Chapter Text
They lunged.
Before the syllable had even stopped vibrating the air the pair-in-one murderer was moving.
Moon’s eyes widened as he registered what was said.
As he tried to raise a hand in defense.
As red claws reached forward aiming for where his neck met his body-
Before the navy animatronic was suddenly thrown to the side in an almost ragdoll-like fashion. The twins' claws missed and they stumbled into the couch. Red overtook the edges of the body's vision as Hazard took over the pilot seat, with Harvest slipping into the background with practiced ease. For a moment the body was uncoordinated as it registered which mind was in control, as the blinding haze turned the world into nonsensical shapes and colors, but just as quickly as they’d hit the furniture the more animalistic of the pair twisted, contorting the body back into a crouching position. Hazard blindly leapt toward Moon with no care whatsoever as to how the darker twin had dodged in the first place.
Moon, seeming just as surprised to have avoided that blow, didn’t take the time to think about it and ran. One hand swept down to the floor and picked something up and before red could get their bearings the ragged navy was already careening past Lunar and into the hallway to the theater.
They gave chase.
Claws dug into familiar carpet, microscopic machines catching on fibers too small to see as the body dropped to all fours and dug every limb into the ground for more purchase. The walls turned from red and white with the Fazbear logo to the bright, blinding orange of the hidden hall leading to the theater. The red haze did little to help the stark contrast of colors, but Hazard couldn’t muster up the wherewithal to care.
Again with this damn hall.
Again with this damn chase.
Again with this damn feeling.
Blue and black was the only thing, blurred or otherwise, moving in such a small space and it wasn’t hard for the maniac in the pilot seat to lunge, throwing the body’s entire weight into the thin and already off balance former attendant. The second red touched blue Hazard was tearing. Red claws catching on little nicks and scratches in navy casing and pulling until it gave up and chipped away. There was no real method or thought behind it, just violence and anger desperately escaping through whatever damage could be inflicted.
Took him from Lunar
Took him from me
Took him from us
Make him pay
Avenge our day
He made the sun go away
Hazard snarled as Moon twisted and red vision shattered into fractals as the older animatronic hit hard with the thing he’d picked up earlier.
A wrench.
Blacked with oil that could only belong to their star.
Hazard growled, blindly swiping in front of the body in an effort to keep the night from escaping even a little bit. Already blurred vision was warped. Colors bleeding into one another, up and down and left and right scrambling to return to their proper orientation and all the while sharpened claws couldn’t tell if that trickling feeling was free falling nanites or the oil of their target.
Take a moment.
Harvest. Though the kaleidoscope of red and orange and whatever other color existed in this damn hallway only one thing remained clear, just as it always did when they were together.
Their target.
Wrapped in a white aura that came not from the animalistic side, but the intelligent one. Where Hazard’s vision blurred and strained to pick out anything through the fire and the euphoria that plagued their minds during a hunt, Harvest’s remained clear as crystal. Every step, every gasp, every spark of electricity in Moon’s body was watched as they ran clutching the wrench, down the hall and through the hidden door. Every shiver and shake catalogued even as he ran further and further away from them.
He won’t get far.
And he wouldn’t.
Not so long as they were together.
The body slowed to a stop and through Hazards growling and snarling raised its hands to where the face should be in this form. The nanites were askew, the ones that normally constituted the eyes running down the fake faceplate as though they’d been splashed with water rather than hit with a tool. Red tipped claws did their best to mash the parts back into place while the more intelligent half calmly watched ahead.
Took him from us other
I know, brother.
He cannot escape his due
Not while he’s a danger to Little Lu.
Oh, Little Lu, what was going to happen to him? Sun wasn’t just the light in their lives, he was the guardian, the older brother that Hazard and Harvest couldn’t truly be for anyone outside of themselves. Guardians, friends, family they could be, but there would forever be a strange sort of divide between them and anyone attempting to call themselves siblings. “Family guard dog” was a considerably more appropriate title and even then Sun would have turned down the very notion that they were anything less than fully intelligent individuals.
Such a kind fool.
What would become of any of them without him?
Once hazy red vision was back to some semblance of repair the body moved once again, claws and false shoes digging into too bright carpet to send it careening forward, the only direction the more blind of the two could understand at the moment. The theater was much darker than the hall, even with their night vision active, and thankfully it was not as overstimulating as the hall or Sun and Moon’s common area. In this frenzied state being forced to only see colors and vague blobs was annoying for the more insane of the pair and the dark made it only a little more manageable.
