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paigelts05 · 2 months

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[GORE] Fearless Knight [FNAF, Renegade AU]

Artwork: https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/GORE-Fearless-Knight-FNAF-Renegade-AU-1027254556

Story: https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/1027256606

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54220564

Published: Mar 1 2024

An all staff meeting and a pink slip. The higher ups are trying to kill everyone and hide their plans, but Officer Vanessa Sylvia Blake isn't about to let that happen. A quick tackle should have spelled freedom, but all the doors were locked: the only option is to survive until morning, and with a blackout in the daycare, letting the daycare attendant run rampant in its more homicidal form, Sylvia must put herself on the front lines of this battle to prevent it from taking any lives.

=°•.🌹 Story 🌹.•°=

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Sylvia had been working at the Pizzaplex for over a month now.

Just a week or so longer than how long her sister, Ness, had been missing for. Ness had been gone for three weeks. She had been told half a week after her disappearance. That's when her mission went from scout and prevent to search and rescue.

Communication between herself and anyone else privy to her sister's status had been scarce, so it was no suprise that when she and Luis exchanged information on what had happened this past month, both sides were shocked to learn what they didn't know.

But that didn't matter right now.

The fact that she had omitted her time as a paranormal responder from her CV when she applied to this position, making her look disturbingly underqualified, didn't matter now either. She'd explained away her ability to fight with a half truth of its origins to most of her colleagues, but only a small few whom she trusted knew her secret of being a paranormal responder.

None of that mattered right now, as what did matter was surviving.

Her sister was somewhere out there being puppeted around in a bunny costume, the majority of the staff except herself had been laid off, and the staffbots and large animatronics alike were trying to kill everyone.

Not to mention the blackout in the daycare.

There wasn't time to have a meltdown when you had to focus on keeping a robotic moon at bay in order to protect your colleagues from certain death.

Behind the security desk should have been a safe haven, but somehow the light of the screen was not enough, so someone had to fight: and that someone was Sylvia. But she was not unarmed. She had a knife from the chef who had been collecting plates down here, and a tazer from an old guard who had ran here, thinking that this may be where his granddaughter would likely be.

The old guard's granddaughter, Rachel, went M.I.A in the day running up to this night, and was still missing. She was presumed alive but locked in.

There was no sign of the girl, but no sign of a corpse either. She hoped the kid would be able to handle herself. After all, she had her grandpa's level 4 security pass: there should be no need to come to a dead end like the daycare for anyone who needed to be running loops around this place to evade it's dangers.

And that was all the more reason to keep beating down the moon.

If she could keep it here during the hourly recharge cycles, she'd be able to give the kid a better shot at surviving to find one of many enclaves of staff who were fighting for thier lives just as she was.

The moon retreated for a moment, and no threats were present in the immediate vicinity, so she quickly shot Luis and the rest of the staff a message to warn them about the daycare attendant's behaviour, and that whilst she had been holding the robot back, that it may escape this hour or the next so to be prepared.

The lights had flickered off twice so far this night, so she knew it was nearing two AM.

The daycare attendant would be trying to escape again.

Seeing it use its pulley cable system to escape the confines of the daycare's play area arena, Sylvia broke into a sprint after it. Seeing it fly over the stairs, she placed a hand on the stair railing and vaulted up and over. She sprinted up the rest of the stairs like a wild animal and her boots continued to collide with the grass coloured floor until she came up to where the wall on her right became a barrier separating her from the daycare's lobby. She launched herself into a vault, clearing the low barrier with ease before she dashed over to the door, intercepting the daycare attendants path out of this contained enclave just in the nick of time.

She delivered a swift kick to the robots casing, jostling some parts but not detering the creature from attempting to pursue easier prey outside of the daycare. Another kick send the robot several steps back, but the ground she gained was quickly reclaimed by the advancing machine.

She had tried zapping the daycare attendant previous nights, but nothing ever came from it: the stun gun was for dealing with the staffbots and main attractions, and her combat knife wasn't much better against this foe. She could cut some wires on the back of its head to deactivate it beyond repair, but that would probably cost her her job. That would be something for when her sister was freed: not now. She had to think about what could be repaired.

She may have been armed, but with nothing effective against the daycare attendant, as even torches didn't do anything, she was effectively unarmed.

She was being pushed back into the corridor, and she saw the fountain getting closer out of the corners of her eyes.

But regardless of how much ground she was losing, she had one goal that kept her going: she couldn't let the daycare attendant reach the entrance lobby.

Nearby, she spotted a lifeline: a broom that had been discarded in the commotion.

Sacrificing some ground, she dashed over and snatched it up before immediately turning it on the robot.

It was as effective as a kick, but was far safer, and she could pull it off far more frequently.

Wood collided with metal as she fought off the animatronic, pushing it further and further back, and even into the daycare once more.

Her arms ached, but there was solstice in the hum of electricity as the lights switched on around her.

The moon hissed as he retreated back to the daycare. He would have turned back into the sun if it was not for the blackout in the daycare itself, but at least the rest of the building being lit up like Blackpool illuminations ensured that during the bulk of the hour, the daycare attendant would not attempt escape.

The first hour had not been so bad: she had managed to fight it back with her bare hands. This hour had been exhausting. Sylvia didn't think she'd be able to pull it off again.

So how was she supposed to handle this machine for another four hours?

Sliding down the railing and running back into the softplay area, she did a quick headcount, and everyone was still alive and no more injured than they were before the turn of the hour.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she returned to the usual fight: defending the security desk from the robotic threats.

It had just turned two AM, and the moon lurked back to the play structures, waiting for a chance to strike, and seemingly communicating with the main network to call upon the other animatronics.

Staffbots flooded through the open soft play area door, and despite the barrage of enemies, Sylvia knew what she had to do.

Using her broom and knife, she fought tooth and nail.

She slashed and stabbed at the staffbots, making the damage look as natural as possible, anything that could be brushed off as a natural snap of a wire. But her best method of pushing back the horde was sweeping swings of her broom. Again she had plausible deniability due to how the main animatronics acted during these hours. Blame the virus, blame Freddy or Monty, and excuse whichever would be more plausible to blame in the same breath because none of the animatronics can remain themselves unless they're in safe mode, and she'll be in the clear.

