Foxy yawned as he awakened inside his cove. The curtains were closed, and he was cast in darkness.
Ah, a brand new night. Foxy thought. I'm gonna go have some fun today. Maybe I'll go for a run, or play another game with everybody, or make some food...eh, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. But for now, it's time to start the day.
Foxy grabbed his curtains and drew them open, allowing him to view his room. And he immediately did a double-take.
The entire room had almost entirely been emptied out of its decorations. The stools, the boxes in the corner, the paintings, nearly EVERYTHING was gone. The only things still remaining were the posters of Funtime Foxy.
Foxy gaped at this. His room was finally cleared out? His room had finally been rid of the decorations he didn't really like?
Did Puppet finally come in here and clean out the decorations?! Awesome! Foxy cheered in his thoughts. Looks like he finally got all the emails I sent him. About time. Now it's finally empty! Well, the posters are still here, but...eh, I actually don't mind them too much. I'll let that part slide. Anyway, I should go and see what there is to do today!
Foxy exited the room and headed into the main room...then, once again, stopped in his tracks in utmost surprise.
Ballora and Bon-Bon were both putting up fairy lights along the walls. Some Christmas bells has been placed above the doorway to the small hallway. A huge box was sitting at the side of the room, practically bursting with assorted decorations. Some decorations were too big to fit in the box, and they had been placed next to it instead. Foxy could see a sleigh and several plastic snowmen, among other things, surrounding the box. Another big box was sitting in a corner, filled to the brim with snow. Meanwhile, Puppet was standing off to the side and watching the ballerina and bunny hand-puppet decorate, a look of unhappiness on his face.
"Woah!" Foxy gasped. "What's going on?"
"Foxy!" Puppet exclaimed, turning around. "Thank god you're here!" Puppet ran up to Foxy and began shaking him around. "Foxy, it's awful! It's so, so, awful!"
"Gaaah! Stop shaking me!"
"Oh, sorry." Puppet stepped away from Foxy, stopping the shaking as he did so.
"Thank you. Now, what is going on here?"
"Huh?" Ballora said, pausing on her work and turning around. "Oh, hey, Foxy! I'll bet your wondering what me and Bon-Bon are doing. Well, Christmas is coming soon, so me and him are putting up decorations around the pizzeria! I told you before that Christmas was coming, remember?"
"Yeah, but..." Foxy tried to say, but Ballora had already tuned out. She turned around and continued to set the fairy lights along the walls, humming 'O Christmas Tree' as she worked. Foxy, giving up on trying to talk to her, turned to talk to Bon-Bon instead, who was hanging up garland in the opposite direction that Ballora was going in with her fairy lights. "Bon-Bon, why are you helping her?"
"Eh, I wouldn't normally, but she's paying me to do this."
"In cash?"
"Nope, in cookies, because that's what she's got. And even if she did have money, she'd keep it to herself. I wouldn't expect even a single dime from her."
"Oh, well, that is a pretty good reason to help her out."
"Foxy, why are you so calm about this?!" Puppet interrupted, still panicked over Ballora and Bon-Bon putting up decorations. "They're vandalizing the pizzeria!"
"No, it's fine! They're just decorating the pizzeria for Christmas. Well, whatever Christmas is, anyway. I think it must be something about...fire, probably? At least, that's what I guess."
"You call it decorating, I call it vandalization! They're going to mess with all of the rooms in the building when they're all perfectly fine as they are!"
"Aw, I think it's great." Ballora chimed in. She was a good way through her work so far; not only had she hung more fairy lights on the walls, but she had also hung a Christmas wreath above the doorway to the smaller hallway.
"Say, what's in here?" Foxy asked, spotting the box in the middle of the room. He went over to it and opened it up. Inside were an assorted number of decorations, including presents and gingerbread houses. As Foxy looked at all this, Ballora was busy chastising Bon-Bon over using garland.
"Bon-Bon, what is this?! Why are you using garland instead of fairy lights, like me?" Ballora huffed. "We're taking these down, right now!" She began taking down the garland.
"No, stop! What are you doing?!" Bon-Bon complained as she did this.
"So, why are we hanging these things up again?" Foxy asked, stopping his search through the box to talk to the others. "There's no reason for any of this to be in here. Oh, and by the way, Puppet, thanks for removing all that stuff from my room. I was getting sick of it."
Puppet looked confused. "I did what?"
"You removed the boxes and stuff from my room! Come here, I'll show you it while Ballora and Bon-Bon do...whatever it is they're doing."
Foxy led Puppet over to his room and pointed at how the room was now devoid of the stools and boxes and paintings.
"See? It's all gone!" Foxy said. "All the boxes and stuff!"
Puppet looked even more confused than before. "Boxes? What boxes? They were never any boxes over here to begin with."
