Disclaimer: this will mostly be based off of Markiplier's gameplay.

Freddy Fazbear Pizzaplex
Ken's POV
Through the door marked with Roxy's painted silhouette, we went down a brick hallway lined with a dusty purple. At the very end was an elevator. Freddy opened the doors via an electronic signal and we stepped into the small space. And I do mean small. Compared to the spacious elevator at the entrance to the Pizzaplex, it was cramped, so Freddy and I had to stand uncomfortably shoulder to slightly higher shoulder while I pressed the button and the doors closed to take us to our destination.

Neither of us spoke. I guess both of us were in shock from the information we'd just acquired, courtesy of the most likely deceased Luis Palmgreen. I mean, it did answer a lot of questions: What was happening with the animatronics, who Bonnie and Foxy were, and why Freddy was the only one who didn't seem interested in hunting me. But still - it was a lot to take in. My tumultuous brain drowned out the sound of the elevator ascending as I dumbed down the information over and over until I'd rounded it into a nice summation:

The animatronics are being affected by a malware virus. The virus causes them to have memory blackouts during the after hours; during these blackouts, they are controlled against their will by some unknown person to pursue and kill children. A Security Guard by the name of Luis Palmgreen noticed the changes and created Project Reboot - a computer chip that, when connected to the system of a light-emitting device and shone in the eyes of an animatronic, will send a signal to erase all viruses in the system. Three animatronics have been tested by Project Reboot - two of them have suffered mysterious accidents and have been decommissioned.

Freddy is the only one of the three tested animatronics that hasn't been decommissioned.

And he's currently helping me.

I snuck a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He was standing slightly hunched, seemingly determined to keep his focus on the elevator doors. His glowing eyes refused to look my way.

I knew it was because he was still shaken by what Luis had written; heck, I was still shaken by it. He'd once been apart of the hunting party that was currently searching for me, and so had several of his currently decommissioned friends. Someone had hacked him and caused him to go against his programming to hurt children instead of entertain them - a violation like that is not so easily forgiven and forgotten, even by an animatronic.

Back in Parts and Service, I'd told Freddy that what had happened was in the past, and I didn't care what he'd done so long as he helped me escape the Pizzaplex. That had been the truth - still was the truth.

Though I couldn't help but wonder: How many has he helped kill, and how many has he killed himself?

I turned my gaze back in front of me and let out a little puff of air, not allowing myself to groan out loud in case it put Freddy more on edge than he probably already was. As many answers that Luis's experiment logs had given us, even more questions had taken their place. Who was behind the malware virus? Why were they using the animatronics to hunt the children? What was the purpose of this so-called "game"?

And two more questions kept surfacing in my mind: Who is the woman in the bunny suit? What is her role in all this?

The sound of the elevator reaching our destination interrupted my train of thought. I had been so deep in my mental dialect that I momentarily forgot where we were and why we were here. I scraped the edges of my conscious and came to a conclusion:

Elevator -> Roxy's room. Roxy's room -> Rockstar Row. Rockstar Row -> Chica's room. Chica's room = Party Pass.

It seemed like a pretty simple, straightforward plan. Well, let's see how badly we can screw it up.

We took a few steps into the back room of Roxy's quarters before I held out my arm to signal Freddy to stop. "The others may be up here," I told him quietly. "Let me get into your stomach hatch real quick." He nodded slightly and opened his chest cavity for me to hop in. Once I was snug against his endoskeleton, his chest piece closed behind me and we resumed our advance through the back room.

When we got within a few feet of the door (well, animatronic-sized feet), Freddy's ears picked up a faint noise and broadcasted it through his stomach hatch; I caused him to stop walking so we could hear it better. It sounded like someone crying, though not loud enough for passerby to hear unless listening very intently. That being said, it was very forceful crying, as if all of the strength that would have gone into its volume had gone into its release instead. It also sounded strangely feminine.

"Is that Roxy?" I whispered to Freddy.

"It sounds like her vocal patterns," He replied, though he sounded disbelieving as he added, "I have never heard her cry before."

