A New Start
Chapter 9: Shameful Memories

Foxy ran.

She ran for as long, and as far, as she could. Not once did she look back at the scene, the mess, that she left behind as her plastic feet continuously pounded the mall's floor. After all, she wouldn't dare look back. There would be people there, staring at her. She couldn't handle that. She could already picture it too!

There would be crowds upon crowds of people, towering over her, gazing down at the poor bot with judging and disgusted expressions on their faces. The children would be hugging their parents' legs, hiding themselves from the insidious fox that stood before them. They knew what she did. She knew what she did. She did the most terrible, abhorrent thing an animatron like her could possibly do... sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The joints in Foxy's legs locked up as she skidded to a halt. She needed to hide. Somewhere. Anywhere. Everyone would be after her now. This, she felt she knew. She looked around frantically, looking for a place to hide. Having found herself in a four-way intersection of sorts, she spun about, looking down the four concourses that led away from her. She could see crowds of shoppers at the far ends of each of the hallways. That is, until...

Her eyes lit up as she looked down the last of the concourses. As the hall went on, it gradually got darker and darker as it stretched into a large section of closed stores. It was only in the wee hours of the morning, after all. Not every store was going to be open.

Foxy grinned! This would be the perfect place to hide. Anything to get away from those people...

And so, she ran once again! The small LED lights in her eyes began to show as she ventured further and further into the darkness. She slowed her pace, looking at the empty, closed stores on her left and her right. She soon stopped, sitting down next to the entrance of one of the shops before taking a look around. She was deep inside the dark expanse of the Closed Concourse. There was absolutely nothing around her in this corner of the mall, nothing to bother her, nothing to stare at her...

...Nothing to bite...

Foxy sighed as her small moment of happiness began to fade. As she eyed her surroundings, she was rather content that she was finally alone. But, she also began to feel very, very sad as the reality of her situation set back in.

Foxy pulled her knees closer to her body, shuddering slightly. She still remembered that moment ever so vividly... It kept playing in her head, over and over again. She remembered falling over, the feeling of something lodging itself in her mouth, then realizing exactly what it was...

Foxy grabbed the sides of her head in anguish. It was a head! A real, actual head! She remembered watching in absolute horror as it fell from her grasp, bouncing off of the floor and rolling toward the crowd of people...

Foxy shuddered again. She felt so, so dirty, so guilty. It all reminded her of something terrible. She knew full well that this... this wasn't the first time she's done something so terrible as this... It was probably the reason those policemen were after her and Scott earlier! It was all because of...

...The first time she's done something like this...

It was her own fault that she was in this deep, deep mess! It was her fault that her friends were in this mess! It had been so long, too, since she had set foot in her own home! Foxy wasn't quite sure exactly how long it'd been, but she knew that things were much different from what they used to be! She shouldn't be in this place! She shouldn't be running from the law! She shouldn't have made her way into this dark corner of the mall!

But, here she was...

And it was all because of that one day. That one day, when she did that absolutely heinous act...

The sound of spinning servos emanated from the tape drive in the back of her head as she began to recall that very day. Thanks to those tapes, she remembered it like yesterday. She wasn't sure if that was a blessing, or a curse. The fox closed her eyes as code began to flash across her field of vision, signaling the beginning of the recording. She wasn't sure how, but maybe this would help console her...

Foxy was first greeted with a black screen, slightly grainy with static. It stayed empty for a few seconds, before a large, colorful logo appeared in the middle. “FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT” it said in gold letters. The four Toys were displayed in a rather stylized way, in various jovial and welcoming poses. They were all positioned around the text in a way not unlike the very sign of the building itself. A blue bar underneath the logo slowly filled itself up as the tape began to load.

LOADING.

LOADING..

LOADING...

As the logo and loading bar disappeared with a shuttering effect, the video feed finally opened up at a very low point of view, seemingly positioned on the floor of a room. Foxy knew this room all too well. It was her 'realm' of sorts, the Kid's Cove.

November 14th, 1987.

