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thefourchimes · 8 months ago

Note

Can you tell me more about the Four Chimes AU?

What paths did you originally have planned for Robin? I wanna see how close my own ideas are lol :D :D :D

And tell us more about the Chimes themselves please? Like what are they like? What kind of abilities do they have? I may need some ideas for a fight scene... hehe

so. four chimes au my beloved. the reason why my url name is the way it is, even when im an encanto centered blog AHSFUIAHSF but yeah, here we go then! also, finn mentioned you can send him asks too, he would love to answer you about this as well yeye

anywho, lore dump time! made with a tag team between me and finn

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Can you tell me more about the Four Chimes AU?

the four chimes verse is essentially an amalgamation of my want—need—for badass max, max angst, elumax angst, just general party and co angst, apocalypse four shenanigans, several unexplored character interactions and dynamics, the four horsemen of the apocalypse concept, and everything else that comes with this plus things i wasnt able to mention its very self indulgent ngl

but yes, it's about the apocalypse four (max, patrick, fred, and chrissy) and how they get turned into the upside down four horsemen of the apocalypse aka the four chimes of catastrophe by vecna, and they become his way of furthering chaos and destruction in hawkins, while also using them to get rid of his thorns aka the party and co

nobody's having a fun time lol

i've already got a lot of it planned out, i just need to write it lmao asufhaishdf

its funny because this all started when finn sent an ask to his friend about how the four victims of vecna are paralleled to the four horsemen of the apocalypse

on top of me already thinking about this, i saw the ask and pretty much ran with it

also, here's a bonus just for you! the following are the arc names of the og four chimes au (and technically still the general arc names regardless of the sub aus, tho ofc with some differences here and there):

pre-shattering

during catastrophe - the four chimes

during catastrophe - contact to familiarity

during catastrophe - jailbreak

during catastrophe - void dark

during catastrophe - escape the dark

during catastrophe - resonance

during catastrophe - the end

post-apocalypse

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What paths did you originally have planned for Robin? I wanna see how close my own ideas are lol :D :D :D

so robin is very feral yes AHSIFUHASf

im pretty sure i explained it a bit before but robin got hit by an arrow that was meant for nancy in the ciquest au, and because of nancy, she's able to find the will to fight back against the infection instead of succumbing to it, making it her own

One and the chimes sees how she's evolving and don't like it, so lence's suggestion of getting nancy takes priority, and so it happens

nance becomes quest and now the battle is on

robin is obviously devastated and the gang is slightly in shambles because of how much nancy brings to the table, and now she's gone—no, worse, she's being used for the other side

so robin steps up to the plate in multiple ways, trying her best to fill the void nancy was forced to leave behind

the burden on her is so heavy considering she got a power she technically never expected to have nor wanted, but now it's on her to make the most use of it

she usually questions why it was her who was in this situation and literally not anybody else who she thinks could definitely do better

lots of questions and wondering for her

now, unlike with renegade, she doesn't lose herself technically, but she gets close, like a lot

though should i mention that there was a little kidnapping that happened? the person who was kidnapped in question being someone who is very important to robin and may have caused a some strain and conflict for her and the chimes?

yeah, the chimes kidnapped steve to lure robin to them so that they can take her down

it was conquest's idea :)

robin was very much not happy about that btw

lots of things happen and as said, robin was very much close to losing it so many times but she doesn't for a couple of reasons

renegade is a completely new take and direction of ciquest and just four chimes in general, and im so interested in seeing where it goes, so very interested <333

i feel like im not able to tell robin's full story here, both because we want to keep some things hidden and also because my brain is kinda not working rn AHSFUHASF mb on that one

but yeah, that's generally it, tho if you got more questions, feel free to send an ask to either me or finn, and if we remember something in particular, we'll make sure to mention it

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And tell us more about the Chimes themselves please? Like what are they like? What kind of abilities do they have? I may need some ideas for a fight scene… hehe

here's the longest part because...lore dump yes

the chimes our beloveds <33

so the chimes. in our 68600 messages (as of the moment) of a four chimes dump, we've built up the characters and personalities of the chimes, and somewhere in this thread is the scattered information on them

now, i unfortunately dont have the time and patience to go through the thread to find all of the little information, but we'll do our best to give a good rundown of their characters

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here you go with the characters and personalities first:

famine

wields throwing knives

very loyal to One (meaning he gaslit her so much for that loyalty to come to be, a consequence of being his first chime)

wants to be the leader because she thinks (and is gaslit to think) that she deserves it (One really likes to cause discord between his chimes)

having no prior connection to the main gang—or thorns as they call the gang—besides eddie who is dead and a spectre here, so she's the one who has the least moments of "remembering their past life" before

is very brutal and ruthless and likely the one the gang got the most injuries from in a general sense

death

wields a large scythe

my secret blorb

most likely to actually defy One, and fun fact, he has an au called the runaway au where he, a chime in the middle of the battle between the upside down and right side up, got to run and escape from One before certain things happened, which then causes a chain reaction in this au ofc

he's a coward, and this plays a lot into his actions and interactions

technically had a connection with nancy in the gang, but with conquest here, it gets harder for him to connect, but robin actually steps up to the plate here

war

wields a sword

is the most balanced out of everyone when looking at his loyalty and his defiance to One, in the middle of the pack in that sense

his past life of abuse shows up a lot when it comes to One, so he tends to throw others under the bus to not get caught in the crossfire (not that he wants to do this, but he also doesnt want to gain One's ire)

just generally very chill, the most chill out of every one here

is the medic of the team because of how he's the personification of war

has a connection with lucas in the gang, so that's something that gets him to "remember" some stuff in a way

pestilence

wields bow and arrows

finn and mine's blorb

leader in og, former leader in ciquest/conquest

if you can only see the rambles we have on her…it will take days to get through

will take the bullet for the other chimes when it comes to One's ire

vec has a tighter hold on her because she's max

literally connected with everyone, will have a lot of moments where she feels familiarity (and will subsequently get punished for it later)

second most gaslit by One in a way, which is big oof

conquest

wields a sawed-off shotgun

the leader in ciquest/conquest aus

very protective of all the chimes and especially lence

vec also has tighter hold on her because she's nancy

last one to fall, was suggested by lence to be taken

more aware of things than the other chimes, but still completely controlled by One

same case as lence, but even more so considering she's been there since the start of it all (does her best to take most of lence's punishments as her own when One goes after them)

gets very hyperfocused with robin (vaguely aware the thorn makes her weak in some sense but quest doesn't care), but is frustrated she cant hurt her too much because lence will get hurt too (and maybe another reason deep down, but she doesnt acknowledge it)

all of them

they're all dog coded

One can summon them/call them whenever and its shown through the shivering cold in their necks, like what happens with will

