Even though he decided to give his new job a chance, doubt still festered deep in Mike's heart. Though nothing bad happened to him the day before, he still harbored some fear over the animatronic girls he was hired to watch over.
He tried his hardest to ignore that feeling ever since his first shift ended but, in the end, he would discover that he should have abided by that fear. Now he tightly bound by rope and stuck between a bloodthirsty robotic pirate and a short, but deadly fall.
"So, what be ya fate boy?" Foxy asked with an evil smirk. She raised her sharp hook towards him and slowly caressed his face. The feeling of the cold, metallic weapon rubbing against his skin accentuated his fear. "Shall ye give your heart to me or to the depths of the locker?"
Neither of those options sounded too appealing to Mike.
"Can't there be a third option?" he requested.
"A third option?" Foxy roughly tapped her hook against her chin as she pondered the question that has suddenly been weighed against her. Sneaking glances between each tap, she asked. "…Would you choose that option?"
"Considering the other two, most likely."
"Hmm…" Mike's heart started to beat in time with Foxy's taps. After waiting for what seemed like forever, the female pirate turned towards him and smiled. "Okay then: Forfeit."
"Forfeit?"
"Aye. You forfeit your chance to choose and I get to choose for you."
The captured human cried out in pain as he felt something sharp pierce his flesh and enter his innards. All he could do was close his eyes and wait for the ringing in his ears to stop.
Ringing?
Mike opened his eyes, suddenly finding himself at the foot of his bed next to his ringing phone.
"A dream?"
He immediately checked his body for injuries, sighing in relief when he found none other than the bump on his head.
"Not the best dream to have before returning to my job with living animatronics…" he muttered.
Even though Mike was fairly certain that Foxy would not put him in such a situation in the first place, that small fear and the doubts that remains in his heart couldn't stop him from wondering. In fact, when he thought about it as he got dressed, while he could understand his lingering doubts, he could not understand why he still possessed any form of fear towards the girls.
He now knew he shouldn't fear them at first glance and yet the fear slightly remained. But he had no time to give himself a therapy session for it was time for him to leave for work.
…
Once he arrived, he found his boss leaning against her office door with her nose in a book.
"Hey, Mike," she greeted, her eyes still glued to her novel.
"Evening, Charlie," the night guard replied. "Hey, um… Can I ask you something?"
"What's up?"
"Well, I was just wondering how come I wasn't given a uniform last night."
Closing her book, Charlie calmly looked up at Mike and chuckled. "Actually, we stopped giving prospective night guards uniforms since they tend not to return them after they runaway forever."
"Ah," Mike could understand the reasoning behind his boss' stance. "So, when can I expect to get a uniform?"
"Do you really want to wear a uniform?" she asked, perplexed.
"I believe I should have something that proves that I work here."
"Okay, I'll think of something," With a caviler shrug, Charlie walked off, leaving Mike to his work. Five steps later, she suddenly stopped and turned around with a quizzical look on her face. "By the way, did you meet all the girls last night?"
"Uhm, no. I only officially met Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Mangle," Mike answered, recounting his experiences from the past night.
Perhaps if he hadn't lost consciousness the night before, he would have. Then again, he was sure he hadn't, he would have been just like the other night guards that didn't return their uniforms.
"Oh… So, you haven't been in the closet I said you didn't have to worry about?"
"Not exactly…"
Charlie bit her lip as if she was trying to contemplate something serious, something that worried Mike.
"Is something troubling you?" he worriedly asked.
"No, not really," Charlie sighed. It sounded like she had just lost a competition. "Anyway, good luck with Night 2."
Though confused by her response, Mike could do nothing but theorize Charlie's strange behavior until he heard a familiar voice call out, "Night Guard!"
The new night guard silently turned around to find Bonnie waving as she approached him. Following behind her was Freddy, adjusting her top hat.
"You really did come back," Bonnie beamed.
"Well… it is my job to come back after all," Mike forced a chuckle past his lips.
"You don't have to downplay it, Night Guard. I think we all appreciate it that you came back," Freddy said in a reassuring tone. She then placed her left hand on Mike's forehead, causing his cheeks to faintly glow red. "How's your head, by the way?"
"Fine, but… How did you know that I hurt my head?"
"I was there when Bonnie carried you to the show stage after you passed out. I went out to find a bag of ice for you, but everyone disappeared when I got back."
Bonnie chuckled awkwardly, recounting the events of last night, "Well, Foxy kinda got excited and one thing led to another…"
"Speaking of which…" Freddy stared at Mike, her face now sporting a curious look. "Have you met everybody yet?"
