Author's Note
Sorry for the slightly late update. It's been a busy weekend. Hope you enjoy the chapter, Corona Pax and flamewhisperer1986 helped with this one.
Also, I have to mention that at this point in time I don't plan to write any crossovers in this story. I'm just focusing on trying to get through the story before Scott adds ANOTHER game to the franchise. Sorry if that disappoints anyone.
Chapter 71
Night 4, Take 3
Ruby was still irritated from learning that that bodysnatcher had been bothering everyone before her shifts. He was going to regret that after tonight.
He'd learn quickly that she was not someone you should anger.
After making sure that everyone was okay, most of them watching her little home movie from the other night, she headed to Fazbear's Fright to get started.
Settling into the office she waited for midnight and the nightly 'training tape'.
The familiar ringing went off just as the clock hit twelve and she started checking the cameras immediately.
"Hello, hello?" that greeting never failed to make her smile.
"Umm, this is just a reminder of company policy concerning the safe room."
"Safe room?" Ruby paused in her camera checking to glance at the phone.
"The safe room is reserved for equipment and or other properties not being currently used, and as a back-up safety location for employees only. This is not a break room, it should not be considered a place for employees to hide and or congregate. And under no circumstance should a customer ever, be taken into this room, and out of the main show area." Ruby's eyes narrowed as she stared at the phone. A hidden room?
"Management has also been made aware that the Spring Bonnie animatronic has been noticeably moved, and would like to remind employees that this costume is not safe to wear under any circumstances." She could probably make a fairly accurate guess as to who moved that bot.
"Thank you, and remember to smile. You are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."
"Steve, you're optimism never ceases to amaze me." She muttered as she checked the cameras again and stood up.
A wicked grin spread over her face as she spotted the killer in a vent.
"Showtime. Time to introduce the newbie to chocolate night."
Meanwhile, back in the main building Hedy left to go get something from storage. It was barely a minute before Benji spoke up.
"The episode is over."
No one answered him. Jeremy was the only one to glance over at him. The others were absorbed in watching Ruby's little video.
"I want the next one to play." he said petulantly, though there was an edge of awkwardness squashed beneath his voice.
"Wait for Hedy to get back." Jeremy sighed, startling the bots who were listening. The ones who weren't paused the video to pay attention to what was going on reluctantly. They were still jumpy around the ghosts, especially the Originals.
A round of faint explosions echoed through the building and they felt a little better despite the ghost's casual and random demand.
Benji scowled and stared at the man.
Jeremy tried to ignore the stare. He was watching Ruby in the other side of the building with the tablet. His breath caught for a second as he saw Springtrap coming behind her in a hallway. A second later the grainy camera picture went out as a cloud of glitter hit the possessed animatronic and blocked the view.
Hedy told him not to show any of the bots the feed for Fazbear's Fright unless they specifically asked. The Originals would just stress and be unable to look away. He knew what she meant now. He was struggling to look away, worried he would look down at any moment and see something he didn't want to see.
It was quiet for several seconds before Jeremy seemed to make a decision and looked up from the tablet. He looked at the ghost still staring at him.
"Stop staring." he said evenly. "It's rude. Not to mention creepy."
Benji didn't reply.
Jeremy glared back at the kid. "What the heck is with you kids?"
"We died." the ghost said.
"So do a lot of people. They seem to handle it fine." Jeremy egged. It made him feel bad to say that. He didn't mean it but he had a reason.
The ghost glared harder and lights flashed.
Freddy wished Jeremy would back off. What the heck did he think he was he doing? The other bots shifted uncomfortably. Ruby was the only one who goaded the ghosts.
"I'm going to kill you first, Jeremy." Benji said, flashing a look at Bonnie whose eyes widened in sudden terror. Foxy let a snarl loose as he glared at the brat, forgetting about the video for now.
The rabbit edged closer to Foxy, bad memories crashing over him.
"Hmm." Jeremy sounded unimpressed.
"Didn't you hear me?" the ghost demanded, angry at the lack of reaction from the adult.
"I heard you. I'm just trying to understand. Where along the line does it not occur to you that killing me takes me away from Hedy? She's struggling enough dealing with Scott, I don't think she could come back from losing me." Jeremy said calmly. "I have two kids now too, you know. You don't seem to care about them. Marcus and Mercedes. Twins. They turned six this month. Hedy was trying to convince me to bring them one night. That was before that guy got here, though."
The Originals looked curious and surprised that Hedy had suggested bringing her niece and nephew. They thought she was still wary of them.
The Toys had heard about the twins before. Hedy had gone on and on about them and they really wanted to meet them, but Hedy always said it was complicated and she probably couldn't convince their dad. Knowing she was talking about Jeremy now, that made sense.
"Maybe they're better off without you."