After all, they didn't decommission Monty after what happened to Bonnie.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden sharp tremor in the floor and sound of plastic tiles being splintered by the impact of something large and metal. She pivoted on the spot to face this new threat, and saw a blur of green.

Claws slashed across her chest as she lept backwards, blood stained Monty's claws and she felt a stinging pain across her chest. But the wound wouldn't be fatal: she'd live, but need medical attention soon.

As she reached for her stun gun, an incoming staffbot forced her to divert her attention to eliminate it before it could get to her colleagues hiding behind the desk. She was quick in dispatching the enemy with the tug of a single cable, but as she turned back to face the larger threat, she found it was right in front of her.

As she unleashed an electric charge onto the animatronic, he attacked back. Unable to properly slash due to the unexpected charge coursing through his circuits, Monty used his might for a straight on punch instead, sending Sylvia flying into the desk. The back of her head connected with the edge of the desk. She didn't have time to scream before everything went black.

She wasn't dead, but she was out cold and down for the count.

Just over twelve and a half hours ago.

It was 1:30 PM.

Sylvia felt like everything was falling apart, everything was crumbling down.

"Everyone… Everyone but me… Gone?"

Two emails.

An email addressed only to the security team stating that most of the security team was being laid off and a notice that at the 11-something PM meeting today, more layoffs would be announced.

And an email addressed to only the security team listing everyone on the security team asside from herself, a list of everyone who was being laid off.

She sunk to the ground, and couldn't stop herself from shaking and crying.

"It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault It's not my fault."

She repeated these words to herself over and over until they didn't sound like words, the loud music blasting from the other side of the wall did nothing to drown out her panicked mantra.

She heard work boots crash against the ground and turn into her office. "repairs to cabinet 46 - 2 are complete."

Sylvia knew what Luis meant.

Her voice was shaking, but she had to tell Luis what had happened. He wasn't security. He wouldn't be mad at her.

"Great, but we have bigger issues. There's a massive staff layoff happening regarding the night staff, and I'm the only one not getting the sack." She felt her voice shake worse than before and her throat felt dry, "I've got to hide. It's not my fault. It's not my fault."

Her mantra resumed, "it's not my fault," over and over.

Whilst she was curled up, she saw Luis check his phone. She didn't know how much time had passed, but when she saw his face turn to a grimace and heard him mumble "Shit -", she knew he had seen the email that had been sent to everyone.

"I've got to hide." Sylvia felt her voice shake as she mumbled to herself, "I don't think I can show my face."

"I'll help." Luis replied, his determination shining through. She guessed that this is what her sister saw in this man, "I think you should hide in the showers. If you keep the curtains closed and water on, nobody should bother you."

"But my uniform will get wet." Sylvia knew that Luis was full of odd suggestions - it was how he and Ness had made it this far - but she didn't quite understand this one, "then everyone will know I just hid."

"Not if you put the shower hose directly into the drain." Luis replied, quite confident in his solution.

"Then there'll be no noise, dumbass." Sylvia chuckled a bit. She didn't know that she could still laugh after what had happened, but she was glad that she did, "I'll just point it at the wall and stand on the other side. That'll work better."

She saw Luis nod, but before she went out, she had to change how she looked.

She pulled her hair out of her low ponytail and forced it into a much higher one in the centre-back of her head. She then placed her cap on her head and closed the back of the cap under the ponytail.

"It's not much, but it should be enough for me to slip by without anyone instantly recognising me." She tried to muster up some of her confidence, but she was drained.

The two then walked out of the office, and as they navigated the arcade, which was so full of customers with so few staff that it wasn't as nerve wrecking as she had imagined, they made it to the elevator. She silently signaled to Luis to refer to her as anything but her real middle name. She'd signed on as 'Vanessa Andrews', a fake ID that her father gave her to prevent hiring managers from suspecting either of them of their secret agendas: Bill of nepotism and whatever the hell his 'greater plan' was, and herself of corporate espionage.

She still used her real middle name when her colleagues asked what to call her, so they knew her by Sylvia. Now, she didn't want them to know who she was at all.

Once the doors were closed, she mumbled, "I think I know a route." She knew she sounded less like her brash self and more like a scared girl, but she didn't care.

She watched Luis pull up a camera map on his maintenance tablet and turn to her. "Point it out," he said in a reassuring tone.

The camera that was currently active was the elevator camera, and the image was about as clear as Fazbear Entertainment cameras could get.

The map was situated in the bottom right corner of the screen with camera information and status above it. Even though a quarter of the screen was usually empty - reserved for setting up a second camera to be displayed at the same time as the first in the top left - she preferred this maintenance UI to the fazwatch UI for many reasons. The two camera display being and the easier to use camera map being most of them. She hovered a finger above the screen and traced a line across the map, quickly set up the second camera to show the atrium before setting ot back to empty, and re-pathed her route, ignoring the safety in favour of a time save.

"That's the shortest way," she said as she pointed out the final route she planned, "but there are people here, here, and here. They might recognise me, but we've got to minimise the time we spend in the open."

"Right," Luis nodded as the elevator doors opened, "Let's do this."

The duo made a b-line for the nearest stairs - technically deactivated escalators, but what's the damn difference - and only looked dead ahead. Sylvia could already feel herself shaking and knew that if she looked off course even a little, she'd wind up checking around herself like a paranoid wreck, and with the creeping dread already threatening to take over, she didn't want to look even more suspicious.

By the escalators stood one of Sylvia's colleagues: a day guard. Whilst the night staff had been completely wiped bar her, day staff also had deep gouges to its numbers. This old man was one of them, but he didn't look like he knew it yet. Besides, having to put on a happy face whilst the world crumbled around you was probably why: his granddaughter had gone M.I.A within the Pizzaplex this morning. He was probably more worried about her than he was about this job.

She hoped he wouldn't notice her, but he turned to them and spoke.

"Why, you look pale. Is everything ok?" The old man asked. He was kind, and even though she considered him a friend, neither knew each others names. It was just 'old man' and 'blondie'. She secretly hoped that he was computer illiterate.

"I just feel a bit ill. That's all." Sylvia replied, feeling a lump in her throat. It hurt to hold back so much from this old man, but at least what she said was mostly true. Just… With some information expunged.

"Well, why don't you go and get some fresh air when your break starts." Old man smiled back.

