Chapter Text
Eclipse was gazing out at a gap in the ceiling of the Pizzaplex’s lobby, his heterochromatic eyes fixed on the stars above. He had lost count of just how long he’d been left to rot in the Pizzaplex for. It had to have been more than a year now, he was certain of that, but he had no clue exactly how much time had passed since the place had been abandoned. He still didn’t understand why it had been left like this either. Yes, an earthquake had rattled the building’s walls and had caused extensive damage, but that didn’t explain why nobody had come to fix the place. From what he remembered, nobody had even come to the building to survey the aftermath and see what could be salvaged.
Regardless of why the place was abandoned, it didn’t matter to the poor animatronic anymore. What mattered was that he was left to rot alongside decaying technology and much more feral animatronics. There was nobody to keep him company, not really. There was no reasoning or trying to make contact with the feral animatronics and mindless staff bots. He had tried. It hadn’t ended well, and he’d spent hours coming to terms with the fact that he was on his own. No more children would visit the daycare. Not ever. Even before the earthquake, he’d felt lonely whenever the place would close for the night, as he hadn’t exactly gotten to know the Glamrock animatronics. There had been no human employees anymore at the time. The children under his care had been his saving grace, the only thing keeping him sane. Now they were gone. Now he had nothing and nobody.
He was certain he had been left alone for good now. He had lost hope that anyone would come to retrieve him and the animatronics who’d been left to decay among the ruins of the building. He was truly alone.
He turned and started to walk away, too sad to continue gazing up at the stars. His body ached with longing. He had nothing anymore. He was barely a shell of his former self. Was he even Eclipse anymore? He didn’t feel like he was the same animatronic he’d been before the place had fallen to ruin. It was like he was living an entirely different life now, one that had changed who he was on the inside.
He went over to the daycare, leaving the lobby behind. Although he made a habit of leaving the daycare frequently to look around to see if anything in the Pizzaplex had changed, he still spent most of his time there. After all, the daycare was his turf. He had been programmed to care for the kids there, as well as maintain the area itself after hours. Of course, there was a time when his body had been a vessel for two individuals, Sun and Moon, who had unwillingly shared the body for some time. Moon had been sent out every hour each night to patrol the Pizzaplex to make sure all the other animatronics were in their charging stations, whereas Sun would spend his time cleaning the daycare and hanging out in the room that overlooked it. They had merged to create Eclipse, an entirely new animatronic, and he had retained aspects of both their personalities, which had once made him a magnificent caregiver for the children who were sent to the daycare. He had Moon’s desire to patrol the Pizzaplex while also having Sun’s desire to tend to the daycare.
However, some things had changed over time. He had grown more possessive of the daycare. The feral Glamrock animatronics stayed away from it for the most part. The many Glamrock endoskeletons that had once resided in the daycare’s basement, however, were another story entirely. For whatever reason, they tried to push their way into the daycare…into his home, the only thing he had left to call his own. They weren’t creatures he could befriend or keep for company either…no, they were metal beasts that were feral in their own way. They couldn’t talk, nor did they seem to want to communicate. Instead, they silently prowled around, not even interacting with each other in any meaningful way. What made it worse was that Eclipse’s programming had alerts that warned him to be wary of the endoskeletons, as they seemingly had unstable programming and the ability to cause harm to anyone who got near them. He did not like them. He never had. As a daycare attendant, he had despised the fact that they were anywhere near the main area of the daycare and thought the basement was far too close for comfort. That disdain for them was still prevalent, and it had only grown stronger with time.
When he reached the daycare, he was startled to see that there were a bunch of endoskeletons trying to push their way inside. He’d locked the large wooden door to the main area and stuffed all sorts of stuff in front of it in order to keep them from getting inside, yet they were already managing to push the doors open. Although they all seemed to be working toward the same goal of forcing their way into the daycare, they walked into one another and treaded all over each other, seemingly not caring about anything other than infiltrating the area.
Eclipse felt a rush of fury flow through his circuits. How dare they force their way into the only area they were not allowed to be in? He had allowed them to prowl in the lobby, which was still too close for his comfort. Yet they insisted on trying to barge into his own home, the only thing he had left in the wretched world he’d been left to rot in.
