Jeremy sighed, his fourth night on the job and he was getting bored. Not bored enough to drop his guard mind, just bored enough that he wished something would happen so he could escape his monotonous existence. His week up until this point had been to check vent lights, wind a music box and flash a torch down a dark hallway. He wanted adventure, that's why he was here right? Jeremy had always been the type of guy to keep busy, he thrived on adrenaline and working under pressure. Speaking of which he had an essay to write for class tomorrow afternoon.
Right vent; empty. Left vent: Balloon Boy; mask. The mask stinks, he really should brush his teeth before coming into work, or at least stop bringing weird smelly food as his snack. Speaking of which he was hungry. He lifted his mask off ever so slightly when he heard noises in the left vent, a quick flick of the lights told him that Balloon Boy had gone. A flash down the hallway showed Foxy, he flashed his torch a few times, before he disappeared, grateful that it had worked, Jeremy used the opportunity as a chance to wind the music box before returning to his routine.
Another flash down the hall revealed Freddy and Jeremy quickly popped the mask over his head. God it really smelled, what had he eaten other than that spicy Burrito? No wait, that would probably do it. He counted to five and checked the hallway again, but Freddy was gone. A little confused, Jeremy used the empty hallway as an excuse to wind the music box, again.
He sighed, Vent, vent, light, box and repeat. Does his insurance cover repetitive stress injuries? If he was being completely honest he didn't even think his insurance covered being killed by animatronics.
The office had been quiet awhile, which obviously made Jeremy suspicious as the guy on the phone had left a message saying that someone had tampered with their facial recognition software. Curious as to where everyone was and seen as he was staring at the camera monitor to wind the music box he flicked through the other feeds to find them.
He checked the stage first; empty. Then parts and service, only Foxy was in there standing in the middle of the room. Probably recovering from being reset. All the other feeds were empty, so where was everyone? As he accidentally nudged past past the Game Area on his way to the Prize Corner he heard the unmistakable sounds of guitars.
Strange the only animatronics he knew to enter to games area were Mangle, Toy Freddy and of course Balloon Boy. The latter wasn't in the room, but Jeremy didn't panic. Still watching the feed, he saw both Chicas enter and stand in front of the carousel. Toy Chica was still holding her cupcake and both girls looked like they were cheering. If Old Chica's arms hadn't locked up, Jeremy swore she would have been clapping.
Curiosity over came him at that point, what was so interesting that it distracted all the animatronics? Grabbing his regulation torch, and the illegal one he brought from home (company policy forbade it, but he had brought it as a gift for Balloon Boy), he flicked to the prize corner and wound up the music button with a tap of a button. Then grabbing the drinking bird that adorned his desk, he placed it in front of the keyboard so it could press the right button to keep winding up the music box.
Then gathering all his courage and flashing his torch he set off down the hallway, into the main hall before heading into the main area and looking around. The stage was empty but there was activity in the game area. The sound of guitars strumming to a popular song.
"Whoa we're half way there, whoa we're Livin' on a Prayer. Take my hand, we'll make it I swear, whoa we're..."
The song suddenly stopped, replaced by the sounds of a failing guitar amp and loud boos. Turning his torch off, Jeremy inched closer to the Game Area his mouth dropping open when he saw what was happening.
It seemed like the restaurant had a new arcade game delivered and the animatronics had taken it upon themselves to test it out. As Jeremy got closer, he saw that all the animatronics except Foxy and the Puppet were surrounding the new game. Playing the new game, and holding guitars attached to a wire, that made the games controllers were the two Bonnies.
It was a weird set up, Toy Bonnie was fine, however old Bonnie needed help with the guitar. He was holding it using lefty flip mode, so his right hand was doing the actual button mashing. Due to his lack of left hand Balloon Boy was helping him strum.
Jeremy recognised the game as Guitar Hero. A game that allowed two players to play a guitar and strum along to some popular songs by using coloured buttons. His roommate had bought it for their home console, and they had played it all day, Jeremy had nearly called in sick, just so he could complete Rooftops on Expert.
"You'll get it Bonnie," one of the Chicas said. Jeremy assumed it was a Chica, because the voice was female. It then sunk in that Chica had spoken. He thought they had scripted dialogue, he wasn't aware they had intelligent free speech.
"I don't understand how we play guitar in the band, but we can't play this smelly game." One Bonnie said and there was a mummer of agreement from the crowd.
If the whole situation hadn't of been so absurd then Jeremy would have laughed. However Freddy explained it to them.
"You're programmed to play, it's like second nature, you know what notes to play and when to strum."
"Aw, but still..." the Bonnies looked crestfallen.
Jeremy shook his head at the sight and checked his watch. 3.27am If all the animatronics stayed here and watched the rabbits rock out then he was in for an easy night.
"Hi," came a voice causing Jeremy to jump in alarm and dropped his torch. "Hello" the voice said again, picking up the torch and giggling when it didn't turn on.
Jeremy cursed Balloon Boy, it wasn't the first torch he had broken, Balloon Boy liked torches, that why Jeremy had brought a spare. The enormity of what happened kicked in and Jeremy cursed again. All the animatronics were looking at him, there was something different about the Toys and Jeremy suddenly remembered the phone guy's warning.
"Uh, just as a side note though, try to avid eye contact with any of the animatronics tonight if you can."
Gulping and perspiring slightly, Jeremy turned in an attempt to run back to the office and possibly hide under the table with the Freddy Mask on. His escape plan failed however when he turned around to find two Freddy's and Mangle blocking his exit.
