child!"

The girl felt the tension grow. Freddy was practically growling like a factory generator, the ground vibrated with the overpowering buzz. Sun's swirling rays retracted further into his head as he twitched violently in place. Gregory's eyes curled up, his pupils growing thinner as his golden irises gleamed menacingly in the dim light. And the alligator animatronic was still laughing, almost hysterically.

"Now, what do we have here today, folks!" He chuckled wildly before pointing a sharply clawed finger at Sun. "First, we have the goody-two-shoes daycare attendant. Looks' like he lost a few screws along with an eye!"

Sun cocked his head while his fingers twitched. His milky, white eye started to gleam a menacing crimson. The girl hid behind Monty more, recognizing the sinister presence of Moon as a quiet, glitchy cackle left Sun's voice box. Then, the gator sneered at Freddy. "Next, we have the oh-so-brilliant Freddy Fazbear. Looks like our star escaped house arrest, and jumped in front of a train!"

Freddy glared at Monty with withering, glowing eyes that would disintegrate the confidence of any egoistic challenger idiotic enough to test his patience, but the bassist was unaffected. Finally, Monty's fiery, vermillion optics landed on Gregory.  "And then we have little Timmy over here who decided to escape the orphanage. Hey, I think it's past your bedtime!"

Gregory's arms slowly slid behind his back. His tight-lipped smile grew, the girl felt goosebumps prickle all the way down her spine as the atmosphere became greatly colder. In the darkness, the girl caught something metallic glinting behind the boy, but she couldn't quite see what he was holding. She was certain it was anything but good.

"And you all think you have a chance against me?" His manic chuckling ceased as he stared seriously at them. There was a quiver in his voice, a slight shiver in his octave that was barely noticeable to her, but she heard it. She didn't know what it was, but it wasn't fear. It was more like a macabre... excitement. It writhed beneath his skin like a second being. It was all he really felt. If he takes them all out, he'll be at the top. He'll always be at the top. "Watch out, folks. You might lose a limb or two..."

But his amusement was hollow, his eyes gleamed maliciously. He took a heavy step towards the center, leaving her to gaze at his spiked back as he released her, but the girl could see his eyes were on Gregory. The boy clearly seemed to be the weakest unit amongst the other large animatronics, but as soon as he saw the gator take a step towards him, he immediately pulled his hands from behind his back, and out came an ax. It was an emergency ax used during fires for breaking heavy-duty windows and doors, this one in particular was found hidden in Parts and Service. The boy twisted the ax with precision and pointed the crimson edge of it threateningly at Monty. There was a dangerous shine in Gregory's eyes. The girl didn't realize she was free until her back touched the wall.

"Are you sure you want to take another step, Montgomery?" The boy said slowly, the smile on his face patient and calculative. "...Or are you going to roll your egoistic dice and, as you said yourself, risk it all for a little girl?"

Monty paused, he cocked his head as he glared at the ax firmly held in between the boy's hands. Suddenly, a sharp, jeering smile grew on his face. "You sure have a way with words, kid."

Suddenly, Freddy snarled as he took a step towards Monty, his knuckles pressing against his palm as he cracked his mechanism joints. The gator whipped around and sent the bear a scathing glare. The girl heard Sun's voicebox garble in an unintelligible, raspy voice she knew too well, and she felt the blood just about leave her legs. Sun's eyes gleamed a feral red, but he somehow managed to stay in control of himself and not shift into Moon, but the girl saw his limbs start to violently shake in rage.

"I am not playing games anymore..." Freddy growled. His flickering yellow eyes shifted between Monty and Gregory. "...I'm not going to be a puppet you can exploit,  a rug you can step on all over when you feel the need to wipe your dirt onto me, I'm not going to be the one who stands to the side while this child is constantly put in danger because of the selfishness of others."

Freddy pointed accusingly at both Gregory and Monty. The gator's smirk fell into a frown as he twisted his fingers together, the urge to destroy and pound unfurled and festered in him like water filling up a bucket. There was a twitch in Gregory's golden eye, the mocking smile slightly ticked on his face but he otherwise remained emotionless.

"Oh, Freddy..." Gregory tutted mockingly. He spun the ax nonchalantly, he looked as bored and disinterested as he always did. "You might believe that you are free, but you just crawled out of a cage only to be trapped in another."

His eyes flicked back up to Freddy, his pupils blown wide in his golden eyes. The smile on his face was laced with thinly veiled impatience, his left eye twitched.  "So, why don't you stop this nonsense and find your way back to Parts and Service where I will fix you. You're difunctional."