"Yeah, I will." Sylvia nodded back. She felt her head spinning and knew that she should probably go outside, but given what was happening, outside would not be safe. She couldn't go outside. Not now.

Sylvia gave a hasty goodbye, practically certain that her cover was blown, but regardless, she and Luis dashed down the escalators and then immediately down the second set; the guard stationed at the lobby-atrium elevators didn't even get the chance to even spot them.

Once on the ground floor, the door that lead to the elevator to the locker rooms, laundry rooms, and loading docks was not too far away, but between them and that door, Sylvia knew she'd have to pass one more of her colleagues on this route, and right now, one of them was right in front of the door.

And it was a friend of hers too.

Even though she tried to sneak past her friend and colleague without a conversation, he started to speak.

"Hey Sill! What's with the hat? You doing ok? You look pale. I heard about the layoffs. Kinda sucks that they're letting so many people go, especially seeing as you just got transferred to that shift, but hey! At least you won't have to work at this dump anymore."

Shaking, she took a deep breath. She knew that if anyone would take this news well, it'd be him. After all, this friend was day staff, so was unefected, at least for now. Her heart beat echoed in her ears as she struggled to keep her voice hushed. "No, that's the thing. "I'll be the ONLY one on the night staff."

After a slight silence, the friend replied.

"Yikes, that sucks balls. I couldn't imagine being stuck here all night, let alone on my own."

At least he was sympathetic. Hell, everyone had been sympathetic so far. She considered the possibility that only the night staff were aware of the entire situation, however, any of the day staff that had a night shift would know. Even if one person knew, word could spread. She didn't know what she was more afraid of.

Once they finally arrived at the staff only zone, containing the kitchen, mail room, showers, locker rooms, laundry rooms, and almost anything else Faz Ent' wanted out of the public eye, Sylvia took a little breath. She couldn't breathe any deeper than that, so it'd have to do. After all, she couldn't relax. Not when it sounded like there was a war being waged in the cafeteria.

As they drew close to passing the doors, they swung open to accommodate a table that flew down the corridor and crashed into the wall. It bearly brushed hers and Luis's noses. Another step, and they'd probably be dead, or at least in critical condition.

She stared at the remains of the table in shock horror as she processed that somebody had torn a table from its fittings in the ground and had thrown it at full force out the door.

The adrenaline kicking in, the duo ran as fast as they could towards the locker rooms, and once there, Sylvia threw herself into a shower cubicle and whipped the curtain closed in the blink of an eye.

She hoped that her colleagues had the common decency to not barge in on someone they believed to be having a shower.

This is where she and Luis had agreed to part ways until the commotion died down.

She just hoped that her future brother-in-law wouldn't get himself killed.

But she still had something left to do. She tilted the shower head to the wall and switched the shower on, creating the illusion that someone was in here and having a shower.

She found herself retreating into the corner with each voice she heard. Some mentioned her name, all of them mentioned the sudden layoffs. She was scared of what may be being said, but she wanted to know.

She tried to listen, but could bearly hear a thing.

"Poor girl, are they trying to kill her?"

Someone felt… Pity?

For her?

She shook herself as tears fell from her eyes. Her throat burned as she tried to stop her eyes from betraying her, but soon she felt her breath hitch in her throat as she choked up more tears.

People felt sorry for her.

And she would rather them hate her.

She pulled her hair out of its ponytail and stared at the bobble, as if it would give her guidance.

'I'm not some weak defenceless child. I don't need sympathy. Please, just hate me instead.' she mumbled to herself as she subconsciously tilted the shower head from the wall and towards the centre of the shower. She let the cold water mask her tears and soak into her uniform, making standing up an unbearable chore.

She let herself collapse to get knees on the shower floor as she cried, hoping that the sound of the shower would mask the sobs and the water itself would hide her tears. And despite all the water around her, her throat felt strained and dry.

Thoroughly drenched with no more tears left to cry, she clawed her way to her feet and switched off the shower. She felt as if she had been staring at the wall for minutes before she opened the curtain and headed to the lockers.

She grabbed one of her towels and wrapped it around her shoulders, as if that would miraculously dry her, and she sat down on a bench and stared off into the distance. She felt that her hair had already thoroughly soaked the back of the towel, but she didn't care anymore.

She heard footsteps approaching, but they were not those she had been taught to fear, so she didn't care who it was.

"What happened?" She recognised her brother-in-law-to-be's voice anywhere. Luis had returned from whatever the hell he was doing whilst she was busy hiding. She appreciated that he didn't ask if she was alright though, as they both knew the answer already.

"Nothing." She replied, shaking from the cold and the fading adrenaline, feeling hollow inside, "I decided to give myself a cold shower. You know, try and clean all this away. But I overheard some people talking. They pity the fool forced to stay the night."

"You're not a fool. We both came to work here for a reason, and we're so close to achieving that goal."

Luis was as optimistic as ever, but she knew many things that he didn't, about this place, and about the Exec's involvement in turning Ness into Vanny.

"And then what." Sylvia replied. She could feel herself shaking even more, and she knew it was from fear, "Father isn't going to let me leave. Hell, he may even force me to take up her mantle. And besides, I was the second. Cass and I may have compartmentalised that thing whilst we thought of a solution to get rid of him, but clearly, even after she removed him from the game, he had already found someone to take over."

Her father, Bill Blake, her benefactor and manipulator, was forcing her to stay. Jeremy had been posessed by Glitchtrap before her, then it had posessed her, then it had been Cass's turn, and only then had it fallen to Ness.

From the look on Luis's face, she gathered that he was unaware that she had been through what Jeremy and Cass had been through. After all, how would she expect him to know? She had no scars to prove it.

"So Cass was the third." Luis replied, his tone accepting and ernest.

He had taken her word for it, and for that, she was glad. But she still felt like an imposter compared to them; the one who got away clean and uninjured.

"And Ness was the fourth. Jeremy sacrificed his face, Cass her eye. And what did I give? What did I give to be free? All I did was force him back and we split him up and forced him into Cass's tapes." Sylvia found herself yelling, not at Luis, but at herself. "If I gave nothing, did it even leave?"