One wants them to be just the way he wants them, meaning the way they died and got transformed into chimes must be how they are no matter what (this includes clothes, hair, weapons, and everything in general)

the only new addition he accepts them to have are new scars :')

the chimes have such a complicated relationship, but at the end of the day, post-vec, they love each other

note for them individually: there's a lot more that i want to add but my brain is blanking a little and i am probably forgetting some things, but here are some of the important things to note (remember this is incomplete to everything we wanna add ASFHUIASFh)

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some relationship notes (by pairs, groups are another story)

min clashes with death when it comes to lence, but otherwise are fine with each other, neutral in general but are connected as the first two chimes of One

min and war are not quite friends, more distant than friends but closer than allies… (very interesting when you note how they were in their Before)

has a very one-sided antagonistic rivalry with lence, especially when it comes to the leadership position (this changes a bit when quest is in play as she's the leader, but there's still the rivalry with lence despite not being leader in ciquest/conquest), will be very callous in a way with her, but they actually work well together, especially as the similar twin concepts of famine and pestilence

quest is able to take min's bitterness mostly in a stride and keeps her in check from being too antagonistic when it comes to leadership roles and just generally (helps because quest understands them in a way, though she doesnt understand why she does)

death and war are more or less chill with each other, most cordial relationship out of every single chime relationship and the least tension filled, just vibing so real (though war knows death is a coward and death knows that war knows it)

death and lence are surprisingly close, only second to quest for lence (and death too technically, which is inspired by their Before), this relationship is due to the fact that in canon, max got to see and technically interact with chrissy, patrick, and nancy, but never with fred, so we saw it and ran with it and now they're close here

death and quest are more or less okay with each other, and their Before helped them understand each other better, unlike the other chimes' Before affecting their relationships in another way

war and lence are complicated, since war throws lence under the bus the most (especially in og) to avoid One's ire, and lence understands why, because of her own Before (and it doesnt help that she takes bullets for the other chimes), but they're both fine more or less

war and quest are similar to min and lence with the similar concepts, war and conquest, fire and lava, war follows quest to the T (just like he does with lence in og but more so here with quest), and they work well together because of their similar concepts

lence and quest are the closest out of everyone, helped by their Before and their instincts with each other, confides with each other a lot and are just helping each other no matter what, tho ofc this comes with the consequence of One seeing this "weakness" of theirs and using this bond between them to punish them when he sees fit

although here's a note about this too: finn said "honestly tho their relationships r So complicated its hard to capture in a few sentences", and i agree, what you just read is just some general thoughts on their relationships, but god is there so much more to them all, and if we want to really show you the relationships in full, we would have to ramble it all out ASHUFIUASHF but yeah

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here you go with their abilities:

famine

knife throwing, very fast and precise

the fastest of the chimes

can cripple the energy and power of a person

takes down the food supply and wilts crops

can take the energy and vitality of a being and/or object

death

scythe proficiency

is the slowest of the chimes

everything related to death

teleportation through the shadows

summon bone beings

forming shadow tendrils kinda

exudes the ambiance of the end of life, striking a deep sense of fear

war

fireeeee

flame sword, very proficient with swords

second fastest of the chimes

use the molotovs and flamethrowers against the gang because fire for real

hot skin, literally

can cause a sense of crisis and rage in those near

lence

causes sickness (through arrows) and disorientation of people (through aura exuded)

poison arrows

has a balisong (one she had as max—this is an hc we have) and uses it as an extra weapon

second slowest of the chimes

infect people to insanity or to do her bidding

also wilts flowers and plants in general

aura vision (she's blind because of her interrupted transformation due to el but she can see the sort of "auras" of beings, especially the upside down ones)

quest

gun proficient (obviously)

very precise shots

her gun can either fire in a scattered way like a shotgun or only one bullet at a time, it depends on quest herself

lava (we were thinking mix of fire and earth for conquest, hence lava)

also hot skin, literally

in the middle of the fast and slow spectrum

can summon different types of guns, smaller guns takes less energy for her actually, but One doesn't like that so she doesn't do it much, if at all

all

sort of intangibility (only works when they're full on chime mindset, if their anchor selves start waking up and breaching the surface, they become vulnerable and the intangibility doesnt work)

connected to One's power

summoning their weapons

connected to their hounds (their horses)

faster healing

technically immortality (as long as One is around)

and bonus!

robin

connected to lence, draws power from her

trying to infect her even more causes robin to grow stronger and lence to grow weaker (this is important to note heheheh)

means she's a bit more feral though (she gets close to losing herself but doesnt fully)

becomes more durable and stronger and the best at dealing with the chimes in the long run

also faster healing

another note: i am very sure i forgot some things so yeah, assume this list is incomplete AHSFIUHASF but thats what we can remember off the top of our heads

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anywho, yeah! that's pretty much a lore dump and a half, except i also know its not complete and there's still so much more we want to say but are unable to mention it for several reasons

but maybe those are asks for another day (wink wink, go check out @lumaxramblings' askbox too yesyes)

thank you for the ask! and i hope this helped with the renegade au yesyes <33

see ya around

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paigelts05 · 7 months ago

Text

The Second Chip [FNAF, Renegade AU]

https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/The-Second-Chip-FNAF-Renegade-AU-1056313210

Renegade File Server Location: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36911932/chapters/142713592

Published: May 19 2024

It had been a few days since the Ruins incident and whilst Cassie is physically recovering alongside Sylvia, Gregory, and Ness, and the gas is finally wearing off, so she can see the real world clearly again, her mental state is still on the decline as uncertainty takes hold. What was the chip other than a kill switch and way for Faz Ent to manipulate what she sees, what did Faz Ent really want with Ness, Gregory, Sylvia, and herself, and would she ever be safe?

