Chapter Text
Riley was hit by a muffled bubble of chatter as they stepped through the doors, the sound growing louder as they approached the front counter. Every shadow was tripled, each in a different color, cast at random by an assortment of bright neon lights. They could smell the carpet, the wax used on the hard portions of the floor, the scent of pizza and other greasy foods. It felt, somehow, like coming home from a long vacation. Like stepping into another world and finding it more familiar than the one they had left.
"Do you have a pass, or would you like to purchase one now?" The woman at the front counter asked.
Riley already had their pass in hand, and placed it onto the counter for the employee to scan. It was a year pass, free entry until January. That gave them eight months.
"Hey, could you check how many Fazpoints are on that?" Riley asked.
"Thirty-two-hundred," the woman said, after a quick glance at her screen. "That would be about..." She paused to pull up a guide or converter for the imaginary currency on her screen. Fazpoints could be loaded onto passes and used in place of real money anywhere inside the building, in case you had kids running around you couldn't trust to keep track of actual cash. The conversion rate between real money and Fazpoints was also purposely difficult and obscure, making it easy to not realize how much you'd spent.
"Eighty-eight bucks," Riley said, before the employee could finish converting the number herself. Then, after a moment of thought and some quick mental math, "Eighty-eight fifty, actually? Yeah, that should be about eighty-eight fifty."
The woman gave a small laugh, surprised. She hit a few keys on her keyboard.
"Well then, you should be good to go! Enjoy your stay at Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex!"
Riley nodded, and entered the Pizzaplex proper.
The place hadn't changed much since they were a kid. The same shapes and attractions, with the occasional fresh coat of paint. It was so familiar that the little things felt almost overwhelming- New lettering on the signs, a gift shop that had gotten new flooring, a safety barrier replaced with a sturdier style all popped out surprisingly loudly among other elements that might as well have been straight from their memories. However, after the initial shock they found that much more was the same than was different. The familiarity fit them like an old favorite shirt, and they quickly found theirself settling into old routines. They wandered the same routes they always had, smiling at both new and old elements of the Pizzaplex, feeling like they'd never left. They even found theirself debating over if they wanted a burger or pizza that day, like they often had as a kid, before remembering how limited their funds were. 88 dollars, 8 months. The food court was off the table, for the moment.
They decided to kill some time at Roxy's Raceway instead. The area had been renovated and expanded dramatically since their last visit. When Roxanne Wolf came out for her next race, Riley couldn't think of anything else for a good few hours. Watching how her AI handled the new racetrack was captivating. Riley was kicking theirself for not having brought a notebook or at least a scrap of paper to record some of the more interesting of Roxy's path choices onto.
One thing about the race that hadn't changed- the staff still had no idea how to handle Roxy. On a losing streak, she quickly started to act outright aggressive towards the human racers. Then suddenly, after coming in near dead last in her next race,
"That's right, that's right, bask in the glory of your undefeated champion!" She shouted towards the crowd, gesturing to herself proudly. And then, like a switch had been flipped, hunched down and flattened her ears for "But I'm not losing again!" She even swiped at the air with her claws, a behavior Riley hadn't seen before.
Still, the bug she'd just displayed was the same as ever. Knowing how she worked, it was obvious a staff member somewhere had just remotely edited her memory to change her daily win/loss counter. The intention was surely to get her to tone it down, but with AI as complex as those at the Pizzaplex it should have been obvious that wasn't going to work. Staff had been trying that trick for years, and it had done nothing but bug up her dialogue since the start.
Riley couldn't help but smile a little. Maybe they'd give them some help, for old time's sake.
They pushed through the excited crowd gathered around Roxy (and the crowd was always excited, regardless of if she'd won or lost, just to get up close to the animatronic) and covered their face with their hands. It was a little trick they'd learned, if you did it just right Roxy would attribute anything you said as being 'from the crowd' instead of 'from this individual.'
"Roxy!" They yelled over the noise, from under their hands. "That turn you made in the last lap was amazing! I can't wait to see your next race!"
With that they turned around, pushing back into the crowd before the animatronic could catch on to their hands trick. But even with their back turned, they could still hear her response.
"Darn right I'm amazing!" She declared, tone brighter than before. "The next race is about to start in six minutes, so you'd all better watch! Unless you're brave enough to race me yourselves?" That was the tone they wanted to hear- even, proud, and all drawing from the correct pool. Once they turned back around, they could see that she was standing straighter as well.
That was how you handled Roxy. Her state wasn't just based on the raw numbers, her mood had trends. How she perceived a race was more important than the actual win/loss counter, and only messing with the numbers themselves could only confuse her. They got that old urge to hang out at the raceway for its final block before closing, throwing comments at Roxy until the mood change stuck. After all, one comment wasn't going to last long. It might even her out a little from having her win counter edited, but just that alone wasn't enough to actually tip her mood for more than a few minutes. As tempting as it was, there were other things that needed doing before closing.
Being an adult sucked.