"It left you alright." Another voice spoke from behind them before walking into view. It was a man with short dirty blonde hair, a sweatband on his wrist, and the upper half of his face covered by a visor. Sylvia could recognise her best friend and colleague, Jeremy the beta tester, from anywhere, and she assumed Luis recognised him too. He then continued talking. "Does it matter that you didn't have to give something? You forced him out."

Sylvia decided to stay quiet. She didn't want to concede, but if Jeremy, the guy who lost her face, told her that it didn't matter that she didn't have to sacrifice a part of her body to get rid of Glitchtrap, then it was probably something he wouldn't back down on.

"Where's the tough girl I met in coding class?" He asked.

Sylvia paused for a moment before she made her reply, she felt her voice shake with worry as she spoke the only other question she had on her mind that she knew only Jeremy could answer. "Why are you here."

"Well, I heard you yelling from … A while away."

"No, why are you here at all."

"I needed the cash."

Sylvia glared at Jeremy, and he shrugged.

"I'd tell the truth, but I can't in here."

Sylvia nodded in reply. She had already told him about the bugs, and she was glad he remembered, because she had almost forgot herself.

It was clear that everyone was on the same page.

Despite her hair still being wet, she tied it back in her usual low ponytail whilst everyone including her stood in mutual silence, waiting for someone to announce their departure.

Sylvia decided to break this silence and head over to her locker. She had to change out of her drenched uniform, which would make a great excuse to let everyone get back to what they were doing before.

"I'll stay here. I think I'll freeze if I go out there, and I can't exactly return to my post if I'm drenched, can I?" She opened her locker and was looking for her second uniform. "I'll catch up with you after I change though."

"Alright," Luis replied, "I'll see if arcade cabinet 46-3 is working."

"I'll help you dry off." Jeremy added, "I've got a hair dryer in my locker that you can use, and someone's got to pass you things and take things so you don't wind up changing into an equally wet uniform."

Sylvia felt rather dumbfounded, but quickly realized she was only a bit less soggy than she was when she stepped out of the shower. "Right," she nodded as she passed her second uniform and towel to Jeremy, who had just retrieved his hair dryer

Sylvia then turned to Luis. "I'll send a message to your tablet once I'm done here," she said as she gave Luis a nod before he left.

Luis nodded in reply with a "counting on it," before leaving the locker room to head to Fazerblast.

That was the last time she had seen or heard from Luis. After that, she begun her patrol, attended the later-than-what-should-be-legal meeting that turned into riot 2.0 where she had to tackle and physically restrain an exec to stop him from shooting the now former lead tech of the now disbanded service team whilst said service team easily annihilated a wave of staffbots. Then, she had headed to the daycare to ensure it had been evacuated of both children and staff before closing. And that was how she wound up in the daycare as the clock struck 12, and she didn't know if to curse her luck or if it was for the best.

After seeing the events of the day flash before her eyes, she had a horrible notion: she felt almost ready to accept defeat.

She tried to move, but she felt as if she had been pinned down in a dark void.

Breathing was a chore.

She couldn't die here: she had to keep fighting, to save her sister from Glitchtrap, and save everyone from this company.

She forced her eyes open, and could hardly see. Regardless, she pulled herself to her feet, using what little light she could see and her sense of touch to guide her. She felt as if she was thousands of leagues under the ocean, but as much as her body refused to keep on fighting, she pushed herself anyway despite the pain.

As she tried to survey the room once more to locate the enemy, her head pounded, and for a moment, it almost looked as if she wasn't in the Pizzaplex anymore: it looked like a castle. She looked at her hands, and they looked like she was wearing knights gauntlets, but then they looked normal again.

Even though she was heavily injured and her previous injuries were also coming back to haunt her, she was determined to pick back up where she had left off. She'd be damned if she was going to let the reason why she had been shoved into sick leave in the CPD paranormal department be the reason why people died today.

Even though the substance that had been injected into her during that ambush on that failed mission was distorting her perception of the world around her, she knew she could still fight.

From the structure of her surroundings, she knew who was who and what was where. She knew that the green clad baron in front of her was Monty, the jester was the daycare attendant, and the silver knight and cook behind her were the old guard and the chef respectively.

She knew how her condition effected her: each individual would only appear one way; once her mind decided what they would be to her, that apparition would never change.

She had seen the old guard before when she was in this state. She had seen Monty before when she was in this state. She had seen the daycare attendant before when she was in this state. She knew she could identify who was who, regardless of her condition.

Regardless of being able to tell people's apparitions apart or not, it was still easy to identify her foes, as the knight and chef were cowering behind the long solid backed desk, and the baron and jester were primed to attack.

And the robots would never cower.

She knew who her enemies were.

The baron and the jester will die.

Taking the knife in her hands like it was a sword, she rushed at the towering green clad baron, and as she struck the beast, she heard metal collide with metal. She let herself smile with a sense of satisfaction as she landed another swing, the clash of metal on metal a comforting noise: she was attacking the right entity. And so what if she was threatened with the repairs coming out of her paycheque, she won't even have a paycheque if she dies here.

The baron took a large leap backwards and roared, the robotic roar of the mechanical alligator not distorted by her condition. The angle of barron's face was not fitting the movements that he made: that snout of his always made his maw a bitch to keep track of. She knew from experience that she'd have to be extra cautious about Monty's mouth: she couldn't see it, and even the baron's hat was not enough of an accurate indicator. As the roar subsided, the barron charged at her and she made an upward swing with her blade to fend it off. Despite her illusions not even giving her a shield, she raised her off-hand as if she did have a shield, as her upward swing left her liable to be attacked and she didn't know how else to defend herself from the incoming retaliation blow.

Which may have been a mistake.

Invisible teeth clamped through illusory armour as Monty's jaw clamped around her arm, which was only shielded by the cloth of her work shirt.

The gator tried to pull her about, but she remained firm footed. She couldn't let herself get thrown off balance and she knew that if she wanted to keep not just her life but her arm too, she'd have to act now to get the gator's jaw from around her arm.

Knowing she had to be doubly careful as to not sever her own arm in the process of the stunt she was about to pull, she used the bite markings and blood to pinpoint where the gator's face would be in relation to the barron's, and in a single moment, she drove her blade through the barron's head, and therefore she had drove the knife through Monty's robotic shell. Whilst she still couldn't see the real world, only the hallucinations that covered its form, she knew she had landed the blow as the vice grip around her arm had gone slack and she was able to pull it out from where it had been stuck.

