Help Wanted | HAPPS | B-7
"You are lost. I will lead you out of Freddy's Fortress. Please come with me."
"You're bullies, too," the little girl said. She started crawling towards them. "Now get out of the way. Or I'll punch you."
Aiden and Jace are two best friends who are excited to be hanging out in the new Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. As a way to escape the ever-present school bullies, they like to go into Freddy's Fortress, a series of massive tunnels that go all over the building and are often filled with little kids who are easy to scare. It's also home to Happs, a cheery animatronic whose job it is to keep the place clean and safe. Unfortunately, one day, Aiden and Jace are trying to explore and decide to let out their frustrations on Happs, and all three of them fall into a closed-off section of the tunnels, one that they aren't able to escape from. Happs keeps going towards them to try and help them out, but he's mangled and broken enough that any person he touches probably won't survive the encounter.
The fifth Tales from the Pizzaplex story, and the second of the second book. The short will be adapted into the graphic novel series in 2025.
Tropes related to “HAPPS”:
- Abusive Parents: It's implied that Jace's father is abusive, though neither of the boys like talking about it.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Jace, who's stated to act and dress like a "little adult."
- Agony of the Feet: Jace has his feet cut off when Happs tries to grab him by the ankles with its damaged claw hands.
- Ambiguously Evil: Happs doesn't seem to be entirely malevolent, but rather just trying to do its job while badly damaged after being kicked repeatedly by Aiden and Jace. The two boys even discuss if Happs is vengeful, with Aiden coming to the conclusion that he's just following his programming. While that does seem to be the case, it does nothing to prevent him from ripping Jace to shreds and presumably doing the same to Aiden later on. Even with all of Happs' brutality, it's likely that he was just trying to help and Aiden and Jace unknowingly made him dangerous by breaking him.
- Antagonist Title: The short is named after the murderous robot that chases the boys through the maze.
- Beast in the Maze: Happs becomes this as Aiden and Jace accidentally trap the three of them in the blocked-off tunnels, which are slowly closing into smaller and smaller directions.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: It's directly stated that Aiden always wanted to be invisible, and now that he's in the hidden section of the Pizzaplex, he is. He's also helpless.As Aiden crawled through the pipe, he couldn’t help but see the kids beyond the pipe’s plastic walls, and he realized he had gotten his wish. He was invisible.
- Body Horror: Aiden has to watch Jace be mutilated to death by Happs, who cuts off his foot and badly slices up his body.
- Bookworm: Jace is "obsessed with reading novels."
- Bully Magnet: Both nerdy Jace and socially-inept Aiden are attractive targets for school bullies, giving them a desperate need for control.
- Came Back Wrong: After being somewhat destroyed, Happs remains active and starts hunting down the children he's meant to escort out.
- The Chain of Harm: Aiden's bullying and Jace's treatment from his father causes the two of them to act out by scaring kids in the tunnel system. When they finally break and attack Happs, Happs ends up fighting back.
- Claustrophobia: The two boys find themselves trapped in a rapidly-decreasing tiny series of tube mazes that they're unable to escape.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover of the book can make the titular robot (and the tube maze surrounding him) look absolutely massive due to the perspective. In the story itself, Happs is only about two and a half feet tall, while the tube maze is four feet in diameter.
- Create Your Own Villain: It's the damage the boys did to Happs that causes him to become deadly.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Jace's foot is cut off by Happs, and his back continuously sliced up, causing him to bleed out in immense pain for several minutes.
- Death of a Child: Jace's death is incredibly brutal and jarring to witness.
- Downer Ending: Even in the unlikely chance that Aiden survives, he still watched his best friend brutally die. And that's only if he makes it out.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Aiden has Aidon, which the head of the theater department called him on accident right before an embarrassing performance.
- Foreshadowing: The boys' encounter with a stubborn little girl foreshadows how their aggressive outbursts will backfire on them; while she only yells at them and calls them mean, Happs does far worse.
- Foul Ball Pit: A lot of the slides in Freddy's Fortress let out into ball pits. This is also a feature in the hidden area, but it doesn't stop Happs. Jace actually gets killed via this pit, as his foot sticks out of the balls and is sliced off by Happs.
- Friendless Background: Aiden says that Jace is his closest friend, closer than anyone else he'd been to as his parents moved.
- Fun with Acronyms: Happs is the Helpful Automated Pipe Protection Server.
- Hero Killer: Happs kills Jace and, presumably, Aiden.
- It's All My Fault: As Aiden was the one who wanted to explore the closed-off areas of the tunnels, and the first to start attacking Happs, he blames himself for everything that follows after.
- Killer Robot: Happs becomes this following the boys' attack and his mutilation.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Aiden and Jace mutilate Happs, so Happs mutilates them.
- Madness Mantra: Happs continuously repeats his robotic phrase, "You are lost. I will lead you out of Freddy's Fortress. Please come with me." It becomes increasingly freakier as he continues his chase, and his voicebox gets more and more broken until all he can say is "Out with me."
- Monster of the Week: Zig-zagged with Happs, as he may be only trying to help, or may be actively vengeful.
- Murderous Malfunctioning Machine: Happs is meant to escort lost children out of the maze. He's trying to escort Jace and Aiden out, but the problem is his recent damage has made him too deadly to hold onto.
- New Transfer Student: Aiden, whose father moves from place to place as he hops jobs.
- No Full Name Given: On either protagonist.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Happs is basically a metal slope with tread tracks to move around, a far cry from the Pizzaplex's (and the franchise's) usual humanoid animatronics. It's especially strange considering it's meant to interact with kids.
- Odd Friendship: Aiden is a more hands-on, extroverted boy while Jace is a "little adult" who enjoys academia. Still, they like hanging out together, because they like hearing about what each other is up to.
- Perpetual Smiler: Happs has a drawn-on smiley face.
- Plot Parallel: Freddy's Fortress seems to have a very similar design to Freddy's Hiding Maze in Fazbear Frights' "Find Player Two!" It even has the mirror/window doors.
- Slasher Smile: Even after the attack, Happs's smile remains, only it looks way creepier now.
- Trapped-with-Monster Plot: The boys are left alone in a maze desperately trying to avoid the dangerously broken Happs, hoping that somebody will hear them or realize they're gone and rescue them. This hope fades more and more as they keep moving.
- Uncertain Doom: The ending leaves very little hope left for Aiden. Jace is dead, and he's left alone, down to his last primal reserves of energy, and scrambling around in a circle as Happs chases him down. Even if he managed to evade Happs until a passage opened back up or fight his way out, he'd still be deep in the maze with no clear way to escape.
- Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Happs is illustrated with yellow eyes.