We crept up to the door to listen. Between sobs, Roxy was repeating the same thing over and over - like her hype-up mantra I'd heard earlier, though a lot more self-demeaning. "I'm NOT a loser!" She'd say to herself, then question, "Why? WHY?" She'd then doubled back with self encouragement: "It's not your fault. That kid's just lucky." Self-doubt would creep in again: "We should have found him by now... It's not fair! He must be cheating!"

"Wow," I noted. "She's really beating herself up over this."

"Roxy has always been hard on herself," Freddy told me sadly. "Maintenance programmed her to win on a regular basis, to encourage the children to try harder, so she feels she always has to be 'the best'. If she does not win, she gets moody and withdrawn, but I had no idea it got this bad."

"Poor Roxy..." I muttered.

"HE MUST BE CHEATING!" Came from Roxy's room again.

My fair blader instincts kicked in and I asked Freddy, "I'm not cheating, am I?" As a regular overseer of children, he must know the difference between cheating and playing fair.

Freddy was quiet for a while. "No, I do not think so," He finally replied somewhat reluctantly. "It is not necessarily cheating; it is simply, um... 'utilizing your resources'."

Inside his stomach hatch, I twisted my mouth and tilted my head, careful not to scrape against the sides of the hatch. "And by 'resources', do you mean you?" I clarified.

"Yes!" Freddy confirmed, sounding defensive. "I can be a very good resource!"

I resisted the urge to laugh and instead focused on Roxy's tirade, which had started over again. "She can't see me, but do you think you can cheer her up?" I asked him.

Freddy seemed even more reluctant with this request. "I... can try," He eventually said. "But I must warn you - Roxy is not one for up close and personal moments." With that warning in mind, he sent a signal to roll up the door, and we steeled our nerves before entering Roxy's purple-themed room.

We were able to catch a quick picture of Roxy sitting at her vanity mirror with her face (or snout - actually, can it really be called a snout if she's an animatronic?) in her arms. She whipped her head up as soon as she heard us enter, asking fiercely, "Who's there?" Her hazel eyes spared Freddy - and in turn, me - a glance before they narrowed in their sockets and faced her mirror again. "It's nothing," She told herself, though it was unclear whether she was talking to herself or Freddy. "Don't get distracted! Don't be a loser - get back out there!" With that, she turned away from her mirror and stalked towards her door with her claws out, calling over her shoulder, "Freddy, get out of my room!"

After she left and the door slid shut behind her, Freddy breathed into the silence of the room. "See what I mean?"

"Yup," I told him. "I'm not really fazed, though. I know several people that act like that. Several of them are my friends, sadly." I held my fingers in front of my eyes, silhouetted into black needles by the light from Freddy's ocular feed, and started to count off a few names. "There's Wakiya and Lui... uhhh, Ukyo has a bit of a vain streak... er, so does Naoki... oh! And Ben, though he's not as bad as the others." I snickered quietly. "We're all bladers, though - it might just come with the territory."

"It sounds like you have quite a few friends," Freddy pointed out, sounding almost surprised.

"Yeah!" I confirmed proudly. "And that's only one hand's worth of them! I have loads of other friends!" I was ready to tell him all about the others before I remembered my situation and caught myself. My boastful mood tampered back into quiet submission. "Well... I hope I get to see them again after tonight."

"Do not worry, Ken," Freddy assured me gently. "I promise I will help you get out of here." His tone darkened slightly. "It is the least I can do, anyway."

So he was still intent on helping me. I smiled in the shadows of his stomach hatch. "And the least I can do for you is help your friends," I told him truthfully. "To make sure this never happens again. And once everything is said and done, I'll bring my friends back here to meet you guys!"

Freddy paused once again. "I think... we would like that," He said gratefully, speaking for the whole of his friends.

But in order for that to happen, we had to get the Party Pass, and we both knew it. We collectively stepped over to the wall-length window to peer into the corridor. No sign of Roxy - she must have taken off down another hallway. The other animatronics were nowhere in sight, either.