Despite the pain the series of puncture wounds in her arm caused her, she had to press onwards. The jingling of bells drew closer, and she saw the silhouette of the jester.

The lunar beast spoke, but she didn't understand the words it was saying as it danced around her. The bells on the jester's wrists jingled in a rythm as it danced about, and she let it circle around her; she just had to keep facing it, and she wasn't about to wear herself out running around it. If the jester wanted an opening, it'd have to make one, and Sylvia was sure that when it did, it'd open itself up to an attack from her blade.

She kept letting the jester run circles around her, as all she had to do was pivot to remain facing the beast. The jingling of the bells told her when the jester was about to rotate it's arc of movement the other way, and all she had to do was pivot about. It appeared to be a stalling match, and as the jester switched directions again, she was concerned as to what it was stalling for.

As she heard the cue for a change in direction again, the distance between her and the jester rapidly closed as she found it leaping at her and it's hands firmly around her neck. Breathing swiftly became impossible, and she thrust her blade forward to hopefully send the beast backwards.

Metal collided against metal, but the grip around her neck didn't falter. Sylvia's vision begun to grow dark, and she begun to see the Pizzaplex in its real state once again.

She saw something she didn't notice before. A length of solid metal sitting on the table next to her. She couldn't make out the shape, but it was shiny and looked hefty enough.

With what strength she had left, she grabbed the length of metal and swung it at the jester's head.

The grip around her neck came swiftly undone, and she could breathe again.

Before her vision re-distorted, she noticed the length of metal she was holding was a solid steel rod that was usually used in concrete supports. Once her vision re-distorted entirely, it became a silver club.

She kept the knife in one hand and the solid steel rod in the other. Now knowing which weapons were effective against whom, she kept an eye on both enemies at once and kept the appropriate weapon braced to attack.

The right returned to a stalling match as the jester trod circles about Sylvia whist she pivoted to keep it in her line of sight.

With a jingle of bells, jester rapidly approached again, and this time, she retaliated by whacking the metal rod against it's head. That seemed to do the trick: it retreated and circled from a greater distance.

As she kept her focus trained on the jester, she saw movement out of the corners of her eyes. She stepped back to try and get both that and the jester into her line of sight, but both rushed her at once.

With sharp reactions, she retaliated with grace, landing swing after swing upon the jester.

Once she had beat back the jester, the thing that she had seen in the corners of her eyes that had been lurking and lunging just out of reach finally dove directly in front of her and launched it's own attack.

Sylvia saw the green clad Barron with an armour claw ring on each finger slash her across the chest.

Sylvia's colleagues saw Montgomery gator's claws turn from white to red as he slashed her across the chest for the second time this night. The wounds were deeper than the first set and she was immediately losing a lot of blood.

Even though she was still standing, they worried she was good as dead.

Sylvia was in pain, but as long as she was still standing, she could fight. She would win. Even though her vision of the world was a distorted mess flickering between hallucination and reality, she would keep up the fight.

The Barron rushed her again and she continued the deadly dance, evading attacks and retaliating with her own as she fought through the end of another hour, keeping both robots away from the desk whilst the lights were out. Monty stayed, but the jester escaped outside the confines of the daycare. However, she knew everyone else was equally fit to hold off that machine, especially since she had worn it down. Only those on thier own would need worry, and she was certain that nobody would be alone.

It returned with the chime of the hour as usual, but lurked in the back, retreating further and further from her with each failed attack.

The Barron also joined the daycare attendant in temporary retreat, giving Sylvia some breathing room that she didn't need, as it gave her adrenaline time to dissipate and force her to face her pain.

Silvia's injuries were beginning to catch up to her and thanks to the respite, she could feel it; the bite in her arm and the slash across her chest were both hemorrhaging blood, and the bruises left by the daycare attendant's attempts at crushing her neck made it hard to breathe. The corners of her vision were dimming too, which was a terrifying sign.

Whilst her animatronic nemeses had been forced to retreat for now, she knew they'd be back before long. Her vision begun to grow darker as she surveyed the area, paranoid as to where the next threat would come from.

Something jumped out at her from the shadows in the corners of her eyes. And she slashed it.

In the murky darkness of her vision, she saw the jester holding what looked like …

A generator cable.

With her knife embedded in the cable, she realised her mistake as a surge of volts coursed through the fully metal blade and handle and into her body, sending her reeling backwards, clutching her electrocuted hand.

Just as she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eyes, the world went white as the live wire was thrust against her chest, sending her flying backwards. Her vision became fully clouded in inky darkness before she felt herself collide with the ground.

She couldn't see or hear, she didn't know if seconds had passed, or minutes.

Pain wrapped around her chest.

'Am I going to die?'

She hadn't felt fear like this since she was four, standing in a courtroom during a custody battle, screaming to the court that she had been threatened by her father to lie about her mother: the aforementioned threat having been Bill threatening to kill both her and her mother if she didn't comply and lie. Telling the truth that day made her at least braver than the judge, who gave Bill custody anyway as Bill had threataned him also.

The pain continued, but it wasn't the pain of a wound being inflicted. It was a stinging pain.

Stinging.

Like… Antiseptic?

She forced her eyes open, and dim lights greeted her. The face of a colleague was also in view.

She breathed a sigh of relief; she had lived.

Someone had dragged her to behind the desk and patched up the wound on her chest. She assumed they had taken care of the wound on the back of her head too.

After being able to see again, she forced herself up, clinging to the desk for support. She was determined to keep fighting. The old guard tried to tell her that she needed to rest; that everyone else could fight. But she had witnessed thier wounds. He'd netted a group of gouges on his arms and legs, and so had many of the others she had seen on the cameras before she begun her fight.

Her mind told her that her sister, Ness, would not forgive her if she died here. But Sylvia had already decided that she wouldn't forgive herself if she let anyone other than herself die here today.

Even though she was probably the most injured of them all now; the gash on her chest, the bite in her arm, the electrocution; she had already made up her mind. She would keep fighting. She had always fought to the end, even if failure was imminent. Ever since she was a child, she would never go down without a fight.

The distortions had faded, but that didn't mean she could see. The room was bathed in an inky darkness which concealed any foe that was lurking in the back of the daycare.