=°•.🌹 Story 🌹.•°=

°°•°°•°°•°°•°°•°°•🌹•°°•°°•°°•°°•°°•°°

It had been a few days since the incident dubbed 'the Ruins Incident', or 'Ruins' for short.

Cassie had managed to explain everything she knew so far. Her information combined with what Sylvia knew resulted in quite the full picture, yet questions remained, as they so often did. Cassie had noticed that the distortion she had seen around her dad's forehead, as well as some other objects, had vanished; a sign that the Component V gas and the residue the chip pumped into her head to try and kill her was out of her system now and she was seeing the real world. The real real world.

She hadn't been kept up to date on the mask and chip situation though. She figured things were being investigated and they'd get back to her once they had the full picture as to not worry her. Sylvia had been told that the control module that had been jammed onto her chest was 'the same as the one Adelaide used on Luis in the Raid', which probably meant more to Sylvia than it seemed on the surface, as Sylvia had no further questions and she actually seemed to start giving answers instead of questions.

Cassie was recovering though at least. She was no longer bedridden despite her fractured ankle, and only her eye and the old implant site were causing issues. Mostly pain and inflammation, but issues nonetheless.

As she got up to stretch her legs, Mike walked in. The paranormal officer had been a familiar sight, but had been more for small talk than saying anything actually useful, likely due to the chip situation and not wanting to cause unnecessary panic. She had leaned enough about him to know that he probably blamed himself for her passing out over learning about the kill switch, and didn't want that kind of shock to happen again.

"Any information or just small talk?" Cassie asked.

"I actually have information today!" Mike beamed as he handed Cassie the mask and an eyepiece, "we removed the chipping system from the mask, so it can read them but not stab another into you. And the eyepiece should act as your chip. I've ran extensive tests, so it should be safe."

"Well the only unsafe thing was the kill switch chip," Cassie said as she held the mask at arm's length in front of her face. "Can we get Gregory and my dad in the room? I promised myself the first thing I'd get through is seeing what they look like in the AR system."

"Alright," Mike replied with a nod, "I'll fetch them. I might be a while though."

Cassie returned to her hospital bed to examine the mask and eyepiece.

In the days since the Ruins Incident, Cassie had learned that Gregory had been adopted by Sylvia's sister, and that as soon as everything in this state had been sorted, they were heading back home across the country. Cassie hadn't been home often between the Riot and Raid due to the attempt on her dad's life during the former incident. She'd spent most of her time searching, hiding, and observing whilst her dad tried to make ends meet as he was extorted by his former employer, Fazbear Entertainment. Asside from the some changes of clothes, a few tools, and some trinkets, Cassie and her dad didn't have much, so the decision to start fresh and live with Sylvia in a state far away from Faz Ent's main HQ was a no-brainer.

Cassie knew that everyone who wasn't local to the Pizzaplex who was involved in the Raid was currently in temporary accommodation, so that's where Mike was heading. She also knew her dad had been moved there too for safety reasons. She regretted not talking to her dad about being contacted by 'Gregory', but who could blame her for not wanting to put an even bigger target on her dad's back when Faz Ent were already after his head.

After all, the only conditions Gregory was supposed to contact her under were total safety or if his life was currently on the line, no in-between. If she had heard his original pleas for help when Faz Ent had actually had their hands on him and were trying to use his deduction and memory lock skills to wreck his mind, she'd have been dragging her dad into a death trap had she told him about it.

Even though she heard those prerecorded pleas thirty eight hours after Gregory and Ness escaped the megaplex and Sylvia set off the main round of demolition explosives, there had still been execs in the building running amok, and she just knew that if they had caught scent of her dad, they'd have killed him on the spot.

Before she could worry herself more about how much Faz Ent wanted her dad dead, Mike returned. "I've got everyone you asked for," he said, "let's hope everything works out."

Desmond Anadem, Cassie's dad, sat at the foot of his daughter's hospital bed, whilst Gregory stood nearby. Ness stood off to the side and Sylvia pulled up a chair just out of her immediate line of sight.

After lifting the mask to her face, Cassie kept her gaze fixed on the sheets. A message poped up on screen.

"Welcome back returning user! It's a good thing too as we are fresh out of implants. Sadly, your chip is just a data storage chip and does not support RW AR, so you'll just have to deal with an un-upgraded reality. The data that your chip has saved is your inventory and technician ID.

Call this number for more implant chips and AR mask maintenance to regain access to the more advanced features only accessable to AR chipped users:"

Cassie didn't care for the phone number.

"Returning user, hu?" She mumbled to herself as she checked the inventory on the mask. All her collectables she found in the 'AR world' (also known as whenever she was wearing the mask) were there. "Wow, you guys managed to save more data from that dead chip than I expected."

She finally sucked up the courage to look up.

And she understood why the doctors didn't want her seeing her dad so soon after the Ruins incident.

Droplets of red flowed down Desmond's face. A small hole, no wider in diameter than five millimetres was bored into his forehead.

He looked as if he had been shot in the head.

Cassie felt herself hyperventilating and tore off the mask. She received worried looks from everyone.

"You weren't wearing the eyepiece," Mike pointed to Cassie's hand as he spoke, "it was in your hand the whole time."