"I don't have time for this!"

Except I forgot Vanessa was also up here.

I flinched at the sound of her voice and took control of Freddy to guide us over to the curtains at one end of the window, safely burying us into the folds. When I was confident that no one could see us unless looking very closely, I cautiously guided Freddy's head to peer out into the corridor. At the very end of the space, near a circular bench, was the bright tail of a flashlight. Connected to that tail was the familiar shadow of a woman wearing a cap and her hair in a ponytail.

"Jeez," I grumbled, trailing Vanessa as she made her trek through Rockstar Row. "What is her problem?"

"What do you mean?" Freddy inquired, seemingly not aware of why I was annoyed with her. "She is the Security Guard - it is her job to walk around the Pizzaplex and make sure that everything is in order."

"I know, but does she have to be everywhere?" I asked exasperatedly. "And she's not very nice, either; she was really laying into you down in Parts and Service."

"Oh," Freddy said in sheepish surprise. "You... heard all of that?"

"Yeah, I walked in when she told you that she put me in Lost and Found," I told him. We fell into an embarrassed silence, watching the light from Vanessa's flashlight bob around Rockstar Row, before I decided to ask,  "So how do we get to Chica's room without being spotted? Is there a back way or something?"

Freddy sighed. "I am afraid the only back way into her room is out of order," He admitted, referring to the out-of-order elevators leading up from Parts and Service. "We will just have to be careful not to get seen."

I glanced one more time at Vanessa before letting loose a sigh of my own. "Fine... let's get it done."

We waited until Vanessa was out of sight before making our move. Freddy opened Roxy's door and we slipped into the corridor. We snuck a glance over our shoulder to see if Vanessa had heard the noise; no sign of her, so we continued on. Passed Monty's green room - which was thankfully silent for the time being - and came up to Chica's pink room. A quick peek through the window showed that she was still out somewhere. Here's to hoping she stays out, I thought.

We cut through the pink-toned waiting area and stood in front of the door. And then just... stood there. And stood there. And stood there. I kept waiting for Freddy to send a signal to open the door, but he was silent. I thought he was expecting me to open the door for us, which was confusing enough on its own, so I opened the stomach hatch and climbed out. I took the Level 4 Security Badge I'd gotten from the Parts and Service Security Office and held it up to the door.

Nothing happened.

"It won't open!" I said incredulously, swiveling my head back to Freddy. "What gives?"

Freddy looked ashamed. "Oh... I forgot that you deposited your Photo Pass back in Parts and Service. Without that, the only thing that will open these doors is a Level 5 Security Badge." I opened my mouth, but he beat me to the punch, "And before you ask, no, I cannot open the door myself. All of the animatronics need permission from the others in order to enter their respective rooms. We respect each other's privacy here."

"What?" I whisper-shouted, painfully aware of Vanessa still in the vicinity. I held the Security Badge up so he could see the number on it. "The highest Security Badge I have is a Level 4! Now what?"

I dropped the hand with the Security Badge and pressed the other hand against my forehead in exasperation. As I did so, I felt the weight shift in my jacket pocket. I thought it was Project Reboot at first, but this weight was in the other pocket. Curious, I reached in with my free hand to fish out the foreign object, and ended up pulling out the screwdriver I'd used to escape the Lost and Found. It was a lot heavier than the Security passes and paper maps, so it must have sunk to the bottom of my pocket and I completely skimmed it when I was lightening my load.

The memory of how I'd gotten the screwdriver wasn't one of my favorites, but the memory of how I'd used it gave me an idea. "Wait - I can still enter your room if I'm in your stomach hatch, right?" I asked Freddy.

"Of course!" He confirmed. "All animatronics can enter their respective rooms with or without a Security Badge." His eyes slanted in an attempt to make an interested expression. "What do you have in mind?"

I nodded my head along with the screwdriver, my idea gaining strength. "Okay... okay, this is good! If we go into your room and go into the back room, I can go through the vents and enter Chica's room that way!"

"Great idea, superstar!" Freddy commended me, finally catching my drift.

