A/N: Happy New Year everyone! I've decided to make an important decision regarding the timeline of this fic. I had originally intended for Chapter 112, "Laid to Rest" (the chapter where Mike set up the gravestones for the ghost kids in the cemetery) to be a "Halloween" chapter of sorts. After a lot of careful thinking, I've decided to REMOVE Chapter 112's status as being a Halloween chapter, and I've also set it back in the timeline so that the events during that chapter occur during September instead of October. I've made this choice because I feel that a future event in this fic (a major one that ties to FNaF: Help Wanted, no less) will be much better suited for Halloween in the Schmidt family's third year of being together. I generally don't like making retcons unless it's established canon facts that are overriding previous "theory-based" information in this fic, but in this case I feel like shifting "Laid to Rest" to being earlier in the timeline will make more sense in the long run. Sorry for all of those who liked its status as a poignant and feels-y Halloween chapter, but I think that this is the best course of action. Thank you very much for your understanding, and I hope you continue to enjoy this chapter.
In other news, I've managed to beat every single level in both FNaF: Help Wanted AND Curse of Dreadbear. I'd have to say the scariest levels in the Curse of Dreadbear DLC were definitely Hallway Crawl (it has the freaking Nightmare animatronics) and Corn Maze (Grim Foxy is possibly the most savage animatronic up-close and personal), while the hardest one for me was Night 3 of Danger! Keep Out! You'd think that Plushkin Patch would easily be the hardest level, except for the fact that I brought the game up all the way up to max brightness, which let me see the entire map (including the Plushbabies) even without the flashlight and snapped the game in half :P If you're having any difficulty with Plushkin Patch, just set the brightness all the way up and you'll be good to go, although be aware that this DOES NOT work on the Plushbaby level in the normal game. The only thing I haven't done is find the Vanny mask in Corn Maze, which I'm too much of a chicken to do anyway lmao.
Clown2107: I can tell you right now that Liz will absolutely be the one to star in the next chapter. And I freely admit that William Afton was certainly a genius with intellect to match his malevolence…back when he was still alive. But as I've also mentioned to the reviewer who brought that point up, all that intelligence went to shit once he became Springtrap. Mike said it himself: he would have respected and feared the human William Afton as an enemy far more than the beast he degraded into.
Guest: You too! Cassidy didn't really have much to work with; the real meat of the information that the family is looking for is in the last few Tapes, as you'll soon see.
Guest: Thanks for the questions! I get inspirations from a lot of things, including the Five Nights at Freddy's games (obviously), places I've actually visited in real life, various fictional media, games I've played, the list of inspirations is honestly endless. I wish my IQ score was 1500 lol. This fanfic started out as a simple idea I had years ago that I hadn't seen implemented before, and once I got started it just kept growing and growing until it had a life of its own. I do not work with anyone else to write this fic, and I don't really have the time to animate or draw it. I hope that answered your questions!
MCtheYoutuber: All will be revealed in good time.
DeaththeWolf: Yep, although Charlie and Liz will have their turns as well.
Justaguy: Maybe, although I'm not sure what role he would play if I were to bring him back in future chapters.
404i: Mike Schmidt is very likely Michael Afton in the canon universe, however them being 2 different characters in this fic is one of two major deviations from canon that I've incorporated in this fic. The other is the Nightmares (which you'll soon see in later chapters).
Jack0Lanterns: I mean, it's always possible that Ennard slipped up at some point and got caught on the cameras despite his caution, even if briefly. And it's possible that Fazbear Entertainment (or anybody they talked to who worked at CBEAR) might have extrapolated Ennard's appearance based on things like the clown mask anyway.
MegaMaster78: I was originally gonna say a hard no to this outside of the lore-filled emails, but as of now…possibly. Some things will obviously NOT be incorporated into MNGF regardless of whether I decide to include Special Delivery or not, such as the skins or the Nightmare/Halloween animatronics.
Tuangaming86: I know "Five Nights at Fuckboy's" if that counts LUL.
ThomasTheTank: Mike would tell the Vengeful Guy that Fazbear Entertainment was responsible for allowing the deaths to continue on for so long, but that this current incarnation is technically different from its previous one and shouldn't be held accountable for the crimes of the past (even though FE almost certainly has CURRENT sins that are honestly just as bad as the previous ones). He'd basically tell the truth without actually revealing anything about the ghost kids.