"Why's that?"
"You were supposed to be watching us."
Jeremy looked at Benji in surprise, then guilt. Ah. There it was. He suspected there was something else besides him just being a night guard that made them hate his guts.
"You and Scott both were." Benji ground out. "Our parents asked you to watch us. And you didn't. You were too busy playing with your camera and Scott was talking to Mr. Fitzgerald."
"I see..." Jeremy whispered, wondering if he should be surprised the ghost remembered so much.
The bots were now watching the conversation unfold in silence. They didn't know about any of this.
"You were a sucky big brother. I don't see why Wiggy followed you around all the time. You didn't even notice him at all."
"Him..." Jeremy murmured. "Wait, him?" The man gestured in the direction of Fazbear's Fright. Did Benji know Springtrap's name? His actual name?
"Jer-jer, I want you to meet my friend, Spring." Benji said as if quoting someone. "He's another rabbit. There's the purple and the blue one now a yellow one since he's getting fixed. Can we go to his party later?"
"Benji." Hedy snapped from the doorway. She glared at the ghost who looked startled at being caught while everyone else was just shooting horrified looks at Jeremy.
"He started it!" Benji defended, pointing at Jeremy.
Hedy glanced around at the room. Everyone wore disturbed faces as Benji made them remember that particular day.
"I kinda did..." Jeremy admitted.
Hedy stared, debating whether to kick them both out or not.
The ghost seemed to whither under her stare. "...Can I please watch another episode?"
His random changes from vengeful ghost to petulant child still gave most of them whiplash.
Hedy squinted and came forward to the computer.
"Wiggy?"
They jumped and looked towards the door.
Another one?! Wait...two. Chica was the one to look uncomfortable now. At least Goldy wasn't in the room.
"Ginny." Hedy greeted unsurely. "Cheryl..."
Ginny stared. Her eyes darted to Benji and she glared. "Felix said you were watching cartoons yesterday."
Cheryl was quiet for now.
"...Did he tell you the rules?" Hedy asked suspiciously. She glanced at the Originals almost apologetically but they didn't say anything although Foxy looked annoyed.
"Something about don't mention night guards..."
"And don't harass the bots." the mechanic added sternly.
Ginny looked thoughtful. "...what about Jeremy?"
"That's no good, either." Hedy said, slightly amused that Ginny was angling for a loophole despite it not being a real deal.
"What about you?"
There was a pause and Hedy actually smiled. "That's fine."
"Okay cool, because you should know your face is a weird shape." Cheryl spoke up.
Chi looked at Teddy in confusion but the bear just shrugged.
"Oh?" Hedy asked as Mangle tilted her head to stare at Hedy's face, vaguely wondering if that was true.
After a second, the fox nodded in agreement. She flashed Hedy a mischievous grin and a thumbs up when the mechanic gave her a look.
"And you're grownup hair is darker than it used to be. I don't like it." Cheryl continued, pouting.
"Sorry to disappoint."
"You should make it pink."
"I'll think about it."
"Do you have a boyfriend?" Ginny added.
"No." Hedy said raising her eyebrow at the oddly relaxed questions the girls were throwing at her while Benji looked annoyed that his show wasn't playing.
The Originals just looked unnerved at hearing the ghosts sound like regular kids.
"Oh. Remember when you and Benji were married?"
"We weren't really, Ginny. We were just playing." Hedy said exasperatedly.
She remembered when she and Benji pretended they were married, as kids do. Of course, they didn't understand anything about that at the time. Except that they took it very seriously. The next week she was "married" to Fredrick while Cheryl was their "baby", while the rest of them tried to put Ginny and Felix together with Benji as their baby. That was funny. Ginny and Felix hated each other, claiming each had way worse cooties than anyone else.
It ended up that Hedy was "married" to Ginny for three minutes while Hedy pretended to be a boy before they all got bored of the game. The girls (and Benji) were the only ones into it while the boys complained about how gross girls were the entire time. It was weird that they equated dating to getting married at that age. You would have thought five and six years were old enough to recognize the difference. Maybe?
"Benji and Wiggy! Sitting in a tree!" Ginny suddenly crowed, her loud cry making everyone cringe.
In the distance, two other voices shouted with Cheryl, joining in. "K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
Jeremy snorted while Benji looked embarrassed and Hedy rolled her eyes.
"HEY! You were married too!" Benji complained.
The bots looked completely dumbstruck by the near innocent sounding teasing. Kids were like that, the animatronics even played "house" in a similar fashion with the younger children that asked, but this felt distinctly bizarre.
"Yeah, but I didn't actually have a crush on Wiggy." Ginny said.
"No, you had a crush on Felix." Hedy countered. The twenty-year-old was carefully watching her childhood friends, wondering how much of them were still children as they talked like this. Not much obviously, but it was funny to see them get worked up about childish puppy love without them getting murderous.
