A/N: Now that I've got the massive plot arc out of the way, I think it's high time we go back to lighter and more fun chapters. I need a break from big plot chapters anyway, writing the last arc has really burned me out when it comes to the serious, major stuff.
We haven't had a "video games" chapter in a while, have we? I think now's as good a time as any to have one since the next few chapters aren't meant to be taken seriously anyway.
An important note before we begin: Now that medical school has started, I can no longer guarantee that I will be able to post a chapter every week. I will try to post one every two weeks if I cannot post one every week, and I CAN guarantee at least one chapter per month minimum if my schedule really goes to shit.
Remember back in "A Legacy Laid to Rest" when Mike was going to talk with Scott about possibly making a game based on the events of "Five Nights at Freddy's"? Well, prepare for FNAF within a FNAF fic! I'd like to dedicate this chapter in honor of FNAF's 4th Anniversary and the interview that Dawko had with Scott Cawthon.
Chapter 46 – Fun with Video Games 3
One and a Half Years Ago
"So that's everything that's happened?" the man asked as he finished reviewing his notes. "That's…incredible…to think that there's been this much tragedy and horror behind what should have been a happy children's environment."
Mike shook his head. "I know, it was hard for me to believe too. But you can see the Marionette right here," he gestured towards Charlie, "and I trust her completely."
The man shuddered. "Now I'm thankful that I never took my kids to a Freddy Fazbear's location," he gave Charlie an apologetic look. "No offense."
Charlie shrugged. "None taken, I don't blame you in the slightest."
"And Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria is completely gone?" Mike's friend pressed. "Nobody can come after me with a lawsuit or anything? I'm not going to risk my own family's welfare for this."
"Freddy Fazbear's is gone forever," Charlie confirmed. "My father personally made sure of that."
"All right," the man agreed. "I just wanted to make sure that there was nothing stopping me from telling this story legally."
"My father wanted the memory of Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria to disappear forever," Charlie added. "I understand why he wanted to bury it once and for all, but at the same time I can't agree with him completely. I do want our story to be told, in some form or another. Both for the sake of the Night Guards and for the sake of my friends who have passed on. History that's forgotten will repeat itself, and I want more than anything to prevent more tragedies like the one that happened to me and my friends. Locations that were meant to be safe havens can still be corrupted into places of tragedy and horror, and it is a lesson that the world should know and prevent by any means necessary."
Her listener frowned. "You tell me that, and yet you don't want me to just reveal it outright?"
"As you yourself suggested, the former would make for an excellent horror game, and it's a story that is already well-known in a sense," Charlie explained. "But for the latter…I don't want it to simply be thrown out there, where it can be ignored or even disrespected. I want our story to be told in a way that only those who would truly care about our fate and actively seek out our tale will be the ones to discover it. I want the ones who discover it to be the ones who understand."
The man frowned. "You do realize that it's impossible to control the motives of the ones playing this game," he warned. "Almost nobody believes in ghosts to begin with. There's a lot of people who will miss the story entirely and focus on the animatronics instead. Some people will only play the game just because a game. And even if they do seek out your history, they might do it just for the sake of 100% completion or something, and not because of any sympathy for you. I want you to be completely aware of this before I start working, because once the game's out it'll be all but impossible to take it back."
"I understand. You're a good man, and a clever and intelligent one. I know you'll handle this the way that it is meant to be handled."
"Well, then I guess I better get to work immediately," the man smiled and got up to shake their hands. "Thanks for bringing me into this."
Charlie returned the man's handshake warmly. "Thank you very much for accepting this task, Mr. Cawthon."
The man smirked. "Please. Mike and the rest of my friends all call me Scott."
Present Day
"There's not a lot of people that I really trust, but Scott is one of them," Mike finished. "He may not be on the level of Ryan in terms of how close we are as friends, but he's up there. He's probably the only person I can trust to do this right."
"Whoa…" Susie gasped. "An entire video game horror series dedicated to telling the rest of the world about what happened at Freddy's?"
"Well, not directly," Mike clarified. "It all depends on how deeply you dig into the game. On the surface, all you'll find is a horror game about a Night Guard trying to survive in his office for five nights from 12 to 6 AM. But there's more to it hidden underneath the surface, and Scott told me that the future games will include more details about your tragedy and gradually reveal the full story for those who actually care enough to find out about it."