Also, it's true that Fazbear Entertainment can make things more difficult for Mike, but Mike is also more than capable of making things difficult for FE as well. And by difficult, I mean "go to the public and reveal the full story behind FE's fuck-ups", which would almost certainly destroy the company's reputation beyond repair since they're already in hot water about attempting and failing to cover up the existence of the tragedies to begin with.
Properman: You're welcome, but it will have to wait until after Help Wanted resolves.
BarcodeMan47: Such a chapter will probably happen after the Help Wanted arc.
AlchemyWriter: Yeah, the strategies most certainly aren't the same between the original games and their incarnations in Help Wanted. Hope you had a good Christmas too!
TobiasRieper: So far, FNaF fan-games won't be incorporated in MNGF, largely because I know practically nothing about them myself and I don't have the time or motivation to research them.
RedisSus: It is what it is. Between Glitchtrap and Fazbear Entertainment, the family will have plenty to deal with already.
Chapter 120 – VR Help Wanted Part 6
"So who's going next?" Mike asked once Rockstar Golden Freddy handed the VR headset back to him. "Most of you guys already had your turns," he gestured towards the Rockstar forms of the original animatronics. "Anybody want to go now?"
The Security Puppet floated up to him. "I'd like to go, if you don't mind," she requested. "I know we mainly gave this job to you guys, but I kinda wanna see what this VR game is like."
"Me too," Circus Baby reluctantly admitted. "I also have to see just how much Fazbear Entertainment knows about what I did as Ennard."
"We haven't heard the Tapes either," the Security Puppet added. "Everything we've heard about this weird glitch thing was just from word-of-mouth, and it'd probably be a good idea for us to listen to them directly so that we have a better idea of what's going on."
"That's probably a good idea," Rockstar Freddy agreed. "I forgot that you didn't hear the tapes yet."
"Who wants to go first?" Rockstar Bonnie asked.
The Security Puppet raised her hand. "I'll go," she offered. "We haven't done any of the FNaF 2 levels, right?" When the others nodded in confirmation, she continued, "I'll clear through those, try to find as many coins and tapes that I can, and that after that Liz can take care of the levels related to the Circus Baby franchise."
"I'm okay with that," Circus Baby readily agreed. She looked around to see what the others thought, and none of them offered any gesture or word of disagreement whatsoever. Mike handed over the VR headset to the Security Puppet, who put it on wordlessly and threw herself into the world of the game.
"Will I see the Spring Bonnie thing?" Charlie wondered as she looked over to her right. However, there was nobody at the doorway, leaving Charlie completely alone in the room for now. "Weird…" she muttered as she focused her attention back on the level selection menu. "It didn't show up in front of Cassidy either. Hrm…"
She reached out and picked Night 1 of the FNaF 2 levels. "This would probably be the best time for me to find any collectibles," she decided as she revisited the office of the 1987 location for the first time in a long time.
Charlie's mouth dropped open as she looked around her. "Wow…" she breathed. As much as she hated to admit it, the company that had worked on the VR game had done an excellent job of recreating the FNaF 2 office. The office itself looked as though it had been taken straight out of reality, the desk looking realistic enough to touch along with all the papers, the telephone, and the plastic cup on top. And the hallway outside looked as though it were just a few steps away yet led out into a black void.
But it was the differences that were more surprising to Charlie. As Phone Guy's voice spoke out from the phone, she continued to explore her surroundings to see how they differed from FNaF 2's. The former Marionette inhabitant clicked on the light button that flashed out into the hallway and was surprised to see that, unlike in the original game, she could see doorways leading to all four of the party rooms. There were also plenty of unique features inside the office itself, too. Instead of a tablet, there was now a full-blown computer and monitor on the right side of the desk that showed the camera feed and a map diagram that showed all of the rooms in the pizzeria. At the bottom right of the diagram, Charlie could see two buttons, one that shined a light into whatever room was shown on the camera, and one with a music note that would presumably wind up her box.
The lights were also wired a little differently in this game as well. Unlike in the original game, all three of the lights that she would need (Left Vent, Hallway, Right Vent) were all in front of her on the desk, giving Charlie easy access to light up whatever she needed to instead of needing to hit lights on the walls. The buttons also seemed to eliminate the need for the flashlight, as she couldn't see one on the desk anywhere. "Wait, does this mean that I don't need to worry about power drainage at all?" Charlie asked as she double-checked everything. When she didn't see a battery meter anywhere, she grinned. "Great! That's one less thing I have to worry about!"
