The Puppet glared with such intensity that the employee who was meant to restock the Prize Corner continued to hesitate entering and getting close to the clearly aggravated animatronic. They glared down at the source of their anger, the sight of their crushed music box. They didn't know when it had happened, but they had an idea of who it could be. It obviously wasn't any Pizzeria employee, not one that cared for their job or life at least, and considering the night before was Marionette's little jaunt over to the night security guard to get him to wind their music box, it had to have been somebody offended by said jaunt.
Letting out a low and long sigh of static, the Puppet turned and walked out of the Prize Corner, startling the worker who was standing there. While the employee lightly called to the Marionette, something about 'not supposed to be leaving the Prize Corner,' which they completely ignored as they were more than annoyed this time. They practically stomped across the main room of the Pizzeria, past the Toy trio of Freddy, Bonnie and Chica, who somehow managed to look just as surprised as their flesh and blood employee counterparts who were meandering about their morning duties.
For just a small moment, the Puppet turned and glared at the trio, probing their reactions, but true to their profession, they, mostly, managed to remain mostly stoic beyond their initial look of shock. This did little to ease the Puppet's emotions, who quickly analyzed each of the trio in turn. Toy Bonnie and Chica didn't strike Marionette as the kind to needlessly smash the music Box, if they wanted to they would have done so by then, were they so creative, but Toy Freddy, they had walked by Toy Freddy that night.
Marionette's eyes squinted in suspicion and anger at the slightly bulbous bear, and despite their internal music box slowly chiming a few notes, they held themself back from leaping at the main attraction just yet. They simply turned away and resumed their stomping, thinking of who would have the gall to destroy their music box. The withered ones came to mind, the old animatronics left to languish in the parts and service room, who occasionally got up and terrorized the night guard just as much as the rest of them.
The withered ones were far more angry than the Toys, even when compared to the Mangle. Though aside from quickly passing Foxy, the withered ones didn't see them carry the music box to the guard. Then again. It wasn't like the animatronics didn't communicate to one another, just not a frequent occurrence. So it was possible Mangle or Freddy gossiped, but then that just meant that any animatronic could have done it. Which meant Marionette was stuck at square one. Not that they even knew what they'd do if they did discover the one behind the crime. With no real path forward, the Puppet huffed out another burst of static.
Only to hear a chuckle.
They looked down, seeing the source of the chuckle. The Balloon Boy, red balloon held aloft as he stared at the Puppet, his smile very much real, somehow finding the Puppet's aggravation amusing. The two stared at each other, a much less tense standoff compared to the previous night, well at least for the Marionette. A few human employees had stopped their jobs to look upon the odd scene, the two animatronics standing still with an unbreaking gaze.
Until Balloon Boy let out yet another laugh causing the Puppet to dash forward as they reared back their leg, and a sudden blare of static and 'Pop Goes the Weasel' roared from the Puppet's internal music box.
—
William was rather bothered as he walked from his car towards the doors of his Pizzeria. He wasn't even meant to be there that day, but had received a call from their phone guy that things were strange with an animatronic and Fritz was out sick that day, so William was stuck with the duty. Now, that wasn't anything new to William, the animatronics often got quirky at night, and required a bit more attention than some of their competition's animatronic entertainers, but it usually wasn't that bad.
Occasional security guard injuries aside.
But, no, apparently the Prize Corner Puppet animatronic was much more odd that morning than the employees were comfortable with, even entering into the territory that some employees were whispering about the night security's off hand comments on how the animatronics acted at night, and were now wondering if the night oddities were inking into the dawn.
Especially since the Puppet's mask had apparently changed, which should have been impossible. Sure, Henry designed the thing with swappable masks in mind, primarily so when the inevitable child throwing a tantrum conked the poor mime in the face they could easily replace the broken mask with a new one. Which is something they've never had to do. Hell, as far as William could tell the Puppet had never needed any kind of invasive work done. A few fabric stains, a mask cleaning here or there for the occasional unexplainable leak of unexplainable fluid that no one dared to question, but not once had they ever needed to fix its internal music box, replace a servo, nothing.
William swore if some joker discovered the swappable mask feature, and played a prank by putting an angry face on it, they'd learn right quick what angry faces at Freddy's truly meant.
That was another bit their dear phone manager told William about. That somehow, the Prize Corner music box had been destroyed, and once the Puppet woke up it had remained staring angrily at the carnage, and that was scaring Bill from doing his job. So now William had to go in and assure everyone that, despite destruction of property, everything was perfectly alright.
He ran his hand over his face as he entered the Pizzeria, not at all ready to start the day, when the most strange combination of noises sounded off within. It was the Balloon Boy's signature taunting laugh, why ever they went with that laugh he had no idea, but that was quickly followed by a static overlaid rendition of 'Pop Goes the Weasel' and Balloon Boy's laugh turning into a horrified scream. In that split second William was mostly confused, Balloon Boy shouldn't have been capable of screaming, last he checked, but scream Balloon Boy did, especially as a loud THUNK rang out through the Pizzeria, like metal on metal. The Balloon Boy's scream of horror changed in tone, and William looked up just in time to see Balloon Boy flying through the air, as if his signature balloon had decided to go on an adventure. An adventure that led directly into a wall, sending Balloon Boy crashing to the ground with a groan.
Great, now he had to fix Balloon Boy, too.
William turned his head, tracing the trajectory Balloon Boy had flown, to see the Marionette placing its leg back on the ground, all but confirming that it had punted Balloon Boy across the room, and it had the nerve of crossing its arms with an all too smug look on its face to boot. Why did it have to be William who had to do this? Why couldn't Henry come in and wrangle his unruly Puppet child?
He quietly debated just turning around and ignoring the Pizzeria for the day.