Even the glare Ginny shot her wasn't evil in a sense, just very annoyed and clearly embarrassed. Cheryl looked surprised and grinned.
"NO I wasn't! He was a jerk and put ice cream in my shoes!"
Hedy rolled her eyes, age giving her wisdom in hindsight. "He only did that because he did it as a prank to me and you thought it was funny like the little bully you are. He thought you would think it even funnier if he did it to you."
Ginny sputtered. "That's stupid. Boys are stupid."
"Hey…" Benji complained dejectedly.
"Felix is stupid...no wait. You're stupid too, letting Springtrap see you."
"You're six years old, Ginny. We were all stupid." Hedy could almost feel how uncomfortable Felix was, listening but out of sight.
Cheryl giggled.
"You shut up." Ginny complained.
Cheryl stuck her tongue out and turned back to Hedy.
Hedy frowned as Cheryl walked forward until she was standing right in front of her and poked Hedy's leg.
Hedy didn't like that at all. The ghost's finger went straight into her skin. It felt like getting stabbed by an icicle while the leg was under anesthesia.
"Why are you in a wheelchair, Wiggy?" Cheryl asked. "Did you get hurt getting away?"
Hedy was confused. She tried to force herself to remember if Cheryl was dead already before she got away. She frowned. "No. This happened later when I was older."
"She got hit by a car." Benji piped up, remembering what Springtrap said.
"Oh. So you can't walk?"
"I could if I did a lot of physical therapy." Hedy said, shocking the animatronics. "But I don't have the time or patience to put up with that. Plus it hurts a lot if I try."
Jeremy muttered something angrily, which just made Hedy glare at him. It was a common argument they had. He thought she should do therapy, but she was fine with her chair.
Mags suddenly looked very upset too, shocked Hedy could walk if she tried to repair herself. At least, that's what it sounded like.
"I thought Purple Guy did it." Cheryl muttered.
Jeremy looked confused. "Purple Guy?" He mouthed at Hedy.
She looked at him weirdly, like she wasn't sure whether to tell him where the name came from.
"No Springtrap didn't do it." she explained.
"Oh."
Silence fell and the ghosts stared awkwardly at her until she sighed and started up another episode so they could watch.
The Originals glanced at each uncomfortably before they went back to the video. Jeremy looked back to the tablet in time to see….what the heck?
"Say 'ello to my little friend." Ruby grinned cheekily at Springtrap who actually backed up a bit.
"What the hell is that?!"
"This is my new chocolate chip machine gun." She aimed and let her finger hover over the trigger.
"Where the hell do you get these things?!"
"Like I'd give away my secrets. Now I suggest you run. These things sting like hell." She suggested before unleashing a massive amount of chocolate chips upon him while laughing like an old school movie villain.
Later, Springtrap would deny screaming like a girl but to be fair, those things did sting like hell.
As he made a strategic retreat (read ran like a coward) around a corner he ran straight into something stretched across the hall.
Something sticky.
And very familiar.
"A caramel and chocolate flypaper?" he deadpanned.
"Yup!" she chirped happily from behind him. "Now I don't have to ask you to hold still."
"Wait what?"
He heard the sound of a spraypaint can being shaken.
"Don't you dare."
"Of course I dare."
A few quick strokes with the can and she was finished.
"Don't worry, neon pink looks lovely on you." She assured him while he struggled with the sticky caramel. "Ever watched the movie Zorro?"
He growled as he finally started to pull loose.
"And that's my cue. Bye bodysnatcher!" she raced back down the corridor and was through a vent before Springtrap was completely free.
"There's a giant pink R on my back isn't there?" he muttered to the empty room before stalking off to find that irritating girl.
Forty minutes later he found her again.
"You've got to be kidding me!" he yelled when he saw what she was holding.
"Well it's still a prototype."
"Where do you get this stuff?!"
"I haven't really tested it yet."
"You're going to bring down the entire building one day!"
"Good news though is that it comes in all three chocolate variants. Milk, White and Dark." She aimed.
"Ruby, don't-"
"Hmm, what does this button do?"
"Hey Hedy?" Jeremy called to his sister while never taking his eyes from the screen.
"Yeah?"
"Where did Ruby get a chocolate grenade launcher?"
"What?!"
The following explosions rocked the entire building. When six hit Ruby came skipping out of Fazbear's Fright, absolutely coated in chocolate. She cheerfully waved at them all while Springtrap started yelling curses from within his attraction.
"She still scares me sometimes." Bonnie murmured quietly to Foxy.
"Yeah but I'm still proud of her."
"Yeah, me too. Wonder where she got all the chocolate?"
"Wonder if she took any photos?"