"There were! There was a huge pile of them in the corner. Thanks for clearing those away! Also, thanks for removing the paintings. I didn't like then too much."
"Huh? What paintings? I never got you any paintings."
"Uh, there were definitely paintings on the wall before! So...does that mean you didn't move anything in my room?"
"No!"
"Then who did? I- wait. Hold on. I think I may know who."
Foxy and Puppet went back into the main room. Ballora and Bon-Bon had quit their dispute over the garland (which was now replaced by fairy lights) and were stringing the fairy lights along the wall of the stage now. Ballora was even putting more wreaths on the wall of the stage, as well as stringing more fairy lights to the front of the stage.
So, if she's decorating the main room, now, then... Foxy thought, and then he spoke up. "Ballora, did you move the stuff that was in my room, out of my room?"
Ballora turned around, frowning in thought. "Um...maybe. Don't really remember if I did anything like that lately."
"So, I'm guessing that you didn't, then. I could be wrong, but that's my guess." Foxy shrugged, then turned away from Ballora. He walked over to look at the wreath hanging over the doorway to the smaller hall. But, as he did, he noticed something was off about the smaller hall. "What the? Puppet, come here!"
Puppet came over, and Foxy led him over into the smaller hall. Then Foxy gaped at everything. All four doors in the hallway had been sealed off from the inside, with a false wall now waiting behind each set of doors. The doors themselves were closed up, with signs tacked onto each one of them reading: UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
"Under construction?! What?" Foxy exclaimed. "What the heck? Why are these rooms under construction?!"
"See, this is what I was talking about!" Puppet yelled frustratedly. "In their meaningless pursuit to 'decorate' the building, they decided that these rooms needed to be changed, and they blocked them off and put them under construction!"
"WHAT?! No, this can't be the case!" Foxy ran over to one of the doors and tugged on the handle, but it was locked, and he had no key with him to unlock the doors. "Gah! I can't open the doors!"
"Hey, guys, don't pin the blame on me!" Ballora exclaimed from the main room. "I had nothing to do with it this time, honest!"
"But the doors and locked and the rooms are sealed."
"Yeah..." Ballora came in to the smaller hall. "Unfortunately, they're Ballora-proof. I would have tried to get undo this sealing of the rooms before you guys came along had it not been Ballora-proofed." Ballora ran back into the main room and squealed at something in there. "Oh, those are so cute!"
"Well, then they're probably not just that, but also ANIMATRONIC-proof!" Foxy deduced as Ballora left. "I can't open these doors either! Wait, does that mean that...HE came back? The Re-Decorator...is he the one responsible for this?"
Puppet gasped, then nodded. "I think so. He must still be trying to mess with our pizzeria's décor."
"Dang it! We're going to have to find a way to get rid of him once he comes back. Until then, though...might as well see what got Ballora so excited in the other room."
Foxy and Puppet went back into the main room to find that while they had been gawking at the sealed rooms, Bon-Bon had still been working. The bunny hand-puppet had placed some elf plushies in front of the stage's platforms, as well some reindeer plushies. The elves in particular stood out to two certain animatronics.
"Gah! Creepy elf plushies!" Foxy sputtered, keeping his distance from the stage.
If Foxy had been creeped out by this, than Puppet had been downright terrified. "This place is getting scarier than usual!" The marionette shouted disapprovingly.
"I think it's cute..." Ballora sighed, clearly thinking the elf plushies were just fine. "And this probably won't even be the best part of decorating!"
"Did you guys even ask everybody else what THEY thought about this before you started decorating?!" Puppet asked sharply.
"Puppet, what do you think about this?" She asked, and before Puppet could even say anything, she kept going. "You like it, good!" She looked up at the ceiling. "Freddy, what do you think about this?" She paused for a moment. "You like it, good!" She ran over to Foxy. "Foxy, what do you think about this?"
"Do I even have a choice?" Foxy asked.
Ballora completely ignored him. "That's great, you love it! And Bon-Bon, what about you?"
"Well, you're giving me cookies, so...sure." Bon-Bon agreed.
"See? I asked everyone. Now we can do it."
"Guess we've got to help you, then." Foxy said.
"Wait, really? You're gonna help?"
"Yeah, sure. Got nothing better to do today."
"But-" Puppet began, but Foxy put a finger to his own jaws and made a quiet shushing sound. Puppet fell silent, then begrudgingly nodded. "Yes, fine."
"Let's get started then." Foxy went over to the decoration box and reached inside it, then went through its contents until he found a single stocking. "A stocking. I'll put it...here." Foxy put it on the wall near the doorway to the smaller hall.
Puppet winced. "Err, I don't know about that. Doesn't seem like a good place to put it."