Cassie stared at the eyepiece in her hand.

"There's a second chip," Cassie stated, her voice shaking, "it's not an AR chip, but it did communicate with the AR chip that day."

Mike nodded, and with a deep breath, he pulled out the sort of microchip scanner that'd look right at home in a veterinarian's office. "Can I scan for it?" He asked.

"Go ahead," Cassie replied.

A scan of her face showed nothing. Neither did a scan of the arms. As Mike put the scanner to the back of her neck to start scanning her back, it beeped.

"It's in the back of your neck. It seems to just be a microchip that someone would put in a pet, but with a little bit of extra rewritable data," Mike said as he read the chip's data from the scanner.

As Mike passed the scanner to Cassie so she could read it, he asked, "so what should we do about it?"

As Cassie read the data, she figured that she should probably be the one asking that question, but she did have an answer.

"I don't think we can do anything. It's in the back of my neck," Cassie replied, "it's probably been there since I was synthesized."

Desmond winced at what Cassie said, and both Mike and Cassie picked up on his reaction.

Mike was about to speak, but let Cassie ask the question.

"What is it?" She asked.

"When Alistair handed you to me on your sixth birthday, she told me that no matter where I went, Faz Ent would be able to track us down," Desmond said, "I think I now know what she meant."

Cassie nodded. It made sense that Faz Ent would chip her. It was scary, but not what she had been worried about; at least this one didn't have a kill switch, or the capacity to be one.

Cassie took a deep breath and tried out the eyepiece. Certain parts of the hospital room had strange effects, the same glitchy effects that the AR chip or AR chip residue combined with the Compound V gas had created.

She put the mask to her face and gave the room a better look around.

Gregory looked the most normal. The VANNI network didn't seem to change how he looked at a glance, though patches of blood had been projected onto his clothes and he held a blank stare.

Sylvia's clothes had been altered to be a security guard's uniform.

Ness looked like the rabbit lady she saw on the screen back in the daycare theatre.

Her dad still looked like a dead man.

"Talk about the nickname 'spite network'," she mumbled as she looked over to Mike, who had the most confusing change of all. The man in a white blouse and black cardigan was replaced by a woman in a similar white blouse, but with a thin tan trenchcoat instead of the cardigan, and his hair had been changed from a light brown to a darker shade.

She tried to pay close attention to the mumblings she heard as she looked at everyone again, as she knew the mask replayed snippets of data it collected.

'Morgan Smith! Interpol!', 'It's alright.', 'Are you OK?' spoken in the voice of an unfamiliar woman. From this alone Cassie knew Mike had been 'the other individual who infiltrated the VR environment'.

She could just hear a cacophony of screams interlaced with a gunshot and the sound of metal being torn apart as she looked at her dad. Audio from the Riot, recontextualised to make it sound as if he had been killed, but he'd told her enough to know that the bullet hit a wall, and that THAT was the exact moment when the staff and STAFF truly turned on one another.

She heard laughter as she looked at Ness. Deranged laughter that wasn't like the woman at all. She could also faintly hear muffled sobbing.

As she looked at Gregory, she heard the same echoes she had heard at the Pizzaplex, but this time, they were interlaced with anguished screams. Likely some 'cut content' from Adelaide's 'recording session' with her poor half brother. Cassie shuddered thinking about what Adelaide might have done to him.

She expected to hear typical security guard talk as she looked at Sylvia, but instead, she heard the mumbles say things she didn't expect to hear. 'Freddy, if management finds out, we're both dead', 'Let me guess, you've only just started processing again', 'Is Freddy the only one controlled tonight or is he the only one in safe mode. How the hell am I supposed to find that out and live?', a shrieking 'NO!', and assorted screams.

She was certain Gregory never heard her say any of that. If he did, he'd have probably trusted her during the Breach.

And Sylvia was lucky to be alive.

She turned and looked at a peice of medical equipment that had a screen, and she saw Alistair. Instinctively, she reached out, but a deep dark blue hand grabbed her wrist. Her gaze followed up the entity's arm, and she saw that M.X.E.S was now where Alistair was once shown. She screamed and tried to pull off her mask, but she found herself frozen to the spot.

A pop-up appeared in her peripheral vision.

'It seems that something is stressing you out. Let me help'

As the world around her became an open field, she screamed "No no no NO NO NO NO NO NO!"

Everyone in the hospital room watched in shock horror as Cassie froze up entirely after she had reached out for the screen of a peice of medical equipment, screamed in pure visceral fear, and then went completely limp.

Before she pulled herself up again.

"We saw M.X.E.S, panicked, and the mask trapped Civ in some kind of grassy daydream to try and 'help' us. If you remove the mask, we might die. I don't have long before it traps me too. Don't panic, and don't blame yourselves. At least this is happening now and not when we're in danger, and think of a way to get us out of -"

Sleeper was cut off as Cassie went limp once more.

"She's right," Gregory said, "it's better this happened now than later."

"Ness, see if you can find out anything about the M.X.E.S system, and if you could use J.A.C.X to pull her out of it. I'll fetch Fritz to run diagnostics on the mask and see if we can figure out what state she's in," Mike said, sounding slightly different, feeling as if this was his mess again.

First the construction crew died at the old manager's hands.

Second, he could only wait outside during the Breach due to the megaplex's 12 till 6 lockdown.

Third, not being able to save Ness from getting kidnapped in the first place, and after saving Luis from the critical state that Faz Ent had left him in, he wasn't able to provide much help to Sylvia from the outside as he, unlike Sylvia who had the demolition contract, could not legally step foot inside the megaplex unless someone inside called the police, and he couldn't run that risk.

Fourth, he couldn't stop Cassie from entering the megaplex.

Fifth, this.

Mike was about to lose it. He hated feeling like he was just organising who cleans the mess up instead of fixing it himself. But he wouldn't lose his composure. He couldn't.

