Having spent over 100 years as a demon and around demons, Spike's sense of aesthetics had gradually shifted from the wholly human, to the not so human, to "What the hell is that and why is it eating my shoe?" without so much as a blink– so six feet or more of festive anthromorphized pot rost in fun colors was no big deal… but still, damn!
"Cool, isn't he? And he's just a prototype!" Vinnie came up beside Spike, adding confidentially, "The pink nose was my idea." Maggie rolled her eyes. "I wanted neon green all over because it sounded cool, but it looked like somebody barfed lime Gatorade all over Guillermo - dad said that would really ruin sales, him looking like barf and all."
"Yeah, ummmm…. right." Spike tilted his head to one side, squinting. Did that nose just leave an afterimage on his retinas? Still, who cares about optical damage when you're being chased around the place by a homicidal bovine in a sombrero!
Yes, Guillermo the Bull had a sombrero.
Complete with festive little dingle balls all around the brim – Giles would have been so very proud.
All righty then… "So how do I turn this wanker on? There's no switch on the back of this thing's head!"
"Slap the right shoulder - he'll start right up, but don't forget his maracas. They came in this morning from one of the L.A. sites with a batch of used-up cupcakes!" Vinnie with Mags in tow ran pointing at a barrel marked "Recyclables Only".
Spike walked past the two teens and began digging around in the barrel, which was overflowing with eyeballed cupcakes. The last time he'd seen pastries like this was when he forgot to clean his fridge for a month. It had taken both him and Clem to subdue them – luckily these cupcakes remained inert as he rummaged through them.
Eventually he noticed a pair of battered googly-eyed maracas grinning at him from a nearby shelf marked, "Cat Food".
They were purple. Bright purple.
Now complete with maracas, the mariachi bull stood about six feet tall in the remains of a neon embroidered black velvet suit, string tie, and an electric blue shirt with tiny round glasses balanced on his broad muzzle. Spike walked around behind the thing and slapped it on the shoulder.
Nothing happened.
He slapped, harder.
Still nothing.
"Wrong shoulder, dumb-ass." Maggie said from somewhere near his elbow. Spike looked down giving her a startled glance. He'd assumed she was mute like Mike. He paused, shrugged, and gave Guillermo a hard slap on the right.
Eyes blinking, Guilllermo's head began swiveling from side to side, jaws opening and shutting as if singing. But except for a slight whirr of servos, the bull was silent, hoof-like hands pumping up and down, feet moving forward in time to the non-existent music.
No big loss, it wasn't like Riley and his wife needed a cheery soundtrack for their disembowling! Spike slapped the thing again just to see what would happen and jumped back as the Gipsy Kings's Bamboleo blared out in a deafening roar while the pink and black animatronic danced majestically towards the center of the room: "…Ese amor llega asi de esta manera, no tiene la culpa, caballo de danza vana…"
"Bloody hell – how do I turn the soddin' volume down?" Spike bellowed, covering his ears as doubled over in pain he went down onn his knees. Having hearing acute enough to hear the heartbeat of a mouse under the floorboards wasn't always an advantage, especially now - this was worse than the time the Initative shut him in a sound-proofed room and played Celine Dion albums at him at ear-bleeding levels just to see what would happen, rendering the Ramones or even the Sex Pistols easy listening by comparison afterwards.
But the cacaphony of passionate Spanish and intricate guitar work didn't faze Vinnie and Maggie. Hand in hand, they walked alongside the mechanical singing bull, looking up at it, Maggie's face radiant. It danced majestically right into the wall and kept on singing, maracas keeping the beat while the LEDs worked into the suit's embroidery rippled and flashed in rainbow time to the music.
Vinnie ran back to the half-deafened Spike, yelling, "Slap his left shoulder blade, that's the volume!"
Out in the hallway, the yellow rabbit carefully swept up all the candy and loose change, setting the broom and dust-pan aside with disturbingly nimble hands before easing Freddy to it's feet.
Spike slapped the bull's left shoulder, the volume dropped.
The shabby yellow rabbit whispered something in Freddy's frayed ear while turning it around by the shoulders so that it faced the open door to Parts and Service.
Freddy stood framed by the doorway, eyebrows lowering, pawlike hands clenching and unclenching, the other animatronics milling behind it.