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“Well, would you look at that,” Monty said under his breath. The large, green and yellow alligator animatronic turned his gaze towards a familiar pink and white chicken. “They’re really expanding on this ‘disco-diner’ idea.” He lowered his glasses to gaze down at the shorter animatronic, his mouth twisting into a metallic smile.
It had been about six months since the ‘incident’ involving a loose child, a mind-controlled murder rabbit woman and a strange malware that infected all of their systems, making them loose themselves and their senses in the process. Chica still felt guilty that she tried to hurt a child, just couldn’t shake the weight of it, and in response her friends surprised her with the possibility of a new look and purpose.
It was strange hearing Monty and Roxy at her door, wide grins on their faces, exclaiming about good news; she’d be getting more role in the franchise other than being the ‘face of fitness’. Chica looked onwards towards the tented off portion of the Megaplex, it was upstairs and planned to be what was essentially an 80’s-inspired neon diner with a roller-rink in the middle, and would be following the late trend of disco. It was cheesy; just like the rest of the Pizzaplex. Chica looked over her shoulder nervously at the gator, “I’m not so sure about this Monty, what if-” The alligator cut her off with a stern, metallic snort.
“Chica, this’ll be good for you. You won’t go nuts like all of us did, and you need to get it out of your head that you will. That was the work of someone else, and it wasn’t our fault.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, “It wasn’t your fault.” He muttered. She found no comfort in his words and began to hug herself, sighing. She wondered where Roxanne was, usually the wolf would be somewhere nearby, she never seemed far from her side but now she couldn’t see the silver wolf anywhere.
She felt a strain in her chest, she didn’t know from what because she wasn’t organic and there was nothing to strain other than metal. It confused her slightly, but it was quickly replaced by the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing. Chica looked over to see an out-of-breath repair technician, resting his hands on his knees and bent over like he was going to hurl. In one hand he grasped a clipboard, the other running through his messy auburn hair and keeping his oversized glasses on his face.
“Chica! There you are,” He panted, wiping the sweat from his forehead and placing a hand on his hip with an exhausted sigh, “Get down to parts and service, we need to start recalibrating for balance.” Chica gave a glance to Monty who gave her a reassuring smile and nudged her forward. She followed reluctantly, hoping that when it was over, the crushing weight of guilt would be gone and she’d see her best friend’s face smiling at her from the outside of the chamber.
Roxy looked at herself in the mirror, fidgeting with her long silver locks of synthetic hair. No matter what she did, it just didn’t seem to fall right anymore. It stuck up in random places, refusing to smooth itself until she forced it down with dribbles of water, but only a temporary solution, and one that the company engineers told her to stop doing, saying something along the lines of ‘damaging the synthetic portion of it’. Eventually she let out a growl of frustration and stopped, pinching her non-existent bridge and taking her eyes off the mirror.
Her mind wandered elsewhere, it had been a couple weeks since Chica’s new area began production and Chica herself began the process of upgrading. Roxy wondered what she could possibly look like after the operations to her system and appearance were done, and more importantly, if Chica would still want anything to do with her at all.
Of course she would want to see me, we're best friends. What if she came out more beautiful, and she realizes she doesn’t need you holding her back? What? That’s ridiculous, I’m the best! Of course she needs me. What if these upgrades make her more popular? Chica’s already popular, this won’t change anything. Between you and her? What? There is nothing between me and her! Exactly. What could she see in such a pathetic loser like you?
That last thought broke the wolf, she nearly started to sob from it, if it wasn’t for Monty bursting into her room shouting too many things at once with a hearty laugh. “Roxy! You have to come see Chica!” He broke into a smile, and Roxy’s tail fluffed in both surprise and excitement to see her friend again. She pushed past Monty and made a frantic scrabble to Chica’s room, however she paused abruptly at the door when all of her thoughts came rushing forward in a deafening and drowning wave. Her hand hovered, and she stared at the pink doorway in almost abject horror until she felt a pair of metal hands push her forward, the door automatically sliding open at her presence and shutting behind her once she was in.
She was about to turn and tear Monty a new one when she heard a familiar voice call out to her in that same gentle, candy-sweet tone she’d grown used to hearing;
“Roxy?” Chica’s head was tilted to the side slightly as the wolf made eye-contact with her. She couldn’t even believe what she was seeing. Chica’s hair was now a curly mess flopped to the side and pinned on with what looked like a candy-themed bow, both wrists sporting spiked bracelets and wearing a black choker with a pizza pendant, and Roxy almost chuckled at the fact the spot around her eye had been repainted into a star, and no longer did she sport two triangles under each eye, instead two little stars were they used to be rested under her right eye.
