"Say hello to the Faz-mobile!"
Though Charlie tried to sound loud and grandiose, her relaxed posture and the disinterest in her face ruined the effect.
It was strange. When Mike first arrived, his boss seemed a little eager to show him something job-related in the garage. It may have been a gesture to keep him from being in the dark however… There was the pressing fact didn't even know the building had a garage, so that was already something new he learned about his job.
"'Faz-mobile'?" Mike stared at vehicle in front of them.
It was a simple white van with the girls painted on the sides; not at all deserving of such a cartoony name.
"I didn't come up with the name…"
Charlie shrugged then dug into her jacket pocket. She pulled out small stack of cards and read aloud, "'The Faz-mobile is the company's precious go to for transit. If you ordered the gang for a party, all you need to do is look out for this vehicle and you know the once-in-a-lifetime fun is about to begin.'"
Mike simply stared at his boss. He didn't really know if he should comment or not.
Charlie nonchalantly tossed the first card over her shoulder and cleared her throat. "'To schedule an appearance at your party, be sure to call insert number here and our local manager will be there to answer your interested call.'"
Mike scratched the back of his head as Charlie moved on to the next card. "'Please be aware that the ordering all the girls at once is an extremely rare opportunity. We need to keep at least one to entertain the children that come here on a daily basis.'"
She tossed that card over her shoulder and held up the final card. "'Remember to smile, you are the face of Fazbear Inc.' Oh wait, that one's for me."
"You?"
"Naturally, I have to be the one to drive the girls around, lest we have rumors of animatronics talking after show time again."
"I see…"
"So, anyway, this is the company vehicle."
"You say the others can be rented?"
"For parties, events and anime conventions that aren't held here. But the reason I'm showing you it is just so you know it's here. If anything comes up and you need and the girls need to make a Hollywood escape… Here you are."
Mike turned his attention back to the van.
Faz-mobile…
"Anywhoo…" Charlie pulled a pair of shades out of her pocket and put them on. "I'm going to go home, watch the Terminator and go sleep."
Mike watched his boss walk out of the garage while whistling the main medley to said movie. Once she was gone, he turned back to the van.
Faz-mobile…
…
Mike walked through the halls of the establishment until one of the doors open. Mangle stepped through and the two instantly met eyes.
"Oh. Hi, Night Guard." The white fox slowly waved at Mike.
Though she still seemed a bit timid before him, she also seemed more relaxed. Thinking back on what Chica told him the night before, Mike could see why she was instinctively designated the "baby of the bunch".
Just by looking in her eyes he could see an innocence that some would instinctively want to protect. Recalling their first meeting, it was for that very reason that he calmed down when he was scared out of his mind on his first night.
"Are… Are you okay, Night Guard?"
Mangle had a worried look on her face as she slowly approached Mike.
"I'm fine. I was just thinking about something."
"Oh. It's not troubling, is it?"
"No."
"That's good. I'm glad that it's not bad."
Silence soon followed that response. Mangle's eyes were filled with curiosity and anxiety. Her fluffy tail quickly swished from side to side as she averted her gaze.
"Oh." Mangle's face immediately lit up. "I almost forgot that I need to meet Foxy in her cove."
"I see. Well, you shouldn't keep her waiting."
"Right. Um…" Mangle's cheeks grew even pinker as struggled to think of something to say. "Bye, Night Guard."
"Bye."
With nothing more to say, the two went their separate ways.
…
Mike sat at his desk sifting through different camera feeds.
"Hey, Night Guard."
Glancing up from the screen, Mike found Bonnie waving at him from the other side of the desk.
"Evening, Bonnie," he replied.
"Whatcha doing?"
"Looking at the different camera feeds."
"Oh right, that is part of your job, isn't it?" Bonnie recalled.
That was all Mike needed to hear to lend more credence to what the main component of his job really was. It was fairly obvious, but he still lacked a true vocal confirmation.
"So, um…" a troubled look crossed Bonnie's face as she scratched the back of her head. "Do you think that I could join you?"
"If you would like to," Mike answered.
With bright smile on her face, Bonnie hopped over to the other side of the desk and reached for a nearby chair.
"So, what are you looking at right now?" she asked.
"The outside cameras," Mike answered.
"Anything out there?"
"Fortunately, no."
Mike continued to look through the outdoor camera feeds in silence until he switched to the indoor cameras.
"Hey… You don't stay on these long, do you?" Bonnie suddenly asked.
"I try not to."
"Oh," Bonnie breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. That would be too paranoid inducing."
Mike snuck a glance at Bonnie and made a mental note of her reaction.
I guess that answers my question regarding the interior cameras.
He then continued his nightly routine.
"So, is this what you do every night?" Bonnie asked.
"I believe that's what I'm supposed to do. I only had one night where I did this for an entire shift," Mike answered.
"Oh…"
The sound of his finger pressing the right mouse button was the only thing he heard for the next 3 minutes.