"I don't know how to feel about this," Jeremy muttered. Then, he sighed. "Then again, it's not like we have any right to complain. You had this finalized long before we ever came here."
"You've got to admit, the idea is kind of cool," Fritz pointed out. "And nobody's going to resurrect Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria now that it's been associated with the horror genre."
"Or the obscene amount of incompetence," Mike muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes.
"Is the game out?" Liz asked. "Can we play it?"
"Yep!" Mike confirmed. "It came out recently! Took me WAY too long to finally beat 4/20 mode. God damn was that painful…" he added with a groan.
"So THAT was what you were doing in your study a few nights ago…" Susie realized.
"It can't be any harder than what we put you through, right?" Gabe asked. Even though Mike had made it abundantly clear that he had forgiven them long ago, he still felt some guilt gnaw at his conscience when he thought of the night shift, and he doubted that would ever fully change.
To his surprise, however, Mike smiled dryly. "Oh, believe me, on the extra nights, this game makes my actual night shift look like a joke."
The ghosts' eyes widened, and the same thought was running through their minds:
"This, I've got to see."
Mike's smile vanished. "Before we begin…there is something important I need to ask you," he spoke in the now-familiar tone that told the ghosts he was being utterly serious. "How much have you been able to make peace with yourself and your past actions? I don't want to show you this game only for you to go into a mental breakdown over your own regrets. That's only going to end up hurting all of us."
The ghosts looked at each other silently for several moments. Then, Gabe spoke for all them. "We won't ever forget the past and we won't ever really stop regretting what we did, but we won't let it crush our hopes for the present or the future," he declared. "If anything, we owe it to our victims to be in their shoes and feel the same fear they felt when we hunted and killed them. Including you, dad." He looked straight into Mike's eyes. "Show us the game."
Mike nodded. "Well said." He turned on the computer and opened the game. "It's pretty simple," Mike explained as it loaded. "You watch the cameras for the animatronics, use the lights to check the hallways, and shut the doors when the animatronics show up. But you have to survive from 12-6 am with limited power. So, with all that being said…who wants to go first?"
"I'll go!" Fritz offered as he sat down in front of Mike's laptop. Even though he couldn't quite grasp the mouse like a living human would, the ghosts' ability to interact with the physical world allowed him to easily manipulate the mouse and click New Game.
"Dang!" Jeremy whistled. "This really DOES look like the 1993 pizzeria, office and all!"
Mike smirked. "I gave Scott very thorough descriptions of what I saw over there," he replied. He and the other ghosts watched as Fritz proceeded to breeze through Night 1 and made a strong showing at Night 2, recognizing Foxy's attack pattern and keeping him at bay. He finally failed at Night 3 because Chica blindsided him while he was looking at Freddy and Foxy. "Aw, crap!" Fritz protested as the chicken jump-scared him. "I took too long looking through the camera."
"That was decent for a first time," Mike commented as Fritz moved out of the way. "I've seen people die on Night 1. I don't know how, considering the animatronics are as slow as a rock on that particular night, so you're far from the worst I've seen on this game."
"I'll get it next time," Fritz grumbled as he moved out of the way for Cassidy to take a turn. Even though she had gotten a lot of exposure to video games from living in Mike's house, she was still the most inexperienced out of all of them and ended up dying on Night 2 to a Foxy attack that she had been too slow to counter.
"I don't know how you Night Guards managed it," she commented as she moved aside for Jeremy to take a turn. Jeremy ended up making it all the way to Night 4, and Mike's smile disappeared as the Phone Guy's last call echoed out into the room. All the ghosts cringed and turned away in shame as they heard Phone Guy's scream and the few terrifying moments before his death. Cassidy whimpered at the noise – that had been her making the final attack on the Phone Guy as Golden Freddy, she was sure of it. Only one animatronic ever made that noise. "I'm sorry…" she thought sadly. "You didn't deserve this. None of you did. We were too filled with hate to see it…"
Mike solemnly bowed his head in honor of the man who had given him the guidance he'd needed to survive. "Rest in peace, my friend," he murmured as Jeremy reluctantly continued the night. The Phone Guy's call had badly shaken him, and he ended up dying to Freddy's attack since he couldn't focus properly and forgot to check on his location.