"Not everybody," Mike answered. "But before I do that, I better go to my office and take my station."
With a quick salute goodbye, Mike departed for his office. Though uncomfortable, he was able to get through the brief conversation. Still Bonnie's happiness over his return and Freddy's concern helped assuage his lingering worries.
"Hm…" Bonnie curiously scratched her right bunny ear. "Now that he knows that we're alive, does he really need to stay in his office looking at cameras all night?"
"Well, that is the job he was hired for…" Freddy crossed her arms and pondered Mike's answer to her last question. "Bonnie, do you know who he encountered last night?"
"Um… Besides me and Chica, Foxy's the only other one that I know he met. But I really don't know if he met anyone else when he went missing for a little while. Why?"
Freddy crossed her arms as she considered the possibilities of that scenario. A grave expression soon landed on her face, worrying Bonnie.
"…We need to go check the closet," the top-hatted animatronic said.
Taking the lead, Freddy quickly journeyed to the closet Charlie directed Mike away from the day he was hired and opened it to find another animatronic girl inside.
This animatronic heavily reassembled Freddy but her hair and skin was a golden hue and her eyes were pitch black with white pupils. Also unlike Freddy, this animatronic was missing one of her right ear, allowing her internal wires to jut out from the open space along with a few other rips on her body.
"Uh oh…" Freddy mumbled fearfully. "Fredbear, where's Spring-Bonnie?"
The golden animatronic slowly looked up at the two visitors and, in a slow, uninterested tone, answered with, "She said she wanted to check out the new Night Guard. Said she wanted to see whether they were cute or not."
"Of course…" Freddy sighed.
"This isn't good. He definitely is cute," Bonnie fretted. Her lips trembled with fear as she imagined Mike's reaction to what's coming. "We got to get to his office before she does!"
Meanwhile, Mike sat in front of his laptop observing one of the hallways from the camera stationed there.
Now that I think about it… Now that I know that the girls are… well, 'alive', if I use the cameras to keep an eye on them, wouldn't that be technically spying on them?
But before he could brainstorm the possible answers to that question, his eyes were quickly drawn back to the screen. Confusion and curiosity welled up in him as he watched Freddy and Bonnie frantically run in and out of the camera's view.
"I wonder why Freddy and Bonnie are running around like that," Mike wondered aloud.
Determined to find out what's going on, Mike stood up from his seat only for something soft and golden to be pushed against his face. With his vision now blocked and air supply cut off, Mike could do nothing but try to hold on to what little oxygen he had as he heard someone squee, "You're as cute as I hoped! Yay!"
With his air supply quickly fading, Mike began to wonder the irony of immediately assuming the job would be dangerous after first finding out the animatronics were alive. Just as he felt he couldn't hold on any longer, oxygen quickly surged back into his body as the source of his trouble was pulled away.
With his vision no longer obstructed, Mike could see Freddy and Bonnie holding an animatronic with gold skin, blonde hair, and purple eyes. She also possessed damaged gold rabbit ears with wires jutting out of them and the many rips in her body and had a big black button settled just above her chest.
"Spring-Bonnie, you can't keep smushing your breasts into the night guards' faces like that. Humans need oxygen," Freddy reminded the golden girl in a stern tone.
"But you know I can't help myself around cute guys," Spring-Bonnie glanced at Mike as he gasped for air. An interested expression crossed her face as she took in his appearance for a second time. "And he's really cute."
"Um…" Bonnie's grip on their captive lessened her as she shifted her attention to her fellow captor. "She has a point there, Freddy."
As if spurred on by her words, Spring-Bonnie immediately looked up at Freddy with pleading eyes.
"Still… You can't just do that. He's the first to make it to the second night and we wouldn't want him to leave," Freddy pointed out, releasing her grip.
"Funny enough, I said the same thing to Foxy," Bonnie recalled. "It makes me even more curious about what made him stay after he seemed so scared at first. Hey, Night Guard…"
Bonnie turned her gaze to Mike, only to find that he was gone. She then turned back to Spring-Bonnie and was shocked to find that she was missing too.
"Not again…" she weakly chuckled.
Some distance away, Spring-Bonnie lightly pushed Mike against the wall and gently pressed her chest against his. He found eye contact almost impossible to maintain as she gazed upon him like a predator that has just caught their prey.
"Uh…" His ability to speak now failing him, Mike could do nothing but glance down at his captor's hands.
"You know, it's actually been a while since I've met a new night guard," said Spring-Bonnie.
"Really?" Mike glanced back at her, curious as to what she would say next.
"Yeah. The others seem to try their hardest to get them to avoid me on the first night since everyone thinks I scare them away the most."
