Hey, folks! It's been a great vacation for me, and a much needed one, but break's over and it's time to get back to work. Alex and the crew have got a new set of problems on their hands, and this time it's not going to be quite as easy as Alex thinks... After all, even though he's had time to prepare, the 'new and improved' models have a few nasty tricks up their sleeves...
In all seriousness, sorry it's taken so long to get this out. Between holidays, getting ready for another class semester, and far more Elite: Dangerous than should be healthy, I haven't been writing much lately. Time for me to get back to it.
Which brings me to my next note! Because Scott Cawthon LOVES making a writer's life difficult by announcing new games so quickly, we're gonna be hitting this full throttle. Expect updates to primarily focus on this story, with Into the Rift's rewrite taking a back seat until it's done. Also! Depending on how busy/tired I am on an average week, there may be more than one update per week... No promises, though!
Now, let's get the show on the road!
It had been roughly two months since the new Freddy Fazbear's pizza had opened up, and I was keeping a close eye on the goings-on in that restaurant. After all, considering what I'd dealt with in both Golden Mile and Fazbear Entertainment, I didn't trust that company any further than I could throw Foxy – who, as I was studying the latest newspaper, was leaning against me and watching idly. In the living room, Bonnie and Freddy were introducing themselves to the Johnny-5 movies, which (ironically) were turning out to be a hit for them. I'd asked Chica to whip up a pizza, and she was busying herself within the kitchen, which gave me plenty of time to review the paper. Foxy stopped me as I was glancing through, pointing out an image.
I looked it over: "HELP WANTED! Vintage Pizzeria given new life! Come be a part of the new Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!" Right below it was the phone number for Fazbear's. I smirked up at Foxy, tilting my head. "What could go wrong, right?" She chuckled, before shrugging a bit as well, her eyepatch flicking up briefly. "Don't look at me, Alex. For all we know it could be for repair worker or pizza cook. But I know what you're thinking…" I nodded, clipping out the ad and putting it in the rather sizable folder I had been assembling regarding the 'new and improved' Fazbear's Pizza. Taking a moment, I opened it up and began shuffling through the files.
Sure enough, as I lined up the ads there was a clear trend by date; they were all spaced around a week apart, at most. Some were within the same two or three days, while others made it through the entire workweek and overtime. I looked over at Foxy again, who shrugged. She'd been skeptical of my reasons for keeping tabs, and I understood why; after the Drone Incident and the Golden Mile bust, you'd think they would have learned how to maintain the robots in a way that made them not intent on murder. Still, I wasn't about to trust Fazbear Entertainment… And, as I pulled out a few more papers, I now had a much more valid reason. Because even though I hadn't heard anything back from my friend Adams about missing persons reports being filed by the company, people had begun to express curiosity when their roommates and friends didn't come home.
As I looked over the stack of papers before me, I remembered that wasn't always the case. Some of them made it out, their experiences hidden behind miles of non-disclosure agreements. Thankfully, a bit of clever social engineering – and occasionally a few drinks – managed to get the bulk of them to share their experiences… At least in part. They talked about 'strange noises' from the basement, as well as 'odd behavior' from the animatronics. The official line the company made when I asked the new owner was something about their 'night mode' not being configured properly, which caused the behaviors, and said they'd 'found a solution'. Roughly a week later, I got a letter in the mail announcing that I had a restraining order against me, compliments Fazbear Entertainment. That's what tripped the alarm bells in my head, which is why I now had a file built up against them… But I had no proof. Yet.
When I'd explained my plan to Freddy and the crew, the bear had all but organized a mutiny to keep me away; apparently they were just as concerned, if not more so. And it made sense, considering that they were my roommates for the forseeable future and the world didn't even know of their existence. The only people who knew were my old ex-SWAT buddy Adams, ex-security guard Mike Schmidt, and former owner Fredrick Faz… And Richard Matthews, who'd disappeared shortly after the animatronics and I had put some fear into hin and made him quickly buzz off of trying to 'recover the missing robotics'. We'd had a bit of a chuckle after that, and I'd treated Faz and Mike to a few drinks for their help. But that was a few months ago, and now Mike was working at some security consulting firm while Faz enjoyed his retirement.
I'd explained my plan again a bit later; quite simply, I needed to find out firsthand what was going on in there, and to do that I needed to get into the night guard job. They weren't exactly thrilled at the idea of me putting my life on the line. After all; if I was wrong then I'd probably get in a massive amount of legal trouble for breaking a restraining order. If I was right – and I sincerely believed I was – then I would be in mortal peril for a full week… But then I explained a bit better. After dealing with both the Fazbear band and Golden Mile's defense robots, I'd learned a few tricks about how to deal with an animatronic; for example, if you clip the power supply with any kind of firepower from 9mm up, it would jostle it loose and shut the robot down. Hit it with a rifle round or a shotgun shell and the power supply would be toast.
