MUTUALS N FRIENDS!! send in your michaels and I’ll translate them in my stile+assign them a Song that gives me their vibes!!! You can either submit them or dm me on Tumblr/discord!!
Oh, cool! Its eyes were of a distinctly different design than the Afton ‘bots, and he had to, again, question the multiple rows of teeth – what were those even for? – but there was a gush of nostalgia in his chest he certainly hadn’t been expecting, yet welcomed nonetheless. “Oh… the old designs were just so much more charming… not that I’m old, or you for that matter! No, we’re both still quite fresh, wouldn’t you say?”
He squinted at the back of the bot, hands hovering over the switches. Free-roam, showtime. So like the Fazbear crew. Well, free-roam had gotten a few people into trouble, hadn’t it? Best start with showtime. He clicked the appropriate button and sat back, smiling.
In all truth, the odd eyes were all but a mark of the fact he had been decommissioned; originally the eyeballs had been covered by a plastic casing to show normal, reddish, eyes. As for the extra row of teeth, it was just a design characteristic of Rowbotics, they liked to conceal Endo teeth as much as possible. All the technicalities put aside, the animatronic, once set on a mode, began to once again move its old joints and speak:
“Good day, everyone! Welcome to Candy’s Burgers, I’m Candy, Candy the cat!”
He began, a drastic change of voice from a text-to-speech to a happy old timer. But right off as he was to begin a show…his optics shifted a bit and his ears lowered.
“Oh, it seems like almost no one has come yet for the show!”
“But don’t worry, my friends. Soon enough I’m sure we’ll have enough people for the show to begin, come back a bit later!”
And with that said, the animatronic went back to stand-by mode - as in, completely still, but still activated. As if he was really waiting for more people to arrive.
This was a bit disappointing, but hey! At least he had enough of a programming to not start shows without enough people on the room he was at.
“Is this thing intact?” He squatted down in front of the animatronic, trying to keep the excitement from his face. Candy the Cat, of Candy’s Burger and Fries! And an original model, no less! Where had they gotten their hands on one? Reaching into his bag, Michael drew out a small set of tools and began tinkering with the faceplates, then the shoulders, searching for a way in. If he could just access the internal wiring, he was sure he could get it working again – and he wanted nothing more than to see it in motion. After a few minutes of scooting around, he managed to pry open a piece on the back and dig into the meat of the problem, muttering all the while. “You know, I was never allowed at Candy’s when I was a kid?” His tone became rougher, mocking. “One of my children, wearing Candy’s merchandise? I wouldn’t be caught dead. Ha. I always thought a cat would have been cool, but apparently it was ‘too close for copyright comfort’. I don’t think they could’ve handled another lawsuit at that point. Still… it would have been nice, to have a party at Candy’s just once. Change of scenery from– aha.” With a click and a whir, he felt the machinery begin to warm up under his hands, and he stepped back, wiping his forehead. “Oh, Hell yes.”
And slowly, but surely, the animatronic before him began to stir back to life; with its joints noisy as each and every lacked any sort of lubrication to boot, but eventually the old cat stood up in full, and his mouth opened wide:
All said in a voice reminiscent of a text-to-speech program - clearly the robot had been retrofitted with some more sophisticated technology, even if it, in fact, was the very same model built in 1964.
He was surprised to find that his stomach dropped a bit. He’d grown up around animatronics such as this; he didn’t find them as off-putting as most people, and had never really understood the horror stories people wove around them. Sure, he’d participated in passing them on – don’t stay overnight at Freddy’s, something will get you! was an oft-repeated tease at his school when he was younger, until it became true – but he’d never bought them. If there was an issue at Freddy’s ( or Candy’s ), it was with the humans working there. He was certain of it. ( A robot had killed a child, once, and that had been a human’s fault. That had been– )
“I’m Michael!” Best to greet it with a smile, and not to think of the old restaurant, and what had happened there. “I’m repairing you. You’re in a bit of a state.”
Luckily for him was the fact the cat animatronic was…less than able to notice anything beyond a partially blurred smiling face. At the very least, he could make out most of the words directed at him;
“Oh DeaR! SooorrY for the troubl-e yoUng spoRT. HoPE I ai’Nt much of BOTher.”
He apologised for his current state, even if it wasn’t his fault. Old Candy just felt bad for having to give so much work to the staff; if anything he tried to give them a break at times.
“Just, LeMMMMe sit a biait.”