"Yes, that really doesn't look right." Ballora agreed as she passed by carrying some more stockings and an extra wreath. "We could use more decorations around this doorway, though. And maybe...maybe even a fireplace! We'll see, we'll see." She handed the wreath to a passing Bon-Bon, and she and him together went to the doorway and began re-arranging it. The wreath hanging over the doorway was replaced by some stockings instead, and that wreath and the extra one Ballora had were placed on either side of the doorway.
Foxy stared at the stocking he still had in his hand, thinking about where to put his. "Hmm, what about mine? Maybe...oh maybe by more door." Foxy went over to the doorway to his room and hung his stocking there. "There we go!" He walked back over to the others, who were eyeing the same doorway from before.
"Hmm, it looks good, but I feel like something's missing..." Ballora contemplated.
"I know." Bon-Bon chimed in, and he took down the stocking hanging between the other stockings and replaced it with...mistletoe.
Ballora gasped in excited-ness as soon as she saw the bunny hand-puppet do this. Bon-Bon, you should find a way to get Baby under that!"
Foxy, a weird joke forming in his head, acted upon this. He walked right under the mistletoe. "Hey, Bon-Bon, dare you to come over here!" Everyone actively cringed at this, and Foxy broke out of his joking manner. "Okay, that was weird to say. Forget this!" He went back over to the decoration box, and his eyes fell on the big sleigh next to the box. "Say, why do we have a sleigh as part of our decorations?"
"Because I need to sleigh all of my enemies!" Ballora cracked, giggling.
"Uh, okay." Foxy dragged the sleigh over so that it sat right by the door. Ballora came over, and, noticing the sleigh, got excited again.
"Yeah! I can be Santa Claus!" She jumped into the sleigh and sat eagerly in it.
Puppet seemed befuddled. "Who is this 'Santa Klaus' that you speak of? I mean, I've heard you mention him before, but...who is he, really? All I know is that he breaks into peoples' homes, which is such a crime!"
"No, no, his name is Santa CLAUS, not Santa KLAUS!"
"I don't know anybody named Klaus, though."
"Isn't Klaus supposed to be the name of that one fish from American Dad?" Foxy brought up. "Oh, nevermind that, we have work to do." Foxy went back to the box and rummaged through it again until he found a few presents. He could see that they were decorative, meaning that there wasn't actually anything inside of them. "Where to put these..." Foxy looked around, then finally settled on putting them by the door, right next to the sleigh. "There we go."
"Who are the presents for, anyway?" Puppet asked.
"ALL OF US! At least, the ones that aren't decorative!" Ballora answered cheerily as she walked over to Foxy. "Foxy, don't put those by the door! They should go under the Christmas tree!"
"There's no Christmas tree here!"
"Are you SURE?"
"Positive."
Ballora just laughed. "Be right back, then!" She ran out of the room, heading down the small hall. Bon-Bon, gasping all of the sudden, ran off to the kitchen before anyone could say anything.
A few minutes later...
Ballora came back into the room lugging a big old Christmas tree in her arms, which she set in the middle of the room. The tree was decorated with all sorts of things: ball-shaped ornaments with the faces of Foxy, Freddy, Ballora, and Baby on them, red-and-green fairy lights, and a tree topper in the shape of a golden top hat.
"Woah!" Foxy gasped. "Wow, you weren't kidding when you said you had a Christmas tree!"
"Like it?" Ballora asked, smiling. "I've been setting this tree up for the past few days now! Now, go ahead and put the presents under there."
Foxy took the presents by the door and set them underneath the tree instead. As he did, Bon-Bon came back from the kitchen, holding a plate of chocolate-chip cookies and a glass of milk and placed it on the floor next to the tree.
Ballora, surprisingly enough, looked outraged. "Bon-Bon, what the heck?! Why are you putting cookies and milk on the FLOOR?"
"For that 'Santa' guy you've been talking about." Bon-Bon replied. "Didn't you say we had to leave out cookies and milk for him?"
"Santa doesn't eat off the floor, you idiot!"
"Isn't the floor where you leave it?!"
"No, you leave it on a TABLE, where bugs and rats like you can't get them! Besides, it's not even close to Christmas yet. If we leave out the cookies and milk now, it'll get stale. I'm gonna put this back in the kitchen fridge." She snatched up the plate and glass and walked off to the kitchen.
Bon-Bon, shrugging, simply went and did other parts of his work. Foxy turned away and went through the decoration box again, this time taking a gingerbread house. He took off a present that was on one of the tables and set it under the tree, then put the gingerbread house in place of the present's former spot.
Meanwhile, Bon-Bon was focusing on the stage. He set one of the plastic snowmen down near the door to the bouncy house, then carried three more plastic snowmen one-by-one and set them down on each of the three platforms on the room's stage.
Now it was Puppet's turn to complain. "Hey! You shouldn't put snowmen where everyone's supposed to stand!" The marionette said.
