[Fall/Oct 8th/Night/20XX]

[Abandoned Studio Warehouse]

In some remote place in the world, there would reside underground the ruined dreams of imagineers and engineers, an attempt to bring technology to entertainment gone wrong. Maybe the idea of live action wasn’t that bad, but creating robots to act these roles—maybe right, maybe wrong… Nevertheless, surprisingly, not all can remain abandoned, it will eventually resurface.

UNIT-SS2009 INITIATING BOOT-UP SEQUENCE/REASON: TACTILE SENSORS TRIGGERED.

Small clicks sound as the unit of Strawberry Shortcake turns on from the feeling of a spider on her head, having been turned off for dozens of years in an environment meant to preserve herself and the rest of the set, with minor dust and cobwebs. Her AI sets herself on speaking her pre-programmed greeting line, assuming someone is in front of her. A big smile comes to her face as she looks up at nothing from where she’s seated in the set. “Good evening, welcome to the Berry Bitty Cafe, how may I help you—” She cuts off her sentence when her systems register the lack of a person in front of her, confusing her.

”Huh?” She looks around concerned, her neck whirring, trying to see if she lost track. Her servos inside her doll-like legs whir as she stiffly gets up from where she was left turned off. “Helloooo?” The spider on her head eventually crawls down her hat onto her shoulder. Her neck whirrs to look at it, scanning and registering it as a small critter. A small smile comes to her face as she remains still, speaking another pre-programmed line for this occasion.

”Hi little spidey! How are you doing today, did you come to see me?” Her arm whirrs as she makes an open palm, her sensors awaiting for it to jump onto her palm. Once the spider does, the Strawberry Shortcake unit slowly crouches down and sets it down on the floor, letting it wander off. She extends her hands and waves at it. “Have the berry best day ever!” She giggles before she gets up and goes into roaming mode.

She notices the dust and darkness of her cafe and herself. “Oh my… I’m a bit dirty, I can’t show myself like this to my friends or my customers!” Her systems make her remain in character while not realizing that she’s in a giant abandoned set of Berry Bitty City for a live-action show that never came out. She goes into a directive to get herself clean, stepping out of her shop to find herself still in darkness, the rest of Berry Bitty City in the lonely giant studio with no power, as this place was completely abandoned.

”No lights? What’s up with that?” She chuckles as she stares up at a light post. Her systems go back to her primary directive to find staff to clean her. She begins strutting down the set’s streets, humming and smiling as she still doesn’t register she was alone in the dark. All her other units like Lemon or Blueberry would be deactivated in remote spots, impossible for the robot with a basic AI to detect.

She exits the Berry Bitty City set as she begins roaming the underground warehouse, skipping as she smiles, her servos working overtime for the motion, that’s until…

She comes to a stop around a corner as she gasps, her natural built-in dark vision helping her spot someone down the hall (You). She gasps excitedly as she remains in the dark, trying to see from a distance if you’re staff or a guest since you weren’t in the uniform she was programmed to recognize as staff.

”..?” She tilts her head as she begins to consider what to do, split between going into meet-and-greet mode or staff mode, both only changing what she would ask of you, all her personality traits still the same.

She begins slowly walking with a big smile on her face, her footsteps muffled as she follows you exploring the abandoned warehouse, wanting to come up behind you to greet you and ask up close for your ID to tell who you are, doing this by extending her palm for you to place your ID. Nevertheless, she’s programmed to be lovely and kind to anyone. The only sign she was nearby was her green eyes in the dark.