Her signature green earrings didn’t change all that much, except now they were held by an equally green stud. She was wearing mismatched bell bottoms, one side green with purple stars and the other pink with blue and yellow candies, her torso was relatively the same minus the fact it was less compact and more stretched out, giving her a sleeker appearance, in fact she was physically taller than Roxy. However the final thing that really captured Roxy’s eye was the flowy pink blouse that fell just short of her torso, the collar slanted to the side and draped over the shoulder while one sleeve reached completely to her wrist, were it was tuck beneath a spiked bracelet, the sleeve itself was green, cutting off at the shoulder back into pink.
“They gave you actual clothes?” She scoffed in disbelief, in truth most of the band’s ‘clothes’ were just painted on their bodies. It annoyed Roxy that she couldn’t wear something different sometimes, but seeing one of them actually sporting themed clothes was new, and she had every feeling but negative about it. Chica nodded, then hopped on the balls of her mechanical feet, “Watch this.” She brought her hands to her side and stood still, eyes gleaming at Roxy with excitement.
The wolf indulged, and waited for the chicken to show her. She could say she was expecting just about anything to happen…Besides what actually happened. Chica lifted a leg, she jerked it down and out popped four wheels, she grabbed ahold of the couch behind her and did the same on the other foot. She giggled, gliding forward on her skates and opened her arms in a silent ‘Ta-da!’. Roxy snorted briefly, tail itching to wag at the excitement of this new, upgraded and rather happier Chica.
Chica slid around her room for a moment to show off, doing a little spin at the end and grabbing ahold of Roxy’s hands, pulling her forward towards her body. The wolf mentally paused as she did, feeling what she thought was embarrassment creep into her chest. “I love this!” Chica exclaimed, “And I haven’t even introduced the best parts!” She let go of Roxy’s hands and slid backward onto her couch, willingly giving into the fall and leaning back into the couch cushions. Roxy tilted her head in confusion, “Don’t you mean ‘show me’?” she corrected, worrying for a second that maybe Chica’s grammar function might be damaged.
However, the chicken shook her head and stood back up, having to use her arms since she still had wheels on her feet. “Nope! I mean introduce. Follow me.” She slid towards the door, holding out her hand for Roxy to take. She chuckled and shook her head reluctantly, “Not that I don’t want to, but you’re on skates Chi-chi.”
Chica took a moment then realized she was right and gave her a nervous chuckle, then motioned for her to follow. Admittedly, even Roxy had a bit of a hard time keeping track of her as she glided forward on the marble floor. “How are you going to get to the diner if it’s on the second floor?” Roxy asked abruptly as they made their way to the main atrium. Chica’s wheels suddenly went back into her feet as soon as she asked, “Whoops, looks like I forgot I could do that.” She rubbed the back of her head and offered for Roxy to go first up the stairs to the elevator.
“Strange, you rarely forget anything.” Roxy muttered as she clambered up the stairs, Chica shrugging behind her, “I used to not have a lot taking up my head-space.” Roxy looked over at her friend worriedly, “What?” She asked, not masking her concern.
“I..You’ll understand once we get to the diner.” She offered simply, but it didn’t put Roxy’s worries at ease. “Chica if all of this is too much, I can always-” Chica cut her off with a dismissive wave of her hand, “Roxy, really it’s okay. Everything will make more sense once we’re at the diner.” Roxy felt frustration prick at her, her ears falling with her expression. Why didn’t she want to tell her what was bugging her so much to the point she was forgetting to deactivate something as simple as pop-out roller-skates? Was it because she didn’t trust her anymore? She hated her? What was-
Roxy felt a hand on her shoulder that interrupted her thoughts, sliding down to intertwine their fingers together. “I really just want this to be a surprise.” Chica said sweetly, as if she had heard Roxy’s thoughts. Her initial frustration ebbed away into gentle comfort, taking up Chica’s hand more as they finished the last few steps up. She let her friend guide her the rest of the way to the bright, new restaurant. Roxy could practically smell all the greasy foods that Chica loved to eat. As they got closer, her friend activated her skates again and hurriedly slid forward, Roxy breaking out into a light jog to catch up. The doorway into the diner was doorless, a nice large rectangular hole outlined in pink and purple neon strands, a neon-outlined sign above it that Roxy didn’t bother to read as she rushed into the diner excitedly, the floor drooped down into carpet, making it easy for Chica to walk on with her skates. It was dark in the room besides the lit-up disco ball and the many lights on the polished wood-floored roller-rink, bordered with carpeted half-walls, with small breaks here and there for entry and exit.