As Phone Guy rambled on, Charlie began looking around for coins and tapes. A quick investigation revealed a single Tape in the box on the floor to her right, which disappeared with a purple flash the moment she touched it. She was also able to find a coin hidden behind the camera monitor, but to her surprise that was all she could find at the moment.
"Wait, that's it?" she wondered. "One Tape and one coin? No way, there HAS to be more." She was about to do another search, when she suddenly heard Phone Guy mention her former animatronic. "Crap…" Charlie muttered, "I think I'm gonna have to deal with the Marionette now." She quickly switched the camera over to the Prize Box, which quickly confirmed that the music box circle was beginning to wind down. She pushed the music button to wind it back up, and was somewhat dismayed to realize that, unlike in the original game, the rate at which the music box wound back up was somewhat slower than the rate at which it emptied. "I guess that's because we can do multiple things at once," Charlie realized, remembering how Gabe had easily cheesed the FNaF 3 segments by just hitting "Reboot All" and the Balloon Boy audio cue pretty much at the same time.
Phone Guy finished his call, leaving Charlie in the Office with only silence and the occasional metallic clang in the distance to see the animatronics moving. The former Puppet noticed the Freddy mask to her left and decided to experiment with putting it on before any animatronics arrived. To her consternation, she had to actually reach out and put it on, which was definitely more cumbersome and annoying that simply moving the mouse down like she was used to.
"I'm gonna have to get used to this," she muttered.
However, her experimentation would soon be rewarded. As she was wearing the mask, a coin appeared on the player's desk just behind the Clock. "Oh, wow!" Charlie exclaimed as she picked up the coin and it promptly disappeared with a shower of golden sparks and the sound of children cheering. "It must've only appeared after I put the mask on. I'll take it, I guess!"
Charlie wasn't expecting anything to crazy since it was Night 1, which theoretically at least should be the most lenient of the nights. Sure enough, it wasn't until 4 AM that anything particularly noteworthy happened. As she flashed the hallway during a routine cycle, Charlie was surprised to see Toy Bonnie actually walking in the hallway, moving towards the party room and the right vent passageway that he would ultimately attack from. "Wow…" Charlie muttered, "I definitely don't remember THAT being in the original game."
Now that there was actually the threat of animatronics attacking her, Charlie began to cycle through the three light switches, pressing one at a time while keeping another finger on the music box to keep it wound up. Towards the 4 AM, Toy Bonnie finally appeared in the right vent entryway, giving Charlie her first encounter with a FNaF 2 animatronic in the VR game.
Charlie reached out towards the Freddy Fazbear mask and put it on. Immediately, the environment darkened and the lights began to flicker on and off chaotically, with only Toy Bonnie being visible as he stared intently at Charlie through the eyes of the Freddy mask. After several seconds, he finally left the Office, allowing Charlie to take it off.
"That was…creepy," she mumbled. When Toy Bonnie had attacked in the original game, he had slid in to the mask's line of sight from the right with an expression that was almost goofy. Maybe it was just the lighting or the way Toy Bonnie stared into the mask, but he definitely seemed much creepier here than in the original game. In terms of visuals, it was a major improvement, Charlie had to admit.
"Who else is going to attack me?" she wondered. Apart from the obvious answer of the Marionette, she hadn't seen Toy Freddy in the hallway at all, hadn't heard Balloon Boy laugh, or seen Mangle move either. Which meant that of all the Toy animatronics, Toy Chica was the most likely one to attack. Sure enough, a little past 5 AM, Toy Chica appeared in the left vent entryway, ready to strike.
Charlie put the mask on, and was shocked to discover that Toy Chica now had her own unique Freddy mask sequence. Toy Chica stared intently into the mask and sent the technology around her into chaos just as Toy Bonnie had done. Charlie could see straight into her eyes, which held only tiny white specks of light in an otherwise black void, as well as into a mouth that was similarly empty save for the faint traces of endoskeleton teeth hiding in the darkness. The missing eyes and mouth on the animatronic made her appear decidedly more disturbing in Charlie's opinion, even though both Toy animatronics functionally did the exact same thing from opposite sides.
"I can't believe they finally gave her an actual animation," Charlie commented as Toy Chica finally left. "I always thought that was kinda missing from Toy Chica back in the original game."
With both Toy Bonnie and Toy Chica having attacked once already, Charlie felt that she had little to fear for the remainder of the night. Sure enough, 6 AM arrived without any further incidents, rewarding her with a Sodaroni.