Said and done; the metallic old-timer slowly made of the (mostly) empty table his seat. Good thing it was a metal table!
He didn’t need further prompting. He took off running, hearing the thing thudding behind him, feeling it shake the walls, filth and chips of paint falling from the ceiling. Where the fuck could he go?! There were no doors in this place ( there weren’t any in the late-‘80s location, bruh! ), and it would see him going into the office to hide under the desk. The vents? No air in there; he’d suffocate, and then revive, and then suffocate again. No, they weren’t an option. Stay and be caught? He’d ‘live’, but he’d be in pieces. He didn’t know if he could reassemble himself, and he didn’t want to be half a head or two fingers for the rest of eternity. Panic prompted an absurd thought: run to his father, hide behind him; maybe William would be so offended that someone else was trying to kill him that he would intervene. Definitely not an option.
His time staring at the monitor last night had at least taught him the layout of the place, and years of working night shifts had made it a simple task to translate an overhead view to practical knowledge of how the halls connected to one another. He swerved and sprinted past the arcade machines, stopping only to rip one from its socket and tip it over, hoping that it would slow the robot down.
“S-stay a-a-a–way! Don’t f–ucking t-touch me!” As he took off again, an observation wormed its way to the front of his brain. That wasn’t a Freddy’s animatronic.
For an animatronic made nearly 70 years ago (at least 10 with it left to roam in the outside), it still was a towering metal beast to not be underestimated;
“COME BACK HERE YOU FILTHY MOTHERFUCKER!”
He roared in his erratic charge, even among unfamiliar walls, the enraged mechanical quickly started to close the distance with its target. However, if his legs still held enough power to propel him to great speeds, his eyes weren’t of much use; the windowless rooms and his natural inability to see in the dark, all made the obstacle put by the terrified man all the easy to thwart his run-
THUMP
“YOU SON OF A BITCH, I’LL GET YOU!”
-but it was only an temporary seatback, as the dirty white robot already tried to pull himself from the floor (in spite of his lack of hands), precious minutes to the other however, even if he wasn’t dealing with a Freddy’s machine it had a too familiar exploit embed in its systems.
Blank? That was interesting. Had someone left placeholder text in the text-to-speech program? But that– didn’t sound like text-to-speech. As a matter of fact, it sounded like a prerecorded line. A test, then, maybe? But ‘blank’ was such an odd choice! Was it to see how the machine would handle a human voice track? Blank as in boy, as in balloon, as in ball, but why not those words? Why ‘blank’?
“Hullo!” Animatronics were heavy, and one that was still processing its surroundings and getting a feel for its legs ( so to speak ) was dangerous, so Michael made sure to hug the wall and give it a wide berth. He’d seen people lose eyes to swinging robots, and he didn’t fancy wearing a patch for the rest of his life ( as cool as that may have been for a character like Foxy ). “I’m just running some tests.” Did it have any sort of aural recognition? Would it understand ‘test’ as part of its programming?a
Wonky steps taken forward, feet threatening to give in, the dark blue cat eventually found a table to support himself. God, his EVERYTHING hurt (somehow)…all was blurry and his joints were almost ungodly dry of any lubrication, how long had he been deactivated?
His audio devices (his ears, in simpler terms) barely registered the man’s words, at best he understood “yellow(?)” and “test”.
“W-WhereamI?WHO-hoareyaaa??”
It was evident he was barely getting a hold of himself, just look at his face! By the looks, it has been some time since he last was awaken to say the least.
Hey, dude, you’ll never believe what we found! Okay, okay, I know it’s not Freddy’s, and we were going for authenticity, but– just one animatronic? I mean, it’s great, don’t get me wrong, but wouldn’t two be better? Haha, I know, right?! Right! So we took a drive over to the old Candy’s place! You remember? I thought, if we could pull one of those out, then people aren’t really gonna know the difference! We’ll, like, touch it up over the weekend maybe, make it look a bit more like Foxy we were thinking. Until then, could you check to see if it still works? Thanks, man! Gotta go!
