ALT: PART 1

ALT PART 1: THE GLITCH
POV: LOLBIT

	It had been three days since I found the Backstage. And over those three days, I had never got up the courage to interact with anyone living there.
	I had known nothing of the place, only having heard that the Adventurers had gone home through some kind of exit there. The leader  of the Adventurers, Freddy Fazbear, had been my best costumer. I had rehomed almost all my bytes to him. One day they all returned to me, without any of their new family in sight.
	If you were to say I missed Freddy and his friends, you would win an award for the greatest understatement of the year. The days were dull and lonely without Adventurers coming through. I clicked with two in particular. We shared an uncanny resemblance to each other. We decided we were honorary sisters.
	I wasn’t quite paying attention while my mind wandered. When a sudden shout came from the Backstage, I practically fell over myself, faceplanting straight into the mud. Great.
	“Hey! I told you to watch where you’re going!” A high pitched voice yelled.
	“Sorry! The light’s so blinding sometimes!” A comparatively normal voice replied.
	“Then put out the fire in your head!” The former yelled again.
	I stumbled to find my footing and shook mud out of my eye sockets. Ugh… It’s everywhere. I can’t let it dry on my face! ..Heh, that’s what she said. I’m hilarious.
	I poked my head out of my hiding spot. Across the way there was a small pond. There was a fairly good chance I could make it to wash this shit off without alerting any of those weirdos-ahem, residents.
	Each step was as gentle as I could make it. One foot slowly after the other. Like a snake. ...Hiss.
	I finally reached the water after snake-ing my way over. Good job, you didn’t get any attention! Wait, is being quiet the only thing I’m good at? Wow, no wonder I’m so alone.
	I tried to wash off the best I could. Cleaning is difficult when you can’t get any water to even drip into your servos.
	I took a step back to look at my reflection. There were still spots of the mud over my face, but I was fairly happy with how much I cleaned off.
	“HEY!”
	The yell startled me, of course. I just barely avoided falling into the pond, and rather fell backwards away from the water.
	Approaching from a small path in the trees, was… Erm. It wasn’t an animatronic, or robotic in the slightest. It was a two dimensional sprite-looking… human, I suppose. Completely purple. Completely pissed.
	“This is MY pond! Get out!” The sprite person pointed an accusatory rectangle at me.
	“Uh, Sorry-Well-I-I don’t see your name on it.” My retort came out a lot less snarky as I’d rather it had  been.
	The sprite turned their arm to point at a tree. The word ‘PURBLE’ was carved in a nearby tree.
	I wanted to comment on the unnecessary B in the word, but I felt like that may only escalate this situation.
	“See, there. My pond. Now get out of here before I-” He paused for a moment and looked me up and down, “Wait… Wait, what’s your name?”
	“Oh! Uh… Lolbit.” I tried to not sound fucking terrified.
	“...OH, that’s why you looked familiar! You sold our party some bytes!” Purple suddenly lightened up (I was just gonna pretend he knew how to spell his name) .
	“Your party?”
	“Yeah, they took me along to go fight the final boss and they just left me here! Fuckin’ furries!” He growled.
	Something hit me in that moment. If Purple  knew the Adventurers… He knew how to find the place they exited through… Which meant…
	“LET’S FORM AN ADVENTURE PARTY!” I had not meant to yell that.
	“Why?” Purple looked as if he’d cross his arms if he had any joints.
	“Well, uh, ok, I-I’m looking for them, your party, they were my friends! You know where they went before they vanished… Right?” I was so excited to find my friends, I barely noticed I was bouncing on my heels.
	“Okay, I do know. Went into the Geist Lair.” Purple sighed, “Fine. But only because I’m sick of those pumpkin bastards mistaking me for some murderer. I’m just a sprite, I don’t know any fuckin’ Daves or Williams or whatever.”
	“Can you show me?” I was beaming at this point.
	“Sure, yeah. I’ll help you out if you help me kick those guys’ asses for abandoning me. Just don’t pull any weird beasty shit.”
	 I could tell Purple actually wanted to help. He was definitely the type  to act the opposite of how he felt. If only there was a common trope name for that type of person. If only.