Sylvia could see her own drying blood on Monty's claws as they scratched the air in front of her face, barely missing by millimetres. She retaliated with the swing of a knife, clipping a wire and carving a gash in the thick plastic casing, but doing no real damage to the bot.

A glint reflected what little light was in the room and she ducked under the gator's incoming claws as the animatronic doubled down on its onslaught of attacks. Even the slightest signs would make or break this fight, and as she retaliated with another swing, catching casing and clipping a wire, she contorted her arm to allow herself to dodge another swing before twisting her blade in the robot's circuits before cutting through the wires that the blade had gathered upon itself with a spin to combine this attack with a retreat.

The gator glitched, sparks flew, and he convulsed, but he wasn't giving up the hunt just yet. Sylvia heard bells and knew that the gator's backup was joining the fray again, forcing her to dual wield the knife and metal rod once more.

The daycare attendant made a leap for her throat, gliding through the air with aid from the thin cables that gave it the illusion of flight, but she parried the attack with finesse, batting each hand away with her weapons before delivering a kick to it's very kickable faceplate, sending the machine tumbling backwards and tangling it in it's suspension cable.

Sylvia had no downtime, however, because as soon as the daycare attendant had been sent flying, Monty had recovered and charged at her, arms outstretched. She couldn't use the same trick on Monty; he'd bite her leg clean off. So she had to take a different approach to interrupt the threat. And she had little time to think as the gator was not even five metres away and could clear that gap in no time.

Pointing the knife she weilded to the sky, she bent her knees in a slight crouch, and as the gator closed the gap, she lept upwards, thrusting the blade through the bottom of the gator's jaw, sending shards of plastic scattering everywhere. She used the metal rod to bat away one of Monty's clawed hands. Pulling the knife out and throwing herself backwards was enough to evade the swing of his other claw.

Sylvia was back on her feet in seconds, and she observed the gator to assess what it's next move would be.

The gator lunged again, and this time, Sylvia thrusted the blade into his chest casing and pushed her body as close to the animatronic's as possible. His wildly failing arms did not bend to reach her, even as she twisted the blade and cut many more circuits in the process. She had tuned out the gator's growls for a while now, but suddenly, something was more lucid about them. She must have cut either the right wire or enough wires.

Once the gator stopped flailing, she dove backwards and heard that slight flicker of lucidity fade back into the mindlessness of a machine only coded to kill once more. Once again, Sylvia observed the animatronics, awaiting thier next move.

And the gator's next move was truly unpredictable.

Battered and shattered, with wires hanging loose and casing flayed to expose an unkept endo, Monty finally fled the daycare. Whilst Sylvia would have preferred to keep the gator here, she was loosing the strength to keep fighting. From the messages she had received from her colleagues, she assumed that the others were likely in a better state to be fighting him anyway.

Despite the gator's retreat, the daycare attendant seemed just as poised to attack as it did before. Sylvia set down the knife and brandished the metal rod as her sole weapon: it was the only one she needed now and the only one she could wield as the pain from being bitten flared up in no small thanks to the brief rest in the action caused by the gator's retreat.

As the daycare attendant charged, she braced to deflect. Its approach was swift, and as she deflected it's first grapple, she wasn't sure she'd be able to react to the next. As it's hands rushed to her throat once more, she swung the metal rod to meet and divert it's grip, but she already knew that the back swing from her previous defence had already eaten her window of opportunity.

And all of a sudden, it was as if someone had switched on a floodlight behind her. A white glare engulfed the room and her shadow streched out in front of her in pure black, and in the murky light, she saw the daycare attendant hiss and run into the darkness of the play structures, lingering far away from the desk. What was once a fight drive back the daycare attendant away became a case of simply watching it linger in the dark, unable to come too close to the desk.

Squinting, she looked behind her, and the old guard waved.

"Sylvia, we've gotten the screen working at full blast again. We should be able to stay in here until morning."

"Great," Sylvia sunk to the ground, exhausted, "as soon as I've caught my breath, I can get out there and help keep others safe."

"You're staying here." The old guard placed a bandaged hand on Sylvia's shoulder. "We can't have you just running out there and getting yourself killed. You've done enough."

He was right: the daycare looked like a battlefield with the remains of staffbots scattered about, broken beyond repair. A clear 'death awaits all ye who enter here' to any bot with the ball-bearings to dare try to approach. Monty's sunglasses were also on the ground, so she picked them up as a trophy of her decisive victory; the only bot who was immune to the Faz-cam-flash-bang based defences that Jeremy stated he was implementing at the meeting was no longer immune. A camera flash or a lazer gun zap would now blind the gator, making him easy pickings for her more well equipped colleagues.

Sylvia gave it all a moment of tense thought before conceding. "Fine," she huffed, "I'll just find another way to help them instead."

She could already feel the pain of her injuries catching up to her now that the adrenaline had had a chance to disperse. Her arms ached, and her chest stung. She was still surprised that she had taken a slash to the chest, and the electric shock of a generator cable to the chest, and she'd almost forgotten about the bite in her arm.

She grabbed a maintenance tablet and begun to check the cameras, flicking through until she found someone out in the open - those bunkered down blinding and picking off bots didn't need aid as much as those roaming.

It was Julian.

Sylvia grabbed a headset and tried to contact Julian. She breathed a sigh of relief when he picked up, even more so when she saw that Patty and Rachel were with them.

Patty had been transporting Staffbots by herself before the staffbots were turned on the staff, and with how they attacked in the cafeteria, where cooperation had been a required component in winning the battle and ensuring zero casualties, she'd wrote the solo flyer off as good as dead: unless you have a team who has your back, one mistake against a staffbot spelled death. It was a relief to see her alive, well, and leaving a hypocritical trail of destruction in her wake.

"Look, I'm too injured to help you out in person, but it'll be like I'm there. I'll be your eyes in the skies," Sylvia said as she traced the animatronics movements throughout the cameras, watching where Julian and co were, "Freddy's on your left."

"Alright, but what happened to you?" Julian replied, using Sylvia's directions to ensure that himself, Patty, and Rachel were able to evade Freddy's line of sight.

"Had to protect some guys stranded in the daycare from the Daycare attendant AND Monty." Sylvia continied to flick through cameras as she replied and smiled as she noted some fresh gashes in Monty's casing: he'd failed again and it seemed that casualties would be low, if not zero. She hoped for zero. "I almost died twice."