Gabe decided to try and shift the thoughts away from the Phone Guy's death as the menu screen returned. "That was some incredible voice acting," he commented. "Whoever this actor is, he combined it with the sound effects really well. Do you know who that voice is, dad?"
Mike grinned, thankful for the distraction. "Oh, yeah. That was Scott. He used his own voice for Phone Guy!"
The ghosts' eyes widened. "Really?" they asked in shock.
"Yep! I heard a sample of his voice acting about a month before the game came out. It's a scarily accurate imitation of what the actual Phone Guy told me in that Office all those years ago," Mike suddenly frowned. "Damn, I haven't talked to Scott in a while. Now I feel kind of bad. I should probably give him a call later."
"Well, wherever he is, I hope he's doing all right," Jeremy said as he handed the mouse over to Gabe to take his turn. He ended up doing the best out of all them, making it all the way to Night 5 before being defeated by Bonnie at around 3 AM. Susie was the next ghost to try, and her defeat was unique compared to the others.
"Hey, that's Golden Freddy!" she exclaimed once she saw the poster in the West Hall corner during Night 3. She put down the tablet and, to everyone's surprise, the animatronic in question was sitting on the office desk.
"Oh, fuck!" Mike exclaimed. "Quick, open the monitor, open the damn moni…" Too late. Golden Freddy's face covered the entire screen, and promptly crashed the game. "Well, shit," he sheepishly mumbled as he turned the game back on. "Forgot to tell you about that." To the ghosts' surprise, he suddenly burst out into a wry laugh.
"Dad?" Cassidy tugged at her father's arm worriedly. "Are you all right?"
"What? Oh, yeah," Mike continued to chuckle. "It's just that, back in my night shift, I actually saw Golden Freddy only once during the 20 nights I was there. And when I did see you, I was like, oh my God, what the hell is this thing doing in my office? Obviously, I didn't know that lifting the monitor again would make you disappear, so while I was panicking I opened up my monitor completely by accident, and when I looked away from it you were gone like nothing happened. And I was like what the fuck just happened?"
Fritz snickered once he realized what his dad was saying. "So you blocked Golden Freddy completely by accident without having any clue what the hell you were doing?" he asked just to make sure.
Mike grinned back. "Pretty much."
"Thank God for that," Gabe muttered. "I don't want to think about where we'd be right now if you hadn't."
"Thinking about what-if situations that have a 0% chance of happening is a waste of time," Mike agreed.
It was only then that he realized that Liz had been silent throughout most of the past few minutes, and the others had almost forgotten that she was there. "Can I have a turn?" she asked. She had gotten a general idea of how the animatronics behaved from watching the others, even if she had never been to the 1993 restaurant back when it had still been open.
Mike gestured to the computer. "Go right ahead!" he responded invitingly, and Liz started a new game. Out of all the ghosts, it turned out that she was the only one who remembered the strategy that Mike had told them about during his story about his shift at Freddy's. With that knowledge in tow, she did even better than Gabe did, making it all the way to Night 5 and even to 5 AM. Unfortunately, her luck ran out when Bonnie and Chica suddenly showed up at both doors at the same time, forcing her to use three bars of power for several seconds. The final nail in the coffin was when Foxy finally made a mad dash to her office. She was able to block the left door in time, but Foxy knocked on the door and killed what little power she had left. The office suddenly went dark, and Freddy's face started glowing at the door. He cut off his song relatively quickly and attacked Liz without missing a beat, ending the game.
"Awwwww…." everyone groaned sympathetically. "You were so close!" Susie exclaimed.
"Yeah, for a first time, that was a really good job, Liz," Mike added. "Also, you got screwed over at the end, and I'm not talking about Foxy, Chica, or Bonnie."
"What do you mean?" Liz asked.
"Well, when the power goes out, the timer towards 6 AM is still counting down," Mike explained. "The time during which Freddy gets to the left door, plays his jingle, or waits after he stops it before attacking you are all completely random, and all three of those time intervals count as time that gets you towards 6 AM. You got REALLY unlucky, Liz. He started playing the song almost instantly, he only played it for a few seconds, AND he attacked you quickly after. If he'd taken his time before he attacked you, I think you might have actually made it to 6 AM and won."