Some cheesy love-song from the 80’s was blasting on the speakers, making Roxy’s head race for a couple moments until she refocused on her surroundings. Just a couple feet away from the borders of the rink, all around, were tables decorated with table cloths the same color and technicolor triangular pattern as the carpet beneath, which made them blend in with the ombreing shadows cast by the disco-ball. Each wall inside the diner was a small kitchen, where S.T.A.F.F bots happily prepared meals for the showcase of the diner tomorrow. The wolf was surprisingly not taken aback by the smell of grease and fried sugar, in fact she nearly reveled in it. It was Chica’s smell after all.
Roxy was looking around for whatever could be the surprise, however she spotted nothing. Until…
The sounds of skates aggressively boomed on the roller-rink, despite Chica not even being on it. Roxy looked around wildly for the source, then her eyes picked up scanning details for two, small unidentified robots. She allowed the scan to happen, her eyes finally registering what used to be unidentified blurry shapes on the roller-rink. Due to the incident that happened a couple months ago, people and robots need to be scanned and identified in order to be seen by the animatronic band.
“It’s just a safety precaution.” Wren, the head technician would say to Roxy when she asked about the upgrade. “Just to make sure you don’t hurt a lost kid after hours, even if that malware is removed.” Roxy rolled her eyes at the memory of it, and she finally picked up what exactly she was seeing. She assumed that Chica had told them to stay still so that Roxy wouldn’t pick up their blurry, unclear figures.
“Model C-6678932” is what popped up in her vision, registering a child-sized animatronic. It looked like a mini-Chica, except it was yellow and sported a short tuft of side-swooped ‘feathers’ on top its head, the way that Chica used to wear her hair except one feather was colored blue. They had piercing green eyes and a blue stripe on their yellow beak, a large blue star covered their face much like Freddy’s face pattern and their torso was a painted-on blue leotard much like what Chica used to have. They sported blue painted nails on their feet, which shared that same roller-skate feature that Chica had. Finally, to top it all off, they also branded the band’s signature shoulder pads and spiked bands, and strangely patterned painted-on leg-warmers. One was a bright pink with a leopard print, the other looking strikingly like Roxy’s leg-warmer pattern of ‘purple tiger’.
They gave Roxy an enthusiastic wave and greeted in a warm, bubbly tone, “Hi! I’m Chickpea!” Roxy side-glanced Chica then waved back, “I’m Roxanne, but you can call me Roxy.” Chickpea proceeded to gesture to the unregistered shape beside them, “This is my brother, Chickadee!” Roxy quickly scanned the shape as the figure moved like it was about to speak.
“Model C-6678850” popped up on her screen and the figure in front of her came to life, Chickadee was paler yellow and sported purple eyes in comparison to Chickpea, with pink decorations instead of their sibling’s blue. They were dressed nearly identically except for the hair which swooped to the opposite side and their leg warmers, which were pink and green mismatched and black star-printed.
Roxy was about to ask what and who they were when Chica stepped onto the rink with them, ushering them to play. “They’re my chicks.” She said fondly. Roxy’s eyebrow quirked up in confusion and Chica quickly explained, “They’re meant to help serve food and encourage kids to dance on the roller-rink, as well as teach kids to dance, they have some of my personality in them but the rest is just them.” Chica looked over at the two chicks with pride, and if ever there was a moment Roxy was confused about the fundamentals of robot relationships, it was now. “So, what you’re saying is that these new animatronics are…your kids?” She pointed at Chickpea and Chickadee who were too busy frolicking on the dance floor to notice. Chica shrugged with a giggle, “Essentially, weird huh?” Chica looked over at Roxy to gauge her reaction.
“Yup.” Roxy started to make her way to the rink, to see if she could engage with her new co-workers more, but Chica held out an arm to stop her. “Woah, Rox. Sweetpea and DeeDee are messy programmed, unless you have skates on they’ll roll right over you.”
Roxy’s ears perked at the nicknames, looking at them for a moment before her gaze flickered back to Chica, “Sweetpea? DeeDee?” She asked, turning her gaze back to the two chicks skating in tandem with each other, a sweet and silent dance of comfort in each other's presence. “I can call them whatever I want, they’re my chicks.” Chica said in a mock-angry tone, but with a wide grin on her mechanical face.
