The Bite of '87: A Just Another Night at Freddy's One-Shot
ADVISORY: Graphic Content Ahead. Violence and gore. You have been warned.
"C'mon, Foxy!" the little boy called. Foxy stood still for several moments, CPU chugging through the wash of information that bombarded it.
The restaurant was completely packed. Several large birthday parties picked this particular day to visit Freddy's, as it was the last day of Summer Break. This brought out even more walk-ins, deciding to visit one last time to celebrate one last day of freedom.
The murders that had been discovered nearly a year ago seemed to have faded from public conscious once the pizzeria ensured that all necessary precautions had been taken. Some of the improvements included the pricey conversion of the Security Office into what was practically a fallout shelter, and the addition of a Night Guard, proudly taken over by Head of Security Phil Garrison. Nathan had been brought back onboard to prepare a security protocol, turning the robots into a sort of patrolling force during their nightly free roam that kept their joints nice and loose. Two birds with one stone, as they say.
But none of that really mattered to the animatronics, so long as they continued to make children smile. But the extra data from the security protocol wound up causing a lot of undue strain on their systems. Without Nathan, there were no regular maintenance sessions managing their memory. The robot's base A.I. continued to store and interpret information, pumping it to their learning algorithms and using it to build their individual personalities and increase their sapience. Coupled with the security program, this caused an influx of excess data, and their memory storage was nearing capacity.
The effects of this weren't apparent at first, being more a creeping threat than a charging one. They slowed down, figuring out what to do took time, and as commands and triggers began to overlap it would create complications and errors that took even more time to sort through and fix. For the animatronics, this resulted in confusion and delayed reactions. It started out small, such as wandering several paces in one direction before making the necessary turn or moving to give a hug after the child had already run off. Management chocked it up to the usual glitches and bugs that plagued computers, and didn't do much to improve it.
As a result, Foxy struggled to process up a response this particular busy afternoon, as the sheer number of children overwhelmed his protective protocols. Every few seconds, a kid would scream out, or begin crying, or call for his attention, of which each of those was a trigger. Said trigger would then prompt a response, be it moving to investigate, talking back to them, or simply glancing over depending on the severity. But it was too much, too fast.
"Er, aye, lad, hang on one momen'," Foxy called over. I be needing to shut down for a while. He looked around, seeing dozens of kids racing around exasperated employees. The pirate spotted a lone crew member standing off to the side, taking a breather from the onslaught of kids, rubbing his temples at the noise. Foxy forced himself to head to in the worker's direction, doing his best to ignore children for the first time in his life.
"Foxy! Foxy!" a small child chanted, running around the pirate's legs, "Foxy! Foxy!"
"Careful, matey, I be sailin' through," Foxy warned, remaining on his path.
"Hey! He hit me!" a girl cried. Foxy fought the urge to investigate.
Got to take a break, the sole thought became his entire focus, Get back to being ship-shape.
"Play nice wit' yer mates!" Foxy ordered several long seconds later.
"But I want the show to start now!" a bratty child demanded. That was easily ignored.
The employee Foxy set a course to happened to meet his eyes, and stood up from the wall. He had been working there for a few months, and could tell that the pirate was not doing well. He met the robot halfway.
"Everything okay, Captain?" he asked. Foxy's temper with adults was well known, and some staff went out of their way to be respectful. Several seconds passed as Foxy processed his response. "Captain?"
"No, mate, things don' be good righ' now," Foxy replied, "Me systems are slowin' down, I be needin' a break." The employee nodded in understanding.
"You got it, Captain, just sit tight. I'll tell the manager," he said, "Do you think the others are having the same issue?" Foxy didn't respond for several moments, and he added, "Never mind, I'm sure they are. I'll be right back." He dashed off, winding his way through the crowd towards the offices.
Foxy took the employee's advice and remained rooted to the floor off to the side, staring straight ahead to try and lighten the load before he crashed. Or did something stupid. This didn't stop the children, however, who flocked to him as per usual.
"Foxy, tell me a story!" one asked.
"No, no, let's go on a treasure hunt!" said another.
"Do you know where Freddy is?"
"Hey! Foxy!"
"Captain Foxy!"
"Yay!"
"I don' be feelin' up to a story, mates," Foxy replied to the first question.
"So let's find treasure!"
"We could sword fight!"
"Let's play hide and seek!"
"Where's Bonnie?"
"She's over there, stupid!"
"Hey! Quit pulling on my hair!"
"I don' think there be any treasure ta find," Foxy said. Hurry, lad.
Foxy chanced a glance to the office, seeing the day manager and the employee talking. The employee pointed in Foxy's direction, before jerking his thumb behind him in a motion that implied he was referring to the Backstage. The manager shook his head, and said something while sweeping his hand across the restaurant. The employee said something in response, much more urgently, gesturing with both hands in a pleading motion.
"Ah ha! There he is!" said a voice, this one belonging to an adult man, "Come over here, dear, let's get a picture with Captain Foxy! Whaddya say, Cap'n?"