With that, I hoped back into his stomach hatch and we made our way over to his room. Vanessa was no longer in Rockstar Row - she must have left either using the Maintenance Tunnel entrance or the roll-up door at the very end. Lucky for us.

The curtains were still drawn over Freddy's window, which would provide cover from passerby. We cut through his orange-toned waiting area and up to the door. With his room, we didn't have to stand idly in front of the entrance - Freddy opened the door for us and we crossed the threshold of the familiar space. Once inside, I hopped out of his stomach hatch and strode over to the entrance to the back room. One press from the Freddy-head button beside it and the door was open.

Memories of the last time I had gone through the back room flitted across my mind, and I had to scoff at how scared I'd been. I'd seen things a lot worse since then - going back through here was going to be a piece of cake.

"Ken," Freddy asked behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw that his eyes were slanted into a worried expression. "Remember: I cannot enter Chica's room, so I will not be able to reach you if you are in trouble. So please... be careful."

I thought of the events of the night and smiled grimly. "Oh Freddy," I told him condescendingly. "Aren't I always?"

I ducked into the shadows and easily made my way to the vent opening at the back wall. Out came my flashlight and I angled the beam down the ductwork, casting the darkness into light. After a bit of awkward rearranging, I decided to hold the screwdriver between my teeth so I'd get a better grip on the floor of the duct with the hand that wasn't holding my flashlight. The taste of metal and the feeling of the tool against my tongue wasn't exactly pleasant, but I had no interest in being picky. I had more important things to focus on.

I hoisted myself into the vent with my free hand and started on my way. I'd been through these vents before and hadn't come across any obstacles, so I set off thinking that this venture would be no different.

Boy, was I wrong.

The scuttling sounds behind me told me so.

"Great First Spinjitzu Master," I griped around the screwdriver; I didn't need to turn around to know that the spider bot was chasing me yet again. "Now it's in these vents, too?"

With my new company, I had to pick up the pace. I shimmied through the vents at what felt like breakneck speed, though I could practically feel the creepy bot breathing down my neck. I passed the vent into Roxy's room and the vent into Monty's room until I reached the pink light of Chica's room. I practically ripped the screwdriver out of my mouth and jammed it into the edges of the vent cover; the screws came off at a blinding speed and I tossed them over my shoulder to try to slow down the bot. With the cover no longer secured, I slammed my entire body weight into the metal and jarred it loose.

A little too loose - in my panic, I ended up hitting it so hard that it came straight off the wall and took me with it. In a split second, I was sprawled across the now-dented vent cover on top of Chica's mini stage. Through the haze of pain, I saw the spider bot gaze down at me from the open duct entrance and clink its thick teeth together before turning around and disappearing from sight.

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" I whimpered, tears pricking at my eyes as I slowly loosened my hold on the vent cover.

"Ken," Freddy came through on my FazWatch. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah," I forced out, trying and mostly failing to get to my feet - everything hurt and I got the sneaking suspicion that some things were broken. "J-just in the middle of a d-dramatic entrance."

When the pain lessened to a dull throb, I stood up to continue my mission. First things first - limp over to the window and close the curtains so passerby didn't see me. With that done, I turned around to take in the room. Lot of pink, lot of plushies, lot of neon star and heart signs... and another music box on the vanity table.

"The people here just love using these things, don't they?" I muttered amusedly as I approached the table. One hand on the box, one hand on the crank, and a few seconds and creepy music notes later, the metal coils erupted out of the top with a golden ticket pierced in one of them.

"Score!" I exclaimed in the silence of Chica's room. I grabbed the golden paper with one hand while lifting my FazWatch with the other. "Freddy! I found the Party Pass!"

"Well done," Freddy told me proudly.

I was beaming until the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. "Oh no!" I cried in distress, quickly stuffing the Party Pass into my pocket.

"Quick, find a Recharge Station," Freddy instructed. "You should be able to find their locations on your map."

I tapped the screen to pull up the map before realizing that Chica must have a Recharge Station in her back room just like Freddy. That solved that problem! Elated, I stepped back onto the stage and pressed the button to roll up the door.