The video feed jerked to the side slightly as a painfully loud clanging sound was emitted from offscreen. The feed would turn, accompanied by the low whining of electronic servos, soon revealing the source of the noise. A child, one of the many that Toy Foxy was sworn to protect, was fiddling with one of the bot's many limbs. The child giggled as he repeatedly struck the floor with what used to be Foxy's arm. She heard more giggling as she spotted two other children, playing catch with what used to be one of her eyes. This almost garnered the bot to giggle herself, despite the slightly off-putting tone of the whole thing.

If she were any other bot, Foxy would feel complete and utter contempt for the children who had taken her apart day after day, and anger toward the staff for not repairing her. But, no matter how many times she thought back to her days as “The Mangle”, she would only feel...

Content...

She was programmed with an extra emphasis toward caring for the children, compared to the other bots. She was supposed to take care of the smaller ones, whilst the bigger ones had their fun with the other three Toys.

And she was content with this.

Sure, she was scared, perhaps even frustrated for a bit, by the ensuing events that had turned her into that terrible mess of metal. However, she found that she could still occupy the children with the wonders of fun, despite her new disposition.

It's what she was programmed for, right?

She only hoped that the children didn't hurt themselves on her rather jagged, exposed endoskeleton...

The video feed shifted forward and upward slightly as The Mangle began to move herself forward. She looked up at the poster and drawings on the wall, chittering to herself happily. It always warmed her metallic heart, seeing the children's heartfelt renditions of her and the others on the walls of the pizzeria. She crawled toward one of the drawings, putting one of her hands on the wall as she looked up at the picture. She tilted her head, occupying her time by admiring the thing. Whoever drew that must've been really talented...

Suddenly, the view in the recording jerked to the side as The Mangle heard some shouting coming from the main room. More code began to flash across the bottom of the feed.

[UNREST DETECTED.]

[OBJECTIVE: INSPECT SOURCE.]

[FACETRAK FACIAL RECOGNITION ACTIVE.]

The recording shifted into a light, transparent shade of blue as The Mangle grabbed one of the cables attached to the wall, before beginning to climb up said wall. She was mindful not to ruin any of the drawings that she crawled over. She deftly and carefully grabbed one of the cables and beams attached to the ceiling, adjusting her view slightly as she slowly meandered across the ceiling. She looked down at the children one last time, making sure that they were safe as they played with the animatron's parts. Finding herself satisfied with their safety, she then crawled out of the Cove and into the main room, heading toward the stage.

The first thing she noticed was the sheer amount of people grouped into one spot. Blue squared appeared in the feed and shifted down to each person's head as the bot attempted to get a look at their faces. However, she soon realized that everyone was facing away from her. The squares disappeared as the Mangle continued on, looking in the direction that she could infer everyone else was looking. If there were two things Foxy liked about her new “form”, it was how easy she could bypass people as well as the bird's eye view she had of each room.

And, thanks to this, she soon found out what everyone was looking at.

In the very middle of the crowd, The Mangle spotted two people seemingly in security guard uniforms. She lurched forward slightly, realizing that one of them was holding back one of her friends, Toy Chica. From the looks of it, Chica seemed very upset. The chicken had her arm outstretched toward the other guard while her other arm was in the first man's grasp.

The Mangle quietly neared the three as her audio sensors began to pick up some of their speech.

“Y-You'd better unhand me, you perpetrator!”, Toy Chica could be heard shouting as she tried to pull herself away from the aforementioned man. “I-I have children to protect!”

“Jeremy, you need to keep that kid safe while I try to get this damned robot in the Parts room so I can reboot her!”, exclaimed the first guard, struggling to hold the chicken back. The second one nodded.

“Right, of course! Just keep that thing away from me, alright?!”, he replied, before looking down a

The Mangle tilted her head. The view slowly zoomed in as she further inspected the situation. She inaudibly gasped as she noticed a child near one of the guard's legs! A little girl! The kid seemed so scared by the whole thing. And, who would blame her? The recording shifted slightly as two blue squares descended on the two guards' faces. The whole feed shuddered slightly, turning a deep, transparent purple as various alarms sprung up in the animatron's processing unit. To her complete surprise, the two guards were...