	---

	The Geist Lair was just as abandoned as the rest of the World. Every potential enemy had either given up or been recruited and whisked away.
	Purple led the way with an equally pixelated flashlight. I didn’t bother to question where he kept it. He had just pulled it out of his body. It looked pretty gross, honestly.
	“Left, forward left...No wait… Was it forward then right?” Purple mumbled to himself.
	“Are we lost already?” I turned to look at him.
	“No! No, I got this, okay?” He hit his flashlight against his head while trying to focus. He didn’t even flinch.
	“I’ll take a look, don’t give yourself a concussion.” I groaned.
	I began carefully strolling forward into the darkness ahead. My free hand grazed the sides of the hallway to keep track of the wall. It was craggy and scratchy against her paw.
	“If we can, we should just keep going forw-”
	And of course, because I wasn’t paying attention, I ran right into something. I would’ve assumed it was a wall, but it made a hollow clank. Like an animatronic. And once again, of course, I lost my footing.
	“The hell was that?” Purple ran forward, flashlight in hand.
	“The hell was that?” A perfect echo of Purple’s voice came back.
	I looked up when Purple flashed the light ahead at whatever I ran into.
	In front of us stood an animatronic. It looked a lot like my old pal Bonnie, but it was stark white with empty eyes.
	“...Hi there?” I raised my hand in a half hearted wave.
	“...Hi there?” The rabbit immediately repeated; this time a perfect mimicry of my voice.
	“Oh, fantastic. It’s like a toddler. This is a fate worse than death.” Purple groaned, gritting his teeth at the rabbit’s immediate response.
	I came to my feet and looked closer at the animatronic. Closer up, it just seemed like it was one of my kind. A lookalike to an Adventurer counterpart, just with different colors. Recolors, I suppose you could call us.
	“Hey, do you have a name?” I asked the rabbit.
	“Hey, do you have a name?” The bunny repeated.
	“I’m Lolbit, and this is Purple...I’ll just call you White for now, okay? Y’know, cuz you’re… White...” I stumbled over my words again. Why do I do that all the time?
	For once, it didn’t repeat my words. I assumed White’s silence was a confirmation.
	“You’re not trying to bring this thing along, are you?” Purple glared daggers at me.
	“He seems harmless!”
	“He seems harmless!”
	White’s empty eyes drilled holes into Purple. He nervously stepped back. White stepped forward.
	“Goddamn furries-Okay, okay, it can come with if you make it stop copying me!” Purple groaned.
	“YAY! White, do you know where we have to go?”
	“YAY!” The rabbit immediately  turned and ran deeper into the lair.
	“SHIT-WAIT UP, WHITE!” I called after him.
	The rest of the exploration consisted of chasing after White. Every time Purple’s flashlight caught a glimmer of white plastic, he would bolt down a new hallway.
	Finally, Purple and I found him standing in a corridor with light shining from the end. Purple immediately hunched over and began panting and sweating (If you could call shedding purple pixels sweating).
	“What… The fuck…” He was completely out of breath.
	White turned suddenly and walked towards them. He held a blank stare for a moment.
	“FUCK OFF! STOP COPYING ME!” White suddenly exclaimed.
	I stared at White in disbelief before I shared a quick glance with Purple. White had been mimicking an unfamiliar voice. Someone was definitely down the hall.
	“Hey, we made it!” I grinned at Purple.
	“Yeah, but now we gotta find the boss.” Purple turned and started walking down towards the light.
	I took White’s hand and followed behind. We ended up in a huge  cave, illuminated by torches on the walls. At first glance, it looked like the final cave was completely abandoned.
	“White, who were you mimicking in here?” I looked over at him. He didn’t reply.
	“Hey, there’s  a button up here. I’m gonna push it.” Purple called from the end of the cave.
	“Purple, are you sure we should push a random-”  Purple had already pushed the button.
	Nothing seemed to have happened. The cave was normal for a solid two minutes. Those two minutes, of course, were spent as I argued with Purple over whether or not you should just press a random button you found.
	But when the time was up, we were all suddenly blinded by a blast of color. After my eyes cleared, I finally saw whatever the button summoned.
	It was a fucking rainbow, and she didn’t look too happy.
	“What-Oh, great. More irrelevant side characters waking me up.” She groaned, “What do you want. I’m trying to S-L-E-E-P!”
	“Hey! Do you know how we can find the Adventurers?” I tried my best to be kind to the pissy Rainbow.
	“They’re gone. Went back to their games. Did you morons never even hear about that?” The Rainbow floated around the party, eyeing us up.
	“We had a vague idea… Do you know how to go after them?” I heard Purple groan behind me.
	“Pft-HAHAHAH! Why would you want to do that? Are you f#@%ing brain dead!” The Rainbow smirked at us.