And immediately pressed it to drop the door.

Because Moony was in the back room.

"F-Freddy," I stuttered, blindly backing away from the door, almost falling on my butt when I couldn't see the difference between the stage and the floor. "M-Moony is here, and he's blocking the way to the Recharge Station! Man, how is he so fast?"

"How unfortunate," Freddy said worriedly. "You will just have to return to my room. Can you get back to the vents?"

I looked up the wall to look for the vent opening, but I could barely see it in the shadows. "Not if I can't see them!" I shot back.

"Then you will have to go through the hallway," Freddy told me in a resigned tone. "Chica's door should be able to open from the inside whether or not you have the appropriate Security Badge."

"Solid plan - let's do it!" I screamed as the back room door started to open.

I sprinted in what I hoped was the direction of the door. I ran my fingers along the wall until I found the Freddy-head button, then I pushed it with all of my strength and was through the door before it had even opened all of the way.

Once back in Rockstar Row, my eyesight had somewhat adjusted to the darkness and I could make out shapes. I made my way past the the still and black rooms, all the while aware of Moony closing in on me. He was practically attached to me by a tether. I swear I even looked over my shoulder and saw him FLYING.

LITERALLY. FLYING.

An animatronic that can fly? I thought desperately as I focused my attention back in front of me. What's next - one that can swim?

It felt like a million years, but I eventually made it all the way down to Freddy's room. "Freddy - I'm here!" I yelled into my FazWatch, hopping over the red rope to the entrance. "Open the door!" The shadows opened into slightly darker shadows and I dove through. I vaguely registered a shadow that resembled the shape of Freddy before I ran into the already open back room. Unlike everything else, the Recharge Station was still glowing its bright turquoise - a welcome sight that I appreciated greatly as I quickly fingered the panel along its side and cracked open the red cylinder.

I stepped in and started the Recharge Cycle. The Station hummed around me, pushing power back to the Pizzaplex as I caught my breath. With each intake of breath came a new question. Why was Moony hunting me? According to Luis's notes, the Daycare Attendants were the only mascots out of all of the pizzeria animatronics that didn't have the malware virus. With that reasoning, Moony shouldn't be coming after me.

So if he wasn't infected, why was he hunting me?

It had to be something else. If I ever saw Sunny again, I would ask him; sharing a body with Moony had to give him some insight into his mindset.

Because there was no way I was asking him while Moony was in control.

The humming stopped, signifying that power had returned to the pizzeria. I opened the Recharge Station and headed back into the main room; the bright lights were a violent awakening from the darkness I'd been running around in and I found myself blinking furiously. In between blinks, I saw Freddy standing expectantly at the foot of the stage - Moony was nowhere in sight. "Is he gone?" I asked Freddy in a low voice, just to be safe.

"Yes," Freddy confirmed. "He turned back to his Daytime Form and left to return to the Daycare. Did you get the Party Pass?" When I acquired the golden ticket from my pocket, he breathed in relief with his shoulders heaving. "Ken, that Party Pass is very special. It will let you into Fazer Blast or Monty Golf. However, it can only be used once."

"Great - how do I use it?"

"Just give it to a Party Bot," He told me. "They usually hang out in front of the attractions, collecting Party Passes. If you have one, it will let you in. I have marked both locations on your map."

I thought long and hard, looking down at the floor and holding the ticket under my chin. So I could go to either Monty Golf or Fazer Blast, but not both. Monty Golf had Faz Cams while Fazer Blast had FazerBlasters.

Both could probably work with Project Reboot.

Both were essential to my survival.

Yet I could only get one.

It was a tough decision, but I finally came to a conclusion. "A FazerBlaster sounds like a gun of some sorts while a Faz Cam sounds like... well, just a camera," I explained to Freddy. "A camera eventually needs to be charged. Since I have a feeling we still got a long night of running ahead of us, I'd say we go with the FazerBlaster first."