Charlie's face scrunched up in distaste. "A soda?" she questioned irritably. "That tastes like a pizza? I like the two separately, but together…yeah, I'm gonna say no to that one," she muttered as she went back to the menu screen. She checked to her right again to see if the Spring Bonnie figure had finally appeared, but he was still missing. "Odd…" Charlie muttered. She had little reason to doubt its existence, given that both her siblings and the young woman recording the tapes had sighted her multiple times. Deciding to check on the Tape she had found later, Charlie headed back into Night 2.
"You know what," Charlie decided, "I kinda wanna see what happens if the Puppet attacks. I think I'll let the music box die down this time and let the Puppet kill me. They gave Toy Chica a new animation, maybe they gave one to the Puppet too!"
Charlie entered Night 2 and immediately turned the camera to the Prize Corner. However, she ignored the Music Box entirely this time, letting Phone Guy ramble on and on with the same phone call he had given in Night 2 of the original game. Since the music box started winding down immediately in contrast to Night 1, it didn't take long for the music box to wind down, and for "Pop Goes the Weasel" to replace "My Grandfather's Clock" and signal the beginning of the end.
"Whoa!" Charlie suddenly straightened, paying close attention to the screen. Although the camera feed was jerky and laggy, she could see the music box open and the Marionette emerge from the box. The Marionette was moving his long, lanky arms up and down as he rose from the box, before slowly turning to face the camera. Charlie shuddered as the Puppet suddenly vanished with a flicker of static, signaling that he had left the Prize Counter and was coming for her.
"Let's see how long he takes to get me," Charlie muttered. As it turned out, she didn't have very long to wait at all. In just a few seconds, the Marionette appeared in the hallway, his long arms and legs moving fluidly like tentacles as he approached her. It was decidedly the creepiest thing that Charlie had seen so far, but it also came with a significant silver lining. As the Marionette moved down the hallway, a coin suddenly appeared in front of the telephone on the desk. "Oh wow, another coin!" Charlie remarked as she picked it up. "They really went all-in with the secrets here."
Before she could make say anything further, the Marionette leapt at her with his hands outstretched, letting out the familiar yell of the FnaF 2 animatronics as he covered her screen with his mask and sent the entire room into static. "Well, as creepy as that was, I'm glad I did my little experiment," Charlie commented as she restarted the level. "I definitely won't say no to another coin!"
Having gotten over her morbid desire to die at the hands of her former animatronic, Charlie proceeded to play through Night 2 normally. Although Toy Bonnie and Toy Chica behaved in much the same way, there were 3 new animatronics that Charlie now had to deal with. The first one that she had to encounter was Withered Foxy. Unlike the original game's incarnation, who had appeared in the center of the hallway, this version of Withered Foxy lurked to the side, hiding under one of the doorways leading to the side pizzeria. His arrival had also been heralded by the "danger" sound that played whenever Toy Bonnie or Toy Chica had appeared in the vents, a sound that, despite adding to the creepiness of the game, actually made it easier for Charlie to identify a threat and fend it off accordingly.
Despite Withered Foxy's sinister appearance in the Hallway, his appearance turned out to be quite anticlimactic. The original game's Withered Foxy had easily been the among the most annoying and most dangerous of the animatronics in that game, requiring constant checking with the flashlight to fend him off. Combined with animatronics that could potentially linger in the vents for way too long without an actual attack animation, like the original Toy Chica and Balloon Boy, he could very easily end a night if the player kept the mask on for too long.
Compared to the constant and pressing danger that FNaF 2's Withered Foxy had presented, the VR game's Withered Foxy was a complete and utter joke by comparison. All it took was for Charlie to press the hallway light button and flash the light 2 or 3 times, and then Withered Foxy was gone. "Wait, that's it?" Charlie asked incredulously. "Really? He was such a pain in the ass in the original game and now he's gone just like that?" She shook her head in disbelief. "I mean, I'm glad he's a lot easier now, but honestly that was just disappointing. At least Fritz won't break the VR headset trying to deal with him," she added with a smirk.
The second animatronic that made its presence known was Toy Freddy. The bear animatronic had much more fluid animations than in the original game, where it had merely stood at the end of the hall before suddenly appearing at the entrance to the office a few moments later. Now, Charlie could actually see Toy Freddy walk towards her, approaching the entrance with a swagger and the utmost confidence in his mission to destroy the night guard. Toy Freddy stopped right at the entrance, watching Charlie ominously as she continued to check the lights and keep the music box wound up.