Mike felt someone punch his arm.

"Pull yourself together! My daughter said to not blame anyone, so quit blaming yourself!" Sylvia put her foot down: she knew just how much of a failure Mike had felt these past five plus weeks. She wasn't about to let him lose himself to his despair. "I'm not some kid you need to protect either. When Ness got kidnapped, I was acting as an extension of you to save her. And thanks to your suggestion to stick around inside the megaplex in case Cassie falls for Faz Ent's ploy, I was able to back her up and prevent William from feeding her any lies about Gregory by getting Bill to own up to his bullshit before that point. It's thanks to you that she's still on our side. And due to Sleepers seeming obsession with the mask, it IS better that we deal with this flawed 'protection' protocol now rather than later, because she was going to trip it sooner or later."

Mike looked at Sylvia with a bewildered smile.

"Alright," he replied before heading off to find Fritz.

Sylvia begun setting up and starting diagnostics on the mask's current processes for Fritz to decipher later, whilst Ness tried to contact the J.A.C.X system. It was suspicious that it hadn't pinged anything after she had saved Gregory from Adelaide about thirty nine hours prior to the incident.

No data in the time it took them to escape, no data after.

"Did someone take Jacx offline?" Ness asked herself out loud as she pinged it repeatedly, yet received no reply.

"Do you think M.X.E.S might have done it?" Sylvia asked as she did what she could for the diagnostics, deciphering what she could. "William did say he repurposed J.A.C.X to make the thing after all, and he's not the sort to like competition."

As Ness found some of M.X.E.S's code and read through it, she replied "No… No way."

"What?" Sylvia tilted her head and squinted to try and see what her sister was seeing.

"William didn't make M.X.E.S. Jacx IS M.X.E.S!" Ness exclaimed as tears pricked the corners of her eyes. "LOOK!"

Sylvia hadn't seen M.X.E.S, or it's code, but it bore an uncanny resemblance to J.A.C.X, whose code she had seen.

But the important things were the code comments; left in M.X.E.S's files were code comments signed by Ness herself.

William didn't repurpose the code and network as she thought. William had only said that he used the starts of what Ness and Gregory set up during the raid. Sylvia had almost absentmindedly solved it herself when she had summarised M.X.E.S's creation as William repurposing J.A.C.X into M.X.E.S, not once, but twice now. Oh if only she knew how right she had been.

Ness swiftly tweaked her J.A.C.X interface and begun to send ping requests.

She was now getting responses, and a little more than a response too.

A hare so blue it was almost black filled the screen, it's arms looked as if they had been torn from their sockets, and the waist down tapered into a point; she could only imagine what had happened to it.

"He's missing is his uniform… And…" Sylvia remarked with a horrified hiss and shook her head before she could vocalise that second thought. There was far more things wrong than Jacx just missing his uniform, but she didn't want to think about how much pain he was in right now.

"Poor Jacx," Ness murmured into her screen, "what happened to you?"

The hare tried to speak, but no noise came out. Ness and Sylvia checked the speakers, yet nothing was amiss.

"Can you speak?" Ness's tone was fearful and her eyes were teary. She already knew the answer.

The hare shook his head, confirming it.

"Are you Jacx, or are you Mxes?" Ness then asked.

The hare imitated scales with its hands in a shrug, before holding up one finger.

"Jacx?" Ness asked to confirm.

Jacx nodded.

"Do you have any way of communicating long answers to us?" Ness asked.

Jacx nodded and pulled up a text document, and seemed to write on it like a chalk board.

It wrote "I am J.A.C.X. William found me when he was trying to contain the mimic. He tore me apart, took away my uniform and voice, and turned your sensor nodes into security nodes. I'm sorry I couldn't stop it. I tried to tell Cassie that Gregory was not down there, but I couldn't speak and all my actions did - all being in the presence of her did was call animatronics to where she was. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything."

"Stop blaming yourself!" Ness exclaimed.

"Can people PLEASE stop tripping over eachother to blame themselves for everything that happened since Ness got kidnapped post-raid? Please and thank you," Sylvia huffed before she asked Jacx a question: "Can you do anything for Cassie now."

As Jacx wrote "I think so…" on his text document, Fritz had sat down to read the diagnostics.

"Well he's probably our best shot," Fritz grimaced as he looked at the diagnostics, "it doesn't look good…"

"What's wrong?" Sylvia asked, her voice laced with concern.

"Is she going to be ok?" Desmond chimed in, equally concerned.

"We need something already inside the network to get her out of the network." Fritz put it plain and simple.

"The thing is, will she be able to trust Jacx enough for it to pull her out…" Fritz grimaced as he glared at the diagnostics screen.

This has been the first time in a long time that Sleeper and Civ were experiencing things as 'one'. Sleeper was grateful it was only the present that they were currently sharing, as there were still plenty of things in the past that she didn't want Civ to be burdened with the knowledge of.

"Where am I?" She mumbled to herself.

"Safe, of course."

Cassie screamed in fear in response to the unidentified voice who had replied to her, and she whipped around to try and locate who said that.

"Where are you?" She asked, certain she'd scoured every inch of her line of sight.

"Right here," the voice replied, seemingly from behind her.

Cassie spun around, and saw what looked like Gregory; sitting, smiling, and waving a Freddy ice cream around in a loop. He didn't look real. He looked like a hologram.

"Who are you," Cassie asked, "WHAT are you?"

"I'm Gregory."

"Where have I heard that one before," Cassie shot back, "who are you really. Unless you threw yourself into the VANNI network to try and pull me out, I know you're not Gregory."

'Gregory' paused for a moment before replying.

"But I AM Gregory. Although, you probably know me by a different name. Clone 46."

Clone 46.

"You're…" Cassie could hardly bring herself to speak.

"Part of the mimic?" 'Gregory' finished Cassie's question for her. "Yeah, I was. But you already know I didn't start out that way."