"Does it really even matter?" Bon-Bon sighed. "Nobody sleeps or preforms on that stage anymore, so why not use it for something else?"
"Because it's not the point of the stage to put inanimate objects up there!"
"Well, this place is my home, so I'm gonna decorate it in a way that I think is best! Oh, and in a way that Ballora thinks best, too, because she's supervising this decoration project."
"Fine, fine..."
"What's this about snowmen?" Ballora asked as she re-entered the room. "Ooh, you put snowmen on the stage, Bon-Bon? Good idea."
"I know, doesn't it look wonderful?"
"Yeah! And seeing this gives me some ideas, too. What if we had animatronic snowmen around here- THAT'S IT! I know what else to put down!" She ran over to the decoration box and pulled out a pumpkin with a creepy face on it, then set it down. She reached into the box of snow and started pulling out snow, rolling it up into giant balls for the snowman's bottom and middle parts. "It's time to create the ultimate snowman." She said as she worked on stacking the two snowman parts on top of each other.
Then, once she was done with that, she went back to the decoration box and pulled out two sticks, which she stuck in the snowman's left and right. Then she put the pumpkin down in place of where the snowman's head would usually go. Finally, she opened her chest cavity and took out a strange vial filled with a weird liquid-like substance and a syringe. She filled the syringe up the with the liquid substance until it was full, then she stabbed the syringe into the snowman's chest, filling it up with the liquid substance. After a few seconds passed, the snowman suddenly came to life, and it head started swiveling around as it looked at all of the animatronics.
The animatronics gasped as they eyed the now-living snowman, amazed at seeing such a thing.
"Ha ha, yes! It lives!" Ballora laughed as the snowman started sliding around the room, seemingly testing its new body. "Rise, my animatronic snowman, and be free!"
"Wow, you actually did it." Puppet said. "What's its name?"
"Uh...I think I'll name it Jack. No, wait, John Snow. That's better."
"Oh, cool. Uh, how is it an animatronic snowman, though?"
"Because when I read the label on this liquid stuff, it said it had 'metallic properties'. Cool, huh?"
"...Metallic...properties...no, it can't be..."
"What?"
"Nevermind, it's a cool snowman. Let's get back to work."
They left the living snowman to wander the room on its own and got back to work. As Foxy started hanging more stockings over the stage, he heard Ballora and Puppet arguing.
"So, Puppet, are you going to contribute to the work effort, or are you just going to stand there?" Ballora asked.
"I still don't know what this is supposed to be!" Puppet exclaimed, waving his arms at all of the decorations. "What is all of this?"
"It's Christmas decorations! Holiday tradition, you know!"
"But I've heard that it's called X-Mas!'
"X-mas? Ugh, clearly you've never seen any of this stuff before in your entire life. Which is weird considering you've been telling us that you've been around for a long time."
"Well, at my old home, whenever the company started putting up weird stuff around the pizzeria, I'd always just hide into my box until it was over. Now, about this holiday: it isn't like Thanksgiving, is it?"
"No, but it's MUCH better! You get presents from your friends, and you have Santa come in and give you more presents! You eat Christmas cookies, sing carols, relax by the fire, everything!"
"Hey, Ballora, can we bring those cookies and milk back out?" Bon-Bon asked. "I'm hungry."
"No, we're not bringing it out yet!"
"But you said you'd pay me in cookies.
"Yes, I am paying you in cookies, but not SANTA'S cookies."
Meanwhile, the snowman was starting to seem interested in the small hallway, and it started to inch out of the room. Foxy, not wanting it to escape, ran over to it.
"Where are you going, John?" Foxy asked, glaring at it. It didn't respond, so Foxy decided to get meaner. "Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you GOING?" As Foxy repeated this line, he punched the snowman in the face. The pumpkin on its head trembled a little, but it seemed unfazed. Foxy kept punching it, and the pumpkin got more and more loose. Finally, Foxy, full of annoyance at this point, punched the snowman's face with all of his might. He retracted his claws out for good measure.
His fist broke through the pumpkin, shattering it into tiny orange pieces that clattered onto the floor. The headless snowman was still for a moment. Then it started to thrash around in pain until it collapsed, falling onto its back. As soon as it collided with the floor, its snowy body's structure broke, causing the snow to break apart into a huge pile on the floor with two sticks in it.
Everybody in the room gasped in horror, but not because they were sad that the snowman had died, but rather in fear of what they knew was going to come immediately after. Ballora gasped loudest of all, trembling with anger.
"You...you..." She muttered, looking very cross.
Foxy, in a panic, knew he had to defend himself or he would be facing Ballora's wrath. He reached out to the pile of snow and took a piece of it, gathering the piece of snow together into a snowball. He threw the snowball, and it landed smack-dab at Ballora's face. Everyone was silent as they waited for Ballora to scream, or yell, or lost it. Instead, she simply wiped the snow off of her face, her angry expression still very apparent.