Despite the new arrivals, Charlie didn't have too much difficulty dealing with the animatronics' assault since it was only Night 2. She could hear Balloon Boy laugh in the distance, but he wasn't something that she was overly concerned about. Toy Freddy continued to stand there, looking menacing in theory but functionally doing nothing, even as the hours passed. Toy Bonnie and Toy Chica both attacked once around 4 AM, but they were just as easy to fend off with the Freddy Fazbear mask as before. Balloon Boy also appeared at the left vent a few seconds later, and when Charlie put the mask on she could actually see him waddle out of the office into the darkness of the hallway. Charlie couldn't help but snicker a bit; the animatronics were supposed to be scary, but the way Balloon Boy walked as he left was honestly kind of adorable.
At around 5 AM, Toy Freddy finally made his move. The animatronic's eyes blackened and he walked into the office, ducking under the doorway and sending the electricity around him into chaos. Charlie put on the Freddy mask, trying not to cringe as he loomed over her imposingly for several seconds, the shadows making him appear more menacing, before he finally departed the office. "Well he definitely looks a lot more intimidating than he did back in the original FNaF 2," Charlie remarked. The rest of the night was a fairly simple matter of keeping the music box wound up, as none of the animatronics apart from Withered Foxy were able to reach the office in time, and as he was much less of a threat Charlie didn't feel threatened by him at all. She was rewarded with a Toy Caterpillar for her troubles, and moved on to the next fights.
It soon became clear that the Withered animatronics, the decrepit and broken forms of the animatronics that her siblings had once possessed, were conspicuously absent from the game. The only one present was Withered Foxy, who had been nerfed so badly that he was a shadow of what he had once been in the original game. The other Withereds: Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica, were nowhere to be found. Instead, the Toy animatronics seemed to have taken center stage as the main threats of the VR game's FNaF 2, a change that Charlie honestly wasn't too sure about. Even though the Toys' more active behavior and the updates to their animations definitely made them feel more threatening while also making the challenge feel fairer, the game mode still felt like it was missing something that couldn't be replaced by the Toys no matter how hard they tried.
Night 3 proceeded mostly how Charlie expected, a more ramped up difficulty of previous nights. The only new animatronic that joined the ones already present in the attack was Mangle, who Charlie quickly realized was the most different in terms of her behavior compared to the other animatronics. At first, Charlie didn't notice anything odd about Mangle's behavior, as it appeared in the Office Hallway just like the original Mangle did, hanging from the ceiling. From what she remembered about the original FNaF 2, she expected Mangle to make her way to the party room to her right and ultimately appear in the right vent passageway just like Toy Bonnie, making her garbled radio noises.
However, that wasn't what happened. Instead of diverting to one of the main rooms, the "danger" sound played and Mangle crawled into the Office directly, completely taking Charlie by surprise. "Gah!" she yelped as she shoved the Freddy mask on her head just as Mangle began her attack. Though she threw the lighting around her into chaos just like the other animatronics, she was arguably the most expressive and animated out of all of them, actually tilting her head in curiosity as she lowered it to more closely investigate Charlie's Freddy mask. Charlie held her breath as she waited for Mangle to either leave or attack, sighing in relief once the animatronic departed from the Office without attacking.
"Yikes, they really changed up Mangle, didn't they?" Charlie muttered. She hadn't been expecting Mangle to directly attack from the hallway at all, and this new method would almost certainly flatfoot players who were used to her behavior in the original FNaF 2. And since none of the other Toys had had their attack patterns changed, Charlie had to assume that Mangle could also attack from her traditional method in the right vent as well. Not only that, but Mangle had been completely silent during her attack sequence, just like the rest of the Toy animatronics. No garbled static or radio sounds to be heard at all. "Well, on the plus side…" Charlie thought, "it sounds like I don't have to worry about Mangle just hanging on the Office ceiling waiting to bite my head off with nothing I can do about it."
Apart from Mangle's surprise ambush, there were no other major issues or unpleasant surprises thrown her way, so the former Marionette inhabitant was able to complete Night 3 of the FNaF 2 segments without any further difficulty. Even though the timing of the animatronics' attacks might have been seemingly random, there was always a possible pattern that the player could do to defend themselves with at least somewhat reliable success, and this game was no different. Charlie established a routine in which she alternated between checking the vent lights and checking the hallway, keeping a finger on the music box button all the while. And thanks to the fact that she could see the Toy animatronics coming AND their impending attacks were heralded by the "danger" sound, she had plenty of time to put on the Freddy mask and ward them off.