After explaining this, and showing off a few devices I'd come up with specifically for dealing with angry animatronics, Freddy finally relented and said he'd help out provided I made sure I had concrete evidence that something wasn't quite right before I went in. With all of this lined up, I nodded. "Hey, Freddy? Mind sticking your nose in for a sec?" A few moments later, the leader of the Fazbear band stepped into the Kitchen, his signature top hat slightly crooked on his head. I couldn't help but chuckle; it was pretty clear that he and Bonnie had been snuggling on the couch more than watching the movie. Any other time, I would've relished giving them both some well-deserved teasing, but now was serious.
"Alex? How can I help?" He spoke, before looking down at the papers and files I had scattered across the table. As he glanced through them, his eyebrows rose and eyes widened more and more, before shaking his head at me. I just grinned. "You know, I sincerely hoped that this would have turned out to be a dud, and you were just being overly paranoid… But sadly, it appears I'm wrong. There is something suspicious going on at the new restaurant…" I looked over at him, tilting my head as if waiting for him to say something. It took a bit of grumbling, but he finally relented, reaching out and extending a paw for a shake. I took it gladly, with a nod. "Fine, Alex. You can go look into the new place with our blessing. Just… Don't take any risks, okay? You're important to all of us…" He gave Foxy a look, before smirking at me. "Some more than others." I blushed, squirming a bit. He just grinned, before giving me a more serious look. "Just remember. The only reason I'm trusting you to go in without us is because you said you'd signal us if anything went wrong. And I know you've got the setup for getting in touch."
I nodded again, smiling as Chica finally came out with a freshly-made pizza. She looked over to Freddy and I, before nodding and taking a seat. We'd all come to this conclusion a while ago, so we knew what this meant. I had a lot of work to do in order to get ready for this, and I wanted to get things going before the weekend so I could start on Monday ready to get going on this new investigation… But first, there was always time for Chica's pizza.
Around an hour later, I donned my 'disguise': a blond wig to hide my black hair, a quick shave, a pair of contact lenses to change my green eyes to a blue color, and a heavy coat to hide my basic features. As far as I could tell, this would do just fine. Wouldn't fool any animatronics, but a human eye wouldn't be able to pick up on the subtle differences. I looked over the next step of my preparations; within this coat I had concealed a .44 magnum and several reloads, a smoke grenade, and two new inventions I'd made just for dealing with rampaging robots; a pair of electrified collapsible batons. The old batons had been too heavily abused from my battles with the old band, so I'd picked these out and set to modifying them. Two buttons on the handles controlled them; one would deliver enough of a jolt to send the animatronics offline temporarily, and the other would fry their circuits out. Sadly I only had enough charge per battery for one deep-fry. I held onto a few spares, but it wasn't exactly a fast process to change them. Finally, I'd even come up with a new identity to use, one that was based off of one of my old SWAT team. I sighed as I remembered him, and the incident that had killed him… Before shaking my head. I've got more important things to worry about right now.
With a nod, I finished packing my gear and climbed into the truck. The last thing I'd created was a small cylinder with a red button on the top; this was my panic button. If things went downhill quickly, I was to hit it and wait for the band to get to my location to help me out – an invention Freddy insisted on after I was trapped in Golden Mile's warehouse with thirty rampaging robots. With a nod to the band, I headed for the new pizzeria. On my way, I thought over what I'd been able to cobble together… Apparently there were now six animatronics in action; the original band, and two more that I'd never managed to get much information on. All I knew was that one inspired untold rage, and the other absolute terror. Add to that the missing robots that I still had yet to locate, and the situation was rather dangerous to say the least. I didn't think that Fazbear Entertainment would have stolen them back, but considering that their absence had made the court case fall through… I shrugged. Not enough information to go on. Time to focus on the here and now… And the here and now was that I was just pulling into the parking lot of the new restaurant. I climbed out, entering the new location and looking around.
I had to admit, the place had come along nicely; several party rooms, a prize corner, a game room, and even an area for the kids… Although I paused as I saw the small area. In it was what looked like a cross between an animatronic and a car accident… And this gave me my first impression of what the new robots were like. Instead of faux-fur and padding, they were made from plastic and paint. And, judging by the white plastic and pink lipstick… Much more 'kid-friendly'. I sighed, before heading to the show stage area… Where I got my second big surprise. The band looked absolutely night and day; they were all a similar plastic-like material, and had a new 'kid-friendly' design. Bonnie had the most glaring difference, now a powder blue and white color scheme with wider, more 'expressive' eyes. Personally, I thought the new look was absolutely creepy. Freddy had suffered the least amount of change, but his new look still had this… Strangely off look to it. Chica… I had no words. Somehow, they decided the best way to make her 'kid-friendly' was… To put it delicately, to make her gender much more clear. I sighed; the gang was not going to be too thrilled at this new look… With a shrug, I looked around to one of the staff. The pizzeria was moderately busy, and the band was on stage performing. I turned away, and caught the eye of the staff member. As I did so… I could almost swear I saw one of those robots looking right at me. I looked back, and all was normal again… The employee distracted my thoughts at this point.