"Do you scare them away the most?"
"It's not like I try to, it's just that I get really excited at the prospect of spending my few hours outside of the storage closest with a really cute guy," Spring-Bonnie's face inched closer to Mike's, causing her faint red cheeks to grow even redder. "Lucky for me, the first one that made it to Night 2 in forever is the cutest one of them all. And he has an accent."
Mike was completely speechless. He found himself in a situation that he somehow found more egregious than living animatronics: a woman throwing himself at him.
As her face inched even closer to his, Spring-Bonnie's advance was immediately interrupted by a hearty, "Yo ho!"
The two turned their attention down the hallway and watched Foxy happily march towards them, casually carrying a large treasure chest over her shoulders. "I see that you're getting well acquainted with the new night guard, Spring Bon-Bon."
"Hey, Foxy. What's in the chest?" Spring-Bonnie asked.
With her attention now focused on Foxy, Mike felt Spring-Bonnie's grip on him lessen.
"Treasure of course," she answered with a hearty laugh. "But enough about that, I'd keep an eye on our new mate if I were you. He can be really 'surprisin' when ye get too close."
"What do you mean?"
Using her eyes, the boisterous pirate directed Spring-Bonnie's attention to Mike, only for the robotic bunny to discover, to her great shock, that he was gone.
"Wha?!" she exclaimed. "When did he-?"
"He's a slippery one, he is," Foxy cheerfully noted. "We may have to be the ones to keep an eye on him instead of the other way around."
The animatronic pirate let out another hearty laugh as she continued her stroll down the hallway, leaving Spring-Bonnie with a disappointed over how her first interaction with the latest night guard ended.
Not too far away, Mike closed one of the many hallway doors behind him and let out a sigh of relief. I must not be good with women when they get like that…
But though he had escaped that situation, it quickly dawned upon Mike that he didn't pay to where he had run off to. The newly established night guard turned around and found Mangle sitting on the stage of her cove.
"Mangle?" he called, approaching the animatronic.
Surprised, the female fox curiously looked up, nearly jumping away as she laid eyes on Mike.
"Night Guard?!" Mangle face turned red from embarrassment the moment she realized how loud she was. "I didn't expect you to come here again."
"Well… it is my job to come here every night," Mike pointed out.
Even with his lingering doubts and fears, the young man couldn't help but want to make thing less awkward with Mangle. Perhaps it was because she seemed to be more scared of him then he was currently afraid of possible consequences this job may have.
"Oh…" Mangle averted her gaze, struggling to find a way to continue the conversation. "Well, that's good. Everyone deserves the night to themselves… Um… Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"How come you came to my cove again?"
"Oh, um…" Mike crossed his arms as he pondered how he could answer that question. It was a struggle to just tell her that he ran away from an animatronic girl flirting with him.
A loud bump in the wall quickly disrupted his train of thought. His eyes, along with Mangle's, were drawn to a nearby vent cover and watched a pair of distinctly human hands move it aside. Soon after, BB slid into the cove and excitedly jumped in front of Mangle.
"Never fear, Mangle! BB's here to save you!" she declared in a grandiose fashion.
"Save me? Save me from what?" Mangle asked.
"From your self-imposed boredom," Using her eyes, BB motioned Mangle's attention towards the vent she just came in through. "We'll be using the vents just in case Charlie found a new night guard after the latest one left."
"Um…" the timid animatronic fox instinctively looked beyond BB, prompting the human-like animatronic to follow her gaze and discover Mike standing behind her.
"Whoa! You're still here?!" BB exclaimed.
"Yeah…" Mike weakly admitted.
"Wow… Never seen someone make it to Night 2."
"I've heard that. But you have to admit, this whole thing is hard to take in."
"Ah, still not used to here, huh?" BB silently stared at Mike until an idea came to her. "Wait a minute, what are you in Mangle's place anyway?"
"Uhm…" With that question thrown his way again, Mike's train of thought started right back up and wasted no time in taking off.
"Wait…" BB's eyes meticulously scanned the night guard before her from head to toe. "Still uncomfortable over your job… Hiding out in a supposed out of order area… Face looks flushed from my question… I got it! You're hiding from Spring-Bonnie."
Mike's entire body tensed up. He couldn't believe how easily Balloon Babe guessed his current situation.
"You must not be good around girls like that," BB chuckled.
Once again afflicted with surprise and filled with a sense of defeat, Mike could do nothing but confirm her conclusion with a nod.
"Okay then, let's go," BB said, her face now sporting an excited expression.
"Go? Go where?"
"To my room. I'll make sure that uncomfortable feeling of yours is gone."
"Really?"