"Piece of cake," Charlie thought smugly as Nights 3 and 4 rolled on, giving her a Lemon Chica Bar and a Butter for One for her troubles once she completed them. "Why am I getting so much food?" she wondered as the final level of the FNaF 2 segments, Night 5, was unlocked. "I don't remember much about the Fazbear prizes back then, but I'm pretty sure I don't remember seeing all of these different food types. And some of these food names are…questionable…to say the least," she added a bit snidely.
When she was back in the menu screen, Charlie looked to her right again to see if the Spring Bonnie figure had finally appeared, but it was still nowhere to be found. "Weird…" she thought, "I've been through four levels already and it still hasn't showed up yet? The hell?" While the former Marionette inhabitant certainly didn't want to actively seek it out, she was still surprised that it hadn't shown up once after playing through four nights already.
"Maybe it'll show up after I finish Night 5," Charlie thought as she pressed the level on the screen with her finger. She had heard that the environments in the other FNaF games had differed dramatically during their Night 5s, and was curious to see just how the FNaF 2 Office would change once she plunged into the hardest difficulty.
"Whoa!" the former Marionette inhabitant gasped once she re-entered the Office. The entire Office had been plunged into darkness, illuminated only with a faint midnight blue glow that was a stark contrast to the comparatively brightly lit Office of the previous four nights. This was in stark contrast to the room buttons on the camera monitor, all of which were glowing with a bright pink light that really made them stand out in the darkness.
"So I have to play this level in the dark, huh?" Charlie shook her head and sighed. "Great…just, great." The fact that she could already hear Balloon Boy laughing in the distance when the night had only just started didn't help improve her mood in the slightest.
In terms of actual mechanics, the Toy animatronics didn't seem to behave any differently than they had in their previous incarnations. And apart from the still-nerfed Foxy, the Withered animatronics were still nowhere to be seen. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen Golden Freddy at all," Charlie realized. "Heck, Cassidy didn't see Golden Freddy in the FNaF 1 location either."
Unfortunately, as Charlie would soon learn, just because she knew the animatronics' attack patterns and how to fend them off, didn't mean that she would be given a free pass for the night. In true Night 5 style, the Toys and Withered Foxy were much more aggressive than in the earlier nights, already starting their attacks in the first hour when previously they had waited until 3 AM or later to attack. Balloon Boy was the first to arrive at the Office, and Charlie smirked as he left the Office once she put the mask on, his waddling animation still looking comical even in the darkness. She wasn't able to keep that smile on her face for long, however, as it was followed soon after by an attack from Withered Foxy and then one by Toy Chica.
"They look even creepier in the darkness," Charlie commented as Toy Chica stared intently into her Freddy mask with her unnatural black eyes before finally leaving. She was about to take the mask off, when suddenly the lights began to flicker on and off again. "What the!" Charlie exclaimed as Toy Bonnie took Toy Chica's place in attacking Charlie, shadows cast over his normally bright and colorful face.
"I got double-teamed?" Charlie asked incredulously. "Really?" She waited just a bit longer this time before finally taking the mask off. "I definitely don't remember that happening so quickly back in the old FNaF 2…" she muttered. True, the animatronics could attack very quickly in a sequence in the original game especially on the harder difficulties, but from what Charlie could recall she had never been outright attacked by two animatronics back-to-back.
Charlie looked at her music box and scowled when she realized that the meter had fallen below half-way. "Gotta get this back up," she thought as she checked the hallway with the light, fending off another attack from Withered Foxy as she slowly brought the music box meter back up to a little above ¾. She couldn't move it up any further because Toy Freddy chose that moment to attack, his already intimidating expression even more imposing in the darkness as he stared down at Charlie with his black eyes.
"You're still not as scary as the Withereds," Charlie retorted mentally as Toy Freddy left. Nothing was going to beat Withered Bonnie's missing face, or Withered Chica's tooth-filled jaw and missing arms. Without them being present, Charlie felt that she could relax for just a tad bit and focus more on keeping the music box up. Then, once she had brought it up to a satisfactory level, she began to check the left and right vents.
She was taken by surprise when the "danger" sound played when she turned on the right vent light…but nobody was there. "Wait, what?" she asked. Before she could do anything, Mangle suddenly appeared in front of her, letting out a garbled, furious yell as she chomped down frenziedly on Charlie's head with her open metal jaw. "GAH!" Charlie shouted as Mangle re-enacted the Bite of '87 on her, sending the screen into static and forcing Charlie to the Game Over screen.
