Chapter Text
Ranboo was the first to wake up.
They were disappointed to find they were still in the mall. Well, not the mall, but...a mall. It seemed more colourful than the one Showfall had taken over, but maybe they'd just had a remodel after crushing his skull.
Oh yeah. He'd just died. Why was he here, then?
They didn't expect to find answers. He hadn't gotten any so far, so why start now? They decided to at least take a look around, though. Maybe there would be something here that could help them out.
The room he found himself in seemed to be some kind of fast food area, with a counter behind them and a few tables in front. It lead out to an open walkway looking over a much larger area that had a stage at one end, and all around the edge of this upper balcony were more shops and outlets like the one Ranboo had awoken in.
The lights were dim, but not all off, leaving quite a few neon signs giving the place a vibrant glow. Ranboo instinctively raised a hand to their face- the metal mask was still over their mouth, but no red light reflected onto his palm. That was a relief. He'd just hope now that they didn't turn back on.
"Freddy!"
Ranboo startled and ducked behind a photo booth. It was only a moment later they realised the voice was that of a child. He peeked out, seeing the short figure running up the stationary escalators, looking around and continuing to shout;
"Hey, Freddy? The watch stopped working! You here? Uh...Vanny? Hey, anyone!"
Slowly, cautiously, Ranboo stepped out. He doubted this kid was working under Showfall, and he wouldn't put it past the company to kidnap a child for one of their shows.
The kid stopped as soon as he saw Ranboo and took a moment analysing them, "hey...you a new night guard, or...?"
"No, I...think we're both trapped in here together."
Ranboo waited on the kid's response for a few moments as he continued to look back at them analytically.
"What's with the mask?"
They weren't expecting that, nobody tended to even mention the mask, "oh, it's, uh...something they use to control me. But you can see it's off now, so we're ok. If these red bits on the side light up, you should probably get away from me until they turn off again."
The kid nodded, "alright, that's weird. You an animatronic, then?"
"A- a what?"
"Well, cuz the other animatronics in here are getting controlled by something too so I gotta keep running away from them. Besides Freddy, he's cool."
"Okay, uh, I don't think I'm one of those. How long have you been here?"
The kid sighed, "a while, just gotta make it til 6 A.M. then we can get out. Though I dunno what time it is now, I think I fell asleep and now my Faz-watch won't work."
This kid had a better idea what was going on here than Ranboo. He supposed it was good at least one of them had an idea, but at the same time it made their own lack of knowledge far more noticeable.
Was Ranboo an animatronic..? No, no, definitely not, he'd bled before. They might've had some wires here and there where they shouldn't be, but for the most part he knew he was human. Or it at least made him feel better to say that.
"あああああああああああ！" a high pitched squeal came from elsewhere in the building. Ranboo and the kid looked to where the source was, then back at each other.
"That a friend of yours?" the kid asked.
Ranboo shook his head.
"Uh, sounds like they're in trouble...might as well go check it out," the kid decided. Ranboo just nodded and followed as he started walking in the other direction. Maybe it was an old habit, but it felt easy to just follow someone else's choices.
At least they were choices, and not an order.
They went down a hall lined with posters on each side, showing cartoon animals and some photographs of robot ones.
"Are these the animatronics you mentioned?" Ranboo asked as they both searched their surrounding for the source of that voice.
"Yep. Haven't seen them since I woke up, though. Which is good, you probably wouldn't want to meet them like they are now."
There was silence between them for a few moments, then the kid spoke up again, "was that always there?"
Ranboo assumed he was talking to himself, since they didn't have any clue what this place was supposed to look like. He found that the kid was looking up at some colourful tubes coming out of the walls and into the ceiling. They were like an oversized version of the things you'd see in kids' play zones. Whilst it wasn't totally out of place here, there was something about the way they came through the walls that looked unnatural, almost like they were just clipping through the surface.
"Weird," but the kid just shrugged and moved on, leaving Ranboo staring up at the tubes a bit longer. This wasn't the Showfall mall anymore. Not only was it a completely different size and structure, it had nothing to do with the brand he was acquainted with.
Good. They'd gladly never see that logo again.
Down the hall the kid pulled back a curtain in front of a side room, and from behind that-
"お前はいったい誰だ？！"
"Uh-" the kid's eyes widened. Ranboo quickly ran over in case something was about to happen, but the person on the other side was just standing there, looking equally in shock. Her most striking feature was the two bright blue lengths of hair on either side of her head.
"Oh- eh- sorry, are you also English?" she lowered her hands from in front of her chest. Her voice was strangely robotic, despite her human appearance, and it didn't sound as natural when she switched to English.
Ranboo slowly nodded, still too surprised to talk.
"Oh, okay! Hii ♪" she smiled and greeted them in an awkwardly sing-songy voice, "sorry for my surprise, I'm Hatsune Miku! And you are?"
Ranboo blinked slowly. The kid spoke up first, "uh, I'm Gregory."
"Ranboo," they gave a slight wave. She gave her full name- should he have done that too? Nevermind, he wasn't sure he even had one.
"Nice to meet you! And this here is my friend Pomni!" Miku pointed at a short figure by her side.
"Oh, uh, hey guys-"
Ranboo and Gregory screamed. The small cartoonish jester, Pomni, also screamed. They hadn't even noticed her with how well her red, blue and yellow blended into the bright colours of the dressing room, as well as her short stature.
