A Changing of the Guard

  The staff at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria are a friendly sort. This of course extends not only to the other employees here, but also the performers; a group of animatronic entertainers. "Fazbear & Friends" according to the marketing, though that's just a rebrand of the original band's name. The "Fazbear Four" is what I used to know them as. But then again, these robots aren't the same ones, not really anyways. Instead, these robots are much more hands-on, being able to interact with patrons directly instead of being confined to the stage (a privilege only the boss bear was allowed back then). Really, they're much more like big toys for the kids to play with. Toys that they love. That they trust. Which makes things relatively easy for me. Of course, it also helps that I'm a watchman so I've a fair bit of freedom. Not to mention this security room's benefits. Such as something resembling silence, a nice thing to have in a busy place like this.

"Hey. Hey Marv. You okay?" asked a perky voice nearby, knocking me out of my train of thought. A metallic sounding perky voice.
"Sorry Beaky, I spaced out there for a second." I replied to the animatronic, a bird bot designated as Toy Chica.
"Hey! You know I don't like that name, don't be lame." she snapped as she gave me a friendly jab in the shoulder. If such a hit had been struck by her predecessor, it would have left a bruise, or even fracture. A courtesy of their bulkier design due to materials from Omni Ceramic Products. I never realized how thankful I was that OCP had nothing to do with these newer bots until just now.

"Yes yes, I know. You hate your beak, I get it. Why is that anyways?" I asked, as I playfully rubbed my shoulder.
"...I can't smile with it on. How can I be expected to party hard if I can't smile?"

  Her response had taken me aback. Once again, I was surprised by the depths of these machines' programming. It was a huge step up from their predecessors. A testament to the quality that Hikari Technologies provides. Due to the more advanced programming, I've had to watch the new robots much more carefully, as they aren't nearly as predictable. But to be honest, I've felt that just treating them like people works best. Which is fine by me, as I'm a people person.

"So show them such a good time that they're smiling enough for the both of you." I finally answered.
"This is why you're my homeboy, Marv. You always know what to say." She might not be able to smile, but I heard it in her voice.
"You're welcome then. Besides, at least you can take it off at night, if Nathan's been telling the truth."
"That narc!" she exclaimed angrily.
"Hey, don't get mad at him, he's just trying to do his job." Nathan works the night shift. Security detail. He's a good kid.
"Was being a narc in his job description?"
"Oh don't worry, I told him it wasn't a problem. No need to report it or anything." I said in hopes of placating her.
Her only response however, was grumbling.
"Besides, it's not as if you took anything else off, right?" I asked. At this, she started avoiding eye contact.
"Well..."
"Toy Chica, you shouldn't just be removing parts all willy-nilly like that." I chastised.
"I look better that way, and it feels nice to let the girls breathe once and awhile." Oh. Oh my.
"My eye casings, Marv. Stop staring at my chest." she said pointedly. I cleared my throat in embarrassment. It wasn't as if I could help it without a conscious effort though. Her chassis was much sleeker, being slimmed down from the original model. The Russian ingenuity of Cossack Industries at work. Those endowments though. Those had to have been an accident, as this is a children's restaurant. But then again, the older unit also had something similar going on there. Maybe it was some designer's playful reference to that aspect of its predecessor? Or maybe scientists are just perverted individuals with no morals or sense of shame. Not that I'm much better.

"Sorry TC, I thought you meant- I mean- why do you even have those?" I asked, growing exasperated under her glare.
"To protect my optical receptors. Are you mental? Why else would I have them?"
"Not those, I meant..." Now it was my turn to avoid eye contact.
"Marvin Guy, that line of thought is not safe for a work environment." she teased as she straightened her "LET'S PARTY!" bib.
"I'll behave." I replied. Let alone the chicken breast, at least I didn't mention the underwear. Suddenly, she straightened up.
"Aw, I've gotta jet. Some kids just walked in. Nice chatting with you." she said. My boss then walked in as she hurried out. A bit of a heavyset man in his mid thirties, he was a jolly sort who seemed to truly love the robotic entertainers here. There was however, a solemn candor underlying his happy demeanor; he harboured a soft spot for the original performers that the Toy line replaced.

"Uh, everything okay Marvin?" he asked, puzzled. I don't think he's ever seen me talking to the animatronics before.
"Everything's perfectly alright, now. We're fine- we're all fine, here, now, thank you... how are you?" I said with a smile.
"Good to hear it. Was probably a boring conversation anyways if she left in such a hurry." he playfully replied with a chuckle.
"Anyways Phineas, what's up?" I asked.
"Just checking, uh, you're still going to be available for that birthday party in a couple of weeks or so, right?"
"Certainly. But if not, I'll make sure someone can fill in." I affirmed to his delight.
"Great! Uh, one more thing, these big heavy doors are being removed sometime next week." Well there goes that semblance of quiet.
"Any particular reason?" I asked.
"They're unnecessary, and could slow you down if you're needed." he explained. I suppose I can't argue with that.
"Fair enough." I conceded. Finished with what he had come here to tell me, he left me to my own devices.