"Are … you going to kill me?" Cassie all but colapsed. Facing the entity she saved Gregory from becoming, the entity that was downloaded onto an endoskeleton only to be slain at her hands after only twenty eight hours of being in the physical world.

She had killed Clone 46 twice. Once in the VR environment, and once in the real world. She wouldn't be surprised if it wanted to kill her now.

"No!" 'Gregory' replied, "Your Gregory and I were technically one person back in the VR environment. Whilst I was carrying out kill orders, I could also detect his memories. I know your Gregory, and I know that him and I only spent a short period of time as one being in the VR environment, but… He's your best friend. So you're also my best friend. Even after everything."

"So why did you try to kill me back then?" Cassie asked, shaking.

"Because I'm clone 46," Gregory replied, "I was built to be a killer first, and a person as an afterthought. Even though I was the body and code of the character Gregory was stuck playing as in the VR environment, and even though we shared our memories, meaning we each have two sets of memories: the real world memories from your Gregory, and the VR environment memories from me, clone 46 was ultimately an experiment to make a child assassin who would kill on command. As soon as the other half of the Mimic's codebase even suggested I should attack you, only one of us was going to get out of there alive. I'm glad it was you."

Cassie tried to reply, but all she could do was choke back tears.

"And you're really as strong as they say," 'Gregory' continued, "If Sleeper had found me and not Civ, it'd have been a brawl for the ages! She fought me when she could though, just like how you kept fighting any animatronics that got too close to you, like the first time you saw Monty."

Cassie's memories had been patchy at best, and she knew things weren't as consistent as they seemed. The fact she'd had a bare knuckle brawl against some of the animatronics was a given. What surprised her though was that the mimic was on her brawled roster.

"Don't cry," 'Gregory' smiled, "besides, did you order any 'help' before you joined me here?"

Cassie looked up and saw M.X.E.S poking his head through a rip in the terrain. It didn't look malicious like it did back at the megaplex. It flipped between trying to keep the 'rift' it created open, and reaching a hand out to Cassie, but the reach wasn't a desperate grab.

"Why am I not panicking?" Cassie asked herself, not realising she spoke out loud.

"Because you know it's true nature. It was meant to keep the mimic at bay," 'Gregory' replied.

"I was playing a villain's game that day," Cassie shrugged as she stepped towards M.X.E.S and grabbed it's paw, "Bye Gregory!" She smiled.

"Bye Cassie! Say hi to real world me for me!" 'Gregory' replied as Cassie took the entity's hand.

After getting pulled through the rift, Cassie found herself flat on her back in a hospital bed. Back in her hospital bed. She'd become very familiar with that patch of ceiling, and it hadn't changed with the introduction of the VANNI network.

Slowly, she pulled herself upright and saw M.X.E.S hovering over Ness's shoulder. It turned to her and gestured for her to take the mask off, so she did.

"Cassie! You're ok!"

"Cassie!"

"You're alive!"

Cassie couldn't pinpoint who cried what, but three people pulled Cassie into a group hug.

She wanted to remain calm, but she bawled her eyes out.

Only after what felt like hours, or was it only minutes, Cassie stopped crying.

"How do I know this isn't a dream," Cassie asked herself. She'd been asking herself this a lot recently.

Her cheek was grabbed in a vice grip and her face was pulled about in a rough and tumble manner for a good ten seconds.

"Does that answer your question?" Gregory asked.

"Oww… I mean yes," Cassie replied, rubbing her definitely bruised cheek. "Gregory, clone 46 says hi. Also I need to tell you something later."

"Who's in charge right now, so I know who to remind," Gregory asked.

"Both," Cassie replied. She was surprised that she was both Civ and Sleeper for a change, and Gregory seemed even more surprised, but he was quickly back to normal.

"So I guess you can't blame the other one for forgetting this time," he grinned.

"Nope," Cassie replied, "it is kinda important."

As the adults discussed what happened with the mask as they let Cassie process what had happened herself, Cassie said, "actually, this is the perfect time. Before we split back to normal."

Cassie slipped away from her hospital bed and sat behind an unoccupied bed at the end of the ward. Gregory joined her on the floor.

"Gregory?" Cassie asked.

"What is it?" Gregory felt slightly uneasy.

"If you're EVER in a situation where you don't know if me or a homicidal animatronic is on the other end of an elevator, and there's no way to verify it's me without risking lives, cut the elevator." Cassie said.

"I didn't even cut the cable… Why are you asking me to do this?" Gregory asked, now fearful.

"I know it wasn't you, but even if it was, I'd forgive you. After all, Virtual Gregory, Clone 46, forgave me for scooping him. And if he can forgive me for ending his physical existence," Cassie choked back tears, "I know I'll be able to forgive you if you're ever put in the situation that Bill Blake staged. Because if you were up there instead of him…"

"You'd have had me write you off as dead the moment the mimic was released," Gregory finished Cassie's statement, "and you'd do the same for me."

Cassie couldn't stop herself from bawling her eyes out into her half brother's shoulder.

Gregory didn't know what to say. There really wasn't anything that he could say.

He knew what she really meant in all of this too. She was terrified that Faz Ent would one day kidnap her and mess with her memories via either the VR environment, or forcing Gregory to lock her memories, or otherwise, and that she'd be made to believe that Gregory had dropped the elevator as a result.

The worst part was that her worries weren't even far fetched. Everything she feared was entirely possible to the point where it could happen tomorrow if Faz Ent could be bothered.

"You two alright down there? Getting away from the crowd to cry like I always do?" Sylvia stood over the siblings with a sympathetic smile; Sylvia had a habit of finding places away from others to cry herself too: it had become a habit long before the riot, and it remained a habit even now.

Cassie and Gregory nodded.