"Of course. Livening things up and making people not uncomfortable is literally the reason I was made."
For the third time in their short conversation, Mike was taken aback by BB's response.
"We can even use the vents if you still want to hide from Spring Bon-Bon," she added.
"Are we allowed to do that?" Mike asked.
"Pretty much," BB nonchalantly assured him. "We use it all the time to avoid letting the night guards seeing us."
It was at that point when Mike began to wonder if Bonnie used the vents to sneak into his office or whether she entered when he was asleep. It may have been both.
BB then eagerly turned to Mangle and tugged her right arm, "Come on Mangle. You've been cooped up in your cove for a while now. Besides, there's nothing to worry about this time. The Night Guard made it to Night 2."
Mangle worriedly glanced at Mike. The way she stared at him had to be the same way he stared at Bonnie when they first met "…Okay."
"Great! Follow the leader!" BB happily announced, before sliding back into the vent.
Mike could only gaze upon the vent, bewildered by what just happened.
"Is she always so… energetic?" Mike asked Mangle.
The white fox silently nodded her head.
"Huh… Well, ladies first," Mike stood away from the vent and motioned Mangle to enter first.
Without saying a word, the animatronic fox entered the vent, sneaking glances at Mike as she did so. Moving past this, Mike crawled into the vent and followed the female animatronics until BB stopped in front of another vent cover.
"We're here!" she cheerfully announced.
The three crawled out of the vents, entering a room filled with prize boxes and plush toys.
"BB… This is Marionette's room," Mangle timidly pointed out.
"Huh. I knew I shoulda made dat left toin at Albakoikie," BB replied in a Brooklyn-esque voice. "One day I'll get the Bon-Bons to say that line."
"But they're hardly in a position to say that line," the top flaps of one of the many prize boxes opened up and from the inside rose, Marionette a.k.a. The Puppet. "Especially Spring-Bonnie. She knows the vents like the back of her hand."
"Oy…" Mike sighed. If what Marionette was saying was true, then that meant the vents were no safer than roaming the halls. Oh well, it's the thought that counts.
Marionette then slowly flipped over the edge of the prize box she currently occupied and landed in front of Mike. The new night guard blankly stared at the surprisingly flexible robot in front of him, wondering what she would do next.
He was cautious as he watched her reach behind herself and brandished a plush that resembled Mangle.
"What's this for?" Mike asked.
"For staying longer than one night," she answered with a smile. "It is a real accomplishment."
Mike glanced down at the plushie and felt a strange sensation grip at his heart.
"What's wrong?"
"N-Nothing. Thank you, Marionette. It's a really cute plushie.
"Just like who it's based off of."
"Marionette!" Mangle's face turned bright pink as she turned away from the others. "…That's not funny…"
"Well… She's not exactly wrong," Mike admitted.
Mangle remained silent as her pink face turned even brighter.
"So…" Marionette turned her attention back to Mike. "Why is the new night guard crawling around the vents?"
"He's nervous around Spring Bon-Bon," BB answered as she gleefully played with a Freddy and Foxy plush.
"Ah, I see," she sympathized. "But you know, even though she likes flirting with the night guards and can be bluntly forward, Spring-Bonnie isn't a bad person. You should try and get used to her."
Suddenly the Freddy plush sat on Mike's right shoulder. "Essentially, you need to learn to deal with forward girls."
Following those words, the Foxy plush occupied Mike's other shoulder. "Aye, matey, especially when they're Spring-Bonnie."
"Also especially since you can't hide in the vents every night," Marionette added. "Not only does she know them like the back of her hand, they're one of her favorite ways of travel too."
Meanwhile, in the main dining area, Spring-Bonnie sneezed with a large, "ACHOO!"
"Did you just sneeze?" Freddy asked as she swept the room. "How'd you do that?"
"Simple. I just hold my noise and make a weird sound with my lips. And the only reason I did that was because I got the feeling someone was talking about me."
The gold rabbit sighed and plopped herself down on the show stage. "I wonder what the new night guard is doing…"
"I'm honestly surprised that you're not looking for him right now."
"Nah. It one thing to encounter him in his office, it's another to actively try and hunt him down. I don't want him to think I'm a psycho stalker."
Freddy shot an amused look at the gold animatronic.
"I'm not!" she insisted. "I'm just really affectionate."
"That's kind of what they all say. Anyway, you may want to tone it down when around him. We want to make it so we don't lose the first night guard who stayed past the first night.
"I guess… But I really can't help myself around cuties like him. And his accent makes it really hard to resist."
Just thinking about Mike and his charming accent was all it took for Spring-Bonnie's cheeks to faintly glow red. Next time…
She then jumped off the stage and walked to the exit.