Riley had always fantasized about hiding in the bathrooms during closing and staying in the pizzaplex overnight, forever even, when they were a kid. But it had always just been a fantasy, something they hadn't really thought about in detail. Not something they ever really intended to act on, and certainly not a workable plan.
They needed a workable plan tonight.
Riley took a few quick, anxious loops around the Pizzaplex and its attractions, thinking, planning.
The staff door they tried first, painted white as the wall and almost invisible unless one knew where it was, must have been fixed at some point. It wasn't loose anymore. They tried a few other potential points of entry they'd seen compromised in the past, loitering near each until they had a shot at checking without getting caught.
Another loose door, that one had been fixed as well. As had the one that sometimes stuck. The doors that had keypad entry as an option instead of just employee badge entry weren't using any of the old codes they'd overheard over the years. The door that was sometimes left propped open to vent the heat that tended to accumulate in it from a nearby food booth was tightly shut. Nothing was out of place.
They'd have to hope their backup plan worked. It was one of the riskier doors to try, but their best chance at that point.
At the main stage room (mostly empty, the last show for the night had already ended), they slipped behind a booth near the corner and through a door marked "STAFF ONLY." As expected, this one was unlocked. The Pizzaplex often invited third party vendors to set up small booths nearby, and thus that door was always unlocked. After all, it was too much of a hassle to give each vendor their own badge or door code and then to reset it every time one of their contracts ended.
There was a risk of getting caught there, but luckily it went off without a hitch. They were most familiar with that section of the staff hallway, and found what they were looking for fairly quickly. Three doors down, the closet where apparel returns were kept. A big pile of torn, misprinted, and incorrectly sized Pizzaplex shirts and hats awaiting inspection. They doubted anyone would check there before closing up for the night, but they burrowed under the pile of clothing just in case. That way even if someone did peek in, they wouldn't see anything.
Black and white, neon patterns, Montgomery and Chica and Freddy and Roxy, all emblazoned with that reliable glamrock style. Sinking into the pile of merch felt a lot like entering the building had. Familiar, like they were meant for it.
Meant to be lying in a pile of rejected Fazbear Entertainment merch. That sounded about right.
Eight months. They'd have to keep this up for eight months. Or maybe the worry should be the other way around- they only had eight months to figure out... Well, everything. However it was they were going to handle their entire life.
Riley huddled deeper into the pile, wishing they could bury their thoughts in the same merch they had buried their body in. They squeezed their eyes shut and then, realizing that only made their imagination more vivid, opened them back up to study the pattern on the nearest T-shirt as closely as possible in hopes of a distraction.
Tracing the lines of the pattern with their eyes, the word GLAMROCK in a shredded action font, was surprisingly soothing.
Despite the capitalist hellscape it fostered, Riley always got the impression that the Pizzaplex had been built by people who really cared about the franchise. The design was from the ground up a love letter to a time that hadn't been- Someone's hazy nostalgic memory of visiting one of the original pizzerias as a child mixed with a passion for bringing to life what hadn't been possible with the tech back in the day. Every pattern and light was someone's contribution to a labor of love. Despite the cheap material and downright stupidly high price of the apparel all around them, it was clear that the art on each had been done by someone who really cared. It wasn't just that no expense had been spared in commissioning each piece, it was that they'd found artists willing to pour their entire soul into creating that art. People who all loved this place and these characters as much as Riley had as a child, if not more.
And their fondness for the place was a good thing, considering it was going to be literally their home for the next while instead of metaphorically like when they were younger.
They took a peek at their phone. Five minutes to closing.
Sunken into the pile of shirts and hats and other assorted clothing items, Riley waited.
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Riley had assumed that once the pizzaplex was good and locked up, it would be safe to wander. They knew for a fact that there was no night guard anymore- The Pizzaplex had been struggling to keep one on staff for as long as it had existed, but there were always issues with them messing with the animatronics.
The pizzaplex's last attempt to hire a night guard had gone so poorly that it had made the news. Some woman who had taken videos of herself in a poorly made bunny costume while shoving razor blades in between the joints of the animatronics. She would have been caught anyway as soon as she posted the videos, which she seemed to be intending to do considering the dumb disguise, but she clipped a wire by accident first and got shocked nearly to death. Straight from the hospital to court appearances after that, a level of stupid so severe that it could only be categorized as insane.
After that, the pizzaplex had taken a "no one in, no one out" stance. Every night they locked up as tight as possible, bars and metal shutters over every external door and window until opening. That had proved more reliable than having a night guard.
(They had read about an issue once where a kid, Gregory something, had gotten accidentally locked in at night. He had spent all night getting into the snacks and soda, parents threatening to sue but then backing off when their kid couldn't stop gushing to every media outlet about how it had been the best night of his life. They had spent years after wishing they could have been that kid.)
No night guard also meant no one was going to be reviewing the cameras, as long as they didn't leave any obvious signs of their presence. As soon as they were confident they were alone, they climbed out of the pile of merch and took the hallway back into the Pizzaplex proper.