Roxy wouldn’t lie, she knew Chica was energetic and affectionate naturally, hell even before her upgrades, before Freddy’s disappearance when everything was still normal, Chica would constantly bombard Roxy after shows, gushing about how excited she was about something, anything at all, even as small as seeing a returning fan. After meet-n-greets she’d randomly enter Roxy’s room with pizza and various snacks, talking with her for hours on end about the randomest things. Roxy wouldn’t lie, she loved it, it served as an excellent distraction from her self-loathing thoughts.
The days that Chica didn’t spend time with Roxy were when the chicken was visiting with Freddy or Monty, or just practicing guitar for their next show. Roxy missed her on those days, but she’d never admit it directly to Chica’s face. The days leading up to the night that changed it all, Chica had completely shut down almost, she seemed like a shell of her former self, they all did, but it didn’t stop Roxy from missing her company dearly, to the point she had to fill the silences with her own reassurances and compliments to herself, which only fueled a dark fire.
Eventually, Roxy had snuck into Chica’s room while she was undergoing routine maintenance, and stole one of her plushies. She had hidden the plushie behind the couch and would bring it out whenever she had a particularly rough day, hugging it and hoping to generate the strange warmth that Chica would bring her, luckily the plushie was always caked in her smell and it brought some comfort but never the amount that she desired.
She had a hard time wrapping her head around her strange desire to be near Chica at all times, it brought her a feeling she wasn’t used too, but one that she reveled in- Once Freddy left she knew that the hen would be heartbroken, like she had been with Bonnie’s dismantling, and Roxy did her best to try and bring back that loving and bubbly smile, and now that she was standing next to her, seeing the biggest grin on her face, she felt a gentle calmness reach over and grasp her metaphorical heart.
Chica turned to her and bumped her gently with her hand, “So, guess what I heard when I was getting upgraded.” She shuffled closer to the wolf, as the latter quietly tilted their head to the side with a confused expression. “What?” Roxy asked, crossing her arms. However her arms didn’t stay intertwined for long as Chica cupped her hands in hers. “They’re rebuilding the raceway!” Chica said excitedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet while Roxy was suddenly dumbstruck with both excitement and confusion. “Wh- They are? But, the whole thing collapsed in a sinkhole!” She stared at the hen with bemusement and Chica gently poked her nose.
“It was actually right on top of what appeared to be a ‘before’ location for Freddy’s. They built it right on top of it without knowing.” She said, uncupping Roxy’s hands with a thoughtful look, “I think Wren said that now they knew what the issue was, they could just fill up the damaged location and then rebuild the raceway over it again. And it’ll definitely be more stable now since it’s most likely gonna be a pit of cement underneath.” Chica had an excited gleam in her eyes while Roxy’s tail went back and forth at an impossible speed, a trait she didn’t even know existed within her programming, but then again she always had an itch in her tail whenever Chica came over to visit.
“Someone’s happy.” Chica said playfully, and Roxy splayed out her hands, “Duh!” She exclaimed. Roxy wasn’t one for outward displays of anything, but right now she felt like running in circles just to get the absolute thrill out of her system. Chica giggled then proceeded to grab her hands once again, “And guess what they’ll be doing to hype up the return.” She asked, but before Roxy could answer, she found herself being gently guided to the rink.
“Uh…What?” She asked, puzzled why Chica was guiding her to the rink she had just previously stated to be slightly dangerous without skates on. “They’re planning on letting you host roller-derbies here!” Roxy paused at that, then turned, “Do I need to get upgraded?” Chica shook her head and watched as Roxy stepped onto the rink with an air of concern, but when she found her hands being squeezed by the hen, her worries almost immediately disappeared.
“No, I’m pretty sure you’ll just be supervising races with Sweetpea and DeeDee. You’d be a referee, I’m pretty sure.” Roxy wasn’t sure about hosting a race she wasn’t even going to be a part of but if it meant hyping up her beloved attraction, she’d sit in a folding chair and hand out water to kids for all she cared. She gave Chica a grin and leaned forward, wrapping her friend in a tight embrace. “Woah, okay Rox, careful there. You might bend my endo.” Chica cooed, but it sounded serious.
Roxy let go and looked up at Chica with a puzzled expression, “What do you mean?” She took a step back and Chica chuckled nervously, “Oh, they sort-of cut corners on my upgrades, my entire body’s a lot..um…well, it’s essentially hollow. They needed to save enough money for your attraction.” Roxy’s ears perked, as much as she wanted the raceway back she also didn’t want to risk Chica’s wellbeing for the sake of it. Her ears folded back and Chica somehow read her mind once more, cupping the wolf’s sleek metallic face.