"It addicting right?" Jeremy said conversationally. Stalling so he could think of a plan. "Hard though, just wait till you add the blue and orange colors. My roommate has small hands, so he can't reach the blue button with his little finger. Still doesn't stop him from beating me at American Woman. I tend to lift my fingers too far off, so they have further to travel for the next note." He was blabbing now, he knew it, they probably knew it, but he couldn't stop. "...and don't even get me started about star power. I use the button, but then I miss the note and loose my multiplier. I would lift the whole guitar up, but last time I did that I ended up hit my nose. It hurt... I was sitting down though, that might be why."
The animatronics were quiet throughout Jeremy's babble. He sensed the Freddys and Mangle move closer, he could hear Mangle dangling above him, he so very much wanted to move, to remove himself from the dangerous situation but he forced himself to stay still.
It wasn't Mangle who made the first move though, throwing the guitar to one side, old Bonnie lunged at Jeremy screeching.
Jeremy shut his eyes, preparing for the worst.
Foxy had finally reset, he was still a bit disoriented though. Last he remembered before his circuits reset was that he was heading towards the office. He was curious to see what was down there, he left Parts and Service and wandered down the corridor, towards the doorless room at the end.
It was empty, there was nothing in here but a computer with a weird dipping bird tapping on a keyboard. It wasn't worth all that effort. In some part of Foxy's mind he knew he'd been trying to get in this room for ages, but something kept resetting him and making him forget what we was doing. Now he was here he was bored. It was like finally landing on an island after so many days at sea to find someone had already made off with all the treasure.
Disappointed, Foxy decided instead to go look for everyone else, he'd heard music when he was in the Main Hall. Where the others having a concert without him?
He walked into the main area and saw the crowd of everyone over in the Game Area, he walked over to them.
"Did ye all know that the mysterious bunker at the end of the corridor is empty save for a weird parrot tapping away at a keyboard?" He said, his voice box and pirate personality rusty after being in disuse for years.
He finally reached everyone else and stood next to Toy Bonnie.
"What be this then?" he asked as he watched old Bonnie play a guitar along with what looked like a costume-less endoskeleton.
"Shouldn't he be in costume?" he spluttered and made a move towards him, something having clicked inside his brain. A blue paw stopped him.
It's after hours," Toy Bonnie said swatting Foxy away with the same paw that had stopped him. "There's no management, plus this guy's really good at this new game we just installed. In the space of 2 hours, he's helped both other Bonnie and myself on hard mode and even the Freddys have played. He says he's going to find a microphone and hook it up so the girls can sing."
Foxy accepted this logic. Furthermore you didn't argue with a Toy, they were the real deal, he was just scrap metal.
The song ended with a cheer as everyone applauded the players as they whammied the last note.
Jeremy glanced at his watch, it was 5.45am, he only had fifteen minutes left, he placed the guitar back on the holder and faced the animatronics.
"Right, erm, management will be in soon, so I best get into my costume right?"
Toy Chica nodded. "Would you like some help? It can be a little tricky to get your feet all the way to the bottom of the suit."
Jeremy paled; "No thank you," he squeaked.
"Voice box malfunctioning as well?" Toy Freddy asked.
Jeremy didn't trust himself to speak, instead he nodded and cautionary stepped forward, testing if they would let him go.
"Well, we'd all best get back to Parts and Service," Old Freddy stated, putting a brotherly hand on the back of Chica and Bonnie's backs to guide them away. He nodded his head at Toy Freddy.
"Yes, we'd best be getting into position as well. If you find you do need help with putting the suit on, I'm sure the Puppet will be able to help, his music box should be winding down soon."
If Jeremy could go even paler, then he would, instead he took off at a run, back to the office. The music box, he had forgotten all about it! Fortunately for him the bird was still tapping away, and nothing had glitched out.
Sighing he sat in his chair, and removed the bird. He checked the cameras one last time to make sure everything was there before he waited out the last couple of minutes of his shift.
Phones, so named because he was never seen without headphones around his neck, was given the all clear to enter the building. The restaurant itself was closed, the place on lock down. Nobody was allowed in or out, but the night shift had to be bumped. Explaining the situation with the police running the investigation, he got the all clear to enter the building, however no-one was allowed to leave for at least an hour, and even then they had to be questioned before leaving.
Phones found Jeremy slumped in his chair, tired but still very much alive.
"Stressful night?" he asked, chuckling as Jeremy jumped and shined a torch on him.
"Just different," Jeremy replied wearily.
"No problems with the face recognition software?"
"I tried to followed your advice and not give them eye contact, but in the end I managed to talk myself out of a sticky situation."
"I hear ya buddy. Look the bad news is that we've gone into lock down, technically nobody is allowed in or out. I'm allowed in to bump you but we need to wait an hour before you can leave." Phones shrugged and picked up the Freddy Fazbear masked that had fallen to the floor. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of it. "However the good news is we got a new game installed yesterday, Guitar Hero or something how about we test it out?"
Jeremy just smiled.
A/N: So hi, this story has been kicking around (amongst other story lines) for a while now and I finally managed to make it into something. So a little bit of history, I work with 11-14 year olds in a youth group setting, we have Guitar Hero and it's probably one of the more popular games. FNAF is often mentioned in conversations (especially considering as they get really surprised when their 26-year old counselor says she's played it). So of course it started when one of the kids drew Bonnie playing Guitar Hero. Well, the rest is, as they say history.
Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: I do not own FNAF, if I did Balloon Boy would be a playable character and your task would be to steal the torch from the guard. I also don't own any of the songs mentioned or Guitar Hero it's self. If I did, well there would be a mode between Easy and Medium, so that my tiny fingers didn't have to strain for the blue button, and I could play with three colours at a faster pace. Like Through the Fire and Flames on Guitar Hero 5.