"Changed your mind about looking for the Night Guard?" Freddy asked.
"No. I think I'll go see, Mangle. Someone ought to tell her that she doesn't have to worry about the new night guard."
Spring-Bonnie whistled a short tune as she casually strolled down the hallway and entered Mangle's Cove.
"Mangle, I got some good news!" she shouted only to be met with silence. "Mangle?"
The robotic rabbit looked around the cove and checked behind the stage curtains.
"She's gone?" she gasped, before her eyes were drawn to an open vent. Letting her curiosity guide her, she approached the vent and gazed inside. "Mangle doesn't usually use the vents… Wonder if someone else already got in here before me."
She nonchalantly shrugged and crawled into the vent. "Only one way to find out."
Elsewhere, BB opened another vent cover and announced, "We're here!"
The three crawled through the opening and found themselves in Mike's office.
"This isn't right," BB admitted with a chuckle.
"So anyone can just crawl into my office?" Mike questioned.
"Yep."
Mike, unsure of how to feel about the revelation, allowed gravity to guide him to his seat.
"Maybe we should use the hallways this time?" Mangle suggested.
"Are you saying that I can't navigate the vents?" BB pouted.
"No. I'm not saying that…" the timid fox lowered her head.
"Just messing with ya, Mangle. Besides, the whole vent thing was for the Night Guard's convenience."
BB then curiously looked around the office until another idea popped into her head.
"Wait, I got a better idea!" her face beamed with joy as she rushed out of the office.
"I can see why she's in charge of livening things up," Mike said. "By the way, Mangle, how come you're considered out of order? Nothing seems wrong with you?"
"Oh, well…" the nervous animatronic's body fidgeted as she looked down at the floor. "It's kind of embarrassing to admit."
Before anything more could be said, the two heard a few bumps and knocks in the in the walls until Spring-Bonnie crawled out towards them.
"There you are, Mangle," she said as her eyes trailed down to Mike. The moment their eyes met, her face immediately lit up with interest. "With the new night guard. Wait… What are you two doing together?"
"It's a long story…" Mangle nervously replied.
"I see…" Spring-Bonnie wasted no time plopping herself onto Mike. "By the way, Mangle, I don't think you have to worry so much around this guy."
The nervous night guard could do nothing but move as far back in his seat as he could while the affectionate animatronic's face once again moved closer to his.
"So, where were we?" she asked in a seductive tone.
"Um… I have an accent?" Mike meekly answered. He couldn't see how he could possibly get used to this.
"Oh right. Glad you remembered. Now then…"
Suddenly, Spring-Bonnie was once again pulled from atop of Mike by the other animatronic fox of the facility, Foxy.
"Again!" the golden girl complained.
"Sorry, lass," Foxy chuckled at Spring-Bonnie's annoyed expression, "But we need the night guard's attention for a moment."
"Me?" Mike asked.
"Aye. Turn you fleshy spy glasses to the entrance," Foxy instructed.
Mike looked at all the possible entrances into his office and asked, "Which one?"
With a giggle, a sharp contrast to her hearty laughs, Foxy strolled towards Mike, turned his chair towards the right doorway and yelled, "He's ready!"
Soon, Chica wheeled a cake into the office, followed by Freddy, Bonnie and Marionette.
"Surprise!" they sang.
Mike blankly stared at the cake, before looking up at the girls. "What's going on?"
"We're just showing our appreciation in you staying," Bonnie explained.
"And to do that, I spent my time in the kitchen baking you an appreciation cake so we could have something to surprise you with," Chica added with a bright smile.
"Wait, you mean that everything that happened so far tonight was just a ploy to surprise me?" Mike questioned.
"Not really," Freddy shook her head. "We had no idea where you disappeared to until Marionette told us you were travelling the vents with BB and Mangle."
Once again, Mike silently looked down at the cake, hit with the same sensation he felt earlier.
"Doing such a thing, just because I stayed…" the sensation hit him harder and harder until he finally felt something hot come out of his eyes.
"Are you okay?" Spring-Bonnie worriedly asked.
"Yeah…" he replied, wiping the tears from his eyes."It's just… I can't remember the last time anyone did something this nice for me…"
The second after his confession, BB rushed into the room with a handful of balloons.
"Time to liven things up in here!" she announced, before realizing that the other girls were in the room. "Were you guys having a party without me?"
"When is it a party without you?" Chica giggled.
When the clock hit 6 am yesterday, Mike was plagued with fear and doubt. But when that time came for him to leave today, he felt as if that doubt was almost completely gone from his heart.