Foxy turned, revealing a large, grinning man with a big camera around his neck, his daughter looking embarrassed next to him. He wore a bright blue Hawaiian shirt, tan shorts, and socks with sandals. The long silence that was created as Foxy formed his response seemed to have been a sign of consent for the man.
"Great! Get out of the way, kids," the man said, dispersing the children that had gathered around the fox. He flagged an employee, a new hire, over and handed him his camera.
"Can you take a picture of us?" he asked.
"Sure!" came the employee's forcefully cheery reply.
"Thanks!" the man said, grin looking as if it would rip his face in half, "Smile, honey!"
The man put an arm around Foxy shoulder. This overrode everything else as a spike of anger shot through Foxy's system.
"I don' like ta be touched, lad," he said in a low voice. The man gave him a look, huge grin completely gone.
"What? C'mon, man, it's just a picture!" he said, "Smile for the camera, matey!" the giant grin returned, and the arm remained. Foxy felt himself getting angrier by the second, only compounded by the difficulties he had been having. He began to growl softly. The employee looked unsure, and lowered the camera.
"I dunno… I'd listen to him," he said. The man began to scowl.
"What? Are you serious!?" the man asked, "I paid good money to be here, and now I want a picture with Foxy!"
"Dad…" the daughter began.
"Hush!" the father spat, "Daddy's talking!"
Foxy stared down at the offending arm, beginning to contemplate removing it.
"I said I don' like ta be touhed, matey." Foxy said, growl getting louder.
"Sir, I think you should give Foxy some space, he clearly doesn't like you," the employee said, taking several steps backwards. "Here's your camera." He held the device at arm's length.
This seemed to push the man past the breaking point.
"Are you fucking kidding me!?" he roared, "I don't care if he doesn't like it! He's a robot! Look, look!"
The man turned and grabbed Foxy by the arms and began shaking him. Foxy's slowed state kept him from resisting the motions properly, and he found himself struggling to keep his balance. The anger turned to unbridled, all consuming fury, overloading his personality matrix. He saw red.
"Just a big pile of fucking bolts!" the man said, and let go, turning to the employee, "Now take the goddamn pic-!"
Everything happened in an instant. Foxy grabbed the man, spun him around, and wrapped his jaws around his head. For several seconds, nobody moved, nobody breathed. Until Foxy closed his jaw.
The crack could be heard across the restaurant, and carried over the din of the crowd. The entire dining room fell silent in moments as hundreds of eyes looked over at the scene. Blood spurted from the wound, covering Foxy and his victim. The man's body jerked, then fell backwards, exposing the large missing chunk to the shocked crowd. Then the room exploded into chaos.
Adults screamed. Children cried. Many struggled not to vomit. Several fainted in shock. Most began to run for the exit in a mass exodus. The employee that held the man's camera slowly raised a hand to his face, dabbing blood off of it with his finger and staring at it in absolute horror. He looked at Foxy, whose system had crashed and still wore the same scowl. The effort required to bite through thick skull bone damaged the fox's lower jaw, and it slowly dropped open, spilling its horrifying contents.
Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica appeared out of nowhere, grabbing Foxy and hightailing it Backstage, setting him down on the maintenance table. They quickly left him alone as sirens sounded in the distance.
Foxy reactivated several hours later, sitting up on the table to see Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Nathan staring at him. The mess on his front had been cleaned, and the red-stained rags sat in the overflowing trash can in the corner. The fox blinked once.
"Er... Ahoy..." he greeted. Nathan looked at the ground, slowly shaking his head. Freddy placed a supporting hand on the mechanic's shoulder, eyes narrowed at the fox in a glare. Chica became incredibly interested in the ceiling. Bonnie held a confused expression, and looked back and forth between Freddy and Nathan. "Wha'?" Foxy asked.
"Foxy..." Nathan began, but couldn't finish it, looking up with a mixture of despair and fear. Mainly the latter.
"Wha'?" Foxy asked again, more earnestly. Freddy made a noise that was unidentifiable.
"Excuse me," he said, and pushed the door to the Backstage open so hard it slammed into the wall. Nathan ran a hand through his hair.
"Do... do you have any idea what you just did?" Nathan asked. Foxy shook his head.
"No," he replied, "I think I migh' 'ave broken down, though."
Nathan stared at Foxy for several long seconds before opening his mouth to speak. Nothing came out aside from a small squeaking sound, and he closed his mouth before quickly following Freddy out of the door to the Backstage. Foxy blinked, bewildered.
"Wha' be goin' on?" Foxy asked, turning to Chica and Bonnie. Chica's head snapped in his direction.
"Oh, hey," she glanced down at her wrist as if checking a watch, "Would you look at the time! C'mon Bonnie." The chicken grabbed the rabbit by the hand and tugged her out of the room. The door shut with a damning clang, leaving Foxy alone in the dark room.