"Oh well," Liz shrugged. "There's always next time."
"Yeah, feel free to play as many times as you want, kiddos. Anyway," he grinned. "Time to show you exactly who you've been up against all those years ago."
The ghosts all expected him to start up a new game, but to their surprise he ignored the Continue button and instead went straight to Night 6.
"Night 6? That's a thing? I thought the pizzeria was closed on weekends," Jeremy asked in confusion.
Mike smirked. "Jeremy, this level and the Custom Night are not considered canon to the game. I'm impressed that Scott separated parts of a game as simple as this into canon and non-canon, but whatever, it's his game. And besides, I told you before. It was designed to be harder than what you put me through. Watch and learn, kiddies." The game started, and from the very beginning the ghosts understood how and why Mike had survived the haunted animatronics' ruthless assault.
It soon became very clear that Mike had lost none of his experience even after several decades. He had come up with a strategy to deal with the animatronics even under the extreme stress of fighting for his life and the pressure created by the game was laughably meaningless in comparison. For the ghost kids, it was like they were hearing Mike describe his Night Shift all over again, only this time they were watching him in action rather than simply listening to his words. He checked the lights for both doors and opened the monitor to check ONLY on Freddy and Foxy before repeating. A routine that was incredibly simple and yet brilliant in its simplicity. After all, so long as they weren't at the doors, who cared where Bonnie and Chica were? Freddy and Foxy had both been incredibly cautious not to move while they were being inspected, and Mike had turned their own caution against them by frequently checking on them; Foxy didn't attack once during the entire night, and Freddy only moved as far as the main dining area. Not once did Mike make a mistake that would have almost certainly killed him, and the time shifted to 6 AM just as Freddy started playing his 0% power jingle, leaving him victorious and with six ghostly children who were staring at him in utter awe.
"Checkmate," Mike snapped his fingers. When he saw the extra 50 cents on the paycheck, he flipped a middle finger at the screen. "Oh and fuck your overtime too! 50 cents for that bullshit? What a fucking joke."
"Oh my God…" Gabe breathed. "How…how are you so good?"
"Try surviving a haunted restaurant in real life sometime," Mike deadpanned. "Video games don't seem very hard in comparison."
Liz suddenly remembered something. "Wait…what was that thing you mentioned before about 4/20 mode?" she asked.
The smile on Mike's face vanished instantly, and he groaned. "That, Liz, is the hardest difficulty mode possible for this game. All 4 animatronics with their AI set all the way to max power. No mercy, no forgiveness. You make a single mistake, you're dead. I tried using one strategy for FIVE HOURS before I gave up and used a different one that worked after a few tries."
"What strategy was that?" Susie asked.
To answer her question, Mike picked up a tablet lying on the desk nearby and immediately began whacking his head repeatedly with it. The ghosts all burst out laughing at seeing their parent act like an idiot. "No, seriously," Fritz finally managed to breath out, "what strategy did you use?"
"What, you think I'm joking?" Mike asked, and all the ghosts stopped laughing. "This is more or less how I actually beat 4/20 mode. Constantly checking the East Hall Corner camera to make sure that Freddy didn't kick my ass."
"Am I that big of a threat on that mode?" Gabe mumbled, but before Mike could answer a new voice spoke up.
"So you've showed them Five Nights at Freddy's, Mike?" Everyone turned to the Marionette, who had only just entered the room. "I'm personally very happy with how the game turned out. It catches the atmosphere of the pizzeria incredibly well, is remarkably faithful to the events of the past, and offers hints of the tragedy without being obvious about it. Scott Cawthon is indeed a genius, and I owe it to him to finally play the game he has worked so hard to create."
"Go right ahead," Mike moved out of the way, and the Puppet took the seat. Everyone watched as she clicked on Custom Night, and they gave her questioning glances as she set every single animatronic's difficulty level to 20. "Uhm…Charlie? Have you even played this game before? You do realize you're putting this game at a difficulty so ridiculously hard that Scott himself couldn't beat it?"
"And your point is?" she turned to give Mike a glare that was utterly intimidating. He immediately backed off with his hands raised.
"Thank you. You think you're the master, Mike. It's easy to see why - you were here in this office several years ago, and you managed to best even 4/20 mode, something that only a scant few people have so far. But I have watched the animatronics and their attack patterns for quite a long time, and I understand their strategies better than you ever could. And I will show you that, by defeating this night right here and now without any prior experience whatsoever."