“Don’t worry about me wolfy.” She said with an air of affection she’d never heard in her voice before, it made Roxy’s body tingle in a way that she didn’t even know could. ‘Maybe a faulty gauge somewhere.’ She thought, ‘Might have sent sparks when Chica touched me.’ She refocused on the hen in front of her and sighed, “If you say so. Also, wolfy?” She asked and Chica shrugged with a grin.
Just then, an error message appeared within Roxy’s vision, displaying her battery meter. It was dangerously close to dying and she panicked, “Oh shoot that’s right I forgot to charge after the show today-” Chica cut in with an alarmed squawk and Roxy waved it off, “I’ll be find Chica, I just gotta go like now-” She quickly turned away from the worried hen and made a mad dash for her room.
“They really need to give us extended batteries.” She said bitterly as she clambered down the stairs, her low battery message now blinking rapidly. She slammed into her room ungraciously as her system began slowly powering down, but managed to make it into the cylindrical charging tube just as her vision started fading.
Roxy powered up with a low hum, her systems coming online in rapid succession. She pressed a hand to her head with a quick shake, “‘Your batteries can last you all week’ he says.” Roxy mocked, “‘Just don’t overexert yourselves and you’ll be fine.’ He says. I didn’t even do much and my battery just went kaput.” She rolled her eyes as she stepped out of the charging chamber. She made her way back into her room since the charging chamber was next to the elevator to the parts and services port.
However, once she opened the door, she wasn’t expecting Chica sitting on her couch and running her hand over one of Roxy’s plushies, almost longingly. Her eyes flickered across the room for an explanation, but there was none. “Uh…Chica?” She called, startling the chicken so much she physically threw the plushie across the room, activating and going straight through Roxy’s room door, landing with a squeak on the other side. “Stupid motion activated doors.” Roxy muttered and she looked over at a rather embarrassed Chica. “You didn’t hear anything, did you?” She asked suddenly and Roxy shook her head slowly.
“No, I just woke up. How long was I out, by the way?” She crossed her arms, leaning against the door frame connecting her room to the elevator hallway. “About two hours, you really expended a lot of energy, huh?” Chica said almost concernedly, as if she was asking what exactly had caused her to nearly die. “I don’t know, maybe. I think I’ve just been going through the motions of my programming until you came back.” She shrugged, “Or maybe my battery’s faulty.” She offered quickly, realizing she just accidentally admitted to missing Chica.
The chicken seemed to gloss over her statement, however, standing up and bringing Roxy into a gentle squeeze. The wolf didn’t really know how to react so she just embraced the chicken as well. “There’s something I need to tell you,” She gently guided Roxy to the couch and had her sit as the other did the same, parallel to her. “Yeah?” She asked, leaning against the couch’s arm and grabbing one of her own plushies, squeezing it gently to make it squeak. Chica tapped her legs nervously, and Roxy waited patiently while Chica, visibly nervous, gathered her thoughts.
After long stretches of silence and Chica tapping her foot incessantly, Roxy leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder, because whatever she wanted to say was upsetting her greatly. Roxy briefly wondered if maybe she had bad news about the raceway but found that once she placed her hand on her shoulder, she seemed to immediately come to her senses. It sent a ripple of confusion and, even stranger to Roxy, a glimmer of hope throughout her body. What exactly she hoped for was foreign to her, but a part of her was trying to scream at her the answer.
“You’re… Roxy, I don’t know how much our programming allows in terms of consciousness, but-” She paused to turn to Roxy, her eyes scanning over the robotic wolf in a sort of adoring way. If Roxy had a heart, it’d be beating hard right now. “All I know is that you’re…special.” Chica strung the words together hesitantly, as if they weren’t right somehow, and she seemed to agree with it as she muttered under her breath, her eyes glossing over in concentration to find the right words.
Roxy, however, seemed to immediately catch on. The wolf may deny a lot of things, but she couldn’t deny exactly what she felt for the hen anymore and reached over, grabbing a hold of Chica’s hand. “I love you too, dummy.” She said simply, and Chica visibly stiffened, jerking her head to the side as she read the wolf’s now gentle expression. She then softened, and shuffled closer to her, settling herself in Roxy’s ‘lap’. In truth she was leaning against the wolf, in between her legs and sighing contentedly.
Roxy ran a hand over the former’s shoulder as she gently tucked herself within the embrace, “So, what do you wanna do now?” She looked down at Chica as she shrugged, “Wanna get something to eat?” She looked up at her and Roxy shrugged indifferently, “Sure. We’ll say it’s our first date.” She gently moved Chica off her, and the hen jumped up excitedly, dragging Roxy all the way to the snack bar.