"WHAT THE HECK?" Charlie shouted furiously. How had Mangle attacked her even though she hadn't seen her at all? At first, Charlie thought that maybe Mangle was invisible in the vent passageway just like Withered Bonnie and Withered Chica had been in the original game, and that the broken, dismembered Toy Foxy would give her very little time to react. "But that doesn't make any sense!" Charlie shut down her own theory. "I saw Mangle in the right vent passageway in Night 4, just like in the original game! She shouldn't have been able to randomly appear and attack me like that!"
The former Marionette inhabitant crossed her arms and scowled. "That has to be a bug," she theorized. "Cause I remember I heard that warning sound whenever an animatronic is about to attack even though nobody was there, right when Mangle killed me."
She restarted the level, determined not to fail again. The early stages of the night played out pretty much the same as the first run with some minor differences in timing of the animatronics' attacks. Charlie continued to use her routine of pressing one light at a time while keeping the music box wound up, as she had no reason to change something that had been working.
At around 3 AM, Charlie checked the left vent, and once again she heard the danger sound even though there was nobody there. On instinct, she put the Freddy mask on, a decision that turned out to be a very wise one when Toy Chica randomly appeared in front of her with her sinister black eyes and creepy open grin. "I knew it!" Charlie exclaimed once Toy Chica finished her attack. "I knew that whole invisibility thing was a bug!"
Her theory about the bug seemed to be confirmed even further when Mangle arrived at the right vent again, and this time Charlie could clearly see her lurking in the darkness. Charlie couldn't help but grin as she put the Freddy mask on to ward off Mangle's attack. As far as she could remember, none of the others had found any outright bugs in the game, meaning that she was the first one to actually find one. She couldn't wait to tell Mike so that he could bring it up to Fazbear Entertainment and get them to fix it…and shove yet another one of their mistakes in their faces, if she was being honest.
Despite the darkened and disturbing atmosphere of the office, the rest of Night 5 didn't change anything significant about the game mode in terms of mechanics. Charlie didn't encounter the bug again, and she had little trouble fending off the rest of the animatronics before 6 AM finally arrived. "Wow, that's it?" Charlie thought as she picked up her prize, a Toy Bonnie plushie. "Without Withered Foxy being a major pain in the ass, and with how you can see the animatronics coming before they attack, that was a piece of cake compared to the original game!"
Once Charlie was back at the level selection screen, she noticed that they had collected 22/30 coins and went over to the Prize Counter to see if they had unlocked any more prizes. She was surprised to discover that they had unlocked almost all of them except for one. However, the prizes themselves weren't anything to write home about. A plastic cup, a fan, rolled paper, a Freddy Fazbear mask, and an 8-ball. Out of all the prizes, the Freddy mask was easily the most interesting one they had unlocked so far, although to be honest Charlie honestly preferred the plushies and action figures more. Even the food names were kinda interesting, even if it looked like Fazbear Entertainment was grasping at straws for ideas.
"Who the hell would name their snack Disappointment Chips?" Charlie muttered as she went back to the menu. "That's pretty much begging for your product to fail." Not that Fazbear Entertainment had any difficulty finding ways to fuck up, as they had demonstrated all too thoroughly both in the past and present. With nothing else that she needed to do in terms of gameplay, Charlie decided to visit the Tape Room and listen to the tapes herself. She went through each one that the rest of her family had already collected, listening closely to the Tape Girl's words. Once she was caught up, she inserted Tape 10 into the recorder, listening with bated breath as she continued her tale.
"I was told I had three days to finish Jeremy's work," Tape Girl's words echoed in the darkness, "but I know it's just passing the time. They don't really expect me to do anything. It's just to keep appearances until the buyout is complete. We have to look like we have things under control. There's another potential development studio that wants to pick up from here. But who knows what kind of lies they're being fed to convince them to do it. Against my better judgment, I'm going to do my best to see what's here, make notes of it, and try to isolate where this thing is hiding. At least then, the next person that tests this will have a chance of getting rid of it."
Charlie frowned as the recorder finished playing. She had already gotten hints of the chaos that had plagued the development of this VR game from some of the earlier logs, but this new one practically confirmed it. Fazbear Entertainment, with the corruption and greed that had turned her father's company into a twisted monstrosity of its former self, was once again trying to cover up the serious problems lurking underneath the surface. It had stuck its head in the sand with willful ignorance at best and outright lack of concern at worst, all so it could get its VR game and attempted to discredit the tragedies of the past. "And for what?" Charlie thought bitterly. "The police have already exposed the truth. People know that my siblings were murdered. People know that night guards died at our hands, or at the very least "went missing" in a way that makes it obvious what really happened. Even if they get this VR game out in time, Fazbear Entertainment has already failed its main goal."