Had they been able to think about it for a second they would have thought about how much different this chase was from the last. Tiny Eclipse had stumbled through here at top speed but they’d been purposefully lagging behind because they wanted the case to last. To just catch such a small creature was no challenge and the joy of seeing him scramble, of hearing those fans whirr faster and feeling the fabric of his old clothes slip through their fingers not because they couldn’t catch him, but because they wouldn’t was addicting. Was fun.
There was no fun in this chase.
There was no relishing in the frantic pace or the whirr of agonized fans or the fear in red eyes somehow so different from their own.
Just Moon and his intact casing that wouldn’t be intact for long.
Just a blazing red haze surrounding a body wreathed in white.
Just a hunter and their prey.
It was time to remind the night exactly what they were built to be.
Moon was ahead. Even in the dark, through shapes and colors that made no sense, the smell of oil freshly spilled clung to the night like the ghost of the dead as though the daylight attendant himself was still standing close, ready to stop this fight. Ready to plead for his brother's life even as that same brother burned down any sense of safety and peace they’d managed to build.
As though Sun was trying to protect his other half even while in pieces.
Red claws touched blue again and this time sunk in as far as possible, hoping the other wouldn’t have the opportunity to raise their weapon and distract the body again.
“Get off of me!” Moon yelled. It was so much quieter than it should have been, strangled with fear and something that almost sounded like he was being choked, like the words were catching but being forced out regardless. Hazard didn’t take the time to think much of it, especially when one of the smaller blue blurs that made Moon up raised, sparkling silver in whatever light it could catch this close to the theaters concession exit, and brought it down again.
CRACK!
The room went black, the vague colors and shapes completely lost to the kaleidoscope again, but this time Hazard grit teeth made to tear through bone and metal alike and dug deeper into plastic and wire. Moon cried out but it was quickly cut short when red lifted him over their head and threw the former nighttime attendant at the stage below.
This time there was no need for their other half to halt them.
The wrench had been driven deep into their eye, something that should have been horrifically damaging or deadly. Instead, red claws reached up, wrapped tightly around the silver that smelled just like the light of their lives, and yanked.
Nanites burst everywhere but more quickly rushed into the void left behind. Soon enough they were whole again and Moon was left groaning quietly down below, defenseless.
Blurred vision looked down at the tool - no the weapon that had taken their light. That had shattered their bright exterior and broke through white eyes that never filled with hate despite everything that has ever happened to them. The weapon that flooded light, cheerful blues with heavy black until no trace of the love and creativity remained.
The weapon that stained their hand with his blood as they stared.
Manic and with thoughts so far away, there was only one thing the more animalistic of them could think to do. Bringing the stained metal to their mouth, sharp teeth bit down and felt the hard, unyielding surface give immediately like a hot knife through butter.
One bite.
Two.
And the weapon that stole their stars' shine was gone, now a part of the ones who gave up everything they’d ever known for that shine.
Now to deal with the wielder.
Pink shoes fashioned after the lights slowly made their way from the concession exit and down the aisle toward the stage. It was still rather hard to see, even with night vision, but the sounds of groaning coming from below was like a bell to the blind. The sound of prey that could not flee or fight or at least would not be able to for long. Hazard was giggling now, manic but so very quiet for what was normal.
Here.
Harvest’s voice, calm as ever, rang out in the echo chamber of the manic murderer’s mind and Hazard stopped. Multicolored pentagrams looked down at the blue and black blur the dim stage lights didn’t catch. They stood over it for a moment before one swift, sharp kick flipped the blur onto what could only be presumed to be its back. Huffing with exertion and uncontained insanity the pilot straddled the night who immediately began to flail again.
Red claws dug in again and began pulling chunk after chunk off of the whole and throwing them into the darkness. Garbled words Hazard was too far gone to make any sense of were thrown out, though they sounded wrong. Not quite Moon’s normal angry, sarcastic pitch and somewhere the more insane half knew that wasn’t because they were scared or in pain.
It was because someone else was pleading for their life as well.
Newfound anger roared to life in the blood colored body and the pilot's efforts doubled as the screams drowned out any nonsense pleas for mercy or forgiveness.