His hands clenched into fists. Normally, he’d skirt around the endoskeletons and simply climb the net and drop into the daycare. But now that they were nearly finished forcing the door open, he refused to leave them alone.
“What do you beasts think you’re doing?” He snarled as he made his way over to them in one swift leap. They ignored him and continued to try and claw and push their way through the blocked doors. There were seven of them.
Seething with fury, Eclipse grabbed one of them and threw it to the side. It stumbled and fell onto its metal rear with a loud clang. One of the other endoskeletons lumbered away, presumably afraid of the former daycare attendant…which was a surprising amount of awareness. Still, five of them were ignoring him entirely and continuing their invasion into the main area of the daycare. The only place they had no right to be in.
“Get out of here, you lot!” Eclipse snarled as he lunged at one of them and grabbed its head. He twisted its neck back, causing its wires to spark before it stumbled away from him. It glitched out, its body twitching and sparking, then it fell and didn’t get back up again. The first daycare attendant who had been shoved had scrambled to its feet and was prowling away from the scene.
One of the five remaining endoskeletons suddenly grabbed Eclipse’s wrist with one of its clawed metal hands. It let out a screech and tried to pull him closer to it. This surprised him, as he hadn’t been expecting any of them to fight back against him. It also, however, made his rage spike even further. How dare they fight back against him when he was trying to defend what belonged to him!
Snarling, he tore his hand free from the endoskeleton’s grasp. He then grabbed its head and tore it off in one swift movement, causing it to spark and collapse to the ground immediately. One of the other ones immediately moved to take its place, slashing one of Eclipse’s rays with one of its clawed hands. The piercing sound of metal against metal filled the air as a piece of metal broke off from his ray and went flying.
Shocked, the former daycare attendant stumbled back a few steps. He was surprised by the ferocity of the attack. He hadn’t expected that. But he wasn’t scared. He was enraged. He’d always known that he was right about them being a threat to anyone around them. There had always been something off about them…and now his fears had been fully confirmed.
Bellowing in rage, he hurled himself at the endoskeleton that had dared to attack him. He twisted its arm out of its socket and threw it to the side, following that up with a powerful blow to its jaw hinge, causing it to go flying from its head. It tried to grab him but he leaped to the side, dodging the blow. He used its own arm to attack it, beating it with it. He watched as its body grew deformed, denting with each strike, and kept it up until it finally stopped moving.
Immediately, Eclipse snapped his head up and looked at the remaining endoskeletons. To his delight, they were retreating from the door and were heading to the darkest corners of the daycare’s lobby once more.
“That’s right!” He shouted after them. “Stay away from here!”
After they were out of sight, he looked at the endoskeletons he had decommissioned. For a second, he wasn’t sure how he felt. When he had still been Sun and Moon, the Moon side of him had attacked a few people while briefly being under the influence of a virus. Since then, however, he hadn’t attacked anyone—or anything—that fiercely. He had vowed never to do so unless he had to in order to defend the vulnerable children under his care. But now things were different. Now, he had decommissioned endoskeletons in a fit of rage.
“Am I still…me?” He asked himself out loud, his voice cracking as he looked at the damage he’d done. Realizing he was still holding the endoskeleton arm in his hand, he let it drop to the floor. His old self would have never done something like that, yet he found himself not regretting his actions. Now he knew for certain that they had always been a threat, just as he had been warned. Just as he had suspected. They weren’t beings on the same scale of awareness as him. No, they were evil, wicked creatures that didn’t deserve to set foot in his precious daycare.
He gave his head a shake and scoffed. “Of course I’m still me! I’ve just…fallen on hard times. Those endoskeletons are horrendous creatures. They deserve to be decommissioned.”
Giving his head a shake, he shoved their remains out of his way and forced the door open, which was easy given the fact that they had nearly already gotten it open. He was much thinner than they were and squeezed through the gap that they’d opened without incident. He was going to do some puzzling in his room above the daycare to ease his nerves.