"Get. Over. Here." She growled, starting to step towards Foxy. And Foxy knew that that was his cue to run.
He turned tail, heading down the small hallway to get away from her. "AAAAAH!" He screamed as he ran.
Thankfully, the door to Ballora's room had been left open, so Foxy was able to run in there. He ran behind Reggie, and hid there as Ballora came marching into the room, Puppet and Bon-Bon following behind (albeit at a safe distance).
"Reggie, help me!" Foxy urged, shaking the former soldier's shoulder.
"What do you want from me now?" Reggie sighed, shaking Foxy's hand off. "I was just having a silent tea time to myself, since Ballora left me here to watch her room."
"Ballora's mad at me. Very, very mad."
"Again? Oh, great. What reason is it for this time?"
"This time? Let me explain. See, she built a snowman with a pumpkin for a head and injected it with some weird liquid stuff, and it came to life. Ballora said it was an animatronic snowman because that liquid had metallic properties. Everything was fine at first, but then it was tried to leave the room, so I tried punching it to stop it. But I punched it too hard, and it collapsed into a pile of snow. And then I tried throwing a snowball at Ballora to get her to back off, but...that only added fuel to the fire."
"So, you're telling me that she created a snowman with a weird liquid, you killed it by accident, and it exploded into a pile of snow, which you tried to use to throw a snowball at her."
"Exactly."
"This doesn't make sense. How does a snowman plus a weird liquid equal an animatronic?"
"No, it makes perfect sense. I think. Oh, let's just drop this, guys, and get back to work."
"Hey, wait." Puppet interrupted. "Why are we in here? You don't mean to tell me that we're going to be decorating the ENTIRE pizzeria?"
Ballora gasped. "Wow, that's a brilliant idea! I was originally just going to decorate the main room, but you're right that we should do the entire place! It needs some Christmas cheer!"
Foxy groaned, facepalming. "Great job, Puppet. Now we have even more work to do."
"Time for a complete building makeover!" Ballora cheered, and she rushed out of the room.
"Don't you dare go into my room!" Puppet warned, running after her.
"Guys, wait!" Bon-Bon said, following them.
After everyone else left, Foxy turned back to Reggie. "Yeah, so, it actually doesn't make sense to me either, I lied. I'd better hurry and go help the others before they do something drastic. Seeya."
Reggie just nodded and waved as Foxy left the room to chase after his friends.
Foxy arrived in the auditorium to find Bon-Bon trying to get past Puppet and into Puppet's box. The marionette was trying his hardest to block the way of the bunny hand-puppet.
"Bon-Bon, don't go into my room!" Puppet exclaimed. "My room is off-limits to you!"
"You need to be in the Christmas spirit!" Bon-Bon replied. He cleverly juked past Puppet, then jumped on and climbed into the box. Puppet hurriedly followed.
Foxy, however, decided to leave those two until later. Ballora had ran into the main room instead of to the auditorium, and he needed to check on her as well. So he turned around and headed back into the big hallway, only to find Ballora, who ran into the big hallway from the small hallway. She started hurriedly building more snowmen with pumpkin heads and injecting them with her weird liquid, causing them to come to life and start wandering around as well.
"Yes, mass production of snowmen!" She cheered.
"Ballora, this has to stop!" Foxy said. "And if you don't quit now, I'll have to resort to other matters."
"Other matters? Wait, you don't mean!-" Foxy grinned as he approached one of the snowmen and started punching it in the face like he had with the first one. "No!" Ballora protested. "Don't hurt them!"
"Aw, whatever do you mean? I'm just petting them." Foxy lied, and he punched the snowman's pumpkin into bits, causing it collapse as the first one had before. Then he picked up the snow from the fallen snowman and formed it into snowballs, then threw them at Ballora.
"Waaugh!" She squealed. "Okay, okay, fine! I'll stop!"
"Thank you." He said, then quickly destroyed the other snowmen to make sure, before running back to the auditorium. He went into the box and scrambled down the ladder into Puppet's room. Bon-Bon was putting up Christmas decorations around the room, but strangely Puppet was just standing by the side and watching him.
"Oh, hey Foxy." Puppet greeted. "Ballora isn't coming down here, is she? I don't need her decorating my room."
"She isn't, at least not yet." Foxy replied. "But why are you letting Bon-Bon decorate? I thought you didn't want him to do that."
"I don't, but I figured that I can just remove all of this later, when he leaves. One person's decorating is enough for me to handle."
"Oh, okay then. Looks like she hasn't come down so far, so-"
"YOU'RE NEXT, PUPPET!" Ballora shouted from above.
"Dang!" Puppet cursed. "So she is coming."