"No," Freddy growled. Freddy took a step towards Gregory, towering over the boy. The bear looked like a mountain compared to the small robot as he glared down with glowing, yellow eyes. "I'm not going to yield to the likes of  you."

The boy's smirk grew near predatory. His eyes darted from Freddy to Monty to Sun to her. His grip on the ax tightened till the girl could hear the metal bending and crackling unevenly beneath his lithe fingers. His usual purring voice lowered many octaves as he warned the animatronics with a toneless and thin waver. "You're all making a grave mistake for getting in my way..."

The air felt so fragile yet sharp, like it was bending fiberglass. The girl didn't realize she was shaking until she looked down at her trembling fingers. She never wanted this to happen, she just wanted to hide away and never come out. The obsessive eyes, the cruel words, the dawning realization that it was her they were after. Being the center of attention felt overbearing, being the one they all wanted was like being in front of different cages. It was like it was asking which cage she wanted to crawl into, and the one she chose was the one she would be trapped in. A cruel freedom of choice, and no cage was better than the last.

"Oh how scary! Shiver me Timbers!" Monty roared with more laughter. He was being ignored earlier, and he didn't like being ignored. He didn't like not being the center of attention. Gregory's golden eyes flicked towards him, they were dark with annoyance as the boy scoffed. His innocent act started to crack because the fact that all of the nuisances he absolutely despised were all in one room, it practically gave him the mechanical equivalent of a migraine. Especially that annoying belly-laughing, shark toothed, green alligator who was in front of his (y/n). The gator was practically slapping his knee because he found every little thing funny, almost funny enough to divert the need to knock everyone in this damned corridor.

"You look like the equivalent of an angry chipmunk, buddy. You might have better luck next time when you're older!" Monty chuckled before smirking, he cracked his knuckles together. Gregory opened his mouth to say something witty and probably just as insulting back, but Sun beat him to it with the grumbling and heavy voice of Moon laced a strained growl.

"And you look like a fucked up attraction of some sort of dinosaur. I think it's time to put you back into the fossil museum, 'buddy,'" Sun said but there was no humor in his voice, only vile hostility and hatred. The girl was shocked at the obvious foul language used by the daycare attendant of all people. Monty let out a laugh of disbelief. Sun's wrist bells jingled as the astral animatronic took a large step towards the bassist, practically a meter away from the gator as his milky eye glared into heated vermillion. Monty gritted his teeth in a wide smirk as he looked ready to pounce on Sun but the solar animatronic said something in a hushed voice to the gator that made him freeze mid-attack, his eyes widening in disbelief.

"What did you say to me?" Monty's cocky smile quivered slightly in shock.

"We all know what you did," Freddy said as he stepped closer to Monty, Gregory's eyes glimmered as he spun the ax, approaching as well. They were cornering the alligator, he backed up until his tail poked the girl. Monty was about to open his mouth to ask what they're talking about, but Freddy hissed from deep within his chest with his haunted voice box, interrupting Monty, "what you did to Bonnie, you murdered him."

"We might all hate each other, but we won't let you hurt her because you want to validate yourself some more," Sun said with a ravenous tone. Sun despised how loud and destructive Monty was, kids were scared of him and Sun always heard bad things about the gator in the daycare, but now Monty was threatening to hurt the girl. She shrunk more into herself when she saw their bloodthirsty faces getting closer and closer, and Monty noticed quickly that he was getting surrounded and literally getting pushed into the wall. Sun's eyes were crimson and his permanent smile looked hollow, a sadistic cackle grinded out of his chest. Freddy's eyes and fangs glinted in the dim light as a vengeful grin pulled at his lips, it was the first time the girl saw him smile in such an unhinged way, and it made her feel like she was dipped in ice. Gregory seemed to be enjoying the turn of events, as he slowly lifted his ax to prepare a strike. The boy was going to take advantage of the situation, and if he's lucky, Monty will be his to feast on in the end.

But just as they were about to tear Monty apart in front of the little girl, a bright flash of light shone on all of  them. "Just what do you think you're all doing?!"

Vanessa stepped in with her polished black shoes, her green eyes sharp with blistering anger. Her gaze landed on Freddy, and then traveled to Sun, to Monty, and then to Gregory with a fire ax, and finally to the little girl cowering behind the alligator. Her face was pale with disbelief as she, in particular, glared at the two children amongst the ruckus of damaged, crazed animatronics who looked just about ready to wreck and tear Monty apart as they circled him with hellish faces.

"What the hell is happening here?" She hissed, her face of disbelief melted into a deep scowl.

Yay got a chapter done 😭