Freddy nodded in agreement. "A logical decision," He noted. "Well then - shall we be on our way, Superstar?"

I moved aside so I was not blocking the doorway to the back room and jerked my thumb over my shoulder to the shadows inside. "I think you should charge, first," I told him. "I don't want to risk you unexpectedly powering down in the middle of the Pizzaplex."

I waited in the main room as he went into the back to charge; when he was finished, I slipped into his stomach hatch and we headed back into the hallway. I let Freddy take the lead and he took us to the roll-up door from before, when I'd gotten the Party Pass to let him out of his room. This time when he sent the signal to open it, it went all the way up and we passed under with ease. We went down the neon-lined corridor until we reached a massive space. To my surprise, we had ended up back in the Main Atrium - Rockstar Row had an entrance right on the main floor.

Freddy took a right from the hallway we'd come from and a large bulky sign with jagged letters came into view: FAZER BLAST. Behind the sign was another roll-up door that looked like it belonged on a spaceship of sorts. Through there was an astro-themed waiting room with star speckled carpets and ceilings; rocket-type beams stretched overhead and marked every corner. It may have just been shock from the events of the night, but I felt myself getting excited about the game ahead.

There was an elevator in the waiting room, that of which presumably led to the main area. There was a robot in front of this entrance - same model as the Cleaner, Security and Map Bots, though it had indigo accents and was carrying what looked like a large scanner. "Is that the Party Bot?" I asked Freddy.

"Yes," He told me. "Exit my stomach hatch and hand it the Party Pass."

I did as he said and walked over to the Party Bot. When it noticed me, it waved its free hand excitedly at me and did a little dance with its arms. It even lifted its free hand and fired a beam of star-shaped light into the air.

"You are definitely a Party Bot," I chuckled as I watched its merry dance. I held out my Party Pass to it and its blocky hand reached out to take it. The golden ticket went into a port in the scanner and was gobbled into the device. A pleased ding reached my ears and the Party Bot wheeled aside to cheerfully wave me to the elevator, then wheeled away entirely to stand in a corner of the room.

The elevator opened as we approached, revealing a space similar to the size of the elevator that leads to everywhere else in the Pizzaplex. Both me and Freddy stepped into the futuristic elevator. A few seconds later, we were stepping onto another level of the game area. This room looked like a gift shop, complete with colorful counters that guarded even more colorful plushies of the Pizzaplex mascots - a place to get souvenirs before the actual game started.

At the other end of the room was another space age roll-up door. As we walked over, Freddy decided to tell me one important detail, "Ken... I am afraid I cannot join you when you enter the main arena."

I stopped dead in my tracks and whipped my gaze up to meet his. "Wait, WHAT?" I exclaimed, my eyes wide. "What do you mean you can't join me?"

"Well..." Freddy started to explain. "Fazer Blast is my game. I know all of the rules, I know all of the ins-and-outs - intentionally helping a player would be cheating, and my programming simply forbids me from doing so."

"B-but," I stammered. "Isn't that what you've been doing all night? 'Intentionally helping me'?"

"This is different," Freddy said simply, refusing to meet my eyes; he then added with an ashamed tone, "I am sorry, Ken."

I stared at him in shock for a few seconds, wordlessly working my jaw. On the one hand, I couldn't believe he would just abandon me because it was technically against the rules to help me, even though we'd been going against the rules the entire night. On the other hand, the one that also held my fair blader instincts, going against the rules was a BIG moral no-no. It would be unfair of me to ask Freddy to do something he was literally wired not to do. In the end, I went with my instincts and sighed. "Fine, I'll do this part by myself," I whined.

Freddy visibly perked up. "That's the spirit, superstar!" He said cheerfully.

"Yeah yeah," I grouched, still a little peeved at the situation he put me in. "But before I go..." I reached into my pocket and took out the metal box with Project Reboot inside. "There's no telling how rough it might get in there - we can't risk letting this get damaged." I held it out for him to take. "Keep an eye on it for me, will ya?"