It took every scrap of patience he had left not to hurl the phone across the room. No, this wasn’t how this was supposed to go! He’d found him, after all these years he’d finally found him, and it was all he could do just to keep him running in circles night after night while he figured out what to do with him! Adding another animatronic into the mix– with how aggressive his father was– ( what remained of his father– )
“Damn it!” His foot connected with the wall, and he was glad for the sneakers he’d ordered online, because it kept his toes from caving inwards. He stood there for a moment, fists clenched, mouth pulled back into an ugly, toothless scowl, as rage bubbled in his stomach. What was he going to do?! He needed a plan, he needed time, and the Springtrap was going to activate come twelve ( a reverse pumpkin carriage; the curse that started at the stroke of midnight ). He glanced down the hall, trying to get his temper under control, only to freeze when he saw two white dots staring back at him. Those weren’t the yellow lights, or the silvery-green glare what remained of William shot him from behind the glass. “Oh, you’re joking, you’re joking–”
It had been some time since the, ever unusual cryptid (as people came to call him; the White Beast), came back to visit where he first appeared at.
A visit ever so unexpected, given the abandoned building was definitely closer to the suburbs; at least enough to compromise such creature’s sneaking inside it.
…but why? Blank wasn’t one to be able to answer that question, the restaurant he now roamed had nothing for him, no spare parts, no batteries, just the dust of heavens-know years and rotten walls.
But more than anything, it made he feel remorse, anger and even sadness. Memories of the old times, when he was beloved by the Burgueria’s customers, when he was treated with dignity, when his brother was still alive-
But before the animatronic could further fall in despair, he heard it, he heard someone break their way into the building. It only meant one thing, and ONE thing only: They found him, and didn’t give up in their search to retrieve the missing bot.
As he made his way, steps heavy and joints never silent, those white-ish dead eyes set upon the man in the main show room-
“You’ll be the final warning for them.”
Words of unknown threat, further aggravated as the mechanical dashed in his victim’s direction.
“Is this thing intact?” He squatted down in front of the animatronic, trying to keep the excitement from his face. Candy the Cat, of Candy’s Burger and Fries! And an original model, no less! Where had they gotten their hands on one? Reaching into his bag, Michael drew out a small set of tools and began tinkering with the faceplates, then the shoulders, searching for a way in. If he could just access the internal wiring, he was sure he could get it working again – and he wanted nothing more than to see it in motion. After a few minutes of scooting around, he managed to pry open a piece on the back and dig into the meat of the problem, muttering all the while. “You know, I was never allowed at Candy’s when I was a kid?” His tone became rougher, mocking. “One of my children, wearing Candy’s merchandise? I wouldn’t be caught dead. Ha. I always thought a cat would have been cool, but apparently it was ‘too close for copyright comfort’. I don’t think they could’ve handled another lawsuit at that point. Still… it would have been nice, to have a party at Candy’s just once. Change of scenery from– aha.” With a click and a whir, he felt the machinery begin to warm up under his hands, and he stepped back, wiping his forehead. “Oh, Hell yes.”
“Well, would you look at that?” Impressive! Then again, perhaps he’d only imagined Candy would be less advanced out of corporate bias. If they had been that successful for that long, they must have been doing something right – including not wasting power and money and servos on shows for an empty restaurant. Could he trick the system into believing that there were multiple people in the room? There were plenty of masks around; maybe he could set them up beside him, make a crowd out of paper. How complicated was the system? Could he bypass it entirely?
“Where are you even storing this stuff?” he muttered, tongue catching between his teeth as he pried at the back panel a bit more. It had to be programmed internally if it was running without a remote control, which meant there had to be a chip telling it what to do. He hesitated to fully remove any plating yet, though. It would be a shame to ruin a vintage animatronic like this. Better to test the structure, then. “I wonder what you’re made of… graphite? Or something heavier? Activate free roam mode.”
Truth be told, Afton’s Robotics only ever overshadowed Rowbotics’ in reputation for most of their long rivalry, in terms of robotics they were always equal-to-equal often enough. Now, this Candy in particular was no state-of-the-art robot (the one to hold such praise was all but forgotten by most), even back in the 60s he wasn’t very impressive (being almost entirely based on failed previous models, with the necessary fixes and enhancements).
As the necessary commands were made to switch his mode, the animatronic almost fell into the ground, but it quickly got back at his feet seemingly…shocked?
“BLANK!”
Words uttered by a voice radically different from the one heard before, as if a real person talked in their natural voice. A tone of desperation on it as it included forward at the unexpected waking up.
for my Fnaf 3 AU, where it doesn’t burn down and Springtrap is stuck being a tacky horror attraction for the rest of his days. Was inspired to do more with it thanks to a CERTAIN fic I’ve been reading.
Anyways if I don’t want the place to burn down AND have a different night guard, well poor Mikey has gotta go.