"What the heck is that?" Gregory howled.
"I dunno- why does everyone keep screaming at me?!" Pomni shouted back.
"I'm sorrryyyy," Miku sounded tearful.
"No, you're fine, Miku-" Pomni shook her head.
"Why do you look like that?!" Gregory kept shouting at her.
"Hey, rude!" Pomni glared at him, "yeah, I'm a cartoon, whatever, I got used to it. At least you're not the ones living in this body!"
Ranboo couldn't even say anything. This was a new level of weird. Pomni was moving and talking like any normal person but her body was completely detached from reality, her eyes were half the size of her head and her limbs were like rubber tubes, it was like CGI but alive in front of their eyes.
"Right...this explains what the scream was earlier, at least," Gregory said.
There were plenty of questions that could be asked right now, but Ranboo decided to start with the most important ones, "how did you two get here?"
Miku blinked, "eh- I just, sort of, woke up here? I don't know."
"Same here," Pomni nodded, "no headset at least. But, uh- you're all human, right? Like, actually humans, not NPCs?"
"Uh, well-" Gregory started.
"I guess, um," Miku bit her cheek, "well, I'm not an NPC, so."
"Yeah. Mhm. Neither," Gregory coughed into his hands.
Ranboo wasn't sure what to make of those responses so he just said, "yeah, I'm human. What do you mean by NPC?"
Pomni looked deep in thought for a few seconds, "it just doesn't make sense...if this is the real world, why do I still look like this? But...you guys really don't seem like any kind of NPCs Caine would make."
"Caine?" Gregory tilted his head.
"Teeth guy. I dunno, whatever, none of this makes sense. Just when I thought I was getting used to the circus, too..."
Pomni tapped her foot on the floor and looked down. Eventually she raised her eyes and stopped, starting at something behind Ranboo and Gregory. Upon seeing her attention was drawn elsewhere, they both turned to look.
Another kid, maybe the same age as Gregory, stood silently in the hall. They had a red cloth around their neck, hair covering most of their blue face, and light armour on the rest of their body.
"Another one? How'd all of you get into the Pizzaplex..?" Gregory asked.
❤️ Hello
"Uh...hi," Ranboo waved again, somehow even more awkward than last time. The kid hardly moved, their voice low yet audible.
"Hello! Who are you?" Miku waved with much more enthusiasm.
❤️ Kris
"Did you hear our names?" Pomni asked hesitantly. Kris nodded.
"Cool, we got a professional stalker," Gregory remarked.
"Hey, being quiet isn't a crime," Pomni chastised him, "we're all in this situation together by the looks of it, so we should try and get along, right? Whatever this situation even is, anyway. At least we're not in imminent danger."
"Please don't jinx it," Ranboo begged.
"I'll-" Pomni cut herself off, seeming to realise something. She squinted at Ranboo, making them nervous, "hey, how old are you?"
Ranboo didn't want to admit he actually didn't know such an obvious thing, so he just said what sounded reasonable, "uh, eighteen?"
Pomni groaned, "oh, god, and the other three look like they're sixteen," she took a breath and put her hands together, "okay, seeing as I'm the oldest here, you four stick behind me and we'll all go looking for a way-"
"Yeah, okay," Gregory interrupted, "I actually know this place pretty well, so I'm not doing that. You guys can follow me, though."
He didn't wait for a response before he started walking down the hall.
"Yeah, okay, sure, or that," Pomni gave up immediately and went to follow after him.
Ranboo tried not to stare too much as she walked past them and only went up to his waist. He'd prefer to be with this eclectic group than on his own, so he followed too. Miku and Kris also came along behind them, and they heard Miku trying to spark a conversation, but Kris didn't seem to be a very talkative type.
Pomni jogged a little to keep up with Gregory, "so, do you like, live in this place, or is this just somewhere you know?"
"Pshh, no, I don't live in the Pizzaplex. Who would do that? That's cringe," Gregory looked around nervously, "no, uh, I just...come here often. With friends. I have a lot of those."
"Riiight," Pomni sounded totally convinced, "so where are we going?"
"Well, around this corner there should be a broken barrier thing we can get under- that'll be easy for you-"
"Yeah, get it, I'm short," Pomni rolled her eyes.
Gregory continued, "past that are some back rooms that the staff use, but maybe we'll find an emergency exit that isn't locked. I haven't run into any yet, but if you see any big animatronics, scream."
"Oh. Okay, great. Sounds...safe."
"Yeah, haven't died yet," Gregory shrugged, "although I've had Freddy with me up until now...but, uh, should be fine, yeah."
Gregory got around the corner first and stopped. So did Pomni, once she saw what he was looking at. Ranboo was curious and jogged a little to see what they'd stopped at.
There was no broken barrier, nor staff rooms, nor anything resembling what should've been in the interior of a mall. The floor merged into dark blue grass, then bright translucent tiles, and more meshing patterns and shapes came together until it sprawled into a wide open mix of terrains, almost like multiple worlds overlapping and melding their features. Objects hung around the air, teapots and guitars and trees with bright pink foliage and star-shaped berries.
Gregory slowly stepped back and lightly pushed Pomni forwards, "actually yeah, you can probably lead the group if you want."