"Of course," Freddy said firmly. His stomach hatch opened partially and he slipped the box inside before closing it again. Once that was done, he turned around and headed back to one of the gift shop kiosks to lean against the counter. "I will wait for you here," He announced. "Good luck! And remember - have fun!"

I rolled my eyes slightly and turned around to head to the roll-up door. Unlike the others I'd encountered throughout the night, this one didn't need a Security Badge to open - it slid up as soon as it sensed I was near. I was about to enter, but something drove me to glance over my shoulder at Freddy. With his arm propped against the kiosk counter and the futuristic scenery around him, he certainly looked the part of a parent waiting for their child to finish their game of laser tag. When he noticed me looking at him, he waved his other arm to wave ecstatically, further completing his picture of a proud father.

I managed a weak grin, but on the inside, I was crying. I wish my dad was here.

I was somehow able to make it through the doorway without letting my tears spill. I found myself in a star-spangled room with a small stage that had another Party Bot stationed in the center, though this one was wearing a helmet that closely resembled Freddy's ears and was wearing a protective vest with a toy gun - presumably a FazerBlaster - clenched in one hand. When it saw me, it launched into a prerecorded monotone speech:

"You must be the new Fazer Blast recruit. From the looks of you, the orange-slash-blue team hasn't got a chance. Soon you will be fighting for your lives on a hostile alien planet. But first, I am here to tell you how to play Fazer Blast. There are two rules you must follow at all times. Number one: No running; no climbing; no jumping; no hitting, kicking, shoving; no shooting your FazerBlasters near or close to other player's eyes - being flashed in the eyes can induce seizures, blindness, and semi-permanent paralysis. If you are flashed in the eyes, immediately flush your eyes with soap and water and blink rapidly until vision is restored. Rule number two: Have fun. Do you want to hear the rules again?"

My head was spinning from the many don'ts and the one do. "Uhhh... I think I'm good."

The Party Bot continued (or was it programmed to refrain from repeating the rules?), "Warning: Fazer Blast is a high energy space combat simulation. People with medical problems are allowed to participate. My medical software makes me a qualified doctor, and I approve of this message."

"I-I don't think it really works that way..." I tried to explain to it - how many kids have fallen for this bit of false information?

"By listening to these instructions, you have waived all rights and ability to make any claims against Fazbear Entertainment. Any accidents or injuries are your sole responsibility, or shared responsibility between you and any other party involved in said incident. Now get in there and fight, fight, fight."

I let out an exasperated sigh as I turned towards the opposite door. "This place... always with the waivers," I muttered.

The new door led to a hallway lined with multicolored neon lights that burned my eyes. It brought me to what seemed to be a gear room - one side had helmets, FazerBlasters, and vests that resembled Freddy's design; the other side had gear in darker shades and the helmets all had alien-type antenna poking off of the tops. I immediately chose to be on Freddy's team and suited up with his gear. When I picked up the FazerBlaster, I briefly debated taking the moment to wire it with Project Reboot before remembering that I had left it with Freddy.

I was a little irritated at the missed opportunity, but I stood by what I'd said before: No idea how bad it might get in the arena.

And Project Reboot was too valuable to risk breaking.

"You are on the Orange Team," Said a voice over the intercom. "Soldier, report to the Orange Hallway."

Clutching the FazerBlaster in my slightly sweaty hands, I went down an adjoining hallway similarly lined with neon before it divided into a T, with different colors in each corridor. I went down the one lined with orange until I reached a slightly larger room. There were three doors - one had ENTRANCE spelled in lights above it while the door next to it and the one opposite from that door both had EXIT above them. I wondered if I could leave right then and there and not do the game at all, but figured that it probably wasn't that simple. I was here and I had to play the game.

So I walked up to the one with ENTRANCE above it; it opened to reveal a spacious elevator that could easily fit at most ten teammates. As I entered, I turned around to face the elevator doors as they closed. The action seemed almost final, though I knew what I was about to do was anything but.

Let the game begin.

—————

6104 words.

To be clear, I'm cutting out unnecessary details, like exploring the gift shop area - Ken knows what to do.