The pizzeria was dark, but movements could be heard. Hazard crept about, hooves hovering just above the ground before each step. He could tell someone was approaching him, even though no one else was in the room.
Suddenly, strange laughter rang through the halls, and out of the corner of his eye, Hazard saw Chica appear.
Out of instinct, he immediately turned around and kicked her down with his back hooves. As soon as Chica was hit, she emitted a scream. It sounded mechanical at first, but faded into a live scream. Mirage's scream. And Mirage didn't even scream when she was killed.
Hazard was breathing quickly due to the shock as he saw Chica retreat, but barely had time to react when he heard Foxy's footsteps. Hazard went into a defense stance, lowered his head, and braced himself. When Foxy collided with Hazard, he flew through the air, with Axle's scream.
'Well, this is disturbing. I think I know who will be screaming in my voice.'
He then saw Bonnie and Freddy approaching and decided to leave them in a bit of a pursuit. He raced down the halls listening to their laughter.
"You shut up or I'll give you something to laugh about!" Hazard kept up the run. Until he went backstage. Foxy and Chica were there, and Freddy and Bonnie quickly caught up. Hazard stared, frozen, thinking through his moves. He suddenly saw something that didn't belong. A yellow Freddy suit. The one that Tripwire said was supposed to be his grave.
Then all of the animatronics screamed at once, except for the Golden Freddy, which made a queer grumbling sound. Hazard was snapped out of his trance, and immediately fought back.
The fight was a series of crashes and screams. Hazard threw around his hooves, kicking and punching any time he could. He saw a whirl of orange, brown, purple, and yellow, barely relying on his sight. However, his own blows were growing weaker. He knew that he couldn't keep it up for much longer. When he stopped, the animatronics all lunged at once for him. Just as they did, a powerful electric current shot through them, and they immediately deactivated. Hazard crawled out of the pile unharmed. He had used his taser current to knock them out.
He gazed victoriously at the limp robots, when he felt someone else watching him. He then remembered where he was. The spare suits suddenly came alive, dozens of them. Before Hazard could react, everything went static.
"Well, at least you did better than the others. You've really come a long way, but you still fell to them." Hazard was suddenly back in the testing chamber. The pizzeria vanished, along with the animatronics.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Hazard replied, getting up.
Trip continued,"but for you and the others, try to use skills other than those of mechanism. Use your surroundings the best way you can. Rely on the talents you were born with, not built with. Now, let's try this again..."
Celestia had informed the head guard of the Canterlot guards about the situation and asked him to set up a plan. Although he agreed, Celestia couldn't shake off her feelings of unease. She was grateful that Twilight was off visiting her parents, for she wasn't sure if she could teach lessons as usual without Twilight noticing that something was wrong.
As if by fate, the head guard returned.
"We just got a message from Tripwire. He suggested that we should patrol Ponyville. He and the others can mange the animatronics as long as the animatronics stay in the pizzeria, but he wants us on hoof should they escape. I think that we should set up a post near the pizzeria where we can keep a good eye on it."
"Sounds like a plan," Celestia said. "Send another message to Trip."
The stallion nodded and exited the room, leaving Celestia to her thoughts once more. She still didn't want to believe any of this. It seemed too far-fetched. How had all of this happened under her nose without her noticing? And why had she not looked deeper into the mystery of the murders after the bite of '87? She was in a cycle of shame, confusion, and disbelief.
"Ok. Let's go over it one more time."
Tripwire had worked through every detail of the plan, and was now going over it with everyone else.
"Enter the pizzeria when it opens. Wear the clothes to disguise yourself, or at least your eyes and wings," he said nodding towards Amplitude and Axle. "And remember to wear the earpieces. We need to be able to talk with Tesla and Mild without being obvious. Plus, Fuse might be able to pick up our signals if we try to communicate wirelessly."
Trip then turned to Tesla. "Stay here. You'll be able to monitor everyone, including the animatronics. Alert anypony on anything suspicious that you see."
Tesla looked uncertain, but Trip didn't notice.
"Mild, I hate to say this, but you're going to have to be the night guard."
"WHAT!?!? Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth!?" Mild said, shocked.
"We need a diversion to keep Freddy and the others inside. Don't worry. You've heard us talking about it enough to know how the job works. Besides, we'll take them on if they should approach the doors. However, should you see the Golden Freddy, open the doors to the office. One entrance to the lab may be in the kitchen, but the only properly placed entrance is in the office. Tesla knows the switch to open the hidden door."
Mild nodded, still slightly shocked.
"Hazard, Axle, Mirage, Amp, you guys hold down the place until morning."
"What about you?" Mirage asked.
"I'll be going to Fuse's lab. To put an end to this 'Joy of Creation' business. I have a feeling that it's code for something, but I don't know what."
Everyone gasped.
"Are you crazy?!" Axle yelled.
"Relax. It's just for the night. I should come back. If I'm not back by morning and you see anything out of the ordinary, alert the guards and come to Fuse's lab. But I know how Fuse works. I know her lab like the back of my hoof. I'm sure I'll come back."
Trip went into the next room and Tesla approached Mirage with wet eyes.
"Mirage..." She whispered, "I don't want to lose you a second time."
Mirage gazed at her sister understandingly.
"Don't worry about it. We've been practicing and training for this. I'm not going down a second time."
Mild, however, was staring at the doorway that Trip walked through. He couldn't help but notice that something was off. He could tell that Trip was worried. He could tell that the next days, or however long this situation lasted, would be rough. But there was something else. He still didn't fully believe in any of this.
'Yet, I'm still going like I have a motive,' he thought.
Than it hit him. Motive. Why was Blown Fuse doing this? The message stated something about the 'joy of creation,' from what Trip had muttered to himself, but what did that mean? Why would someone find joy in making killer puppets out of flesh? He decided to examine the message after his first night on the job was over. There had to be something to give him clues...