And the Marionette proceeded to fulfill her promise in its entirety. If anything, her strategy was even more impressive than Mike's Night 6 strategy, not the least of which because even the slightest misstep would have almost certainly resulted in a game over. Every time she was about to check the monitor, she closed the right door to prevent Freddy's attack. Unlike Mike, who had been forced to check on both Foxy and Freddy with each camera scan, Charlie focused her attention entirely on Foxy. Afterwards, she opened the door again and checked the lights for Bonnie and Chica before repeating the cycle. She covered every angle as best as one possibly could, blocking Freddy from attacking her while she checked on the monitor, and only had to deal with one attack from Foxy thanks to her careful surveillance. The entire room was completely silent as Charlie powered through the night, as nobody wanted to be the one who caused the fatal distraction that cost her the game. Despite not making a single error, her battery ran out of power late into 5 AM. Nobody was calling her out for failing, though, for the night was not yet over, and the fact that she made it this far on her first try was more than impressive in and of itself.
"Come on, Fazfuck," Mike thought. The challenge she had issued had been completely forgotten, and he was cheering for her just as much as the others. "Take your sweet-ass time."
Freddy's jingle started playing, and everyone held their breath as the seconds slowly ticked by. It was a longer version of the Toreador March, which was a good sign. The bear's eyes flickered and faded, and the entire office plunged into darkness.
And then…
DING! DONG!
The game's clock shifted to 6 AM.
Charlie had done the impossible. She had defeated 4/20 night on HER FIRST TIME EVER PLAYING THE GAME.
Mike's jaw dropped to the floor, and the rest of the ghosts nearly fell out of the air onto the ground. Charlie calmly stared at the screen, practically glowing an aura of satisfaction, then turned to face all of them. "What's that saying that modern gamers seem to use all the time nowadays? Oh, right." She whipped out a pair of sunglasses that Mike didn't know she even had, slipped them on her face, made a finger gun and pretended to shoot it at them. "GG."
She got up from the chair and calmly floated out of the room, leaving Mike and every single one of the five ghost children speechless at her skills.
/
A/N: And this is why you don't fuck with the Marionette. :D If Charlie isn't kicking your ass for murdering innocent children (taking out the fact that she didn't get the right targets), then she'll kick your ass in Five Nights at Freddy's. In all seriousness, though, she's been at the same pizzeria where the original animatronics were and she probably watched them all throughout their assaults, she knows how they operate better than anyone else. That or she figured out the strategy from watching Mike play the game :P
Mike's strategy that he used for Night 6 is one of the best and most widely used for Nights 3-6, and it was what allowed me to get through the first five nights entirely deathless. It took me about 5 tries to get through Night 6, though a lot of that was because Freddy wasn't generous with his jingle time until the winning run. FNAF is a great game, but it isn't perfect by any means, and that luck factor can be incredibly annoying.
As for Marionette's 4/20 strategy, it's listed on the wiki for Custom Night and I think it's how BigBug and Markiplier beat it, but that's not how I did it. I tried that way so many times, but I kept screwing the sequence up and died at 12 or 1 AM. Believe it or not, Mike banging the tablet into his head repeatedly actually more or less IS the strategy that I used to beat 4/20 mode, and I owe that one entirely to Youtuber Bagel the Bagel. Check one light - check East Hall Corner camera (cause Freddy will park his ass there and stay there for the whole night) - check opposite light - check East Hall Corner camera - repeat ad nauseum. Theoretically you don't need to check on Foxy at all since apparently the camera itself is what slows him down and not specifically checking Pirate's Cove, but it's good to check periodically (making sure to close the right door first so that Freddy doesn't get in) since if he makes a break for the office and you don't know it, you're fucked. If you're having trouble with the game, I hoped this helped!
To be honest, I'm starting to run dry on ideas for "video game chapters" like this one, likely cause my video game pool isn't very deep XD If you can suggest any video games for the ghost kids to play (since I know it's been a LONG time since I've written a video game chapter so if I ever did ask for suggestions they're probably buried by the passage of time), please let me know and I'll do some research on them if I ever find the time.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed!