"Bonnie…"
"Yes?"
"Are you attempting to hang out with me right now?"
"Um…"
That was all the rabbit-like animatronic could say. She was completely taken aback by how sudden and straight-forward his question was.
"…Yes?" Bonnie awkwardly answered.
Mike silently turned his attention to Bonnie. Perhaps it was the atmosphere created from his question, but Bonnie found his usual gaze intimidating.
"I could go if you want…"
"I wasn't hinting for you to do that. I was just asking. You joined me on an objectively boring task and was trying to engage me in small talk."
"Sorry. I'm still not that used to a night guard actually staying here this long and I think we all kinda learned that we don't really know you that well after the sudden birthday party thing.
Doesn't really help that I'm not as much of a universal social butterfly like Spring-Bonnie is."
Mike's eyes slightly widened with curiosity. "'Universal Social Butterfly'?"
"Like I'm only good with talking with kids. With every other human, I can only talk to them about business things. Spring-Bonnie can talk about anything with anyone without issue."
Mike briefly averted his gaze as he recalled all of his interaction with the aforementioned animatronic girl. Thinking about it vaguely increased the pace of his heart beats.
"I can… I can see that…" he mumbled under his breath.
An awkward atmosphere hung over the two. Mike was used to awkward atmospheres but his increased heart rate left him a bit susceptible to its effects.
"To be honest, I'm not always good with initiating or continuing conversations, Bonnie," he admitted. "A significant amount of time, it's me that's the reason for the abrupt ends."
"You don't like talking much?"
"Until coming here, I haven't really had a reason to talk much. Not much attention was really directed my way."
Bonnie was stricken with silence after hearing that.
First no birthday parties and now a lack of attention… Night Guard must have had a really lonely childhood.
Bonnie silently twisted her chair from left to right. She felt nothing but sympathy for what his childhood must have been like, but couldn't think of a way to console him without coming off as patronizing.
"Bonnie…"
"Yes?"
"Do you not like Bugs Bunny?"
"What? No. I mean, I like Bugs Bunny. Why do you ask?"
"I heard you're a bit ambivalent towards saying his signature line."
"No, that doesn't mean I don't like Bugs Bunny. I just don't like how some people expect me say it just because I'm a bunny myself."
"I see."
Silence reigned once again.
"Night Guard?"
"Yes?"
"Did you know that carrots are actually bad for rabbits?"
"They are?"
"Mm-hmm. I remember a little girl telling me it's good that I don't eat them like Bugs Bunny since upset real life bunnies' stomachs."
"Hm. That's an interesting dichotomy."
"Mm-hmm. I actually kind of felt me not doing his catchphrase was validated then."
Once again there was nothing but silence. Not a word was said for 7 minutes until Mike turned his gaze to Bonnie.
"Is there something else you would like to do?" he asked.
"Huh? But don't you have to work?"
"We can call it my bathroom break?"
"Oh, um… How about-?"
She was waiting for an opportunity like this to come, but when the time came…
"Wow, I really have no idea what to do…" she admitted with red cheeks.
"Hm…"
Suddenly, an idea came to her. "Wait, I have an idea of what we can do."
…
Mike cracked his knuckles as he prepared for what he had to do. Stationed almost at the peak of a snowy mountain with a snowmobile was very nostalgic for him.
"Are you ready?" Bonnie asked.
"As I'll ever be."
Mike calmly sat on the snowmobile and revved up the engine. Bonnie hopped on behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
He could feel her soft chest innocently press against his back.
"Ready?" Mike asked.
"Let's do it!"Bonnie declared.
Hitting the pedal, the two sped down the snowy mountain. It felt just like old times. Narrowly avoiding crashing into signs, mountain walls and a variety of ski lodge like obstacles was one of the few joys of his childhood.
A flashing set of numbers appeared over his vehicle as reached the bottom. It signified how long he took to finish the route.
Arctic Thunder… I used to play this all the time as a child.
That was a pretty good run, Night Guard," Bonnie complimented.
Soon a list of the best time dropped into the screen. Three letters were associated with the #1 time trial: BON.
"It seems you're the best at this game," Mike noted.
"To be fair, I have all night to practice," Bonnie embarrassingly replied. "Plus, it's free during night."
"Hmm."
"So… Is there anything else you want to do?"
Mike glanced around.
"I guess there is something from my childhood that I can finally fulfill."
Curious, Bonnie followed Mike to the basketball arcade machines.
"Basketball?"
"I could barely make one hoop when I was younger," he explained as he hit the start button.
Three orange spheres rolled before him. Mike reached for one and aimed for the basket.
"You played this game a lot as a kid?" Bonnie asked.
"I played a lot of arcade games as a kid," Mike answered as he shot the ball towards the hoop. Though his face didn't show it, the score changing from zero to one brought him some satisfaction. "The good old-fashioned childhood money stealer. Almost the physical equivalent to in-game store purchases."