How dare that faulty father figure try to speak now? When most of this was his fault? This voice that sounded so close to their own whispered into Moon’s very consciousness that he was right to be paranoid about the red pair. That Sun’s kindness was a weakness, that weakness was meant to undermine the celestial body's intelligence with flowers and rainbows and friendship while Moon struggled to keep his mind intact.
Killcode had fed into every insecurity, every ounce of paranoia, every lost nanite or dented yellow frame or tear shed by young eyes. They were the reason it took redeeming an entirely different foe for Sun to even begin to smile with even a little light behind his eyes again.
It was Killcode’s fault Moon was crazy enough to escalate this far.
The darker twin may have done this on their own accord, lost to their own anger and wielding a tool in a conversation that never should have been wielded, and so Moon would be dismantled wire by wire.
But Killcode was not exempt from this death just because they hadn’t raised the wrench.
Moon was still screaming, fists balled up and hitting anything and everything they could and that would have been painful had every single machine in their body not already been alive with pleasure and anger and hunger. Hazard let his tongue loll out of the body's mouth and in his frenzy was unable to feel the pang of guilt that arose at the memory of Eclipse’s terrified face in this very theater. It was missed entirely because the prey was squirming and screaming and Hazard in the pilot seat did not want it slipping away so leaning forward teeth sharp enough to cut cleanly through metal and bone alike crunched down onto the first thing that was even vaguely close enough to be gotten.
Another scream, oddly muffled, attempted to ring out across the silent theater and that only drove the frenzy further.
You took him from me.
Teeth clamped down further and claws dug in harder and a no-longer shattered head jerked back and forth until something came loose and was swallowed without thought.
From us.
Red tips lost their shape but not their sharpness as nanites dug individually into plastic and metal and wire and began tearing whatever could be torn from the inside out.
You made him bleed.
The broken material was brought back to the body like ants bringing crumbs back to the colony. The blur of blue and black screamed and fought as thousands of machines tore chunks from the whole.
And I have no idea what to do.
Screams that should have echoed through the empty space died almost as soon as they left the mass writhing in the dark. Voices pitched deep and deeper cried out in words that could not and would not be understood through the haze of anger and insanity and grief that threatened to pull apart every single machine that made both of them up. Blue legs stained black with animatronic blood kicked as the mass tried to buck them off to no avail.
So I’ll do the only thing I know how to.
Plastic and metal and wire were torn apart bit by bit as Hazard tried, even in this state, not to think about how they should be out in the woods right now heading for Killcode’s old bunker. How somewhere out there an animatronic the size of a doll and angier than both halves combined believed that they were not wanted because of their past. How it should have been all of them out there, or here in the ‘Plex, searching for a soul that had long ago decided it was lost. How the last thing Sun ever said to them was a plea to show them they were wrong…
They paused when a voice cut through the frenzy.
Hey.
Hazard stopped, the hoarse screams gradually dying, to listen. The body heaved with breath they did not need, with laughter he couldn’t contain if he’d tried, with tremors that had never once plagued him during any other hunt. Hazard stopped and tried to pull himself up from the flood of instinct and anger and mourning to listen to his other half.
Switch with me.
There was a pause as the words settled in, almost like there was a lag in their connection.
It’s alright other. We’re in this together.
Slowly, the body nodded.
Hazard released their hold on the bodies arms and fell back, now able to see much more clearly with Harvest in the pilot seat. A tiny specter only one could see if they looked. The world cleared up as the body registered Harvest’s much clearer vision over the frenzied fervor of the animalistic side and they took a moment to look around.
Wow, even blind and graceless Hazard had absolutely mangled Moon. Most of the casing on his arms was stripped away to reveal colorful wires and grey endoskeleton beneath. The dimmer half of the celestial pair was also “breathing” hard and shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Pain knotted up his expression with eyes that had gone two different shades of red as both codes fought desperately in a body that could not fight as well as it had believed. Blackened legs still kicked weakly, the most intact thing about the twin at the moment, and blackened navy hands barely able to be seen in the dark were it not for their stellar night vision clawed desperately at the bodies shoulders as he writhed.
The only other clear thing was the Bloodmoon body, at least at the moment. Everything else was shadows and light and oddly colorful shapes jutting out from the dark nearby. Until this frenzy died down Hazard would remain this blind to the world.
That’s alright, there was no danger here for the other to keep watch for.
Afterall, the most dangerous thing in the Pizzaplex wouldn’t be alive much longer.