"New record!" Julian sung, making an accomplishment out of it for Sylvia, "you know, you remind me of my dad's friend, Mike."

"I remind you of my boss how?" Sylvia replied, not entirely caring that someone may have listened in and discievred that she's a paranormal responder and not entirely surprised that Julian specified Mike's identity as being Krasnyy's friend, because the kid probably knew a few Mikes.

"Well, you throw yourself in danger to protect others," Julian hummed, "and went to work at a Freddy's location whilst you should be on medical leave in order to find someone you care about who has gone missing."

Sylvia paused for a bit. She got put on medical leave after coming to work here undercover to try and prevent Ness's abduction, but other than that jig in the timeline, Julian had it right.

"Monty's to your right," She replied, warning Julian of the animatronic but not acknowledging his point, "I've got his shades, you can flash-bang him with your camera."

"Coolio," Julian replied in a singsong voice as he held the Faz Cam at chest height and snapped a photo of the gator, blinding it. Sylvia could hear the robots roar of pain over the cameras. "That's going in the cringe compilation."

"How damaged is he?" Sylvia asked, keeping the conversation topic mobile, "I can make out most of the gashes but I want to see which ones are new."

"How am I supposed to tell?" Julian replied befire visibly craning his neck. "Several gashes caused by a short sharp object. On the front and head. Dents from a mid-length blunt object. On the front but mostly arms. He's been hit with either a table or chair several times. On the back. Dried blood on claws and mouth, probably just yours still."

"The dents are new. Thanks," Sylvia replied before checking the cameras surrounding Julian for any more threats that may have been lurking just outside of his line of sight, "where do you plan on holding up anyway?"

"Lost and found. It's got a door and vent in so it's surprisingly hard to get cornered, but if I seal the vent and door from the inside, it's basically an impenetrable safehouse," Julian replied as he blinded Monty again to give himself, Patty, and Rachel a window to sneak past, "we can't really be doing with managing door power between everything else, and the power doesn't even last five minutes anyway."

"Good call," Sylvia replied as she flicked through the cameras between Julian's location and the lobby. Lost and found was always a pretty safe place. Block off the door from the inside and seal up the vent, and you only had to worry about the Daycare attendant, who could be easily avoided by pretending to be unconscious.

It was a good thing that the robots didn't know the difference between death and unconscious: they always just thought they didn't kill you hard enough when you got back up from being 'dead', and whilst she'd been told to teach the robots, especially the daycare attendant, the difference 'in case of a legitimate emergency', Sylvia was not going to give up this lifeline. It was all the same if they thought an unconscious person was dead or alive anyway; she'd bribed the techs to override thier usual obfuscated protocols that definitely facilitated kidnapping and/or murder with a new one that phones 911 and calls for an ambulance on company dime in the case of a 'dead body'.

That new protocol had already come in much more handy, as even when she failed to protect someone, the authorities arrived soon after. She'd had to lie to management about the nature of the calls and sometimes smuggle officers in using cleaning trolleys, but it had been worth the risk. She remembered the incident a few days ago as if it were yesterday: she remembered the blood on Freddy's microphone stand, seeing the body, and wishing that the child didn't push her out of the way of Freddy's wrath. 'It should have been me not her' cycled through her head over and over and she felt herself shaking.

"Syl you've gone quiet. Everything OK over there?" Julian's voice broke the silence as it echoed through her headset.

"Yeah I'm fine," Sylvia lied. Julian probably knew; he'd grew up around a whole host of people whose 'I'm fine' meant 'I'm not actively bleeding out so there's nothing to worry about'. This was nothing new.

"If you say so~" Julian hummed. She was OK enough. He'd heard ragged breathing through this own headset, so figured she was still stressed out about the incident from a few days ago. That also explained to him why on this night she went to the daycare to find Rachel's grandpa instead of joining the other staff in trying to find Rachel: she didn't want to be around kids lest she accidentally inspire them to protect others as she did. "See anything on the cameras?"

"No." Sylvia saw no robots and no distortion on the path between Julian and co and the lobby. With what she remembered of what Jeremy had told her, she had her suspicions as to why Chica was AWOL this entire time. "Coast's clear. Chica is absent."

"Neat!" Julian smiled. Sylvia heard the smile in his voice.

Sylvia watched on the cameras as Julian and co made a mad dash for and through the lobby, and before she knew it, the trio had made it to lost and found.

After ensuring that the escape routes were planned out and the room was secure enough, Julian radioed in "thanks Syl."

"No problem," Sylvia smiled back. They were safe. But she kept watching the cameras for what was probably the majority of an hour or more.

She kept her eyes on the screens like a hawk, and soon it paid off.

A distortion blipped on the screen and the camera she was looking at cut out: it was the camera that looked over the double doors that connected the lobby to the day care.

She radioed in, "one of the cameras has gone out. You picking up any interference?"

"Yeah," Julian replied, "nearby electrical equipment is picking up a lot of interference. I'll check what it is."

Sylvia wanted to object, but knew better.

He radioed back in quickly enough. Worry was not warranted.

"I stayed near the vent, don't worry. It's an adult woman, early twenties, civilian clothing, and it looks like she's carrying an adult man, early twenties, repairman's clothes, he seems injured. Bridal style carry. Can't make out much else but I think I should know them. Trust my eyes to not see straight at a time like this."

"Where are they headded?" Sylvia asked in reply.

"Towards the daycare. You might be able to see them from where you are in a minute." Julian took a quick breath before adding a following statement. "Assuming you can see alright after what happened."

"Yeah I can," Sylvia nodded as she replied as she tried to find the duo on the cameras. She had no luck, as one camera would always be out, and the adjacent ones were full of static.

But that means an EMP circuit is being used.

The dead camera marked exactly where the woman was. The static showed what other camera she was closest to.

Sylvia gave up on the cameras and looked up to the walkway. By using the dead camera and amount of static on the surrounding cameras, she knew the exactly where to look. And it didn't take long for her to recognise both the woman and the man whom the woman was carrying in her arms.

"I see her," Sylvia said as she saw her sister carrying Luis towards the daycare theatre. Her vantage point was low, a given since she was in the gladiator pit known as the soft play area, but it was undoubtedly them.

