"Can we please just kill him!?" Jeff cried out.

Obviously, Jeff hadn't taken the news that one of the people who had disfigured him was now a prisoner of the Alliance very lightly. Just like the year before when he had seen the security tape with his brother in it, he had had a panic attack, but it wasn't out of anger this time. Rather, it was out of fear. After all, one does not simply forget the trauma of being set on fire, especially at the tender age of thirteen.

Tim sighed.

"Woods, we can't kill him," he said. "From the information Brian gathered from him, Keith probably didn't come here alone. We need to keep him alive at least for now."

Jeff let out a loud groan of frustration, throwing his hands in the air for emphasis. He stomped out of Tim's office and slammed the door behind him. He wasn't focusing on his surroundings as he left the main cabin, and this resulted in receiving a sharp jolt of pain in the side of his head.

"Sorry, Jeff!"

Jeff groaned again, this time in pain, and looked up, realizing that he had been hit with a piece of foam shot from a nerf gun. Clockwork and Zero's now seven-year-old daughter, Eris, was standing not too far away, accompanied by a proxy who went by Rapid Fire. It was clear that both of them were struggling to stifle their giggles.

"Not funny," Jeff grumbled through gritted teeth. His mind was still swirling.

"You're lucky you didn't get hit with an actual bullet." Rapid teased. "I wanted to teach Eris to shoot, but her moms wouldn't let me."

"She's too young, anyway, douche nozzel!" Jeff shot back at them.

Eris walked up to Jeff, her gray eyes wide with curiosity.

"Something wrong?" she asked innocently. "You look grumpier than usual: your forehead's all scrunchy."

Jeff heaved a sigh.

"Tim and Brian are keeping a prisoner," he explained, "and he happens to be a guy I have history with. If you tell Clockwork, she'll probably know who I'm talking about."

With that, Jeff sauntered away. Eris tilted her head to the side with confusion. When she returned back to her home cabin, she toddled up to her mother and tapped her shoulder.

"Oh, hey, what's up, princess?" Clockwork asked, looking up from her cell phone.

"Jeff said Tim and Brian are keeping a prisoner," Eris explained. "He also said you might know who he is."

Clockwork raised an eyebrow at her child, and she put down her phone and stood up. Her interest was piqued.

"Wanna go find out together?" she suggested.

Eris smiled and nodded, and Clockwork hoisted her up. Carrying Eris on her back, Clockwork headed towards the main cabin and knocked on the door to Tim's office.

"Who is it?" Tim called.

Clockwork nudged the door open, letting herself into the office. Eris scrambled off of her back. Tim was bent over his desk, scanning a few papers.

"Hey, Tim," Clockwork greeted him.

"Hi, Clockwork." Tim responded. "Whaddya need?"

"Jeff told me you have a prisoner." Eris answered, getting right to the point. "And we wanna know who he is."

Tim's brow furrowed.

"Go figure it out for yourself." he told Clockwork. There was an air of snarkiness to his voice. "You were a bit of a Jeff fanboy before you joined us, so you should be able to recognize him. He's in the interrogation room."

"Some help you are," Clockwork scoffed in return. "C'mon, Eris."

Eris obediently followed her mother out of the office and down the hall - past the conference room, past the infirmary, all the way to the interrogation room. Eris was familiar with the interrogation room: sometimes, she would play hide-and-seek with the other children in the Alliance, and as most of the other kids got bad vibes from this room, she would hide here from time to time. But she had never actually seen a prisoner here before.

Without knocking, Clockwork opened the door and peeked her head into the dark room. When Keith spotted her from the corner, he gasped at the sight of the clock in her eye socket. As Clockwork looked him up and down, a wide smile spread across her face: she knew exactly who he was.

"No fuckin' way."

"Who is he, Mom?" Eris asked.

Keith's eyes widened when he caught sight of the small girl, and Clockwork closed the door before turning to her daughter. She led her away so Keith wouldn't hear what she told her.

"Remember how Jeff became who he is today?" Clockwork asked Eris as she squatted down so they were on eye level.

"Yeah, he killed his parents 'cause Slendy told him to." Eris answered.

Clockwork's face fell slightly at the way Eris had said it so casually. She hated the reality of the situation, that Eris was destined to grow up to become a proxy, which there was no way out of.

"Well, yeah," Clockwork replied, "but before that, he was set on fire. That's why he looks like the Joker, remember?"

Upon processing what she had been told, Eris's eyes expanded in awe. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"Is that one of the guys who set him on fire?" she asked.

Clockwork nodded in response. In the back of her head, she was excited: at the end of the day, keeping a prisoner among the Alliance was just an excuse to torture someone.