	“...Did you just censor yourself?” Purple squinted.
	“I can’t control it, watch: F$##! S%#@! F@**0#! It’s a Rainbow thing. Haven’t any of your mommies told you about rainbows?” She scoffed.
	“I don’t have a mom.” I thought that much was obvious.
	“Whatever, why the h#%@ do you want to go to the main franchise for?”
	“There’s literally nothing here.” Purple waved towards the exit, “There’s some others outside but besides them, we’re all that’s left. Can you stop being a bitch for a second? I’m surrounded by furries. I want to LEAVE.”
	Rainbow giggled uncontrollably. After her fit of laughter, she just beamed at our party.
	“Well, I like you, Purple Guy! And I like the Funtime foxy Recolor over there! White Rabbit... I tolerate you.” Rainbow floated  higher up, “Since I like and tolerate you lot, how about this? I take you to the main series, but I get to stay there because there’s nobody to make fun of here. It’s so LAME!”
	“Can you really do that?” I grinned up at her.
	“Of course! Didn’t your mommy ever tell you rainbows can transverse time and space?” She laughed.
	“We don’t have moms-”
	“Shut up Eggplant Dude! Now watch this, this is so awesome.”
	Rainbow turned and I watched as rainbow beams formed from her clouds. The beams shot straight into the wall, which glowed for a moment 	before completely glitching out. Pixels flew past us.
	“Follow me, and don’t get grabbed!” Rainbow laughed, diving into the glitchy portal.
	Once again, I gripped White (Rabbit.. It’s his full name, anyways.)’s hand and walked through the portal. Purple was the last one through.
	Through the portal, everything became pixelated. White Rabbit, myself, and even our new party member turned into a subpar sprite. Purple remained about the same.
	“Hey, what’s this place anyways?” I asked as we began to hop down a blue staircase.
	“Never been here? Haha! I should’ve guessed!” Rainbow turned to face me. Her face was reduced to two white pixels and a wonky black smile.
	“Well, welcome to The Flipside!” She beamed, continuing down the stairway, “By the way, don’t  look behind you.”
	Now, when you tell me not to look somewhere… I’m gonna  do it.
	It turns out her warning was for good reason. I saw a small bubble, containing our World as we knew it. Slowly, pixelated blue arms reached out from the darkness of the Flipside. I watched as they crushed the World. All that was left was a jumble of glowing blue voxels.
	If I could, I’m sure tears would have welled in my eyes.
	“Hey, didn’t I JUST say don’t look back?” Rainbow dashed back, grabbed White Rabbit and me with her cloud, and dashed forward.
	“What… What were those?” I stammered.
	“Most of the animatronics call those God, The Powers That Be, and other stupid s&!#. I like to call it Some Dude Who Doesn’t Leave His House.” She chuckled at her own joke as she grabbed Purple with her other cloud and continued rushing down the path.
	“...The World is gone… Isn’t it?” I couldn’t help but let out a tearless sob. Mendo was gone. DeeDee was gone. The last remaining residents were gone. Forever.
	If I had known that would happen… I could’ve saved them. I could’ve brought them with.
	“Sure seems like it.” Purple looked over. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought he looked concerned.
	“Hold on! I see it!” Rainbow grabbed all of our attention.
	Up ahead was another portal. Light shone out of it, illuminating the darkest parts of the Flipside.
	And in a single motion, Rainbow had flung us all through the portal.

---

	My head hurt badly when I finally came to. I was toppled over in… a grassy field. It wasn’t the flat grass texture I had always been accustomed to, no. It was real grass.
	A  groan sounded nearby. I sat up to see Purple struggling to get himself off the ground. He was still his normal sprite self.
Next I noticed White Rabbit who… wasn’t his normal self. He had stretched and warped. He looked just like a full size rabbit animatronic. I was immediately suspicious, and got myself off the ground.
	Purple looked over to me, and his jaw… um, completely black mouth dropped open.
	“Lolbit… Lolbit, you’re… You’re a-” He stammered.
	“She’s changed to fit into this world.” Rainbow levitated down. She herself hadn’t changed a bit, “So has White Rabbit too, perfect!”
	“So… We made it?” I took a moment to look down at myself.
	I had definitely changed. My hook was gone, and I had two normal hands in its place. There were orange freckles along my body. I never had those before. And of course, I was taller, more proportionate for this place (I thought, at least).
	“Well, what now?” Purple sighed, looking at Rainbow expectantly.
	“According to my basic critical thinking skills… You’re headed  over  there.” She pointed a cloud towards a building across an empty street.
	The sign on the building was brand new, and I could only stare in disbelief.
	FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA: GRAND REOPENING!