"Better brace yourself, then." Foxy voiced. He looked around and noticed that a plastic snowman had been put in front of one of the walls. Normally Foxy wouldn't really care, but he remembered that that wall was where Puppet's closet has been the last time he visited. Now the doors weren't there anymore. "Puppet, what happened to your closet?"
"Huh?" Puppet stuttered, turning around to look at the area Foxy was talking about. "Wait, I don't remember removing the door-" Puppet gasped. "No! The Redecorator must have come in here earlier and sealed up the room!" Puppet beat at the wall that had been the closet doors, but nothing happened.
"So the Redecorator actually has been back here?" Foxy assessed. "Augh, I can't believe it. How'd he get away with sealing off so many rooms? We weren't asleep for that long last night! Well, no use lamenting about it. We'll just make sure that next time he comes around, we're taking him out."
"Hey, guys." Bon-Bon interrupted. "I have a spare mistletoe. Want me to put it up in a doorway? Maybe you can get Ballora under it, Puppet."
"No, Puppet and Ballora aren't a thing." Foxy refused. "I mean, unless Puppet would like to contradict that and tell me a secret he hasn't told me yet."
"I don't have any secrets." Puppet denied sternly.
"Are you SURE?" Bon-Bon asked suspiciously.
"Yes, I'm sure. Anyways, these decorations really need to go down- Ooh, is that a candy cane jar I see sitting there?" Puppet was looking at a candy cane jar Bon-Bon had placed on the bar counter near the kitchen area. "Candy canes- no, wait, I take that back! Decorations are bad!"
"So you DO like candy canes after all!" Foxy shouted. "It's a miracle, Bon-Bon! Puppet's getting into the Christmas spirit! Anyways, can we leave?"
"Sure thing." Puppet walked to his tv room to head up the ladder, but when Foxy made to follow, Bon-Bon tugged at his arm.
"Foxy, here." He whispered, giving the pink-white foxy another Christmas wreath. "Put this up somewhere in his house."
Foxy nodded, took the wreath, and quickly thought about where to put the wreath before continuing. Then he carried the wreath into Puppet's bathroom and put it on the wall. Foxy grinned at his handiwork before leaving the bathroom to follow the others into the tv room.
They all started up the ladder, Foxy taking the lead and Puppet and Bon-Bon right behind. Foxy could hear Ballora cheerily singing up above.
"It's finished!" He could here her say. "My project for decorating is done!"
Oh, boy. Foxy thought, an uncomfortable feeling in his circuits. What could Ballora have possibly done this time?
He reached the surface and climbed out of the box...to find that Ballora had just decorated the entirety of the auditorium, and was currently singing as she string fairy lights along one of the walls. She had even put wreaths and fairy lights on Puppet's box.
"Oh, no." Foxy mumbled. He ran over to look down the big hallway, and he could see more decorations put up in there as well. More living snowmen were wandering around the hallway as well. "And there are more snowmen here, too. Great..."
"Ta-da!" Ballora exclaimed brightly. "Isn't it beautiful, guys?"
"No!" Puppet screamed as he came out his box and found it decorated. "What have you done to my box?!"
"I decorated it! Now it has pretty lights and wreaths on it!"
"But I told you not to!"
"Aw, don't complain." Bon-Bon said, coming out of the box himself. "I think it looks okay."
"YOU would, but I hate it!"
"I need to check the main room!" Foxy decided, running out of the room. "I have to see just how many snowmen you made!"
Foxy found that there were even more snowmen in the main room instead of in the hall. There were leaving a slight sludge on the ground as they slid around the room, observing it from top to bottom.
"Guys, the ground is wet!" Foxy informed them as the others came into the room to see what Foxy was talking about. "These snowmen are making a mess!"
"Ah, I have no idea what you mean." Ballora said, shaking her head. "The floor is just fine."
"It isn't!" To prove his point, Foxy started to run around the room, and quickly ended up slipping on a nearby puddle and falling on his back. "Ouch! See, I told you it was slippery!" Foxy picked himself back up.
"Woah!" Puppet said, having noticed the amount of living snowmen in the room. "There's a lot of snowmen in here..."
"Yeah, Ballora decided to create a snowmen army while we were down in your box." Foxy explained. "She thinks she can use these to rule us all, but I know for a fact that it's not gonna work. It's very easy for me to destroy any of the snowmen she creates." Foxy punched a nearby snowman in the face to show this. Its pumpkin head got a small crack in its side, but it wasn't down yet. "See? Not only are they super easy to destroy, but they don't even make any attempt at fighting back." Foxy punched the snowman again and its pumpkin head was destroyed, causing it to melt away.
"Hey! I saw that!" Ballora chastised, noticing this.