"Cool," Sylvia replied to the nod, "y'know, I don't know why I didn't say this sooner, but the first few days after dealing with incidents like this are always super surreal. After the Riot, one of my former colleagues would always stop me for a chat on my way home from work and remind me about the gash on my chest I got from fighting Monty, and it always grounded me back in reality. And after the Breach, protocol for 'Sylvia is slipping' was 'poke rib'. And it still kinda is. It helps remind me that what happened was real and that I'm still alive."

"You have a broken rib?!" Cassie yelled.

"It's mostly healed now. I was fine during the Raid, and well enough to go rescue my sister in the incident after." Sylvia shrugged, "Say, when we got you to the hospital, they found your ankle was fractured."

"Yeah, I'm surprised I was walking on it for that long," Cassie replied, looking at her bandaged ankle and the splint that held it straight. The only reason she could walk on it was because of the splint taking all the pressure.

"Press it!" Sylvia grinned.

"What?" Cassie heard what Sylvia said: she just couldn't believe her ears.

"Press it. If it hurts, you're alive," Sylvia replied.

"Ok…. OW!" Cassie poked her fractured ankle, and it didn't take much for it to hurt. And it hurt a lot. Her splint was definitely pulling so much weight whenever she walked.

"See, the pain tells you that everything is OK!" Sylvia grinned.

"Yeah… Ow… There's definitely pain…" Cassie winced as her ankle felt as if it was on fire. "How do you live like this."

"I went to work the day after the raid with a concussion and minimal medical attention for the gash in my chest. I sucked up a broken rib for three hours during the Breach by chugging possibly out of date Faz Ent own brand painkillers and only got necessary treatment so I wouldn't be hospital bound for the Raid," Sylvia replied, "I survive. It's not pretty, but I survive."

"Does anyone have any other coping mechanisms?" Cassie asked.

"Nope," Gregory replied, "Mum and Dad - Ness and Luis, in case I haven't filled you in that they adopted me - have the same strategy as Sylvia. That all three of them learned from Mike and his friends."

"It really is just a vicious circle of lick your wounds and realise you're alive, and teaching the next generation to do the same," Sylvia added with a laugh, "it's probably the worst strategy, but it still works as a grounding strategy at least!"

"Speaking of Luis, I don't think I've seen much of him," Cassie said, still wincing from the self inflicted pain in her ankle from poking it.

"He's in the other Faz Ent victim ward. He got shot during the Riot, had a control module attached to his chest and spine during the Raid, and was shot when Faz Ent kidnapped Ness a few nights after that, which I think qualifies as the start of the Ruins incident," Sylvia replied.

"Yeah," Gregory confirmed, "you and Auntie Sylvia were placed in the empty ward - well, empty bar me and Ness at the time: we were moved to the general Faz Victims ward as you were wheeled in - just in case you had an adverse reaction to new people. Can't be too careful where the control modules are concerned."

"Too right. Can't be too careful with familiar faces either," Sylvia said, "I guess the contents of the control module that goes on the chest is the same as what was in the masks during the Adelaide incident… Which explains why they're so bulky. Seeing as everyone masked at the Adelaide Incident was rendered completely controlled, and Luis's memory of being controlled during the raid is a hazy blur at best, I guess it WAS my high blood-remnant concentration that let me act on my own. That or I wasn't issued any orders. I want to get Carl in to check, but how do we check these things… Sorry I'm rambling now. Gotta get this down."

Sylvia contunued her tangent as she walked off and grabbed a notebook and pen and begun to scribble everything down.

"So… what are your injuries?" Cassie asked Gregory, wanting some kind of topic of conversation to keep her mind off things.

"Mostly psychological," Gregory shrugged, "Ness's wounds are pretty surgical in nature, so she's just had a few surgeries to properly clean and close those injuries, and she'll likely be fine soon. I have a lot of surface wounds which are already mostly patched up bar the new cut on my cheek that took stitches to close and is under observation for strange reactions, but I'm more mentally scared than physically injured from that to be honest anyway."

"Wow, I guess my stay here is going to be really long because of the chip and broken bone if that's all you're here for," Cassie laughed.

"Yeah, and Sylvia's finally getting all her injuries properly seen to as well, so she'll be here even longer," Gregory added, "it's about time too."

"How did she break a rib anyway?" Cassie asked, "She didn't say how."

"Vanny pushed her down the trapdoor of the garbage compactor whilst the chute was still open after the compactor crushed Chica," Gregory replied, "I'm surprised I didn't break any bones when Chica dragged me down that trapdoor…"

Cassie was locked in stunned silence.

"Yeah, sorry. I'd have told you about what happened to the animatronics sooner, but I was neither in mortal peril or completely safe, so contacting you about it all would have been too big of a risk," Gregory sighed.

"You fell down the garbage compactor trapdoor, and then she got pushed in?! When?!" Cassie was more shocked at the fact he got dragged down the trash compactor's trap door than the fact that he had implied that he crushed Chica in there. "And Vanny is Ness when William is possessing her and in control, right?"

"During the Breach. And yeah," Gregory nodded but then was taken aback by the specific lack of something that Cassie said, "you're not mad at me for crushing Chica?"

"You only implied it, and with most exits behind lock and key, and Chica's voicebox being part of some of those keys, I don't really blame you," Cassie replied with a half truth. She didn't blame him, that was true, but it wasn't because Chica's beak may have helped him find an exit.

No.

It was because she still felt guilt over what the mimic made her do to Roxy.

By the time she had made it to the party garages, it was almost entirely clear that the 'Gregory' that had been calling her was using spliced audio, yet she had pressed on anyway. She had shut down Roxy even though she knew deep down that it wasn't going to be Gregory who she found in the end.

Gregory had more justification for decommissioning the animatronics. Yet in what had been a good turn for Cassie but a bad turn for Gregory, the animatronics never stayed down for long.

If she had to place her bets, she'd say that Chica and Monty were still staggering or crawling about the Megaplex, despite their apparent deactivation.

"You… Really don't blame me?" Gregory asked, slightly taken aback.