  Ulrich Guy (no relation) is my boss and the assistant manager here. As his name is hard to pronounce for some people, he usually goes by his middle name (Phineas) instead. Due to him normally being tasked with supervising and training security guards, he likes to consider himself a "security manager". We had ended up bonding over something trivial (same last names) but it was enough to be acquainted. But like I said, the staff here are pretty friendly. Well, mostly.

"How long will you be keeping this up for?" said a smoothly feminine voice from a corner in the room. Another from a voice box.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Toy Foxy." I replied as I flicked on a vent light. Sure enough, she was there. Staring.
"I can tell when you're lying, Marvin. I always could." the vixen stated coolly, as she extricated herself from the vent to stand.
"What are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be in Kid's Cove?" I asked, ignoring her words. In response, she held up a toy car.
"One of the little ones sent this down a vent then cried until I offered to go get it."
"Kids can be such a handful." I mused. The robot looked over the toy to make sure it wasn't broken, but kept one eye on me.
"You still haven't answered me, Marvin." said the fox politely. I swear I can hear a passive aggressive tone to it though.
"If you keep worrying too much about I'm doing, you might fall apart." I stated plainly, while idly switching camera feeds.
"You can't do this forever you know." she sagely advised. Placing the tablet down, I stared directly at the animatronic.
"Then I'll try something different." Maybe it was the way I said it, but something flashed across the robot's features. But what?

  Saying no more, the animatronic sauntered out of the room. It was at this point I realized I was still gripping the tablet, when I initially thought I had put it down. My hands were also sweaty. Wiping them off on my pants, I went over the fox's words in my head. What did she mean? Does she know? I was pretty sure I had been quite careful in cleaning up those... spills. A real model employee. Still, I meant what I said. If this really meant what I thought it did, I would have to try something different. Thankfully, I have a pretty good idea what to do. But then I heard voices from down the hallway.

"I'm tellin' ya Ján, moms 're the best." said yet another canned voice, a gruff masculine one. It was talking to someone else.
"Listen blue boy, cougars aren't everything." responded a man, in an even tone contrast with the first voice.
"Toy Bonnie. Mr. Ïtor. Can I help you two with something?" I greeted them as they came in.
"Yeh. Settle a bet would ya? Gals, or dames?" asked the blue rabbot, as the custodian Mr. Ïtor rolled his eyes.
"...What's the difference?" I inquired. I didn't really know what they needed me for.
"Look Guy, just tell Ján here that moms 're what's what." Toy Bonnie said smugly. I shrugged in response.
"Why do you like them so much?" I feel like I regret asking that immediately.
"Just the right balance of everything, see? Curves in all the right places, filled out to not be a stick yet not fat either."
"There are other women besides the ones who come here, you know." Mr. Ïtor reasoned. But Toy Bonnie got angry.
"No, I don't know! Youse get to leave! I don't!" the rabbot snapped. The custodian was surprised, but then apologized.

"So this is where you've been! Shucks, you should've said something. Toy Chica and Toy Foxy can't be the only ones out there." a jolly voice interjected with a filtered echo. It was Toy Freddy this time.

  Laughing about the shenanigans that Toy Bonnie gets up to, Toy Freddy dragged the bluebot away to put him back to work. Mr. Ïtor and I both chuckled at the situation, before he too had left. I was once again alone in the security office. As time went on, the end of my shift drew nearer. So I began preparing things for when Nathan's shift would start tonight. I tidied up my workstation, and powered down the tablet. As I began heading down the hallway, I felt the crunch of something papery being tread underfoot. Upon looking down, I noticed that it was a strip of FazFun Tickets. One of the little ankle-biters must've dropped it. Since heading towards the Prize Corner would take me a good distance away from Kid's Cove, I figured I may as well return the tickets before I left. While I walked over there, I mused about what (if anything) I would do about Toy Foxy. The animatronic's words still rattled about in my head, and I didn't appreciate the tone it took with me either. If it knew...

"Hello!" said a child's voice, snapping me out of my train of thought. Something was off about it though, something uncanny.
"Hello!" it repeated. It was then I realized I was at the Prize Corner's entrance, where the balloon boy statue was.
"Hi." stated the voice flatly. Now I get it. The voice was artificial, coming from a speaker attached to the figure.
"Hey." I replied. Wait, why was I talking to a statue? I don't have time for this.
"Hi!" it responded in earnest. Clearly, this was just to greet people for prizes. I wonder who's idea was this. Ignoring the balloon boy, I entered the Prize Corner area. A sound clip of children's laughter followed me, which caused me to face back towards the statue and yell at it for startling me. But a sudden shiver washed over me as I felt like I was being watched.