"You saw nothing!" Foxy taunted, and he quickly made some snowballs from the snow left behind and threw the snowballs at Ballora. She squealed and ducked, trying to dodge them. Foxy eventually ran out of snowballs, so he just chuckled afterwards. Ballora gave him a dirty look.
"Ballora, these snowmen are yours, aren't they?" Puppet asked Ballora.
"Of course!" Ballora confirmed. "I made them."
"They're getting paid fairly for their work, right?"
"Oh, they're not workers, they're my minions! There's a difference, you know."
"Do they even have names?"
"Well, yes! There's Jeremy, and Jeremy one, and two, and three, and four, and five, and six..."
"They're all named Jeremy? Why that name specifically?"
"I just thought of that as a placeholder name for all of my snowmen. Naming them all individually would take forever."
Suddenly, the snowmen all slid over to each other, then began to dance in a circle. Their dance consisted of them sliding back and forth, side to side, waving their stick arms as they went.
"They're dancing now?" Foxy processed.
"Yeah!" Ballora said. "I guess it must be in their nature to dance with each other!"
"I don't like the looks of that dance." Puppet muttered. "They might be trying to summon their evil snowman leader to come and destroy us all."
Nobody replied to something as ridiculous as this, and just kept watching the snowman dance. Bon-Bon, meanwhile, placed another plastic snowman next to the tree, and he moved it so it looked like the snowman was putting its arm around the tree.
"Ah! It's inside the tree!" Ballora yelled crazily.
"No, no, it's just hugging the tree!" Bon-Bon said. "They're friends."
"Oh. Eh, I still don't think that should be there. We need to be able to see the tree without anything blocking it."
"But-"
"No buts. Put the snowman somewhere else."
"Aw, fine." Bon-Bon grabbed the plastic snowman and pushed it away, putting it against a nearby wall instead. As he did this, Ballora forgot about the snowman and smiled around at the newly decorated room. The living snowmen has stopped dancing and were now going back to sliding around the room by themselves.
"Ah, doesn't this place look beautiful now, guys?" Ballora sighed. "Through all the chaos and disorganization, even despite all of the trouble, everything turned out so perfectly in the end. It warms my heart."
"Beautiful? It's a mess." Puppet complained, but then shrugged. "Well-"
"Puppet, don't." Foxy suddenly said, getting a feeling of what Puppet was about to say. What he was going to say would jinx everything.
"-at least-"
"Don't say it!"
"-it can't-"
"Please don't say it!"
"-get any worse."
"YOU SAID IT!"
True to Foxy's fears, Ballora grinned at Puppet's words. "It can't get any worse? Oh, you haven't seen nothing yet. I still have so many ideas for this place!"
"Ballora, we should decorate his room more!" Bon-Bon urged, tapping Ballora's leg.
Ballora looked down at the hand-puppet, unimpressed. "Why would you just say that when the owner of the room is standing right next to us?"
"Huh? Wait, but I thought he wasn't listening! I-"
"You guys are coming back to my room?!" Puppet exclaimed. "That does it! I'm gonna go block it off!" Puppet ran off down the smaller hallway so he could get to his room.
"No! Come back!" Bon-Bon chased after the marionette, leaving Ballora and Foxy the only ones still in the main room.
"There they go." Ballora noted.
"Yeah." Foxy said simply. "Are you gonna go help him?"
"No, he can handle it by himself. I'll come by Puppet's room at a time where he doesn't expect me."
"Good plan."
"I know. So, uh...the place looks a bit brighter, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, you did a good job decorating. Did I help at all?"
"You did. Thanks for the help, by the way."
"No problem. I'm gonna go rest in my room now."
"Oh, can I decorate your room, too?"
"No. Not right now."
"Aw, party pooper! Well, I'll get to your room later. You can run, but you can't hide from Christmas!"
"Whatever you say, whatever you say. I'm taking a nap now. Seeya."
"Bye." Ballora turned around and left the main room, leaving Foxy to go back into his own room.
The pink-white fox went into his cove and closed the curtains of his cove and sat down in the corner. He yawned briefly, then deactivated himself, ready to sleep and have some uninterrupted, non-festive dreams...
Puppet walked across the big hallway, striding with a sense of purpose. Everyone had gone into their own rooms at this point, so now he could get to the bottom of what had been bothering him.
That mysterious liquid stuff that Ballora had. What was it?
He had saw it in her hand and felt a feeling of dread. Surely it couldn't be what he thought it was...
He reached the doors to Ballora's room and opened them, quietly coming in. Ballora was in conversation with Reggie.
"And so my next idea for decorations is-" She began saying, but noticed Puppet come in. "Oh, hi, Puppet! What brings you to my room?"
"Nothing much." Puppet said. "I'll be quick. I've just got a question I need to ask you."
"A question? Well, alright, tell me."
"That liquid substance you had...can I see it?"