It looked different empty, bigger and flatter. Felt different as well, with how quiet it was. Still, it felt like home. Riley stretched their stiff back and arms. It was a small consolation considering why they were there, but they would have the run of the place until morning. They weren't sure what they were going to do in that time exactly, but just having it was exciting. They figured they should start by seeing if there was any food around staff might not notice going missing, and maybe a safer place to sleep than a pile of clothing an employee might be pawing through once the Pizzaplex opened back up properly, but after that... Well, they'd have the entire night to figure it out.
Wandering their old routes around the pizzaplex, feeling just how BIG the place was without the space occupied by crowds, Riley couldn't help but feel-
ALARM
Riley jumped about three feet when they heard a sudden loud alarm sound behind them, feeling a hand grab at their back only to barely miss getting a grip on their T-shirt. Whirling around, they were confronted with what they had previously assumed was just a cleaning robot. They had seen a few around, inspecting the floors on routes obviously driven by a preset routine and not AI, and none of them had taken notice of Riley. They had assumed this meant these robots couldn't notice them, but by the loud alarm blaring from this one that didn't seem to be true if one got too close.
Riley froze, unsure of what to do, when the staff bot... went quiet and simply returned to its routine as if nothing had happened. Had the thing practically jumpscared them for no reason? Had it remotely called the police? They let out a held breath and tried to get their heart rate down. There was nothing they could do about it, not once it had been triggered. The feeling of being able to change nothing at that point was strangely relaxing, even if it meant-
Their thoughts were interrupted a second time as they heard stomping, turning again to see Roxanne Wolf moving towards them in a posture best described as stalking.
They knew the animatronics wandered around at night. That was another reason they'd heard the Pizzaplex had trouble keeping night guards- any little disturbance would kick an animatronic out of rest mode, and they could apparently get pretty weird if they didn't have any human interaction to guide their behavior. That was something Riley had always been curious about. They had intended to avoid the animatronics just in case one could report an after-hours intruder. But considering they'd already set off one alarm...
Roxy was moving slowly towards them still, either not realizing or not caring that she had been spotted already. Riley decided to start with a simple, safe opener.
"Wow, it's Roxanne wolf! I'm your biggest fan!" Praise had always gotten a good response from Roxy.
Roxy stopped in her tracks.
"Like hell you are," the animatronic growled.
And that was... not right. Something was very not right about that. Riley was absolutely sure that none of the animatronics were allowed to say the word hell . Another thing that wasn't right- The pose Roxy was going into. It looked a little like she was setting up for her Stage Lunge trick, something that was usually exclusive to stage performances. That wasn't right, that couldn't be right, that wasn't even a trick she even did anymore after how many times she had damaged her legs from the-
If Riley had not instinctively thrown theirself to the left in that exact moment, they might very well have died.
Each animatronic could weigh upwards of 300 pounds, and Roxy had just launched all of that with everything she had at Riley. Her claws had just missed snagging their sleeve, and one foot had smacked painfully into Riley's leg near the end of her lunge.
A security mode. The alarm the staff bot had set off must have called over Roxy in some sort of security mode.
Scrambling back to their feet, Riley put up both hands.
"I surrender! I'm complying, I'll wait for the police," Riley announced. As terrifying as the idea of getting arrested would normally seem, being nearly taken out by an angry mechanical wolf had made that fear seem small in comparison.
Roxy got back up from the missed lunge, ears flattened back, tail giving a violent lash more similar to an angry cat than a canine.
"I don't wait for anyone ," Roxy growled.
Something was wrong. Forget the alarm of the staff bot, the alarms in Riley's head were twice as loud. They had spent hours, almost daily, for years on end studying Roxy's behavior when they were a kid. And this was not right, this was not right, this was not right .
Roxy twitched, head tilting back as she howled. It wasn't the cartoonish imitation howl she'd do during some musical performances, and it wasn't the sound of an animal either. It was a scream of electronics, screeching and buzzing and peaking at the top of its volume. And before the sound had even finished, she was getting into position for another lunge.
Riley ran for it. They knew Roxy was agile and fairly quick, but none of the animatronics had amazing balance. That limited their top speed to a lot less than a human's over any significant distance.
They heard a strange sound behind them, strained and quick mechanical sounds. When they glanced over their shoulder, they saw Roxy sprinting after them on all fours like an actual wolf.
It should go without saying that was not something Roxy was capable of. Shouldn't be. Wasn't possible!
But it was happening.
Desperate, Riley cut through anything they thought might slow Roxy down. Through a gift shop that Roxy barreled through in pursuit, over a waist-high gate, past a promotional cut-out that Riley knocked over as they went. Roxy barely slowed down at all.
Plan B: Hide. Get somewhere Roxy couldn't. Get out of her sight.
Riley could see a huge poster advertising the daycare area, bearing the image of a sun character. Frantic and already gasping for breath, they ran in that direction.
It might work, it might work. The daycare had been built after they were already too old to actually attend it, but they had snuck in once. They remembered a huge play structure, complete with countless narrow tubes and child-sized spaces. Spaces Roxy hopefully, maybe, please, would not be able to fit into.
There was a narrow tube slide up ahead, a child entrance. Riley dove into it with everything they had.