"Good afternoon, sir! Welcome to the new and improved Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria! How can I help you?" I chuckled; it was obvious that he was putting this face on. As he started going on about 'fantasy and fun coming to life', I stopped him.
"Relax, kid. I'm here to ask about the job in the papers. Still hiring for it?" He nodded, looking a bit nervous at that…
"Th-the night guard position? Y-yeah, it's open. U-um… Y-you sure you want it?" This was odd… I nodded, causing him to squirm a bit. "O-Okay, if you insist…" He flagged down another guy; a big guy, in fact. Tough, muscular, looks like the kind of guy who'd turn your arm into a pretzel just for looking at him funny. I looked him over, standing my ground as the kid explained to him. He nodded, looking me over, before approaching.
"So you're the new prospective night owl, huh? Well, this should be a pretty simple job. Don't need references or anything, this is pretty straightforward entry level stuff. Lemme give you the grand tour." He sounded gruff, businesslike. And yet somehow… Off. I couldn't place my finger on why before he was talking again. "Up there are the main attraction; Freddy Fazbear and the Toy Band. Bonnie on guitar, rocking out as usual, and Chica's on backup vocal. They're the livelihood of the place, and your number one priority." He led me along, and I couldn't help but glance at a door that read 'Parts and Service'. Oddly, it seemed to be cracked open… Before closing once more. Shrugging, I followed the guy along for the tour as we entered the Kid's Cove. "Here we have Toy Foxy." He pointed out the mass of spare parts. "Sadly, she ain't in the best condition; the kids seem rather insistent on tugging her apart and using her as their own little playset. We've fixed her every night, and she's always a mass of machinery by the end of the day… Lousy kids." He grumbled a bit, before leading back to the Game Room. In the corner stood an animatronic that I certainly wasn't familiar with.
It was small, around child-sized, and had a bundle of balloons in his hand. Wearing a propeller beanie, and holding a sign that said 'Balloons!' with a small slot at his chest for inserting tokens. "This is the Balloon Boy. He's one of the few non-performing animatronics we have; his job is basically to get balloons for the kids. A token gets them a helium balloon all their own." I nod… Something about that kid just inherently filled me with irritation. I shrugged it off and followed along once more, this time into the Prize Corner.
Immediately as I set fut in Prize Corner, I felt surprisingly uneasy. It was almost… Almost the same feeling I got when I entered Golden Freddy's 'reprocessing' area back at the Incident. It just felt… Dark. Almost evil. And right at the epicenter was this lanky, black-suited thing with a mask that looked like it was a rejected concept for Jigsaw's puppet in the Saw movies. I shuddered slightly before the guy spoke again. "And this is the last one. He's the Marionette; his job is basically to cover the prize counter and make sure the tickets that kids get are traded for prizes. He also tends to entertain a bit." I nodded, still shuddering. The marionette, as it was called, reached over with one of its all-too-thin arms and wound up this odd music box, sending a tinkling tune through the room. I turned my attention back to the boss. "Well, other than that the layout of the place is on your cameras. Your job is pretty simple; keep an eye on the place from midnight to 6 AM, and make sure nobody screws with the robots." I nodded, following him around to the office, where he tugged out a standard-looking contract. My eyes glanced over… And I picked up on the same '90 Days before Filing Missing Persons' article from the old restaurant. I noted it away for later, and he looked at me again. "Contract says you agree to work at least five nights here before quitting; we've had trouble holding on to guards. Apparently they get a bit creeped out by the night movement from the robots." I shrugged, before signing the name I took on for this. He smiled, taking the contract and looking it over. "Hmm… Looks good! Alright. You start on Monday night, so be here at 11:45 at the latest."
I nodded, standing and turning to leave. This place still gave me a bad feeling… He called me back, waving for a moment. "Hey, can't quite make sense of your name, sadly... So for the record, what's your name?"
I smiled, looking at him. "Name? Oh, sorry." I cleared my throat.
"The name's Jeremy Fitzgerald."
I told you guys that Jeremy would be in this... Just in a different way! :P
Yes, this starts off a bit slow. But I'm trying to establish the new characters and get things set up. Don't worry, though; Night 1 is coming, and that's when the real fun starts...
Am I the only one surprised that there's no Payday crossover with FNaF?
Read and review!