"No. I get it. If our roles were reversed, I'd have probably given the other animatronics upgrades to Roxy," Cassie replied, "I really don't blame you at all."

Gregory nodded and the two sat in mutual silence for a while. There wasn't much more to say on the matter. If roles had been reversed, Gregory would have probably been dealing with a shattered Glamrock Freddy constantly shouting for Cassie to give him his battery upgrade back or something.

On that note, "Where is Roxy?" Cassie asked, "I've not seen her since I escaped the megaplex."

"Hospital employees parking garage," Gregory replied, "I've heard talk about a mini raid to get Monty and Chica's heads so they can be rebuilt."

"I've seen Chica, and she definitely needs a new everything…" Cassie grimaced at the memory of Chica, how Sleeper had a full blown brawl against the robotic chicken several times, and how she seemed to always be in so much pain.

She wanted to move on from this conversation.

Now.

"Also, when and why did Ness adopt you? Wasn't she completely under William's control during the Breach?" Cassie asked, hoping to permanently alter the trajectory of this conversation.

Gregory was taken aback by the conversation shifting from the animatronics to his new home life, but he didn't mind or really even think twice about it. "Yeah, she was. But we both had known of eachother before that night. She knew about Alistair and how clone 46 was marked as a failed experiment due to her 'situation', and I knew about her 'situation' too due to being the subject of the clone 46 experiments. Faz Ent couldn't talk about one of us without talking about the other, so it didn't take us long to figure eachother out." Gregory gazed off into the middle distance as he spoke, trying to remain calm. "William was trying to kill me because clone 46's memories are my memories from my time in the VR environment. I think he might have been able to go through my real world memories too… Clone 46, GGY, is just what I was in the VR environment. I was a liability, so had to go."

"I didn't think Faz Ent wanted you dead. I don't think virtual clone 46 knew that either." Cassie grimaced. If she'd have known, she'd have come up with a better plan, but with how things panned out, maybe getting Gregory to hide inside Freddy's stomach hatch was the better plan after all, and she was glad that things panned out the way they did.

Gregory shrugged, "Guess I just ran out of use to them." Gregory took a brief pause then sighed. "But why me? Why use me for the clone 46 experiments?"

"Alistair was a Faz Ent scientist by choice you know," Cassie replied, "I know I shouldn't have assumed that you knew that when we met back in the silo. At least you learned it from someone…" Cassie started to shake. Ever since she started the Breach by freeing Gregory from the VR environment, she'd always wondered if things would have gone smoother if she told him about Alistair and he didn't have to learn tidbits from a traumatised kidnapping victim barely able to stay in control of her own body. "Is the original patient 46 anything like you expected?"

Gregory shrugged. "I never actually listened to the CDs." He opened his mouth to speak, but shut it as the images of what he had witnessed after Cassie had saved him from the VR environment flashed through his head.

It was blurry, yet so vivid at the same time.

A woman who he had seen before, also hiding in the walls of the Megaplex, but unlike him she was not here by choice. Her choked sobs and her begging him and Cassie to 'please run, before he takes control again' still rang in his ears whenever he saw her. The sight of someone who was supposed to be trying to kill him stabbing herself in order to buy him and Cassie time to escape. Cassie hiding him inside of Freddy and hearing the rabbit lady hunt him down from his hiding spot. Not knowing if Cassie had made it out. Not being able to see or know when the rabbit lady left. Not being able to know whether the person who then begun searching for him was that woman's sister, or the woman herself.

The sight and sounds would never leave his mind.

Even knowing now that the rabbit lady was Ness and that the security guard lady was Sylvia, knowing what happened didn't make it better. It made it worse. Ever since he had freed Ness and she had adopted him, he couldn't help but see a part of himself in Sylvia's predicament and see a part of Cassie in Ness's predicament. He couldn't help but worry if one day, Sleeper would be forced to kill like Ness had killed. He didn't know if he would be able to have the tenacity that Sylvia had had in hunting down the other arcades that would make Princess Quest 3 work, one ones that had stopped Luis from freeing Ness a week prior to the Breach.

He didn't know if Cassie would survive trying to prevent whatever would make her kill from harming others like Ness had prevented William from harming others for so long. He didn't know if she'd be able to cope with some of those attempts being in vain.

"So she's exactly like what I expected," Gregory glanced over at Ness, who was busy talking to Mike, "kind, scared, and just trying to survive whilst containing William.

She kinda reminds me of you."

He didn't mean to say that last part out loud.

"Figures," Cassie hummed as she went over her own recollection of events. Sleeper was used to all the terror and bloodshed. Her encounter with Ness staving off William was just a drop in the bucket to Sleeper. Civ, on the other hand, didn't know much of the horrors until recently. If it wasn't for Bill accidentally causing her to switch from Civ to Sleeper, and if it wasn't for Roxy and Sylvia managing to reach her first, … Civ could have been manipulated into becoming a horrifyingly brutal and efficient agent of William Afton, or worse, the mimic.

And with what Adelaide did to Gregory to get the voice clips to lure her into the Megaplex, Cassie knew that being tricked again or having her memories messed with was still a grim possibility that she'd have to prepare for.

This was the second time since J.A.C.X had rescued her from Helpi's safety system that she'd forced herself to confront that possibility. And it wouldn't be the last.

"I still might wind up being forced into the role of a Faz Ent agent yet," Cassie gazed off into space, "I just wonder if it'll be Sleeper, Civ, or the both of us."

"I won't let that happen!" Gregory instantly proclaimed, "You saved me from becoming Clone 46, I'll save you from becoming Vanny 3.0!"

"Promise?"

"I'll do what I can. And when you're ready, I want to test if I can run deductions using your mask, and I want to see if I can pull you into them with me. There are some things I want to see for myself."

°°•°°•°°•°°•°°•°°•🌹•°°•°°•°°•°°•°°•°°

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