Her sister was carrying Luis.

A chilling realisation hit.

He seemed critically injured, and Ness was in plainclothes. Something bad must have happened, and as she took a quick scroll of the maintenance logs, she already knew that it wasn't the outcome that she had hoped for: in fact it was far from it. She cursed herself for her failure to consider that there may be more steps, but she had to focus on the task at hand.

"And when I follow them, I'll be following them alone," Sylvia said as she waited for signs of anything.

The old guard gave her a look that told her that he was worried for her safety, but he wasn't going to try and stop her.

"Relax, I'll be safe. I promise." She said as she pulled herself to her feet and watched the cameras like a hawk as one by one they reactivated as her sister left thier detection radius. Sylvia waited to see if anyone left the theatre, waited to see if and when she needed to strike, and she planned a safe and efficient path for when she did.

Sylvia already knew about the remnant extraction machines around the building. She knew one was in a room that was hidden from the public, and hidden from many employees too, but she knew it well. So if her sister wasn't free and Luis was injured, there was only one place she'd go: the secret room behind the poster, behind the balcony of the daycare.

She knew that the human staff were safely holed up in groups across the megaplex and had disasembled the endos and staffbots that could have caused them harm. She knew that Ness and Luis would be alone in the secret room - after all, Sylvia knew that secret room just behind the balcony of the daycare well. She didn't need to interfere yet. She didn't want to make a bad situation worse with her presence.

Yet before anyone left the theatre, somebody else walked in: an exec walked past staffbots and Monty as if they were nothing, and he was headed to the secret room.

There was no safe route for her to get there.

But she'd have to take the risk.

Knowing that taking a safe route could wait, she shoved her way past the robots and made her way to the theatre herself. Whilst she had no logical way of knowing where she'd need to go, she already knew deep down, from the start, that her destination was the secret room. She may make ample use of that secret room but she was by no means the only inhabitant, and some staff were in and out frequently enough as they had to find the cables stashed there. She knew, and had always known, that they'd likely go there, and she knew the reason too: Luis was alive at a price that Ness was willing to pay. She'd made the deduction ages ago, yet as she approached the door, the revelation felt new.

As she stepped through the hidden door and passed through the corridor, the fear was already palpable. And as she opened the door to the hidden room, she found a panic stricken Ness, shaking and clutching a vial full of sparkling black liquid, looking as if she was prepared to crush it at a seconds notice.

It didn't take a genius detective to figure out what had just transpired.

Sylvia placed a hand on her sister's shoulder, and in unspoken agreement, they silently snuck into the side room.

Silently, Sylvia watched as the exec aimed his gun at Luis's head. The man's finger was on the trigger, ready to pull; there was no trigger discipline here, and she knew the man aimed to kill.

She had to act fast and act now.

As she braced herself to tackle the exec, she took a deep breath and steadied her hands. Ready for the pounce.

"MOVE!"

The bellowing war cry left her lungs as Sylvia launched herself at the exec, pinning his arm downwards and pushing him to the ground.

A bullet ripped through the air, followed by a scream.

Keeping the exec pinned to the ground was an easy task, and getting the gun away from the madman was even easier. She swore she heard the snapping of bone at some point, but she couldn't care less. As she managed to finish restraining the exec by binding the bastard's hands with cable ties, she looked over at Luis.

Upon closer inspection, his state was quite clear.

He was alive, but not well.

Sylvia turned to Ness and nodded. Her sister needed to know that Luis was at least not dead. "He's alive, I'll take the exec, you take Luis."

After Ness nodded in acknowledgement, Sylvia dragged the exec out of the side room, and proceeded to drag him from the daycare back room to the atrium by the collar of his shirt.

Ness carried Luis in an infinitely more gentle manner.

Upon arriving at the atrium, Sylvia dragged the exec down the stairs and dumped him in sight but out of anyone's way before heading over to where Jeremy, Julian, Patty, and Rachel were sat. Her sister aproached the group too, albeit temporarily in order to leave Luis in capable hands.

As Julian got to work on patching people up, Sylvia decided to spark up a conversation with Jeremy.

"So, how were you managing to hold up in the cafeteria for so long?" She asked, glad that they did but curious as to how and why.

"Well," Jeremy smirked, "it all started when we all received that email you had a panic attack over. Management tried to sic Chica and a wave of staffbots on us, but we beat her back well before you got down to the locker rooms yourself -" he mimed punching something, "and we've had her shoved in a closet since then. She's been gorging herself on all the pizza favoured crap we shoved in there to keep her busy, but the door's still barred. And remember 11? You tackled that manager whilst the service team eliminated the staffbots. Bet the execs were banking on Chica as backup, but she was spared from our wrath cos she was still in the storage closet of shame. Cafeteria's been a safe haven ever since."

"Management sic'd Chica on you!?!" Sylvia was could barely keep herself from spiraling into a bizarre mix of panic and joy, "what?!"

Far more dire things than what she had imagined had happened. Fazbear Entertainment's plan was to eliminate the staff in two parts, but all the company wound up doing was handing over an opportunity to make a safe haven for those they attempted to eliminate. She smiled at how ironic it all was for Fazbear Entertainment.

"Yeah," Jeremy replied, "they said something about 'we were saving this for the 11 pm meeting but we'll use it now' or some crap, I don't remember. I just remember picking up a chair and going in swinging."

"Bloody hell."

"It was, if you were a staffbot. Most of the staffbots down there live in bin bags now. And seeing as we've all made it up here in one piece, you don't have to smuggle anyone out in a cleaning trolley again," Jeremy grinned, "well, I'll go see if Gaz is ok."

"And I'll go evacuate everyone else who hasn't made it here yet," Sylvia said as she stood up, "I hope they're ok."

"Of course they'll be ok. They've had your guidance and training!" Jeremy replied.

Sylvia shook her head.

"I'm still worried it wasn't enough."

She had a route planned. One that would land her at the daycare just as the time of the power surge rolled around so she could make her last stand against the daycare attendant and shoo him off from the guys stuck there. A fight she already knew she'd win, because she didn't have to stop him, only redirect him.

Everyone would leave this building alive. Everyone would live to see the dawn, and beyond.

And if someone didn't want that to happen?

They'd have to do it over her dead body.

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