"Huh? You mean the stuff I used to bring my snowmen army to life?"
"Yeah, that."
"Oh, well, normally I'd say no, but since nobody else is around...I guess I can let you have a look at it."
She opened her chest cavity, reached inside, and took out the vial. Puppet could see the liquid floating inside there. Ballora handed it to him.
He observed it, turning it around in his hands, before looking to see what the label said.
And then he gasped when he saw what it said. His hands began to tremble, so much so that he nearly dropped he vial.
Puppet felt disgusted now. He wanted to throw what he was holding far away, but...he couldn't just do that. He needed to do...other things.
"Ballora..." Puppet stuttered, trying to keep calm. "How...no...WHERE did you get this?"
"Oh, well, I found it in one of the kitchen cabinets, hidden behind a bag of flour. It said it can bring things to life, so I decided to take it."
"Do...do you have any idea what this stuff does?"
"No, not really. I mean, do you?"
"Ye- NO! I don't. So, uh, can...can I take this? I want to, uh...make a snowman army like you."
"Wow, really? Well, then, go ahead and have it! This place needs more snowmen."
"Thanks. I'll, uh, take good care of it."
"You better."
Ballora waved to Puppet as he turned to leave the room. Puppet waved back, keeping a false smile on his face.
Then, once he left and closed the door behind him, he broke into a run. He ran and ran and ran down the big hall, into the auditorium, and scrambled into his box as fast as he could. Then, when he came into his tv room, he looked at the label again.
Advanced Remnant - Contains metallic properties - Instructions: Pour liquid into metallic parts to activate effects - Can be used for trapping souls and giving life to inanimate objects. Use with caution.
Puppet gasped. This wasn't just Remnant, it was Advanced Remnant. It had to be a recent creation of Afton. But...how could someone as unknowing as Ballora have possibly found it, of all people?
"No...no, no, no..." He muttered. "How did Ballora get this stuff? And why is it...different? It didn't bring things to life before. It only just...does this mean Afton is...oh no. He couldn't be...this is bad. I have to tell Baby about this later. But, for now...I think it's time I research this. I need to find out how to engineer a counter to this stuff."
Puppet, with the vial safe in his hand, headed for his computer room, ready to begin research of the contents of this. He needed to act quickly before something bad happened...
Ballora watched as Puppet closed the door and left before she turned back to Reggie. "Oh, I hope he creates LOTS of snowmen! The more, the merrier."
"Yes, darling, indeed..." Reggie muttered dutifully. "Though I am wondering why you were so willing to let him have that."
"Oh Reggie, of course I let him have it! After all, that wasn't all of that weird Remnant stuff that I had."
"It...wasn't?"
"Nope! I've got an extra container stored backstage. Puppet can't be the only one creating snowmen, you know!"
"Oh, uh, of course darling..."
"Now, I'm gonna get some rest. You should too, Reggie. We've got a busy month ahead of us. So many festivities I've still got planned! Well, it's a matter for tomorrow's Ballora, not today's Ballora. See you tomorrow, sweetheart."
She kissed Reggie on the cheek and went backstage, closing the door behind her.
Reggie sighed as she left, then walked off of his platform and went to sit down on one of the couches at the end of the room. He had his worries about what Ballora would do with that liquid stuff, he had to admit, but...no, it was fine.
Perhaps he was just overthinking this...perhaps not...he didn't know.
Only time would tell...
Whew, I'm done! I'm kind of glad to finish this chapter. I liked it at first, but it's kind of all over the place the whole way through. Oh well, now the pizzeria is ready for a holly-jolly month of Christmas.
Also, I'd like to post a special announcement: I'm finally taking Hello Neighbor off hiatus. I feel as if it's time get to doing both stories, and boy is there a lot lined up for Hello Neighbor.
The next chapter of SL will take longer than usual (which isn't saying much) because I'll be working on a revised chapter 1 for Hello Neighbor.
Yes, I can already hear the complaint: 'But you said you weren't revising chapters, why are you suddenly doing that?' Simple, because Hello Neighbor is an entirely different story from this one and it still hasn't really started yet. The Chapter 1 of it I posted before was pretty much a sneak peek into the story, but now that it's off hiatus I can get to work polishing Chapter 1 and improving upon its mistakes before I continue its story.
Chapter releases will be kinda spread out. I'll start off posting more SL chapters than HN chapters, but eventually I'll alternate between making chapters for each story.
Edit: I've added a part at the end of the chapter. I meant to add it before release, but I was so caught up that I accidentally didn't. Oh well, it's here now.
Edit 2: Hey guys, the revision for chapter 1 of my Hello Neighbor story is out! I'd really appreciate it if you could go and check it out! You can find the story by going to my profile.
With that said, I'll take my leave. See you when the next SL chapter comes out.