I’ll have to be more vigilant now. Those creatures are relentless. It’s clear that I’ve made a mistake in ignoring them for so long…
***
Five months had passed since Eclipse had first attacked the endoskeletons. Since then, more had attempted to breach the daycare. He’d fought them off, decommissioning as many of them as he possibly could. He didn’t understand why they wanted to come into the daycare so badly but he didn’t care. There were several times where he’d find some in the daycare after returning from patrolling the rest of the building or charging himself. He took care of them the moment he saw them.
Although some of the endoskeletons would try to flee the moment they realized they were caught, others would fight back. This had caused Eclipse to earn many scars on his casing from his battles against them. His casing was already worn and damaged, and their attacks only caused more damage. Yet he didn’t mind. In fact, he was starting to enjoy the skirmishes.
Fighting made him feel alive. It was one of the only things that gave him a spark of emotion or energy, giving him a break from the monotonous lifestyle that he’d acquired after being abandoned. It was the only thing he did aside from putting puzzles together.
Now, he was in his room above the daycare putting together a puzzle of Roxanne Wolf. He was sure he had done that one, as well as all the others in the daycare, many, many times. Still, it was one of the few things he could do to keep himself sane in that lonely hellhole. He repetitively, almost desperately, put together puzzles over and over again. It kept his attention away from how lonely he was and kept his mind from wandering too much.
After he finished the puzzle, he left his room and went to patrol the Pizzaplex. This was something he had started to do compulsively. He was spending less and less time in the daycare, only ever staying there to do puzzles or fight endoskeletons. He didn’t even always charge there, and now used other charging stations across the Pizzaplex instead. He was even considering moving to live in another room just for a change of pace. He was growing desperate for anything new.
As he walked into one of the bathrooms, he took a look around. As expected, nothing new was to be found there. Before he left the bathroom, he couldn’t help but glance at himself in the mirror as his own movement caught his eye. When he faced it, he was almost surprised by his appearance. Looking at himself in the mirror was not something he’d ever had a habit of doing, so he hadn’t really noticed the drastic change in appearance over the course of his abandonment. All of his rays were cracked and damaged, as were several parts of his chassis. His yellow-and-blue striped pants were torn and tattered, as were the ruffles around his neck and waist. He had claw marks over one eye and on the right side of his body, which had been received during his many battles with endoskeletons, though he had known about those scars.
Of course, he was also aware that he was missing the coverings of his entire right leg. His endoskeleton was fully exposed there, and his pant leg was torn above his knee joint. He was also more than aware of the fact that he was missing the casing on his lower forearms and hands, as he had removed most of that himself. He’d painfully torn off the casing there to reveal the endoskeleton hands beneath, as they ended in sharp claw-like points that he was certain would be useful when fighting. He had even carved his teeth in order to look more intimidating and fierce.
Still…seeing his reflection made him admit to himself once and for all that he was an entirely new animatronic. He was no longer the calm, quiet, and level-headed daycare attendant that he had been before. He had become more violent, vicious, and possessive of what was his. Endoskeletons were not his only victims, as he had even slaughtered staff bots simply for not being sentient and for not being able to keep him sane with their company. He was an entirely different person.
The reflection he saw was not of his put-together pale beige-and-iridescent-blueish-green form that had always been prim and proper. It was one of a shattered individual, both physically and emotionally. To him, it looked more like the jigsaw puzzles he spent his time putting together.
“Jigsaw…” The thought suddenly struck him. He was no longer Eclipse. No…he was a shell of what he’d once been, not comparable to the gentle daycare attendant. He had nobody to care for and nothing to protect or tend to aside from his territory. He was like a puzzle, confused and missing parts of himself in both the physical and emotional sense.
For a moment, he thought about his past, recalling the day he became Eclipse. He then thought about the time he’d been given upgrades, changing his colour scheme and theme to what it was now, along with giving him a more functional faceplate that could express emotions. Then he thought about his current life, where his time was now spent prowling the dark, abandoned halls of the Pizzaplex or putting together jigsaw puzzles.
He no longer resembled that caring daycare attendant who was always so gentle and would never intentionally hurt anyone or anything…even those damn endoskeletons. He was like the puzzles he spent his time working on, something that needed to be put back together again.
“That shall be my name now. From now on, I will no longer be referring to myself as Eclipse. My new title shall be Jigsaw.”