The Before

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Content Warning!
Mentions of murder/character death.
Mentions of suicide.

[Eclipses pov]

     "You don't know?" he sounds surprised, rather than angry, so that is a start.
     "No."
"You didn't ask me earlier?"
     "I thought you'd ignore me, or just move the conversation, like Moon does."
     He snorts beneath his breath. "You ask him and not me? The lesson you are supposed  to take away from that is to never ask him anything."
     "No, I mean, he would've, but he still sees me as a kid. I suppose I can't be trusted with that information."
    "It's not like that. He's just a little overprotective after everything. He thinks the world of you, but he's scared to show it because somewhere in his mind, he needs to be the mature one." Cosmo adds. "He loves you."
      "I guess.."
"Anyway, that's not the point here brother, Eclipses needs to know what happened."
     "Right, right, sorry Coz'."

"We'll go from the very start."




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"It is late March, the PizzaPlex is young and so is the year. The designs of the four main animatronic have been confirmed at long last, and work on a Daycare area has just begun. Three separate mascots are in the planning stages for this new location, all themed after astrology in some form, and each new endoskeleton tests. In the early stages, they are logged into the extensive computer systems, and simply referred and identified, by the placeholder names of
Daycare attendant I
Daycare attendant II
Daycare attendant III
Later changed to Moon, Cosmo and Nova, that order, for easier communication among workers.
     These particular frames are finalized swiftly, and the early production temporarily halts on April 23rd, with the models ready for use. These prove increasingly popular with children at the restaurant, only breaking down from time to time, and otherwise remaining in good condition for many months.

Years go by, until the anniversary of their creation in the spring  comes again, and with it trouble for the three.
An interdimensional computer virus, going by Solar, comes into contact with Nova, still only a beta version, with little security protection, invades her mainframe causing violent and psychotic outbreaks. As these become more frequent, Nova is slowly in less and less use for safety purposes, but remains very much a part of the small family. However, Solar spreads the digital disease to Moon, affectionately favourited by the children and nicknamed Bloodmoon due to an unfixed colour error in early stages of development. Fearing for Cosmo, Bloodmoon builds an almost indestructible firewall, providing protection for the remaining star sibling. Nova and Bloodmoon get worse, especially the prior, becoming aggressive towards the children. 'Bloodmoon' has more grasp over this, and protects numerous humans, adult and child alike, from attacks by other animatronics in the building. More focus is put into working on the main four, and eventually Nova is force-decommissioned, due to reported ferocious behaviour and damage to building property. Bloodmoon and Cosmo attempt to save her, but her body is soon reduced to nothing but bloodstained metal in the previously unused scooping room. Her soul is presumably lost to time. Bloodmoon never quite gets over this, and experiences awful flashbacks even after the virus is no longer a part of him and his connected memories are lost to it. He does not remember saving those people, but they will all forever see him and his sibling as heros.

Eventually, the expense of technology to keep Bloodmoon and Cosmo safe from more complex malfunctioning codes, and due to the outburst of questions around Novas whereabouts, they too are scrapped, but manage to escape before they meet the same tragic fate as their dearly beloved sister in the dreaded scooping room.
New models are created, with less complicated design and personality than the predecessors, therefore easier to fix. There are four in total this time. These are named accordingly to the same theme, Sun, Lunar and Eclipse, even a second variation of Moon due to his extreme popularity originally, this time displaying corrected colours.
The newer animatronics co-exist with the others for a few months, even with Nova for a short period of time, while Como and Bloodmoon are casually fazed out, leading to some good times between the six of them, and managing to spark intense rivalry between the two Moons. Lunar, skilled with technology, removes the virus from Bloodmoon, at the risk of himself, and accompanied this time by Eclipse, helps them escape the PizzaPlex once and for all, homing possibly needed backups of the two inside an old arcade machine.

Unfortunately, during this process, Solar smoothly transfers himself to Lunar, continuing onto Sun who becomes the physical embodiment of his own evil, spreading it in even worse cases towards Lunar, using him, his intelligence and gullibility to the advantage of Solar. Coerced and manipulated, Lunar eventually caves into to them and their logic, and the most famous event of this whole calender takes place. Breaking down mentally and physically due to exhaustion and lack of charges, Lunar quickly changes character, and that Summer commits the murder of seven people over the course of a fated day, July sixteenth. Only two of these are ever since identified, a doctor named Edward Dolgu, and a young teenager called Stellar, his final victim.
Unable to bring himself to do anymore, suicidal and malicious ideation distances him from the others. He never kills again, and Sun appears to have purposefully broken the wires connecting his head to his neck, which causes him to continually bleed oil, preventing him from speaking fluently and serving as a permanent reminder of his 'betrayal' toward Solar.

Organisers hear of these on-goings, and the PizzaPlex is almost immediately closed. They want the new models understandably dead, but with Sun snapping back to himself for an collection of hours, the four find themselves in an abandoned house at the end of the very same road.  Lunar distances himself from the others even more after this, seemingly rejected by society as a whole, and terrified of hurting anybody else. Continues to be indirectly controlled by Solar and the  remnants of pills he was given.
      Sun's personality seems to go back now and then, the virus causing his controlled memories to be lost. Solar continues living through his mind and body, and appears to have taken Eclipse as his next target.
Eclipse is the only one who remains to visit the original star siblings, who still take their refuge in the same Arcade where the backups lie.
     Moon, uninvolved and hopelessly lost in his brother's antics, desperately attempts to forget, but the events follow him like shadows. And when, despite his best efforts, he both falls for Sun and his youngest brother attempts suicide, he knows there is no hiding from the amalgamation of Solar.
They all know now.
But whatever to do?
How do you hide from a part of yourself?"

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