Predators!

And in uniform, too! How uncouth! More code began to flash at the bottom of the feed.

[OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED: INSPECT SOURCE.]

[NEW OBJECTIVE: REMEDY SITUATION.]

As the first guard began to drag away the screaming Chica, Jeremy picked up the child that he was protecting in an attempt to console her.

“Hey, listen, it's alright now...”, he said in his most soothing voice. “Chica's not gonna hurt you. She's just... having a few issues at the moment.”

“W-Will Chica be okay?”, asked the child. Jeremy simply nodded.

“Of course.”

The Mangle tightened her hold on the ceiling's cables. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. One of the predators was holding one of the kids she was sworn to protect! Even more code began to display itself at the bottom of the feed.

[NEW OBJECTIVE: REMEDY SITUATION AT ALL COST.]

The Mangle was all too eager to oblige. She positioned herself over Jeremy, staring down at him with eyes filled with venom. The very moment the security guard set the child down, The Mangle let go of the ceiling. Her jaws were open, teeth bared as she fell toward the guard.

The last thing she heard was someone offscreen, shouting, “Jeremy!”

The recording suddenly went black and grainy as all sound was replaced with static. It stayed this way for a moment, until large, white text appeared in the center.

[CRITICAL ERROR: DATA UNREADABLE.]

[TAPE ENDING.]

Foxy was abruptly thrown out of her 'dream' of sorts with a gasp. She looked down slightly, processing what she had seen. She recalled being told that one way to feel better about oneself was to come to terms with their past.

However, she didn't feel much better...

In fact, she felt a lot worse. She began to recall the short, scattered memories that she had gathered in the aftermath of the whole thing. She recalled the restaurant closing, she recalled being put in the Parts room for a long period of time along with the others. She remembered the day the staff opened the room and carried them all into a truck. Then, she remembered finally shutting off.

Then, there was that long, dark interval.

And all because of that one event, too! The Bite was the final nail in the restaurant's coffin, having already faced decline because of the preceding murders. And of course, Foxy had to make it all that much worse...

Foxy emitted a low, sad whine as she lowered her head and ears. She didn't deserve to call herself one of the Fazbear Quartet... She had been nothing but a problem! An issue! A complete and utter hindrance! And worst of all, despite all she tried to do to keep it from happening, she...

She managed to do it again.

That poor person...

Foxy ran her fingers between her teeth as she thought back to that moment once again. She rubbed one of her teeth, feeling the slight bumpiness of the... 'substance' that had long gathered and dried in her maw.

She felt like such a monster...

She had bitten two people, destroyed her franchise, subjected herself and her friends to a terrible fate, and...

And she abandoned the one person trying to put it all back together...

Not to mention, all of the children were scared of her. The children she was supposed to protect. She didn't want this. She hated this. But, at least she was alone for now...

Foxy soon began to realize something. All of this was beginning to give her a sense of clarity. She no longer felt surprised, or bewildered, at what was going on around her. She knew why all of this was happening. She knew precisely where she was in this situation of hers.

Not that it made her feel any better...

Foxy sighed, putting her hands over her eyes. A part of her was already beginning to regret coming over to this corner of hers...

A few moments later, Foxy's ears began to twitch as she began to pick up some audio. To her, it sounded like thumping of sorts coming from somewhere up the hall. A lot of thumping. The fox uncovered her eyes as she began to hear shouting. The fox listened closely, finding the voice to be surprisingly familiar.

“Foxyyyyy!”, shouted the voice repeatedly, getting louder with each exclamation. Foxy could infer that it was a feminine voice, with a slight tinny effect to it. Foxy stood up, looking down the hall. She squinted, spying three silhouettes running towards her. She took a step backwards, considering the prospect of running away from the three, but she decided to take a closer look.

Her vision zoomed in slightly as she struggled to make out what she saw. Eventually, she could infer that there was a...

...A chicken, rabbit, and bear?

“...G-G-Guys?”

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