But as aggravating as Fazbear Entertainment's corruption was, it wasn't the main thing that she was concerned about. No, what really worried Charlie was the anomaly that Tape Girl had discovered. By now, Charlie was thoroughly convinced that the anomaly was the same thing as the Spring Bonnie figure that her siblings had spotted, the thing that kept waving at them from the right side of the room. Out of all the things that they had seen in the video game, the only thing they had spotted that could possibly fit the description of the unnatural anomaly Tape Girl had been investigating was that Spring Bonnie figure. It didn't help in the slightest that the Spring Bonnie figure seemed to be growing larger and clearer and moving closer to them, based on the reports that she had heard from her siblings.
"That Spring Bonnie thing is definitely not normal," Charlie thought worriedly. "I'd bet anything that it's the reason why the development team was in so much panic, and it's the big thing that Fazbear Entertainment is trying to cover up." In the back of her mind, she had a bad feeling that the glitch might be connected to Jeremy's actions, and the madness that he had seemingly descended into out of nowhere. Even though she had no solid proof, nothing else could explain it. And living with Mike had taught her to trust her instincts.
"Whoever this beta tester is, she's really brave," Charlie complimented. Going against established authority to do what was right…the former Marionette inhabitant could definitely respect someone with that kind of righteousness and determination. She hoped that the woman had succeeded in sealing away the anomaly and rendering it harmless, although given that her siblings had reported seeing it multiple times…
…she had her doubts about that success, to put it mildly.
"I've got to tell the others about what I've found," Charlie pressed the button to return to the level selection menu. She was almost certain that the Spring Bonnie figure was the glitchy anomaly that the former development team had noticed…and that it most certainly was NOT supposed to be there. It sounded like the Tape Girl had attempted to isolate and trap the anomaly somewhere…but where?
She took one last look around the room, half-hoping and half-dreading to see the Spring Bonnie anomaly that was almost certainly the subject of the tapes. Once again, however, she found nothing. Not only that, but the anomaly hadn't shown up once throughout the entirety of her run through the FNaF 2 levels. A more naïve person might have been relieved by its lack of presence, but Charlie knew better. And the absence of the figure was disturbing her just as much as its presence would have, if not more so.
"I've got a really bad feeling about this," Charlie murmured as she turned off the VR headset. She hoped that together, her family could get to the bottom of this mystery and put a stop to whatever dark secrets lurked within the game…before it was too late.
/
A/N: The Schmidt family is starting to clear away the shadows hiding the secrets of the VR game…and they're not gonna be happy with what they find, to put it mildly.
The Tape that I put in the FNaF 2 levels actually does not exist. This was actually the location of the "fake" tape that was originally in the FNaF 2 section, but it has since been removed. I used the fake tape's location because one of the tapes is located in Nightmare Fredbear's level in Night Terrors. And since Fazbear Entertainment has no reason whatsoever to know about the existence of the Nightmares, I needed an alternate location to put the Tape in. There's also a coin in the "Fun with Nightmare BB" level that I need to move as well…I'll think about where to put that one later.
The coin locations (all 3 of them) are all correct though. And yes, one of them requires that you be killed by the Marionette to find it. Fun times.
Unfortunately, that bug I mentioned with the invisible animatronics actually does exist, at least in Flat Mode. If you hear the "danger" sound when you check the lights, and it isn't because of Withered Foxy, PUT ON YOUR MASK. One of the Toys will show up in your face even though they didn't appear in their appropriate locations, and if you don't put the mask on YOU WILL DIE a bullshit death. Otherwise, Help Wanted's FNaF 2 feels somewhat easier and a lot fairer than the original…although getting double-teamed by the animatronics back-to-back is kinda bullshit and can lead to a death if you take the mask off in between their attacks.
I realize that I didn't actually have Jeremy or Susie play through a lot of levels in their respective chapters, as they focused more on the Tapes. I'm definitely going to have one of them play Pizza Party…but I'm not sure which one. There are certainly reasons why both of them should have that "honor"…I'll leave it up to you to decide. Right now, I'm leaning more towards having Jeremy do it, but I'll gladly switch it to Susie if enough people vote for it.
Anyways, next up is Liz's section, and let's just say I feel bad for what I'm about to put her through. Hope you guys enjoyed!