He then reached for another basketball and took aim. "I have a question, Bonnie."
"Yeah?"
"Are all the arcade machines in a free play mode?"
Bonnie nodded her head. "Mm-hmm. They're all set like that at night so we can play them all we want."
"And zero tickets come out?"
"That's so a bunch of tickets don't disappear out of nowhere," Bonnie soon cheeks grew red with embarrassment. "We kinda had to refill a lot of the machines one night when I went on high-score beating binge…"
"Hmm..."
"You ever go on one of those?"
"I did."
"How'd it go?"
"With me crying when I realized I didn't get into any of the rankings and was broke."
"Oh…"
Bonnie awkwardly scratched her head. She didn't mean to delve into an upsetting topic.
"No need for sympathy," Mike assured her. "It's pretty much a rite of passage for children."
"Really? Did you at least get prizes for the tickets you earned?"
"Not at all."
"That's strange. Here everyone gets enough tickets for something so they don't leave sad."
"That makes this place a rare exception. Most arcade machines that incentivizes high scores don't usually give out many tickets. To get the most, you would have to scout out machines with the easiest ticket outputs that didn't involve just luck and keep playing that one over and over."
The blue bunny's eyes lit up with surprise after hearing that. She didn't know that such a practice was normal. "Wow. That's really scummy. I didn't think other places were like that."
"It's all about income and it's addictive. Think of it a form of child gambling before actually child gambling and their variations were a public act."
Mike shot another ball towards the hoop. It bounced off the rim then off of Spring-Bonnie's face.
"Ow!" she cried.
"Spring-Bonnie!?" Bonnie exclaimed.
A sense of regret filled Mike as he watched her rush to her older sister.
"Are you okay?" Bonnie worriedly asked.
The golden animatonic cradled her face stinging sensation continued. "I was just crawling out of the vents and got hit with a… What'd I get hit with?"
"A basketball." Mike answered. "I'm sorry."
"First the security thing and then a basketball… Is everyone trying to get me to stop using the vents?" she wondered aloud.
Mike and Bonnie exchanged a brief glance. They both realized that this was the second time they were responsible for injuring Spring-Bonnie while travelling through the vents.
"Is this really a conspiracy?" Spring-Bonnie gasped.
"No, it's just an unfortunate accident!" Bonnie insisted.
Spring-Bonnie rubbed her forehead and pouted. "So what are you two doing…?"
"Oh, we were playing arcade games."
"Really…?" the golden rabbit's eyes zeroed in on Mike. "I hope you're not trying to one-up Bonnie on high scores. Did she tell you the time she caused the huge ticket refill disaster?"
"It wasn't that much of a disaster…" Bonnie nervously chuckled. "Actually, it was…"
"That reminds me…" a familiar look crossed Spring-Bonnie's face as she approached Mike. "I heard you were introduced to the Faz-mobile."
"I was…" Mike anxiously confirmed.
As he expected, her next move was to wrap her arms around him."Think that means you may be open for a few midnight rides?"
Mike heart started beating faster than usual. He wasn't sure if that was an innuendo or not. "Which entails?"
Spring-Bonnie shot him a perplexed look. "Um… driving around? Wait, you weren't thinking-?"
"No. No, I wasn't," Mike quickly interjected.
Spring-Bonnie giggled as she tightened her grip. "I didn't know you were so forward Night Guard."
"To be fair, it's an easy assumption to make considering who he's talking to."
The three's eyes were drawn to the door. Standing there was Freddy.
"You say that like I would go that far so quickly…" Spring-Bonnie pouted.
"But you have to understand Night Guard's position. You have your body tightly pressed against his and are asking about taking the van with space in the back on a joyride," Freedy explained. That's not even going into the fact that you're not allowed to."
"Huh… Fair enough."
Spring-Bonnie slightly lessened her grip on Mike only to discover he was no longer in her embrace. "Wha-?! How'd he do that?"
"Years of desperation and experience."
The golden animatronic nearly jumped out of her skin upon discovering Mike casually sitting at a nearby table; his eyes were glued to his phone.
Even his cool disappearing thing has a sad tale behind it… Bonnie mentally lamented.
Spring-Bonnie silently stared at Mike before suddenly approaching him. She jumped on his lap and slowly drew him into another embrace.
This one was different however. She wasn't squeezing him as tightly as usual and rested her head on top of his. She began stroking the back of his head, making him wonder if this is what a gentle and loving hug was like.
He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, nor he didn't know if he should bring up her breasts pressing against his face. Like with the other hugs he received when he started his job here, he wasn't sure if he was supposed to hug back or not.
But he didn't have long to contemplate his current situation as sound of doors flying open grabbed everyone's attention. Dashing past the nearby doors was Foxy. She had a serious expression on her face that contrasted the flustered on BB had on her face once she ran.
"We got an emergency!" BB cried.
"What is it?" Freddy asked.
"Somebody's knocking at the front door!"