Nathan sat drenched in cold sweat. Had Foxy finally gone too far? He knew the animatronic had a serious anger issue, and could be violent, but... this? It seemed impossible, but he had literally scraped the evidence away. He was pulled from his thoughts by a detective clearing her throat.
"May we begin?" she asked, pulling a pen and notepad from her jacket pocket.
"Oh, yes, of course," Nathan replied. The detective nodded encouragingly.
"No need to be nervous, you're not in trouble, we just want to understand what's going on," she explained, "Now tell me, how long have you been affiliated with Fazbear Entertainment?"
Nathan shifted uncomfortably.
"About... about five or six years, give or take," he replied. Again, the detective nodded.
"Okay. Have you ever experienced the animatronics having issues before?"
"Nothing like this," Nathan replied shaking his head, "Nothing like this."
"I see. You are the main mechanic responsible for the maintenance, correct?"
"Yes."
"Is this regular upkeep, or...? To put it another way, how often are the robots inspected?" the detective arched an eyebrow. Nathan rubbed the back of his neck.
"After the, uh, previous lawsuits, I was laid off," he said, "Regular inspections stopped, at least, I think they did. I was occasionally called in for major issues, such as... this."
The detective wrote intently in her notebook for several seconds until her pager beeped once. She reached down and unhooked it from her belt, reading the message on the screen. She frowned.
"Thank you for your time, Mr. Grymes, but I'm afraid I have to cut this short. You may be questioned again and will very likely be summoned as a witness should this ever go to trial. In the mean time, if you need anyone to talk to, contact our station's non-emergency number," the detective handed Nathan a business card, "I'm sure this has been difficult to process, and I very much appreciate your cooperation. Thank you, Mr. Grymes."
The detective stood, shook Nathan's hand, and strode quickly out of the room. The mechanic sat numb in his chair in the middle of the Dining Area. The police investigation was wrapping up, with a section of the lobby roped off as a crime scene. As the investigators packed up and left, Nathan felt the back of his neck tingle, as if someone was watching him. He quickly turned and scanned the room, just in time to see the curtains of Pirate's Cove swish softly into place.
Foxy sat still, in standby mode, and watched as workers began disassembling the set of his small stage in Pirate's Cove. The small playground that replaced the original seating had already been moved out. The decorations that made his stage look like the deck of the Red Fox were forcefully ripped away, the thin wood torn into pieces and dumped into a large garbage can. By the end of the day, the only thing that remained was the large treasure chest the animatronic sat on. The combined bulk of the two made it too much of a hassle for the workmen to bother carting it away. This was the first day Foxy had not been allowed to move around during the day.
The other animatronics had been restricted as well. After the court scandal, Nathan had returned and ensured the free roam programming they had had installed their entire mechanical lives was disabled, leaving them only able to move around after midnight, long after guests and staff (read: potential accidents and court cases) had already left. During shows, Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica now behaved more like conventional animatronics, moving through pre-programmed motions with no variety. They still had influence on the timing of the show, and took small steps around, but it was nothing like the good old days.
When midnight rolled around that first terrible, terrible day, Foxy did not bother getting up. At first, he felt angry, furious even, that his show had shut down. But as more and more of Pirate's Cove disappeared through the curtains that remained closed, the sadder the pirate became. It was over, all of it. No more shows, no more little mateys to entertain, no more stories left to tell. Freddy had given him such an earful that he did his best to stay off the bear's radar, as did Chica and Bonnie. It was the first time Freddy had actually been mad.
Day after day Foxy sat, listening to the voices that drifted through the curtain, and day after day, Foxy began to break down. When the endoskeletons started making their nightly appearance, the pirate showed the least amount of restraint in punishing them for breaking the rules. He was the worst offender, and the least merciful. Each night spent terrifying the rule breakers gave Foxy a morbid sort of glee, as it did to the others. Even Bonnie. It was a release, a time to let out all the frustration over what they had lost, to keep themselves sane.
Night after night, for several years, Foxy charged down the hallway, slamming into the metal door and pounding on it if the endo happened to be quick on the draw, or dragging them out screaming when they weren't. That was his life, unchanging, unforgiving, constant switch between anguished longing and mad, morbid glee. For the longest time, gone was the happy-go-lucky fox, the proud pirate, the children's storybook hero. Until the day Mike Schmidt stepped behind his curtain, and talked to him. Until the night when Mike, the first staff member to stay after midnight, fell asleep, and Foxy found his keys.
Until that one fateful night, everything was the same. It was just another night.
A/N: Hello, folks. Look! Another story! Wow! For those of you who are getting a serious case of Deja Vu, this is an upload of the same story that I posted on my DeviantART page. I didn't want anyone to be left out, so here it is in glorious FanFiction! I'm really starting to get back into the swing of writing. I'm looking forward to posting more in the coming days/weeks.
As always, have a good one!
-DeltaV "It's not the size of the story, it's how you post it."