"YOU." said an eerie voice from behind. I turned towards the source, to see the Prize Puppet. Out of its box behind the counter.
"PRIZE." it stated. The marionette's autonomy was never explained, but it always unnerved me. Wordlessly, I held out the tickets.
"SAVE THEM." What? I can't pocket them. The mask's constant smile seemed a bit wider than I remembered as I shook my head.
"You know that's against the rules, Marion." I replied. I placed the ticket strip in the marionette's hand, and clasped it shut.
"Just put them with the..." I trailed off as the Prize Puppet had violently tore the strip apart.
"WRONG GIFT." It wasn't- damn it, that's going to come out of my pay I just know it.
"Damn it, Marion. I wasn't trying to-" I'm attempting to reason with a marionette. Why.
"I KNOW. STILL WRONG." it replied. Something about the finality in which it said it knew struck a nerve. Fear rose up inside me.
"What exactly-" I began. But I was afraid to ask. It knows. What if it's no coincidence that Toy Foxy acted the way she did?
"..." In the silence I realized, the Prize Puppet was now uncomfortably close to my face.
"GIVE LIFE!" it screamed suddenly, before it fell off the counter in a heap. It must have slipped while it was leaning forwards. A lump formed in my throat as I poked at the marionette, but it was unresponsive. Perhaps the stress and my fears were getting to me. I hoped that was it. At least thinking that started to steady my hands. The question is, why was it acting so strangely. Better still, why did it stop? A feeling of something greater at work took me as I thought about it. Maybe I really had lost it. But I guess that's the real mistake, assuming I ever could have regained it to lose in the first place.

"I can't." I said to the collapsed form of the marionette, before leaving the Prize Corner. It was time to head for home.

  On my way out I passed by the animatronics while they cleaned up the stage. The bird and bear wished me a good night, while Toy Bonnie merely nodded at me. I guess he was a little embarrassed by his outburst earlier. I made no attempt to look into Kid's Cove, so I didn't see Toy Foxy. However, I got the feeling she was watching. While leaving the Pizzeria I knew, that maybe I'd try something different after all.



  A week had almost gone by with little incident, until something strange happened. "Someone" had let slip that Toy Foxy could be taken apart with relative ease to the children. As you would figure, the kids loved this new way to play with their toy. However it resulted in Toy Foxy becoming an unrecognizable mess. The technicians gave up on trying to put her back together, having taken to calling her "The Mangle", a nickname which spread among the staff. I was worried at first, as it appeared that the other bots didn't take too kindly to something happening to one of their own. But then it seemed that they were placated. I suppose they realized they couldn't stay angry at mere children. But on the other hand, it sounded as though they didn't even know that the kids were involved in the first place. She must have told them that something else happened. Again I am surprised by the depths of the intelligence in these machines. Still, I didn't think that enough for the techies to give up so soon, so I thought I'd try my hand at it.

  There's a lot you can learn when you're free to experiment. The animatronics are really quite advanced for their function. While I did not know to what extent, they seemed to have nodes that allowed them to feel certain sensations. I gained quite a lot of knowledge on the subject while working on the Mangle under the guise of maintenance attempts. I wasn't a scientist however, so I didn't know if I was damaging the unit or not. What I did know was that the Mangle couldn't recognize me by my face anymore. It instead would react strongly to the colour of my uniform. About the best I could hope for really. But in the end, I couldn't fix her.

  During this time, Nathan had accidentally killed himself. He was found one morning having choked to death during his shift. The cleaning crew discovered that he had hung himself with the Prize Puppet, using its cables in some form of autoerotic asphyxia. I guess the job had gotten to him somehow. I imagine not having the security of those big doors must have made him overcome with paranoia. Still, I hadn't realized he was such a deviant. Hearing the news had brought back the memory of my encounter with the marionette last week that I thought I had hallucinated. I decided I'd put the matter to bed, so I took Nathan's place for a week until a new guard could be hired, and I could at least verify that things were stranger at night. For some reason, I could placate the Prize Puppet by keeping the music box wound. To my shame, I could not face my fear, so I kept the box wound at all times so I wouldn't have to. Beyond that it was mostly uneventful. I did also learn that the older models were allowed to walk around at that time however. I had access to the control console though, so I simply kept the animatronics on their lowest settings for minimal movement. Wasn't so stressful that way. I admittedly felt a bit sorry for the new guy though. From the couple times we spoke, it sounded like he didn't know he could change the settings. Poor guy.



  It's my last day. Hate to say it, but it really looks like I'm going to be leaving. I stayed for as long as I could, but it's time I moved on. Things were getting a bit too hectic here as it was. I'm admittedly going to miss this place. A lot of... fond memories. The Mangle was right, I couldn't keep doing this forever. I'd like to think I had a good run though. How many was it now, six? Eleven? I've lost track. The point is, a bunch of years it was. At least I know I'll have left things in good hands. The new guy, Jerry (at least I think that was his name), would be starting his first day shift tomorrow. I decided to leave him my uniform as a memento. Told him it'd bring him good luck as I showed him the ropes. He ended up asking me for any tips.

"All you have to remember is: No matter what happens, it will be okay. Tomorrow is another day." I explained, grinning.